CYBER CRIMES
Hacking
Hacking in simple terms means an illegal intrusion into a computer system and/or network. There is an equivalent term to hacking i.e. cracking, but from Indian Laws perspective there is no difference between the term hacking and cracking. Every act committed towards breaking into a computer and/or network is hacking. Hackers write or use ready-made computer programs to attack the target computer. They possess the desire to destruct and they get the kick out of such destruction. Some hackers hack for personal monetary gains, such as to stealing the credit card information, transferring money from various bank accounts to their own account followed by withdrawal of money. They extort money from some corporate giant threatening him to publish the stolen information which is critical in nature.
Government websites are the hot targets of the hackers due to the press coverage, it receives. Hackers enjoy the media coverage.
Motive Behind The Crime
• Greed
• Power
• Publicity
• Revenge
• Adventure
• Desire to access forbidden information
• Destructive mindset
• Wants to sell n/w security services
Child Pornography
The Internet is being highly used by its abusers to reach and abuse children sexually, worldwide. The internet is very fast becoming a household commodity in India . It’s explosion has made the children a viable victim to the cyber crime. As more homes have access to internet, more children would be using the internet and more are the chances of falling victim to the aggression of pedophiles.
The easy access to the pornographic contents readily and freely available over the internet lower the inhibitions of the children. Pedophiles lure the children by distributing pornographic material, then they try to meet them for sex or to take their nude photographs including their engagement in sexual positions. Sometimes Pedophiles contact children in the chat rooms posing as teenagers or a child of similar age, then they start becoming friendlier with them and win their confidence. Then slowly pedophiles start sexual chat to help children shed their inhibitions about sex and then call them out for personal interaction. Then starts actual exploitation of the children by offering them some money or falsely promising them good opportunities in life. The pedophiles then sexually exploit the children either by using them as sexual objects or by taking their pornographic pictures in order to sell those over the internet.
In physical world, parents know the face of dangers and they know how to avoid & face the problems by following simple rules and accordingly they advice their children to keep away from dangerous things and ways. But in case of cyber world, most of the parents do not themselves know about the basics in internet and dangers posed by various services offered over the internet. Hence the children are left unprotected in the cyber world. Pedophiles take advantage of this situation and lure the children, who are not advised by their parents or by their teachers about what is wrong and what is right for them while browsing the internet
How do they Operate
a. Pedophiles use false identity to trap the children/teenagers
b. Pedophiles contact children/teens in various chat rooms which are used by children/teen to interact with other children/teen.
c. Befriend the child/teen.
d. Extract personal information from the child/teen by winning his confidence.
e. Gets the e-mail address of the child/teen and starts making contacts on the victim’s e-mail address as well.
f. Starts sending pornographic images/text to the victim including child pornographic images in order to help child/teen shed his inhibitions so that a feeling is created in the mind of the victim that what is being fed to him is normal and that everybody does it.
g. Extract personal information from child/teen
h. At the end of it, the pedophile set up a meeting with the child/teen out of the house and then drag him into the net to further sexually assault him or to use him as a sex object.
Cyber Stalking
Cyber Stalking can be defined as the repeated acts harassment or threatening behavior of the cyber criminal towards the victim by using internet services. Stalking in General terms can be referred to as the repeated acts of harassment targeting the victim such as following the victim, making harassing phone calls, killing the victims pet, vandalizing victims property, leaving written messages or objects. Stalking may be followed by serious violent acts such as physical harm to the victim and the same has to be treated and viewed seriously. It all depends on the course of conduct of the stalker.
Both kind of Stalkers – Online & Offline – have desire to control the victims life. Majority of the stalkers are the dejected lovers or ex-lovers, who then want to harass the victim because they failed to satisfy their secret desires. Most of the stalkers are men and victim female.
