So we wanted to make sure you know that today is Safer Internet Day, and it's meant especially for children and young people. Past Safer Internet Day themes have focused on cyberbullying and social networking. This year's very apropos topic is "connecting generations." How do we make sure everyone on the Internet - from young kids to grandparents - feel safe?

Safer Internet Day began as an initiative of the EU SafeBorders project in 2004. Today more than 70 countries worldwide on six of the seven continents participate. Take a look at the map after the jump.

91% off Gen-Y'ers surveyed say that they have used the Internet in the bathroom from their mobile phones. Acts that take place in the bathroom are not exactly social - yet people are connecting to others from that private space. People use the Internet from their mobile phones less as the ages go up; only 41% of Internet users in the silent generation use their phones in the bathroom. From this study, one could infer that people who use the Internet less are safer - not so. Young people and older people are both vulnerable when it comes to the Internet.

This is exactly why Safer Internet Day is of vast importance.

In 1999, the European Commission created the Safer Internet Programme. Today, the Insafe network has set-up 30 Safer Internet Centres, one in each of the 27 EU states, in addition to Iceland, Norway and Russia. These Safer Internet Centers have an awareness center, helpline, hotline and youth panel.

Internet Safety Facts and Stats

Safer Internet Day has also released some interesting facts about European Internet user experience and safety. Take a look:

• 26% of kids have a social networking profile
• 12% of European 9-16 year-olds say that something they saw on the Internet has bothered them
• 56% of parents whose kids received mean messages online had no idea that this had happened
• 1 in 8 parents do not mediate their kids' Internet use
• 36% of 9-16 year-olds say that they know about the Internet than their parents
• 87% of kids use the Internet at home
• 48% of parents get online safety advice mostly from friends and family
• 63% of kids say they get online safety advice from their parents

Kids need to know about how to stay safe online - but if kids are coming to parents before teachers, relatives and peers, it is parents' responsibility to know how to stay safe online.

To find out how you can participate in Safer Internet Day, go here: http://www.saferinternetday.org/web/guest/sid-2012

If you don't have a national contact point, email the SID helpdesk at SID-helpdesk@eun.org. They can help you create your own.

Are you a parent of an Internet-using kid? Share your experience about Internet safety in the comments.

Google calls Good to Know its "biggest-ever consumer education campaign." It began with ad campaigns in the U.K. and Germany last fall. The ads highlight security tips like using Google's 2-step verification and checking websites for secure HTTPS connections. The campaign will now be extended to the U.S. with print and Web ads, as well as display ads in New York and Washington D.C. subway stations.

The campaign supports Google's existing resources, such as the Google Security Center, the Family Safety Center and Teach Parents Tech. By dedicating one chapter of the Good to Know website to Google's services, the rest of the document serves as a good general guide to using the whole Web responsibly.

These resources are available at google.com/goodtoknow

While there is no denying that Facebook, Twitter and other social networks help spread critical information when emergencies strike, they can still be problematic and ineffective when compared to other forms of communication. Even the Bangkok terror alert was met with initial skepticism, and while the embassy has close to 40,000 Twitter followers, many of those were not in the area of the threat.

The main road block to studying how effective Twitter is in spreading messages is that Twitter's Search API is so small that researchers would have to be researching an event as it's happening. "That would mean that we a) knew about it beforehand, and b) could predict the keywords and topics people were going to talk about," Davis said.

In yesterday's incident, the U.S. Embassy used Twitter, Facebook, email, and SMS to direct people to its Web site, where a more detailed description of the threat and an advisory on precautions people should take was posted. The problem with the social media messages -- particularly those sent on Twitter -- was that many recipients questioned the authenticity. That forced US Ambassador Kristie Kenney onto her own Twitter account to assure people the threat was real, and that was time that presumably could have been better spent addressing other aspects of the embassy's response.

None of this diminishes the potential of social networking as a public safety tool. Davis estimates news could be spread around the worlds within minutes via social media. What public safety officials have to figure out is how to make sure recipients can quickly determine the validity of an alert, how they can encourage recipients to pass along critical information, and how to convey all of the important details in a tweet.

"The U.S. Embassy was able to reach nearly 40,000 people immediately with this one Tweet," said J.D. Ross of Syracuse University's School of Information Studies. "In addition, if an attack or incident were to occur, the Embassy's Twitter account would be seen as a trusted source of information, and the Embassy would have the ability to pull or aggregate information from other social channels that could be valuable during an emergency or crisis period."

