by T. Haskett

Created on: August 04, 2009   Last Updated: August 05, 2009

ONLINE SAFETY

P2P - What Parents Need to Know!

If you're a parent, chances are your children and teens have used P2P programs at one time or another. Programs such as these are, but not limited to Bearshare, Limewire, Sharaza, iMesh, Kazzaa and Torrent networks. Many youth of today's culture use these programs to download music, pictures, videos and programs. You, yourself, probably have used these programs too.

While these applications are great for their intended purpose, there are many people out there who use it for illicit trading purposes most often consisting of exploitation & luring. While pirating of music and software are a big concern. There is a much larger danger on these networks that can have incomprehensible consequences.

The unfortunate reality is groups of people use these anonymous networks to trade files containing child abuse and pornography. These transactions occur daily and in the thousands. You're probably wondering how this can potentially affect your child, when he or she uses these networks. Your child does not have to be involved to be affected by these groups. Before I discuss the dangers and what you can do to prevent & protect, you need to understand how these program operate:

P2P (Peer to Peer) is exactly that, person to person contact. The illustration below will aid you in understanding this discussion. Every computer that connects to the network is called a Node. When you use these networks to search for a file, it sends are request through to the network and searches every node that is connected for the requested file. Its finds who has the file(s) you requested and returns their network address. If you decide to download a file from a particular person, then it establishes a direct connection between you and the other person. Throughout the duration of the download, information is exchange electronically that is most often involuntary such as network address which sometimes contains your IP address. Depending on the person on the other side of the connection, this can be hazardous in more ways than one.

IMMEDIATE THREATS

If you child downloads a file from one person, that person now has direct contact with your child because most P2P networks have chat features that are UNMONITORED!

There is also a high chance of your child being exposed to inappropriate material through no fault of their own. Many people who exchange illicit files use a method called Cloaking. For example, if you see a file called Avril Lavigne's

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