How do they Operate
a. Collect all personal information about the victim such as name, family background, Telephone Numbers of residence and work place, daily routine of the victim, address of residence and place of work, date of birth etc. If the stalker is one of the acquaintances of the victim he can easily get this information. If stalker is a stranger to victim, he collects the information from the internet resources such as various profiles, the victim may have filled in while opening the chat or e-mail account or while signing an account with some website.
b. The stalker may post this information on any website related to sex-services or dating services, posing as if the victim is posting this information and invite the people to call the victim on her telephone numbers to have sexual services. Stalker even uses very filthy and obscene language to invite the interested persons.
c. People of all kind from nook and corner of the World, who come across this information, start calling the victim at her residence and/or work place, asking for sexual services or relationships.
d. Some stalkers subscribe the e-mail account of the victim to innumerable pornographic and sex sites, because of which victim starts receiving such kind of unsolicited e-mails.
e. Some stalkers keep on sending repeated e-mails asking for various kinds of favors or threaten the victim.
f. In online stalking the stalker can make third party to harass the victim.
g. Follow their victim from board to board. They “hangout” on the same BB’s as their victim, many times posting notes to the victim, making sure the victim is aware that he/she is being followed. Many times they will “flame” their victim (becoming argumentative, insulting) to get their attention.
h. Stalkers will almost always make contact with their victims through email. The letters may be loving, threatening, or sexually explicit. He will many times use multiple names when contacting the victim.
i. Contact victim via telephone. If the stalker is able to access the victims telephon, he will many times make calls to the victim to threaten, harass, or intimidate them.
j. Track the victim to his/her home.
Definition of Cyberstalking?
Although there is no universally accepted definition of cyberstalking, the term is used in this report to refer to the use of the Internet, e-mail, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another person. Stalking generally involves harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person, appearing at a person’s home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person’s property. Most stalking laws require that the perpetrator make a credible threat of violence against the victim; others include threats against the victim’s immediate family; and still others require only that the alleged stalker’s course of conduct constitute an implied threat.(1) While some conduct involving annoying or menacing behavior might fall short of illegal stalking, such behavior may be a prelude to stalking and violence and should be treated seriously.
Nature and Extent of Cyberstalking
An existing problem aggravated by new technology
Although online harassment and threats can take many forms, cyberstalking shares important characteristics with offline stalking. Many stalkers – online or off – are motivated by a desire to exert control over their victims and engage in similar types of behavior to accomplish this end. As with offline stalking, the available evidence (which is largely anecdotal) suggests that the majority of cyberstalkers are men and the majority of their victims are women, although there have been reported cases of women cyberstalking men and of same-sex cyberstalking. In many cases, the cyberstalker and the victim had a prior relationship, and the cyberstalking begins when the victim attempts to break off the relationship. However, there also have been many instances of cyberstalking by strangers. Given the enormous amount of personal information available through the Internet, a cyberstalker can easily locate private information about a potential victim with a few mouse clicks or key strokes.
The fact that cyberstalking does not involve physical contact may create the misperception that it is more benign than physical stalking. This is not necessarily true. As the Internet becomes an ever more integral part of our personal and professional lives, stalkers can take advantage of the ease of communications as well as increased access to personal information. In addition, the ease of use and non-confrontational, impersonal, and sometimes anonymous nature of Internet communications may remove disincentives to cyberstalking. Put another way, whereas a potential stalker may be unwilling or unable to confront a victim in person or on the telephone, he or she may have little hesitation sending harassing or threatening electronic communications to a victim. Finally, as with physical stalking, online harassment and threats may be a prelude to more serious behavior, including physical violence.
Denial of service Attack
This is an act by the criminal, who floods the bandwidth of the victim’s network or fills his e-mail box with spam mail depriving him of the services he is entitled to access or provide
Short for denial-of-service attack, a type of attack on a network that is designed to bring the network to its knees by flooding it with useless traffic. Many DoS attacks, such as the Ping of Death and Teardrop attacks, exploit limitations in the TCp/IP protocols. For all known DoS attacks, there are software fixes that system administrators can install to limit the damage caused by the attacks. But, like Virus, new DoS attacks are constantly being dreamed up by Hacker.
Virus Dissemination
Malicious software that attaches itself to other software. (virus, worms, Trojan Horse, Time bomb, Logic Bomb, Rabbit and Bacterium are the malicious
Software Piracy
Theft of software through the illegal copying of genuine programs or the counterfeiting and distribution of products intended to pass for the original.
IRC Crime
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers have chat rooms in which people from anywhere the world can come together and chat with each other.
Credit Card Fraud
The unauthorized and illegal use of a credit card to purchase property.
