It seems like a weird coincidence that internet safety would be the subject covered last week since last week I discovered that my checking account was infiltrated and fraudulent charges were being posted.

I actually had the opportunity to use easywhois.com to try to track down the culprit. The interesting thing the charges in common was that they both had an web address listed along with the charge and so I tried to search for them both, but was only able to obtain information on one of them. The other website address brought up nothing in easywhois. The one that I did find was located abroad and had very little information provided. Although if you go the website itself, you can tell that it must be undertaking some kind of fraudulent operation, since the first thing listed on the website states, "If your credit card statement directed you to visit this web site, then your credit card was used to purchase a subscription to a membership based web site. The "descriptor" or "merchant name" on your credit card statement is not the same as the name of the web site that you joined. The best way to identify exactly what membership the charge on your statement was for is to call us and speak with a representative.

Being the parent of a teenager, I share internet safety concerns with most other parents, but I have found myself to be a bit more lenient than most parents with regards to objectionable material once my child became a teen. Other than making sure she wasn't giving out personal information, there was little I did to limit her access to the web. I guess maybe it was because I felt I was fighting a losing battle? She would see it sooner or later and by making it so "bad" and "forbidden" I was just making it more exciting and enticing. I used a filtering program when she was younger, but found myself always having to sign in my password for sites that were blocked that had nothing questionable. And I guess that is where the issue is.

However, all of the sources that I've seen our classmates gather as well as the material covered in class have been very informative and I actually might share those with my family.

Hi am a student at UB finishing up my library degree. One of my classes requires that I post about the class on a blog, so I decided to open one up here. My classmates and my instructor will be reading this, so you guys don't have to..hee hee.