Noah Reiter, a former assistant city manager in the city of Sandy Springs, Ga., who now works for Smart911, a technology company focusing on improving responses by emergency personnel, notes that many agencies are now monitoring social media, and they need to be aware that even if they don't actively use it, news they disseminate will eventually find its way onto Facebook and Twitter.

"While most emergency notification systems are opt-in, if a governmental agency has a strong and active social media presence, their followers will help spread the message and do it considerably faster than through other communications platforms," Reiter said. "One last benefit of social media - it's free. If I'm not mistaken, reports indicate that most relied on social media during" last month's shooting of a police officer at Virginia Tech University.

Kids will now be able to use Everloop directly from their mobile phones by texting status updates to the network. Parents can moderate the number of texts a kid can use by selecting a monthly limit, ranging from unlimited to 250 texts per month. Everloop automatically sets the limit at 100. Once the child reaches their limit, parents will receive a note.

The first moderation filter is technology-based, and filters out words, phrases and content deemed dangerous to kids, like URLs, someone's address, profanity, or any words that would condone negative, hateful behaviors, or reveal the location of one of the user. The second more interesting filter works on the level of patterns - if a pattern is detected, such as phrases or words that could seem like cyber-bullying, the user's account will be freezed, and then the human moderation element kicks in.

"If you think about kids today, they're all digital natives, they don't know any better, and the majority of parents are raising under 13 kids are digital natives themselves," Everloop's COO Tobin Trevarthen told us in an interview. "As we evolve into social space, we saw an easy opportunity to educate younger generation of digital natives."

Everloop was originally founded in 2010 by three moms who wanted a secure social network for their tweens. It was originally named GirlAmbition and targeted only at girls until the founders, who had sons, realized that boys needed a safe space, too. The name comes from the idea of "being ever in the loop."

The other social network for kids, Togetherville, does not offer an SMS feature. Targeted at kids under 10-years-old, this site serves as more of a space for parents to teach kids about online communication, community building and being a good digital citizen. Parents are far more involved in their kids' social networking on Togetherville than Everloop, which allows kids to go off on their own into the land of social networking.

Everloop and Togetherville both serve as sort of "training wheels" sites for the grown-up Facebook which, according to Trevarthen, is not a safe place for kids ages 13-and-under. "It gets sketchy when you're a child and Facebook is asking you to put your real name on there," Trevarthen says. "We have built the site for kids without parents in the site, really a kids site where kids are able to be kids in a safe, well-lit environment."

Launched in November 2010, Everloop went public in February 2011; approximately 40,000 kids use the site every month.

All of the new features are available now, says Facebook.

The newly redesigned Family Safety Center was announced in March during President Obama's White House Conference on Bullying Prevention. Originally called just "Safety Center" when launched in April 2010, this online portal offers educational information for users, with sections dedicated to parents, teens, teachers and law enforcement professionals. The new site sports a fresh look, with easy to navigate topics, helpful videos, how-to sections, and links to related Facebook pages.  The Center even links to relevant news articles off-site for additional information. For example, the Facebook Safety Tools page provides links recommended articles from The Washington Post, CNET, Huffington Post and others.

Facebook also says a free, downloadable guide for teachers, written by safety experts Linda Fogg Phillips, B.J. Fogg and Derek Barid will be available in the coming weeks.

Social Reporting Tool Expanded to Rest of Site

Also new today is the expansion of Facebook's social reporting tool to more sections of the network, including Profiles, Pages and Groups. Introduced in March of this year as a way for users to report photos they don't like, the same "report" link will now be found elsewhere on the network.

Anyone can take advantage of the tool to report images, or, now, other content, that contains hate speech, violence, illegal activity, pornography, spam or scam content or personal attacks. However, the tool was pitched more as a way for younger Facebook users to get help from friends and other trusted adults.

"Safety and child psychology experts tell us that online issues are frequently a reflection of what is happening offline," explained a company blog post from March. "By encouraging people to seek help from friends, we hope that many of these situations can be resolved face to face." That same message was reiterated again today.

The tool not only allows users to report offensive content to Facebook itself, it also directs users how to get help through "What You Can Do" screens, that offer suggestions on how to deal with their harasser, like "Send a message," "Remove as friend," or "Block." Users can also check a box that lets them get help from a trusted friend, which can be anyone else they want to forward the message to. This option requires the entry of an email address, which would allow users to forward the information to people they aren't friends with on Facebook, like adults, parents or teachers, for example.