Net Extortion
Copying the company’s confidential data in order to extort said company for huge amount
Phishing
The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher†counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card numbers with legitimately. Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on “fishing,†the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Online Safety Tips
Online Safety Tips
We all know that the Internet is a cool place to hang with friends and check out new things. But don’t forget about the Internet’s risks and dangers. If you’re going to use the Web, do it safely! Here are some suggestions on what you should and shouldn’t be doing online to help protect you against the bad stuff.
Be careful online.
Never reveal personally – identifiable information online. A lot of creeps use the Internet to take advantage of other people, especially kids and teens. Never reveal any personally-identifiable information online, whether it’s on your profile page or in a blog, chatroom, instant messenger chat or email.
• Always use a screen name instead of your real name.
• Never give out your address, telephone number, hangout spots or links to other websites or pages where this information is available.
• Be careful about sending pictures to people you do not know very well.
• Never tell people personal or private information about your friends or family.
• Never assume you’re completely anonymous online. Even if you don’t put personal information online, there are different ways that people can still figure out who you are and where you live.
Never share your password with other people (except for your parents).
Your passwords to websites, email accounts and instant messenger services should not be shared with friends or strangers. Your friends may not be as safe as you are and may unknowingly subject you to danger. You should, however, share your passwords with your parents if they ask so they can make sure you’re using the Internet safely.
Never arrange meetings with strangers.
Just because you’ve seen a person’s picture and read his or her profile, does not mean you know them. Many people online lie about who they are and what their intentions are. Just because someone seems nice online, does not mean they really are. They could be trying to hurt you. Never arrange a meeting with a stranger you’ve met online. Even meeting a stranger in a crowded place could be dangerous as he could follow you home. If you wish to meet an online friend in person, talk to your parents and arrange a time and place where your friend can meet your parents first, just in case. If you are worried about your parents meeting one of your online friends, you probably shouldn’t be friends with them in the first place.
Don’t believe everything you read or see online.
Be wary of everything you see online unless it is from a trusted source. People lie about their age, who they are, what they look like, where they live, how they know you and what their interests are. Also, a lot of websites and emails contain information that is misleading or just plain untrue. If a person or deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Ask your parents to help you figure out what information is really true.
Don’t download files or software without your parents’ permission.
There are a lot of files on the Internet that are unsafe to download to a computer. Some files will bombard you with pop-up ads all day long. Some files will actually track everything you and your family does on your computer, including your logins, passwords and credit card information, which criminals then use to steal money from you and do other harm. There is no easy way to tell which files are bad and which are ok to download. That free desktop wallpaper you want to download might also steal your parents’ credit card information. Ask your parents before you download any files or software from the Internet.
Don’t respond to inappropriate messages or emails.
Some people send inappropriate messages just to see if you will respond. If you do, you are simply encouraging them to send more inappropriate material to you. Don’t respond to inappropriate messages. Instead, talk to your parents about how to report them to the right place.
Don’t post inappropriate content.
. If you post information about tennis, you will attract people who are interested in tennis. If you post inappropriate content or pictures, you will attract people who have inappropriate interests. If you post jokes, photos or other content that contain sexual references you will probably attract people who are only interested in talking about sex. Be mindful of what you are communicating to the rest of the online world through the content you put onto the Internet.
Be leery of personal questions from strangers.
People you don’t know who ask personal questions are often up to no good. Don’t continue communicating with strangers who ask you personal questions. Talk to your parents about how to block them from communicating with you and report them to the right place.
Don’t be bullied into fights.
People tend to say things online that they would never say in person. Some people even say rude and malicious things, sometimes just to see if you will respond. Don’t respond to these people. Instead, talk to your parents about how to block them from communicating with you and report them to the right place.
Don’t use adult sites.
There are some websites that kids just should not use. Don’t use websites that contain adult content or that facilitate communication with older adults. No matter how much you think you know about the Internet, there are some people and places you just aren’t ready to deal with. Enjoy websites that are designed for people your own age.
Understand what you put online will be there forever.
Assume that everything you put online—- every email you write, every picture you post, every blog or journal entry you post—- will be accessible on the Internet forever. Many search engines copy Internet pages and save them for viewing even after the pages are no longer online. Think about that before you post anything online. Do you really want pictures or blog entries to be seen 10 years from now?
We all know that the Internet is a cool place to hang with friends and check out new things. But don’t forget about the Internet’s risks and dangers. If you’re going to use the Web, do it safely! Here are some suggestions on what you should and shouldn’t be doing online to help protect you against the bad stuff.
