In 2005, Jupiter Research published the results of a survey where a number of respondents believed some of the following misconceptions:

* Cookies are like worms and viruses in that they can erase data from the user's hard disks

* Cookies are a form of spyware in that they can read personal information stored on the user's computer

* Cookies generate popups

* Cookies are used for spamming

* Cookies are only used for advertising

All of the above are WRONG!!! Cookies are in fact only data, not program code. Thus they cannot erase or read information from the user's computer.

However, cookies allow for detecting the Web pages viewed by a user on a given site or set of sites. This information can be collected in a profile of the user. Such profiles are often anonymous, that is, they do not contain personal information of the user (name, address, etc.) More precisely, they cannot contain personal information unless the user has made it available to some sites. Even if anonymous, these profiles have been the subject of some privacy concerns.

Most modern browsers allow users to decide whether to accept cookies, but rejection makes some websites unusable. For example, shopping baskets implemented using cookies do not work if cookies are rejected.

According to the same survey, a large percentage of Internet users do not know how to delete cookies. The truth of the matter is that in the same way that you can walk behind a building to hide from someone trying to watch you with binoculars, you can look up "how to delete web cookies" on your search engine (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and there are many sites that will give you that information for your own protection.

Although cookies are a potential danger because pornographers might use them, a good understanding of how web cookies work will help you avoid a lot of headache.

A cookie is a small file placed on your computer's hard drive when you visit certain websites. A bit of understanding will help you prevent many problems with people spying on you and finding out all sorts of things about you and your life.

Cookies are used as a tool generally to help websites help you, such as if you are a repeat visitor, and you have interest in certain topics or products. The website that you visit again and again uses the cookies to configure to your tendencies and preferences. 

Thus cookies can be like someone following you- the same way that a person watching you long enough knows what you do during the day, and what you like or don’t like, the cookies can contain considerable personal information such as your buying habits, personal preferences, and where you've visited on the internet. Since they can store information about you personally and about your Internet habits, they can be used by unscrupulous pornographers to track every move you make on the Web and target you for various scams, as well as becoming a threat to your Internet privacy.  However, it's important not to have any misconceptions about cookies. They only keep track of information you provide to the Web site. They are nothing but parcels of text sent by a server to a web browser and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. They are not programs or anything else.

Internet mousetrapping is the act of putting malicious code in a pornography website (or any other website, for that matter) in a way so that you can’t close your browser or leave from the website. Mousetrapping holds you stuck on that porn site even if you’ve typed in a new URL in the address bar or press the close button. Some mousetraps will not even let you open another browser. Oh boy, you can be completely stuck.

I’m sure you could imagine the feeling of panic that comes to your throat when something like this happens. Or maybe the anger and frustration because you’ve lost control of your computer.

This problem has been serious enough that even the Federal Trade Commission has, in the past, gotten into lawsuits concerning online mousetraps because of the fact that they are unfair and deceptive practices done to unsuspecting visitors, by forcing them to view content that they don’t want to see.

Of course pornographers (and unscrupulous website builders) are the type of people who would do such thing.

However a mousetrap is exactly that- a trap. And if you learn about the ways to get out of the mousetrapping, you can. Here are some of the ways:

1- Go to your bookmark or “Favorite” function on your browser, and choose another site from your list.

2- similarly, you can go to “History” and choose a site that you’ve been to previously

3- You can also press on your keyboard the buttons Ctrl+Alt+Del, which opens your Task Manager, use that to shut down the browser

4- You can go into “Tools > Options” and usually there’s a division called “content” where you can disable the Javascript for your browser.

5- If all else fails, you can restart the computer.

If you can remember these methods above, they’ll help you in dealing with mousetrapping websites.

By the way, if you cannot open your task manager, it's a good practice if you place a shortcut to HijackThis on your desktop. (You can find many places that offer it online- just Google the word “HijackThis” and you’ll get lots of options). HijackThis has a tool that acts like a task manager. You can try killing the browser process using the process manager from HijackThis Misc Tools Section.

