Who Is Talking To You Online?
One of the real dangers which have arisen in recent times due to the massive increase in the numbers of families who have broadband and multiple computers in the home is that we expose our families to unsavoury or unwelcome attention online. The internete and especially chatrooms and forums are effectively anonymous, or at least they appear such under normal use. They are in fact not anonymous, in that the ISP or host does know who you and every viditor is, to some degree. But when on a chatroom we have no idea how old the other people are or what motive drives them. To this end you should always keep your private information private, do not give out any details beyond a first name. If you find someone is trying to contact you, perhaps giving you a phone number, you can use the internet to run a background reverse lookup and see if they are who they say they are.