Be careful online.
Never reveal personally – identifiable information online. A lot of creeps use the Internet to take advantage of other people, especially kids and teens. Never reveal any personally-identifiable information online, whether it’s on your profile page or in a blog, chatroom, instant messenger chat or email.
• Always use a screen name instead of your real name.
• Never give out your address, telephone number, hangout spots or links to other websites or pages where this information is available.
• Be careful about sending pictures to people you do not know very well.
• Never tell people personal or private information about your friends or family.
• Never assume you’re completely anonymous online. Even if you don’t put personal information online, there are different ways that people can still figure out who you are and where you live.
Never share your password with other people (except for your parents).
Your passwords to websites, email accounts and instant messenger services should not be shared with friends or strangers. Your friends may not be as safe as you are and may unknowingly subject you to danger. You should, however, share your passwords with your parents if they ask so they can make sure you’re using the Internet safely.
Never arrange meetings with strangers.
Just because you’ve seen a person’s picture and read his or her profile, does not mean you know them. Many people online lie about who they are and what their intentions are. Just because someone seems nice online, does not mean they really are. They could be trying to hurt you. Never arrange a meeting with a stranger you’ve met online. Even meeting a stranger in a crowded place could be dangerous as he could follow you home. If you wish to meet an online friend in person, talk to your parents and arrange a time and place where your friend can meet your parents first, just in case. If you are worried about your parents meeting one of your online friends, you probably shouldn’t be friends with them in the first place.
Don’t believe everything you read or see online.
Be wary of everything you see online unless it is from a trusted source. People lie about their age, who they are, what they look like, where they live, how they know you and what their interests are. Also, a lot of websites and emails contain information that is misleading or just plain untrue. If a person or deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Ask your parents to help you figure out what information is really true.
Don’t download files or software without your parents’ permission.
There are a lot of files on the Internet that are unsafe to download to a computer. Some files will bombard you with pop-up ads all day long. Some files will actually track everything you and your family does on your computer, including your logins, passwords and credit card information, which criminals then use to steal money from you and do other harm. There is no easy way to tell which files are bad and which are ok to download. That free desktop wallpaper you want to download might also steal your parents’ credit card information. Ask your parents before you download any files or software from the Internet.
Don’t respond to inappropriate messages or emails.
Some people send inappropriate messages just to see if you will respond. If you do, you are simply encouraging them to send more inappropriate material to you. Don’t respond to inappropriate messages. Instead, talk to your parents about how to report them to the right place.
Don’t post inappropriate content.
. If you post information about tennis, you will attract people who are interested in tennis. If you post inappropriate content or pictures, you will attract people who have inappropriate interests. If you post jokes, photos or other content that contain sexual references you will probably attract people who are only interested in talking about sex. Be mindful of what you are communicating to the rest of the online world through the content you put onto the Internet.
Be leery of personal questions from strangers.
People you don’t know who ask personal questions are often up to no good. Don’t continue communicating with strangers who ask you personal questions. Talk to your parents about how to block them from communicating with you and report them to the right place.
Don’t be bullied into fights.
People tend to say things online that they would never say in person. Some people even say rude and malicious things, sometimes just to see if you will respond. Don’t respond to these people. Instead, talk to your parents about how to block them from communicating with you and report them to the right place.
Don’t use adult sites.
There are some websites that kids just should not use. Don’t use websites that contain adult content or that facilitate communication with older adults. No matter how much you think you know about the Internet, there are some people and places you just aren’t ready to deal with. Enjoy websites that are designed for people your own age.
Understand what you put online will be there forever.
Assume that everything you put online—- every email you write, every picture you post, every blog or journal entry you post—- will be accessible on the Internet forever. Many search engines copy Internet pages and save them for viewing even after the pages are no longer online. Think about that before you post anything online. Do you really want pictures or blog entries to be seen 10 years from now?
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
What’s the Difference Between Marketing & Relationship Marketing?
The short answer is there should be no difference whatsoever. The confusion comes from what you experience and what you may be hearing now. So let’s sort this all out.
Most business owners, entrepreneurs, and SOHO’s aren’t clear about what marketing is supposed to do. Marketing has one objective. That objective is to create relationships. Boy do I wish I had understood that from the beginning.
Marketing is really about making friends. Therefore, all good marketing is relationship marketing. You read the “good” part didn’t you?