Two Factor Authentication and Improved HTTPS

The last set of new launches today involve tools that provide Facebook users with additional security features. An optional Two Factor Authentication setting will begin rolling out now, allowing users to have the option of entering a code anytime they log into Facebook from a new device. This code is entered in addition to the account password, adding an extra layer of protection.

Facebook has also improved its HTTPS feature, which allows users to access to Facebook over a secure connection, so that the feature will switch back on after a user visits a non-HTTPS Facebook application. Many in the security community would like to see HTTPS made the default, of course, but there appears to still be issues with Facebook applications adopting the feature. This update provides a workaround for that problem by allowing users to play Facebook games and use Facebook apps via non-HTTPS connections, then returning to the secure connection when finished.

Enter Guardly, a new app from a Toronto-based startup that arrives on iPhone today.

When activated, Guardly is able to contact the user's personal safety network (which can be a number of people via voice, SMS or email) and/or cal 911. It will keep you in contact with these groups so you can collaborate via conference call and instant-messaging. Yes, another group messaging app. But not really.

The app also includes mapping and photo-sharing and can issue a blaring warning sound too.

The app is free, but you'll need to subscribe to the premium features - $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year - to unlock all the features.

The new procedure aims to cut down on the number of rogue applications created by hackers and spammers by forcing developers to share personally identifiable information. Unfortunately, say multiple security researchers, verification alone is not enough to stop these malicious apps.

Last week, we began to wonder if Facebook needed to implement its own anti-malware service after an especially busy weekend where thousands of user accounts were compromised by rogue applications promising tantalizing videos to anyone who was willing to click here. Not surprisingly, many did just that, and ended up on an off-site Web page where malware was installed on their PCs.

On May 15, security firm AVG reported its anti-malware service had blocked more than 30,000 rogue Facebook applications - a number so large, the company's chief researcher officer, Roger Thompson, called it "stunning."

But will the new verification measures actually make dangerous applications a thing of the past? Probably not. Adept spammers will quickly figure out how to bypass the security procedures using stolen credit cards or disposable mobile phones.

Security Researchers Response: It's Not Enough

We asked several security researchers what they thought about the new procedures and none believed the new program was anywhere near strong enough to thwart the onslaught of rogue apps on Facebook.

According to security expert Graham Cluley of Sophos, cybercriminals won't find that bypassing the measures will be very difficult at all, and will likely use stolen credit cards and pay-as-you-go throwaway mobile phone numbers to get their apps verified. He encourages Facebook to do more than the new measures. "As these applications are being made available to an estimated 500 million users, Facebook would be doing its users a real service if they put in place stronger controls over application developers," Cluley says. "After all, what legitimate application developer is going to complain?"

Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro, calls the new program a small step in the right direction, but also feels better application approval methods are in order. "Facebook will find themselves playing the same old game of whack-a-mole unless they institute some form of application approvals process as is already the case on competitor networks," he warns, again reiterating that neither of the new measures are enough to stop real criminals.

Security Evangelist Ryan Naraine of Kaspersky, agrees, saying the only way Facebook can really fix things is to "implement some form of code signing or code inspections when the app is submitted." However, Naraine admits the new program is at least "a step in the right direction."

The well-known security company Symantec has released an anti-malware service for Facebook which protects you from dangerous links posted to your News Feed. And it comes to you by way of a free Facebook application called "Norton Safe Web."

Apparently, this News Feed-scanning anti-virus application was released into beta back in mid-April, but we're just now hearing of it thanks to the eagle-eyed bloggers over at All Facebook.

Norton's free software functions the same way any other Facebook application does. You click to give it access to your profile and then Norton Safe Web scans your News Feed for malicious URLs. It even scans inside shortened links from services like bit.ly or tinyURL. The results of the scan can then be shared with your friends from the application itself - a handy feature for warning others of any dangers on your Wall or theirs.

Some Issues

Unfortunately, when testing it ourselves we noticed a few issues.

• When using Google Chrome to perform the scan, we had to refresh the page manually to see the scan results. For some reason, the initial result was a blank page.
• For whatever reason, the app was unable to scan a couple URLs and simply marked them as "untested."
• The app only checks for URLs posted within the past 24 hours.
• And finally - and this is perhaps the most important of all - the software does not run automatically. That means anytime you want to test the safety of the links in your News Feed, you have to launch the app and run a scan. Manually.

