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Safety for Swingers
Cyberchat Safety - satety for swingers in chatrooms
We all use chatrooms at some point, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but most of the time, we are unaware of the dangers related to cyber chatting. The first thing you must realise, is that there's no way to know who you are talking to, it maybe the partner of your dreams, or it maybe some spotty teenager.
Since you don't know who your talking to, never give out personal information, always use nicknames, never give out your home phone number, address, or passwords to sites. If you really want to give swingers a number use a mobile. You have no idea who will see transcripts of the chat session, its amazing what information people will give out when they think it's a private conversation, we've all done it. Over the course of a twenty minute conversation you can get names, rough addresses, phone numbers, sexual experiences and even photos, sexual or not. Be careful about what information you give out. Before you start chatting decide what information you are comfortable giving out, then write it down on a piece of paper keep it in front of you and don't give out anything other than what you've decided. It doesn't matter how well you are getting on at the time you don't really know who your talking to, or what their motives are.
Its always best if you send information like that via e-mail. When using e-mail's, always use a Hotmail address or something similar, you really don't want to give out your Internet service provider e-mail, especially if it goes along the lines of "david.jones@ukonline.net". If you decide to send photo's to someone you've been chatting to, make sure that they have your e-mail address right across the middle of it, if its a nude, make sure it covers the rudest bits. The reasons for this are two fold, first, it has been known for people to collect amateur photos in chatrooms for use on porn sites. The other reason is people can use you photos when chatting to others, having your e-mail address across your photos, you stop both of these things from happening.
If you're a couple make sure you're both comfortable with chatting. I think that it is important that if you are a couple, you should chat as a couple. Swinging is something you do as a couple and both partners should take an active role in the entire process from start to finish. The last thing you want is an argument because one partner has arranged a meet, or a phone call, and the other has had a hard day and its the first they have heard about it. Remember, swinging is something you do together.
Chatting on the net can be great fun, especially if you are new to it, just be careful, think, and do it together. Try always to be polite, don't pester people and if someone starts arguing with you they're trying to get attention, just ignore them don't respond in anyway. That includes everyone else in the chatroom, don't argue. Hope this helps to make your chatting more fun and more importantly - safe!
Internet Security
It may seem strange that I've included a page on pc security in a safety section of a swingers site, but the latest type of viruses are designed to breach your privacy. These new viruses allow access to your pc by others and send your personal information to other around the world. When you consider how many personal photos and emails we have on our pcs, its easy to see that this is the sort of information we don't want to fall into anyones hands. With that in mind, I've written this page.
The majority of viruses and hackers take advantage of holes in your Windows and other software to run havoc on your system. If you make sure that your system is up to date, you can close a lot of these holes. The major site to visit is Windows update. If you click on your "start" button, the top option is "Windows update". Click this to load the Windows update webpage. Click on the "products update" and agree to let the program run. After a little while, it should give you a list of updates. Follow the on screen instructions to download the critical updates. You should continue to do this until no critical updates are left. If you've never done this before, it can take a while, be patient, it is important. This will close all the known holes in your Microsoft software.
Windowsupdate
Once your Microsoft software is updated, you should check for fixes and updates for all your other software. The best way to do this is to use CNET's Catchup. It's a small program that looks at watch version software you have on your system, and then gives you links to all the updates for that software. You can find more details on CNET's site.
CNET
Also recently discovered is a flaw that allows hackers
to modify flash movies to include virusses and trojans.
This security hole has been rectified in the lastest version of Flash
player
Click here to read the full security bulletin on www.macromedia.com's
website
Click here to Visit the Macromedia Flash download page and update your
player..
Spyware
What's spyware?, well it's usually downloaded with programs or supposed "utilities" such as Kazaa, Gator, Comet Cursor, Go!Zilla, Audiogalaxy Satellite etc and does a number of different things depending on the program, this includes "dialling home" e.g what sites you have visited in this browser session back for there records. Also some programs will actually add shortcuts to your desktop, some will overwrite websites you are visiting and replace links with there own, or set your browser to popunder sponsor pages every few minutes of your browser session.
How do i stop this? Probably the easiest and cheapest
way is to use a removal program, the most user friendly is probably
Ad Aware from Lavasoft.- This program works in a similar way to an antivirus
program and scans and removes any traces of spyware from your system.
Other free spyware removers:
Spybot - Search and Destroy - A recent WebUser magazine Gold award program,
but not as user friendly as Ad Aware.
Spyware Blaster - Works slightly different than other packages, rather
than scanning your pc it trys to ensure spyware doesn't install to your
system..
However if you're a regular fileswapper with Kazaa or similar package
you'll find that it will probably refuse to run if you remove the spyware
so i'm afraid you're stuck with it :-(
This Free Spyware Checker from jimtools.com checks for
two of the very worst types,
but i suggest you give Ad Aware or one of the other programs listed above
a try to detect the rest...
Parents, kids, Swinging and the net
Adult personals advertisers and swingers are in the majority, normal everyday couples that you wouldn't know from any other couple. They are not sex mad perverts, deviants, just normal average couples. As swingers we take great efforts to ensure our kids don't find out. Passwording the PC, hiding every little bit of evidence, making sure that kids don't see things they shouldn't.
No genuine swinger would harm a child in anyway, but is this true?. Every swinger I spoken to jumps up and denies that they haven't done anything to harm kids. OK, how many of you post hardcore pictures on sites that kids could access. Now you're thinking... If you post a hardcore picture along with an ad on a site that makes no real attempt to stop kids gaining access, then you are as responsible as the webmaster who posted it. We all go to great lengths to ensure the kids don't see any rude photos but are your kids friends parents doing the same?.
Imagine one of your kids friends or a neighbours kid prints out your ad with your e-mail address, description, location and a picture that you really wouldn't want the town to see. Don't think it will happen to you?. I know someone it happened to. Some sites get 7000 hits a day, now these surfers are going to search for ads in their area, if they know you they will find out. Its something that can come back and haunt you.
If you intend to post ads on sites that do not protect the ads, make sure your photos are not harder than page 3 and don't show your face!. Don't use your real names, figuring out that John in the ad, is the same John that lives down the street is fairly difficult. Figuring out that John and Cath in the ad is the same as John and Cath down the street isn't so difficult !. When posting the ad - think !
If you place an ad on a site that protects the ads from kids, it also protects you from the neighbours who are going to claim they found your ad on the net if they had to access the protected area. What were they doing there?
Webmasters, if your site hasn't got some sort of age verification system, then you're taking major chances. If the authorities decide to come down on swingers sites, which they will if things keep going as they are an avs maybe your only defense. If you take the time to ensure kids can't see hardcore material, then that's one hell of a defense, and its likely that the authorities will go after those who are not so careful as they are going to be far easier to prosecute. Remember swinging isn't illegal and as long as we do our best to protect the kids we shouldn't come into harms way.
If your interested in protecting the kids and your site is free then you really should have an AVS protection for your hardcore content remember kids won't take any notice of "don't enter if under 18", do your best to protect the kids and yourselves with an AVS.