Just like when most people hear the word “salesperson” they immediately think about the worst of the worst… the same is true when it comes to how many business owners think about marketing. You immediately think of the examples of marketing communications that do little more than scream you need to buy and you need to buy now.
The world is not made up of zombies haunting the streets in search of what you sell. Even the people who do want to buy your stuff will not respond to in-your-face marketing tactics and techniques. Instead most people are either looking for INFORMATION, or they are open to information about something that could be of interest to them.
Bottom line when it comes to marketing you want to evaluate the way you approach creating those relationships through your marketing communications.
Think about why you develop relationships with some people and not others. Do you share a common interest or desire? Do you have a common goal or challenge? Probably.
You’ve also probably met a lot of people in your life that could have developed into relationships yet they didn’t go anywhere. Did you do anything beyond the introduction to sustain the relationship? Were there opportunities for interaction and engagement? Hmmm, pretty obvious why things just kind of went nowhere.
So, if the purpose of marketing is to create relationships then our marketing must:
Focus on what the other person wants to hear
Provide a way to get information about that
Allow the other person to gain a sense of who you are and what you are about
Nurture the relationship by continuing to add value
Provide opportunities for interaction and engagement
And above all don’t take yourself so seriously. Some of the worst marketing efforts I’ve ever seen were created by business owners who wanted to create the illusion they were a big company when they weren’t… who insisted on using incomprehensible “corporatese” when a simple message would have worked so much better. No matter what… people buy from people. The people you market to need to know you are a real person who really cares about what they think… who really wants to help them.
A less than perfect sincere marketing message is a thousand times more powerful than a perfect impersonal one.
Can you think of a really bad marketing communication you’ve gotten lately? What could the sender have changed to make the message work for you?
Most business owners, entrepreneurs, and SOHO’s aren’t clear about what marketing is supposed to do. Marketing has one objective. That objective is to create relationships. Boy do I wish I had understood that from the beginning.
Marketing is really about making friends. Therefore, all good marketing is relationship marketing. You read the “good” part didn’t you?
Just like when most people hear the word “salesperson” they immediately think about the worst of the worst… the same is true when it comes to how many business owners think about marketing. You immediately think of the examples of marketing communications that do little more than scream you need to buy and you need to buy now.
The world is not made up of zombies haunting the streets in search of what you sell. Even the people who do want to buy your stuff will not respond to in-your-face marketing tactics and techniques. Instead most people are either looking for INFORMATION, or they are open to information about something that could be of interest to them.
Bottom line when it comes to marketing you want to evaluate the way you approach creating those relationships through your marketing communications.
Think about why you develop relationships with some people and not others. Do you share a common interest or desire? Do you have a common goal or challenge? Probably.
You’ve also probably met a lot of people in your life that could have developed into relationships yet they didn’t go anywhere. Did you do anything beyond the introduction to sustain the relationship? Were there opportunities for interaction and engagement? Hmmm, pretty obvious why things just kind of went nowhere.
So, if the purpose of marketing is to create relationships then our marketing must:
Focus on what the other person wants to hear
Provide a way to get information about that
Allow the other person to gain a sense of who you are and what you are about
Nurture the relationship by continuing to add value
Provide opportunities for interaction and engagement
And above all don’t take yourself so seriously. Some of the worst marketing efforts I’ve ever seen were created by business owners who wanted to create the illusion they were a big company when they weren’t… who insisted on using incomprehensible “corporatese” when a simple message would have worked so much better. No matter what… people buy from people. The people you market to need to know you are a real person who really cares about what they think… who really wants to help them.
A less than perfect sincere marketing message is a thousand times more powerful than a perfect impersonal one.
Can you think of a really bad marketing communication you’ve gotten lately? What could the sender have changed to make the message work for you?
Thursday, May 21, 2009
COPYWRITER
The Step-by-Step Copywriting Course Gives You:
A format that allows you to work at your own pace
This self-paced, self-study course contains an e-book study manual with insights, guidelines, do's and don'ts. Read it at your own pace, when you have the time.
Step-by-step instruction with lots of examples
You'll get step-by-step instructions and see real-life examples, pulled from actual advertisements that show you exactly how to (and how NOT to) write powerful copy.
Lessons so you can practice writing exceptional copy
We learn best with practice so I've provided assignments at the end of every lesson so you can immediately use your new skills.