A Better Option? Defensio

While the first few issues are minor complaints (the Chrome bug may have been on our end, after all), this last item is critical and a huge miss on Symantec's part.

And it's not an issue of Facebook not allowing an app to run automatically in the background, either.

For example, earlier this year, we looked a Defensio 2.0, one of the first-ever security suites for Facebook. The application checks for malicious files, links and scripts as well as for profanity and other unwanted content that's posted to your Facebook Wall. After you configure the level of protection you want, Defensio runs in the background, keeping an eye on your profile.

When and if it finds some questionable content, it can automatically block it for you and send you an alert via email. I've personally been using it since January and it has sent me updates on more than a few occasions, warning me of potentially dangerous links or unwanted content.

Not only does the app keep you safe from malware, it can help you keep your Facebook profile more "professional" as you can block URLs by category in order to keep links and posts about gambling, sex, drugs, racism and hate, or adult material from ever being posted in the first place. (If you have any friends who still think being tasteless is incredibly funny, you'll appreciate this sort of help.)

Norton, however, falls far short of what Defensio provides today. Perhaps that's because Norton's app is a freebie for consumers while Defensio is aimed more towards companies and brands maintaining business-related Facebook pages. However, Defensio has a free option for consumers and it protects any Facebook page that isn't used for commercial purposes. 

Norton should not only offer the app for free, as it does now, but it should automate the scans. Facebook users can't even stop long enough to concern themselves with their privacy settings, so asking them to run regular, manual scans of their News Feed is somewhat ridiculous. 

Perhaps an automation functionality will arrive in a newer version. (We asked Norton on their Facebook Wall, let's see if they respond.) In the meantime, it's better than nothing. And if you come across a questionable link, it's definitely worth the scan.

You can install Norton Safe Web for Facebook here: apps.facebook.com/nortonsafeweb. Defensio can be installed here: defensio.com/signup.

The problem though, as any good parent will tell you, is that young children need to be taught how to use these types of services appropriately. They don't instinctively know what details should and should not be shared, who is safe to friend and who isn't ("don't friend strangers" is the new "don't talk to strangers," it seems), and they certainly aren't prepared for the real-world dangers of using larger social networking services like MySpace and Facebook where issues like digital stalking, harassment and cyberbullying are a sad consequence of public socializing.

Enter Togetherville.

Togetherville is Safe

In the press release, the site creators call Togetherville a social network with "training wheels" and the description couldn't be more accurate. The network has been designed from the ground up as a safe place for children to try out social networking.

Here, parents can be highly involved with their children's online ventures. They don't have to demand the login from their kids - they're given their own login where they can access their child's account and activity, as well as interact directly with what the child is doing.

One of the most interesting aspects about the new service is how it establishes online friendships. Instead of leaving it up to the child to friend others, Togetherville uses the parent's Facebook account (by way of Facebook Connect) to instantly build communities of trusted, real-world friends the child's parent already knows. These communities, dubbed "neighborhoods" in Togetherville's terminology, are made available to the parent who can then pick and choose which adults and children their child may connect to.

Facebook Connect allows the parents to discover other Facebook friends who have already established an account on Togetherville. It streamlines the process so parents don't have to "re-friend" their friends, they just "discover" them. When a child logs into Togetherville, the approved parent and child combos are seen as neighborhoods where "kids" are separated from the "grownups." There is no way for other, unknown users to contact a child outside of this process.

Another important element to the site is the lack of anonymity. On Togetherville, children use their real name and an actual photo. That may be startling to some adults who have traditionally been told that posting your child's picture online is dangerous, but in Togetherville's safe, stranger-free environment, it's not a concern.

...And It's Fun!

Beyond the stringent safety measures, which should assure parents, Togetherville is actually fun to use. Site activities include posting "quips" (pre-screened status messages like "Aced the test! Oh yeah!"), playing games and creating art projects via third-party, pre-approved apps, watching (age-appropriate) funny videos and cartoons, sending virtual gifts, earning badges for positive behavior and earning a virtual "allowance" that can be spent on goods, games and gifts. (Virtual goods and the allowance launch later this summer.) Games, videos and creations made on-site by the child can also be liked and commented on by parents, and can be easily shared back the parent's Facebook account for "instant bragging rights."

Growing Up Digital: Some Concerns

Togetherville is one of many new social networking sites aimed at introducing kids to the concept of digital identities in safe environments. Everloop, for example (still in private beta), is similar but is positioned towards older kids, tweens and young teens.

