Kids on the Internet

This is completely off-topic, so I'll keep it short.

A friend just sent me a copy of the "Shannon" email that's been circulating for the last many years. The email talks about the dangers of kids being online, how offering any identifying information at all can make them a target for assault or murder.

My nine year old daughter uses the internet so I am very sensitive to the threat. I've given her the talking to about giving out personal information so many times she now recites it along with me. But in an effort to avoid substituting ineffective worrying for actual parenting, I offer this article, Online "Predators" and Their Victims, from the Crimes Against Children Research Center. Just published under the auspices of the American Psychological Association, it's a meta-study that offers guidance to the real dangers to kids online and what we can do about them.

Required reading, if you have kids.