Guidelines for Safe Usage

To protect ourselves from the many dangers encountered when utilizing Instant Messaging services, there are several things that we can do. They are as follows:

Do’s

  1. Refrain from talking to strangers. With the factor of anonymity in Instant Messaging, they could be posing as someone they are not and might have hidden agendas.
  2. If you wish to meet up in real life with strangers you have met online, go as a group with several friends or adults and make sure that you meet in a public, transparent place.
  3. Save logs of conversations. This would ensure that if anything untoward happens, you can prove that the person you were talking to is the perpetrator. In addition, chat logs are useful when you want to refer back to information your friend has sent you.

Don’ts

  1. Do not reveal any personal information to anyone online. Even if you know them, the information can be intercepted while it is being sent.
  2. Do not use simple, obvious passwords such as your name or birthdate. If a person with malicious intent gets hold of that information, he or she would be able to guess your password easily.
  3. Do not accept file transfers unless you know that the sender is trustworthy, the sender has notified you of the file transfer, and the file extension is associated with the content (i.e. .txt -> text file, html -> web pages), especially if the file is an executable file (.exe) as such files could easily contain malicious software.
  4. Do not visit any links you receive unless you are certain that the person or the website is trustworthy. If you do need to visit an unknown website, check its reliability on sites such as siteadvisor.com. These sites may have been made for malicious intent or might contain undesirable content.

In general, be alert and exercise common sense while using Instant Messaging, so as to safeguard yourself from possible harm. If we keep ourselves in check and do not give away any sensitive information on ourselves, and are ‘cyber–wise’ — not blindly clicking on every link or invitiation we receive, our chance of being harmed through the use of Instant Messaging would be greatly reduced.

©The Probl(IM)s Group 2008