The idea of using sites like these as safe training areas where children can learn best practices and good online behavior is brilliant. The only downside is that a child's history of interactions, creations and friend lists don't come with them when they move from site to site as they get older. Although Facebook Connect makes the set-up process easier, we wish the exiting experience could somehow be improved so that the child's creations are archived off-site for later access. At the very least, it would be nice to export the child's art projects as digital photos.

One day, when these sites are no more (or simply forgotten about), so much can be lost. Unlike Crayola-made drawings hanging on the fridge, digital art and expression is harder to archive. Status messages that fade away into oblivion are more ephemeral than pen-and-ink diaries that are a kick to re-read after years have passed. But perhaps that's just how it is these days. Impermanence is par for the course on grown-up social networking sites like Facebook; it's best to prepare kids early on for that fact of digital life.

According to the Director of Firefox Development, Johnathan Nightingale, plugin safety is an issue across the web. "Outdated plugins are a major source of security and stability risk for web users," he wrote in a recent company blog post.

Nightingale says that some studies have shown that the number of users running outdated plugins in their web browser is as high as 80%. However, the plugin checking mechanism built into the latest builds of the Firefox web browser keeps its users better secured as it will prompt you to update your plugins when new ones become available. He notes that over 60% of Firefox users visiting the plugin checker page were running the most recent version of the Adobe Flash plugin, a plugin that's a popular target for attackers looking to exploit security vulnerabilities in the browser. When including users with either the latest version of the Flash plugin or the second most recent, the number was 75%, much higher than the rest of the web as a whole.

Beyond Firefox: Plugin Safety for All Browsers

But plugin safety isn't just an issue for Firefox users. All web surfers who use plugins can be affected by security issues. And most do have plugins, even if they don't realize it.

Mainstream users may not understand that clicking "install Flash" to watch a web video means they've installed a browser plugin, but that's exactly what they just did. And now in Google Chrome, the new web browser from the Internet Search giant, the Adobe Flash plugin will come pre-installed with the browser itself.

To help address the issues of plugin safety outside the Firefox ecosystem, Mozilla has updated their plugin safety page to work with a number of other web browsers, including Safari 4, Chrome 4 and Opera 10.5. It also checks the safety levels of the most popular plugins for Internet Explorer 7 and 8.

If you're using a non-Firefox browser such as those listed above, you can visit this Mozilla webpage and have your plugins checked for you. If any of the plugins are old, just click the "Update Now" button to remedy the situation. If the plugin checker can't determine the status of the plugin, a "Research" button will appear instead. Plugins that are current will show a green "Up to Date" button.

Reminder Badges

Web site owners who want to remind their visitors to check their plugins can add one of these quirky banners to their site. "Groom parrot, Polish trophies, Check plugins," the banner reads.

Although the plugin checker page is a handy tool for web surfers concerned about security, it's better when the browser does it for you. Our online lives are busy enough, we don't need to add another to-do item to our list.

Using the new setting found at the bottom of any YouTube video page, you can switch Safety Mode on or off. And while parents will certainly be tempted to do so in an attempt to enable parental control mechanisms for the site, they should be warned that even the least tech-savvy youngster can easily shut this new feature in a minute or less.

According to a post on Google's YouTube blog, Safety Mode is enabled via a setting found at the bottom of any video page. To switch it on, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and look for the new option listed directly under the "current location" and "current language" settings. (Note: this is apparently still being rolled out, you may not see it immediately).

If this is the first time you're accessing the setting, the link will read "Safety Mode is off." Simply click the link to set Safety Mode on by selecting "on" from the bulleted choices provided. Then click "Save" to close the configuration dialog box.

This will switch on Safety Mode for your current browsing session, but it will not make the change permanent. In order to "lock" in Safety Mode, you'll first need to sign into your YouTube account with your password and then enable the setting. From that point forward, the option will remain enabled whenever you are logged into your YouTube account.

Designed for Parents

While on the one hand, it's nice to have an option to keep the more offensive content out of sight, the majority of YouTube users aren't likely to be offended by the service's current crop of videos. YouTube already has relatively stringent guidelines to keep pornography, images of drug abuse, graphic violence and other objectionable material from being hosted on their service.