You can also teach your children about this form of malicious and invasive mousetrapping, then they will be better prepared for their own protection. Mousetrapping, like any other form of “bad wolf-style” behavior, can be avoided

Let's face it, even though we may live in the most technologically advanced age this earth has ever gone through, children are still naive. And regardless of whether or not we understand the Web or how it works, or even how to turn on or off a computer, we still have to do our job as parents. We still have to teach children how to be trustworthy. It's very easy to cop out of the parenting grind by just letting kids do whatever they want. I'm sure there are many days when you come home exhausted from a long day of work, and your little tyke has the energy of a bumblebee on speed wanting to play on the computer. This is when you really need to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, spend the time with the children and teach them from your greater experience and judgment.  Your children are the greatest investment you'll ever have. And if you treat them as such, they will eventually rise to the level that you wish for them.  The bottom line is that it's not your kids you have to distrust, it's the millions of others online. With our own patience and understanding we have to arm our children with the skills they need to stay safe in this environment while still enjoying it.  Do not forget- you're still the parent. The Internet hasn't changed that. 

As a parent you've often had to face questions of trust- should you trust your children with something like the internet or not? How much should you trust your children? What are your limits of trust?

Here's a great way to look at the issue: It's not your kids that cannot be trusted, but everyone else out there using the internet. All those people don't give a hoot about your child's safety. In fact it can often be the opposite- that they want something from your kids that will put them in danger.

So there's no escaping the fact that the best security the child can get starts with the parents. There is no substitute for direct and skillful parenting to help the child develop his or her own “suspicion radar” in their instincts.

For example, while many of us trust our children not to visit "inappropriate" websites (whatever that means for you), a lot of "trusted" kids are getting into all sorts of trouble because they meet strangers who have managed to get the kids to meet them face to face offline.

Continued…

And on another level of dealing with emails, if the email seems to be from a legitimate company like your local bank, or some well-known company or organization such as Paypal, then you have to look for how it is addressed. If it says something like “Dear Member” or “Dear Suscriber” instead of your first name or your company name, then right away be suspicious of it.

Other methods of advertising include press releases, where sometimes clever pornographers pose as some sort of problem solvers- e.g. take away your headaches- or such.

As always, it’s important to teach your children about these types of dangers. And if they do see porn advertising, that they should resist the temptation to find out more about the contents of a porn site.

Continued…
Porn industry leaders try to deceive you by creating fake system error messages, message alert boxes, or false forms that fool you into thinking that you have to click on the OK button or enter certain information to accomplish a certain task like sometimes just getting them to stop sending you emails. However in reality you’re really clicking on the link to a porn web site.

The best way to avoid this is to beware of suspicious looking ads. Sometimes you can tell by hovering the mouse cursor over the ad itself, and you look at the bottom left corner of the browser window, you can see what the site URL is. Don’t be one of those people that just click away on so many links without even watching where they were going. This is always critical for banners and links that you’ve never seen before.

If you’re dealing with emails, then don’t click on links on the email if you don’t know who the sender of the email is. No matter how appealing the offer on the email is.

To be continued…

Another  method of pornographers to try to trap unsuspecting surfers is through advertising. We need to remember that advertising is one of the major economies of the internet. Billions of dollars are spent and made on all kinds of advertising. And this is certainly not lost on clever pornographers.

We are fortunate that most legitimate and responsible businesses will not sell advertising space to pornographers. However, the nature of porn being what it is, pornographers will not stop at the common good in order to get what they want, which are viewers.

Although at first it may seem that you can recognize porn advertising, obviously by showing hungry-looking men and women with their body parts, there are clever people who will try to fool you with misleading advertising.

to be continued…

continued…

This is just as tricky because rather than redirect the Internet user to another unrelated web site containing pornography, this technique actually creates pornographic web pages related to their title.

So beware! Because this means that for example, if you were doing an innocent search on a keyword like "livestock" or "animal culture", you might end up at a page depicting bestiality.

You cannot expect to be totally protected from such incidents, but if you're careful about where you're going, and be on the alert, then you will stand a good chance of having a "clean" day.

It is important that you and your loved ones understand how far pornographers will go in order to lure you to their porn sites through doorway scams. You'll then understand how much on guard you need to be in order to avoid such pornography sites.

continued… 

Surprise. The same thing can happen to you on the internet. Instead of you wandering in a building, you're roaming with one of the most common internet tools- the search engines.

The clever and experienced pornographer has figured out that by carefully designing and constructing websites around non-pornographic themes, they have a great shot at being able to deceive unsuspecting surfers.

The website builder creates web page content that will place the website high on a search engine's results. When the innocent surfer clicks on it, he or she is redirected to a porn site.

And of course, the rest is left to your imagination.

Just as we have more than one type of door, we have another type of the doorway scam. The nefarious and crafty pornographer will create a porn site around a common, non-pornographic theme.

to be continued…