Do you want to be protected on the internet? Then be a good Netizen

For maximum safety on the internet, you must resolve to be good on the internet.

And what that means is that you should resolve to be honest, respectful, tolerant and friendly in the internet community. You should never think of defrauding other people in the internet community. Hence, you should not allow your friends influence you into doing things that would make others lose their money on the internet. You should not abuse other people in the internet community. You should not send offensive comments, or distribute racist materials on the internet. You should not use the internet to damage the reputation of other people. Hence, you should not spread false information about others on the internet, and you should not use their names and addresses to associate with websites that project evil activities.

You should not post nude pictures of yourself or that of your friends on the internet. You should also not send pornographic materials to the internet. And you should totally avoid watching and downloading them in your system. Remember, that anything you post on the internet would ever remain there, even after you delete them. And pornographic websites are the easiest and fastest medium that viruses are spread on the internet.

You should not copy and paste materials you see on the internet into your assignments or projects works, without taking permission from the authors; or acknowledging them in your reference page. You could be arrested and sued for plagiarism, if you are caught.

You should not assume that every website that appears on the first page of any search engine is genuine and reliable. Some criminals could use fraudulent means to achieve such rankings. Therefore, even if a website appears on the first page of a search engine does not mean it is genuine, or that the content is authentic. In fact, not all information you read on the internet is accurate, reliable and timely. You should always consult different websites, before you accept the accuracy of any information. And you should be sure that any website you are consulting is owned and managed by trusted people, or reputable organization.

You should not download movies and songs from the internet without paying for them; except the ones that are genuinely offered for free. When you download movies and songs illegally, you violate the intellectual copyright law covering them. And that could cost you a lot, or even land you in prison if you are caught.

And anytime you are offered free games, screen savers, emoticons and other application programs on the internet, you should reject them; except the ones that are offered by reputable publishers. Most of the free programs offered on the internet are Trojan horses. And Trojan horse is a program which appears to be performing a good task in a system, but unknown to the owner; the Trojan horse would be secretly performing other harmful activities in the system.

You should avoid every form of bullying such as the abuse, threat, harassment and the intimidation of other people on the internet.  And in case you are bullied, you should not retaliate. But you should report to your parents or the administrators of the website that the bullies are using. And if that doesn't solve the problem, then, you can report to other relevant authorities.

You should think before you post, send or share things in the internet community. Hence, you should never send anything on the internet when you are angry. And you should ensure that whatever you post on the internet, wouldn't affect your reputation in the future. Remember, that anything you send on the internet could be seen by other people. And most importantly, others would judge you by the kind of information they see about you on the internet.

Finally, you should avoid downloading and experimenting with programs that could cause harm to other systems on the internet. Hence, you should not download programs that would spread viruses to other systems on the internet. Or the ones that would allow you break into other systems without the knowledge and permission of the owners. Remember, that if you are caught, you would be treated as a criminal and you would be held responsible for damages the programs would cause others.