Instead, the YouTube users who are going to be most interested in a content filter like this are parents. Since YouTube is home to a number of kid-friendly videos including everything from the Muppets to the odd, yet strangely addictive YouTube character called "Fred", the site has remained one of the top destinations on the net for children.

However, the new "Safety Mode" does little to prevent kids from seeing the content parents want to hide. Although once on it does a reasonably good job at filtering YouTube's vast array of material, it's only a button-click away from being turned off again. And if you think your kids can't find the button in need of clicking then you just don't know kids very well. If anything, today's youngest generation of Internet users are more tech-savvy than their parents, often having to help mom and dad navigate around the Web, not the other way around.

Yes, It is Meant to be a Parental Control Mechanism

Some may argue that "Safety Mode" isn't really intended to be a parental control mechanism - it's just meant to be a handy filter for those of us with more delicate sensibilities. But YouTube's own demo video states otherwise. "Safety Mode is an opt-in setting that helps screen out potentially objectionable content that you may prefer not to see or don't want others in your family to stumble across while enjoying YouTube," says the narrator. Who do you suppose those "others in your family" are? Granddad? Uncle Bob? No. Clearly YouTube is positioning the new setting as an option for parents.

In fact, in April of last year, Google informed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that they had begun work on a new content filter for precisely this purpose. The document (viewable here) states that Google was providing the information to the government agency in response to the proceeding initiated by the Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007, a policy created to examine the blocking technologies available on the Web. In the document, Google states:

YouTube engineers are working on a number of initiatives designed to give users and families greater control to moderate their YouTube experience, including the ability to filter video comments they find inappropriate. This new feature, which is currently being tested in the United States, gives users control to set their own comment preferences by enabling them to choose whether to see all video comments, no comments, or filtered comments.

This seems to show that Safety Mode, first and foremost, was designed to be a sort of parental control mechanism and not just another handy setting. But allowing anyone to click a button to enable or disable the filtering mechanism simply isn't good enough protection. Even if it's switched it on for a particular user account, the user can switch it off again just by scrolling to the bottom of the page.

It may have been better if YouTube had introduced special "kid accounts" which forced users on a particular computer to sign in in order to see YouTube videos. Once enabled on a PC, visitors to youtube.com could have been presented with a sign-in box, not the YouTube homepage. The accounts could then be managed by parents who could enable and disable the filter at will. Instead, the "Safety Mode" feature looks as if it's an attempt to placate the FCC and worried parents while not actually providing a anything the average web-savvy kid couldn't figure out in 30 seconds flat. So parents, enable the filter if you must, but remember, no technology - and especially not this one - can serve as a replacement for actual parenting.

What killed MySpace? One could argue it was a combination of factors, but at the top of the list was spam, cyberbullying and sex offenders. A friend request from a pretty girl on MySpace was, at best, spam for an adult-oriented business and, at worst, an attempted virus attack. Cyberbullying, a crime that affected as many as a third of all teen Internet users as of 2007, became even more of a hot topic when a particular incident led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl. And even though MySpace kicked out 90,000 registered sex offenders in February of this year, it wasn't actually good PR for the company; concerned parents were shocked there were that many in the first place. Meanwhile, MySpace visitor counts declined to the lowest levels ever this year.

Facebook is determined not to go the same route as its predecessor when it comes to online safety. From day one, the site has been more careful about who can join their network than MySpace ever was. Based on a "real-name" culture, Facebook users have to sign up with their real names, not their nicknames. They can't set up fake profiles, either. In addition, the company recently announced a series of privacy controls for its users, which will allow even more protections regarding what content is shared and with who. And as the Facebook press release noted, the company has been working to keep sex offenders off the site and has participated in various task forces and campaigns regarding online safety.

About the Global Advisory Board

With the formation of this new advisory board - which includes members from Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) - Facebook hopes to stretch their safety initiatives even further than before. The first task the board will address is an overhaul of the safety-related content hosted on the site's Help Center. Currently the page details Facebook's policies regarding safety, privacy and abuse, but the Q&A section only contains 12 questions. The overhaul will expand this one-page help center to become what the company describes as "a comprehensive resource with specific educational content for parents, teachers, and teens."

Future initiatives will involve addressing other safety and privacy concerns, especially those affecting young children. Facebook says it plans on meeting with the advisory board regularly. Hopefully, that means that Facebook will vet new features through the board prior to launching in order to avoid privacy disasters like the all-too-revealing Beacon advertising system of the past. However, the company will need to be careful about letting safety concerns stifle future innovation. Keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of users declared the Facebook News Feed, now one of the site's most valuable features, an invasive and unwanted breech of trust when it launched. What would the council have said about the News Feed? Make it opt-in only? That would have dramatically changed what Facebook is today, if so.

