Recently, I had someone steal some pictures from my blog album and use it in their blog to convince his friends that he had taken that trip!

I left a comment asking where he got his pictures from, but to cut a long story short, the photos are still there. He did some crude photoshop of it, but it's pretty obvious they were mine.

I think he did it for the sole purpose to getting attention and trying to make me (and his blog audience of about 100) angry and have something to talk about. I think it also increases his hits (he has AdSense). So I've decided to let it go and just try to ignore the fact that my photos are floating around on someone else's page... =(... advice now would be great.

Things I have learnt from this experience:

1) Photos on the net are photos on the net. Don't be naive and assume that people won't take them and use them for their own purposes. Nobody cares about intellectual property. So even though you are putting up photos to share with your family and friends and you don't mind them downloading them... there will always be about 10 strangers downloading for every family member.

2) People do stupid things to get attention.

3) Your identity is precious and your responsibility.

4) People are big fat liars.

So I use to one 'carefree nigga' online. I was never one to hestitate giving my number, person or biographic details. I was but just in my young days of bridging the digital divide and at the same time learning to use the computer via the internet.

And it never dawned to me until now, how many sites there are teaching you how to use the internet and your computer and does not even put in one point of online security.

I was never really abused online like most of the sotries I have heard for example the produced by Childnet International. Online security/safety I must say is a really important issue and it is sad to say that we take it so lightly.

Its like you go into a chatroom and you are bombarded with "asl" and immediately you start giving out your information without really realising easy it is for us to adopt to the norm of chatrooms and then one thing leads to another ... we give out so much information that our 'new friend' - the perpetrator can find us within a jiffy!

I became educated about online safety and security when I attended the Cable & Wireless Childnet Academy back in 2004. I was became so educated that my interest in chatrooms diminished instantly. I must really commend them for their excellent programs through the Kids SMART and Jenny Story program. Check out this link to read up on their projects http://www.childnet-int.org/. It's however a pity that resources are so limited for these things that programs such as these cant be extended all over so as to encourage kids to be safe online.

Let us all as cyber-citizens be more careful when we are online. And at the same time let us caution others when we meet them online so that the word can move around and more people can exercise control in the amount of information they give out to these strange persons who sometimes provide them with opportunities. And let us at the same time remember that while teaching our friends, kids and family to use the computer and by extension the internet is fine but teaching them to be safe online is really important!