Insight on how a professional would write it
This is a self-scoring course. Once you've completed each lesson, you can check the "Answers & Insights" section of your manual that contains the answers to the assignments, insights, examples of how I would write the copy and important points to consider.
THE 10 PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE COPY WRITING FOR THE NET:
1. Know Your Product
This is the cornerstone of good copy writing. Know your product and be passionate about it. Believe in it. If you don't, you shouldn't be selling it. It is not only unethical to sell something you wouldn't buy yourself, but also difficult and unpleasant.
If you have a product that you *know* will change your customer's life for the better, then copy writing becomes much easier. You're doing her a favor - offering this product at this price - believe that yourself first.
After that, killer copy comes naturally.
2. Know Your Customer
Before you write the first word, create a profile customer.
• Is it a techno-peasant housewife or an IT company executive?
• Income range?
• Age?
• Sex?
• In a hurry?
Select your words and page length to suit your reader - not yourself.
Then, once your web site is tailor made for her unique needs, it is time to test... Find about 3 people who more or less fit your profile customer's specs and let them loose on the site. Give them tasks like finding your e-mail address, getting to the order page, finding information on a specific product etc.
See how easily they find it and ask for general comments as they go.
Testing is absolutely vital.
My own sales copy always looks good to me - but I wrote it, so I know exactly how it's structured. Someone else might find it tedious or even confusing.
Confusing web sites is the NUMBER ONE reason people leave.
Swear at them if you must, but don't confuse them.
That is why you have to test.
3. Stress Benefits
Whatever you do, DON'T put you mission statement on your homepage.
We just don't care.
We want benefits! What can your product do for me? Right now!
• Can it make me rich?
• Can it save me time?
• Can it entertain me?
• Can it make me feel better about myself?
That's what people want.
Your product's greatest benefit should be right in the top header in bold red letters. Your first three or four words should hit them between the eyes.
You never read everything on every page you visit. You scan - you look for something that seems interesting.
Statistics show that you have 10 seconds to grab your visitor's attention. If you don't, she'll move on. No sentence starting with "Our goal is to..." has ever grabbed my attention. I don't care about you. I care about me. What does your site/product do for me? Right now!
I know this seems harsh, but you'd do well to take it seriously. It's been proven many times. E-consumers are very back-button-happy. It's a big web with lots to see. You HAVE TO give them a reason to stay on your site.
4. Establish Trus
On the Net you don't have the advantage of speaking face to face with your customer, so you have to load as much credibility into your words as possible.
How?
Offer a free trial, a money-back guarantee, testimonials, put your e-mail address, physical address and phone number at the bottom of every page, show a (small) photograph of yourself etc.
Most important: Speak to your visitor. Don't ramble about technical specs of your products. Imagine sitting down with a friend and telling her about something that can really enhance her life.
5. Use Headings Like This One
Break it up.
Short paragraphs.
Few people will read your entire page. Make it scannable.
Each heading should do 2 things:
• Grab her attention
• Give her clues about the content of the next two or three paragraphs.
Remember that reading from the screen puts extra strain on the eyes. Make the read easy, quick and informative.
6. Words (not) To Use
Good words:
Free; proven; discover; breakthrough; learn; you/your; benefit; first; complete; exclusive etc.
Bad words:
If; but; should; could; etc.
Powerful words:
Why say "If you want to get to the top of the Search Engines..." when you could say "Nail the search engines in five easy steps. Read on... ".
As a rule of thumb, assume that your visitor couldn't care less about you. Don't use "I" or "me" more than "you".
7. Keep It Short
I mentioned page-length up there at #2. The key is to keep it as short as you can. When you're done writing your killer copy, see if you can say it in half the words. Don't sacrifice quality though. Make it as long as it needs to be without dragging it out.
8. Create Urgency
Throw in something special for the first 100 subscribers or make it "this month only". Your word selection is important here. Don't say "Subscribe now!". Put a specific time limit to it - "Subscribe during July and I'll give you... ".
Try to get them to buy on their first visit, because chances of them returning later are slim.
9. Get A Response
Hook'em the first time.
If they don't bookmark you, they probably won't find you again. Have a back-up response ready.
For example:
Let's say that you have a visitor that just can't make up her mind. With a bit more convincing, you'll hook her, but she's at the end of the page and thinking about the dreaded back-button.