Still, Facebook today seems like a company that's smart enough to toe that thin line between between innovation and disaster, likely in part due to its missteps in the past. Meanwhile, the new advisory board should help the company sustain their continued growth by making sure that new users have the resources they need to feel safe and protected.

But what can be done? It's not like you can just quit Facebook, right? No - and you don't have to either. You just need to take a few precautions.

The problem in implementing these privacy options is that they're just too confusing for most non-tech savvy people to handle. And often, folks don't want to bother to take the time to learn. To simplify the process, we're offering five easy steps you can take today to help make your Facebook experience safer, more secure, and more private.

Step 1: Make Friend Lists

Yes, it will take some time, especially if you're connected to a couple hundred friends already. But this step, while not the quickest, is fairly simple. And it will be one of the most useful things you can do on Facebook.

Friend lists, like they sound, are lists for categorizing your friends into various groups. The nice thing about this feature is that once you set these lists up, you won't have to do it again. We suggest that you put your work colleagues and professional acquaintances into a friend list designated "work," personal friends you're not very close with into a list called "Acquaintances," and people you're related to into a list called "Family." Those three main categories will separate out the groups of "friends" who you may want to hide some information from.

To create a friend list, click on "Friends" at the top of the Facebook homepage. In the left-hand column, click "Friends" again under the "Lists" section. Now you'll see a button at the top that says "Create New List". Click it. In the pop-up that appears, you can name your list and pick members. If you've ever shared an application with your friends, the process of doing this will be very familiar.

When you've finished making lists, you'll be able to use them when selecting who can see what (or who can't!) when configuring the security settings described below.

Step 2: Who Can See What on Your Profile

At the top right of Facebook, there's a menu that many people probably ignore: "Settings." But this menu is now going to become your best friend. To get started, hover your mouse over the Settings menu and click "Privacy Settings" from the list that appears. On the next page, click "Profile." This takes you to a page where you can configure who gets to see certain information on your profile.

Before making changes, think carefully about the sorts of things you want public and the things you want private. Should "everyone" get to see photos you're tagged in? Or would you like to limit this only to those you've specifically chosen as Facebook friends?

Underneath each section on this page (basic info, personal info, status, etc.), you can designate who gets to see that particular bit of information. For anyone not using custom lists (see step 1), the best thing to enter here is "Only Friends." Anything else opens up your profile information to people you may or may not know. For example, choosing "Everyone" makes that info public, "Friends of Friends" lets your friends' friends see it, "My Networks and Friends" opens up your info to anyone in your networks - that means anyone in your city, your high school, your college, a professional organization you listed, etc.

You can also block certain groups from seeing these sections, too. On any item that offers an "Edit Custom Settings" option, you can click that link to display a pop-up box where you can choose people or lists to block (see where it says "Except these people"). If you haven't made custom lists as explained in step 1 above, you can enter individual names here instead. (Sorry, mom, dad, boss - this is where you get blocked.)

Step 3: Who Can See Your Address and Phone Number

Did you list your address and phone number on Facebook? While that's a handy feature, you may not want everyone you friended to have this information. To access this configuration page, you follow the same steps as above in step 2 to display the Profile Privacy page. You'll notice that the page has two tabs at the top - click on the one that reads "Contact information."

As previously described above, you can again use the drop-down lists provided to designate who gets to see what and/or block certain people or lists from viewing this information. The sections on this page include "IM Screen Name," "Mobile Phone," "Other Phone," "Current Address," "Website," and your email.

Step 4: Change Who Can Find You on Facebook via Search

Sick of getting friend requests from old high school pals? While for some the beauty of Facebook is that it lets you reconnect with everyone you ever knew throughout your life, others find this intrusive and annoying. You're not friends with any of these people anymore for a reason, right?

As it turns out, you can still enjoy Facebook without some folks ever knowing or finding you thanks to the search privacy settings.

Click on the "Settings" menu on Facebook's homepage and then click "Search" on the following page. You'll be taken to a Search Privacy page where you can specify who gets to find you on Facebook. Want to be wide open? Change the "Search Visibility" drop-down box to "Everyone." Want to keep it a little more limited? Select "My Networks and Friends," "Friends of Friends," or "My Networks and Friends of Friends" instead. Don't want anyone finding you on Facebook? Change it to "Only Friends." That means only the people who you've already friended can find you in a Facebook search.

