A role to play
The FBI’s Safe Online Surfing program gives students a scenario, then guides them to the correct answer with videos and games. Some examples for fifth-graders:
Privacy
Angela loves science. One weekend, she found a science website for kids. To play the games on the site, she had to give her name and home address, but she didn’t think it was a big deal because the website was for kids. She typed in her information and got to play three awesome science games.
º Never give out private information about yourself or your family without getting permission from your parents.
Reputable sites
Whenever he saves up enough allowance money, Jacob’s parents let him buy stuff from his favorite website, which the whole family trusts. One day, Jacob got an e-mail from the website with a coupon, but when he clicked on the link in the e-mail, it took him to a strange page and asked him for his name, address, and credit card number. Because Jacob had never seen this page before, he closed it and went directly to his favorite website to shop. He realized that the e-mail was a phishing attempt, so he deleted it.
º The strange page in the e-mail link could have been a nonreputable website phishing for information. Phishing is a sneaky way of trying to get personal information by posing as a trusted website.
Online predators
Sarah was on her social networking page when she received a friend request from a man she didn’t recognize. She went to his page to see his information and noticed that they had seven friends in common, all girls in her grade. His profile picture showed an older guy with a hat covering his face, so she couldn’t tell if she knew him. Sarah felt like she didn’t have enough information to accept his friend request, so she denied him and told her parents.
º Online predators are typically adults who disguise themselves online and try to befriend kids or teenagers in order to abuse or take advantage of them. Never accept an invitation from someone you don’t know. Online predators might seem innocent at first, but they can be extremely dangerous.
SOURCE: sos.fbi.gov