On this page, you can also configure what information displays when your info is returned as a search result (e.g. your profile picture, your friend list, etc.). In addition, you can check and uncheck the boxes for network-based searches too. For example, if you don't want anyone from high school to find you, uncheck the box next to "people in high school networks."

Step 5: Stop Sharing Personal Info with Unknown Applications

Remember when we told you about what Facebook quizzes know about you? Using Facebook's default settings, you're unknowingly sharing a plethora of personal information (and your friends' info too!) with various Facebook applications and the developers who created them. The problem is so bad that the ACLU recently created their own Facebook Quiz to demonstrate how much information an app has access to.

It's time to take back control! From the Facebook homepage, hover your mouse over the "Settings" menu and choose "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down list. On the next page, click "Applications" then click the tab that reads "Settings" which is next to the "Overview" tab. (Oh, and if you want to really be freaked out, read that overview!)

On this page, you can check and uncheck boxes next to your personal information (picture, education history, wall, religious views, etc.). This controls what the applications your friends are using can see about you. Yes, your friends' apps can see your personal info if you don't make this change! Believe it or not, you don't have the same control over your own apps. The best you can do is head over to the Applications page and delete the apps you're not using anymore. (Use the "X" to remove them.) You see, once you authorize an application, you're telling it that it's OK to access any information associated with your account that it requires to work. While some developers may only pull what's actually required, many others just pull in everything they can. Scary, isn't it?

Conclusion

While this is by no means a comprehensive guide to Facebook security and privacy, these five steps can help you get started in creating a safer, more secure, and more private environment on the social network.

However, if you choose not to take any precautions, then you'll only have yourself to blame when an errant wall post or naughty photo makes its way online and straight into Grandma's News Feed, or worse, your boss's. These days, it's better to be safe than sorry, so go ahead and delve into those settings!

For about a month, starting on September 11th and lasting through mid-October, 20,000 people are expected to participate in emergency training drills where the use of these alternative tools will be practiced. Some of the participants are volunteers who signed up on Safe America's website but the majority will be employees from major companies including UPS,  Motorola, Allstate, and Office Depot where testing will be done on the companies' campuses.

For many technology early adopters, turning to a communication platform like Twitter or SMS when the landlines go down would probably be second nature, but if your friends and family don't know how to access Twitter's website, how to find and follow your account, or how to reply to your posts, then tweeting "Help!" or "I'm safe" isn't going to be all that useful. That's why it's encouraging to see a national safety group like this focusing on training large groups on how modern social networking sites and Twitter can be used to share emergency information even when you can't make a phone call. The only problem with this plan is the fact that when disaster strikes, cellular networks often go down too. That makes wireless communication - whether a phone call, a text, or something requiring data traffic - impossible. And then it's back to square one.

• For users 16 and 17 years of age, the default profile setting will now be private -- previously this was a default only for 14 and 15 year old users (14 years old is the minimum age for site membership).
• MySpace will look into the creation of a "children's email registry that will empower parents to prevent their children from having access to MySpace or any other social networking site."
• The creation of an "Online Safety Task Force" that would develop and review online safety tools (such as those used for age verification).
• The launch of an "online safety public service campaign" to teach parents how to keep their children safe on the Internet.
• No user can browse for users under 16.
• Users under 18 are restricted from age-inappropriate areas such as Romance and Relationship, or Mature chat, forums and groups, nor can those users browse based on categories such as relationship status, smoker, drinker, or income
• Users over 18 can only search the school section for high school students graduating in the current or upcoming year.

According to the Associatd Press, Facebook faces similar safety issues with young users. "Last year, New York investigators said they set up Facebook profiles as 12- to 14-year olds and were quickly contacted by other users looking for sex," writes the AP's Michael Gormley. Because the "Principles" were drafted as industry standards, it is possible that the attorneys general will request (demand?) that other social networking sites sign on.

One of the main issues in the coming year on the web is going to be privacy. We're already starting to see the major social networks attempt to offer tools to users that will let users define who sees information about them (though it should be noted that the social network itself will always have access to that information). MySpace has announced plans to allow people to have mutliple profiles for different audiences, while Facebook reportedly has plans to introduce privacy controls to friend lists. Multiply was one of the first social networks to offer such granular control over information dissemination.