So give her something - like a free subscription to your newsletter or a trial download. That way you survive in her memory and you get another opportunity to persuade her.
10. Spelling, Grammar and Formatting
I won't tell you that a typo will kill your sales effort. The same applies to grammatical errors. Use a spellchecker of some sort. I make a habit of pasting my text in MS Word and running a spell-check. It saves a lot of time later.
EASY ON THOSE CAPS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!
They look unprofessional. Use bold text and color to highlight important points.
A Confession..
I learned almost everything I know about copy writing in Joe Robson's "Make Your Words Sell" ebook. It sells for under 30 bucks last time I checked and it comes with an unconditional money-back guarantee.
Nothing to loose and so much to gain.
If you're serious about selling online, this is a must read. Joe is a copy writing wiz and the book does not waste your time. Just real, step-by-step advice you can use from today to turn more of your site visitors into customers.
A format that allows you to work at your own pace
This self-paced, self-study course contains an e-book study manual with insights, guidelines, do's and don'ts. Read it at your own pace, when you have the time.
Step-by-step instruction with lots of examples
You'll get step-by-step instructions and see real-life examples, pulled from actual advertisements that show you exactly how to (and how NOT to) write powerful copy.
Lessons so you can practice writing exceptional copy
We learn best with practice so I've provided assignments at the end of every lesson so you can immediately use your new skills.
Insight on how a professional would write it
This is a self-scoring course. Once you've completed each lesson, you can check the "Answers & Insights" section of your manual that contains the answers to the assignments, insights, examples of how I would write the copy and important points to consider.
THE 10 PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE COPY WRITING FOR THE NET:
1. Know Your Product
This is the cornerstone of good copy writing. Know your product and be passionate about it. Believe in it. If you don't, you shouldn't be selling it. It is not only unethical to sell something you wouldn't buy yourself, but also difficult and unpleasant.
If you have a product that you *know* will change your customer's life for the better, then copy writing becomes much easier. You're doing her a favor - offering this product at this price - believe that yourself first.
After that, killer copy comes naturally.
2. Know Your Customer
Before you write the first word, create a profile customer.
• Is it a techno-peasant housewife or an IT company executive?
• Income range?
• Age?
• Sex?
• In a hurry?
Select your words and page length to suit your reader - not yourself.
Then, once your web site is tailor made for her unique needs, it is time to test... Find about 3 people who more or less fit your profile customer's specs and let them loose on the site. Give them tasks like finding your e-mail address, getting to the order page, finding information on a specific product etc.
See how easily they find it and ask for general comments as they go.
Testing is absolutely vital.
My own sales copy always looks good to me - but I wrote it, so I know exactly how it's structured. Someone else might find it tedious or even confusing.
Confusing web sites is the NUMBER ONE reason people leave.
Swear at them if you must, but don't confuse them.
That is why you have to test.
3. Stress Benefits
Whatever you do, DON'T put you mission statement on your homepage.
We just don't care.
We want benefits! What can your product do for me? Right now!
• Can it make me rich?
• Can it save me time?
• Can it entertain me?
• Can it make me feel better about myself?
That's what people want.
Your product's greatest benefit should be right in the top header in bold red letters. Your first three or four words should hit them between the eyes.
You never read everything on every page you visit. You scan - you look for something that seems interesting.
Statistics show that you have 10 seconds to grab your visitor's attention. If you don't, she'll move on. No sentence starting with "Our goal is to..." has ever grabbed my attention. I don't care about you. I care about me. What does your site/product do for me? Right now!
I know this seems harsh, but you'd do well to take it seriously. It's been proven many times. E-consumers are very back-button-happy. It's a big web with lots to see. You HAVE TO give them a reason to stay on your site.
4. Establish Trus
On the Net you don't have the advantage of speaking face to face with your customer, so you have to load as much credibility into your words as possible.
How?
Offer a free trial, a money-back guarantee, testimonials, put your e-mail address, physical address and phone number at the bottom of every page, show a (small) photograph of yourself etc.
Most important: Speak to your visitor. Don't ramble about technical specs of your products. Imagine sitting down with a friend and telling her about something that can really enhance her life.
5. Use Headings Like This One
Break it up.
Short paragraphs.
Few people will read your entire page. Make it scannable.
Each heading should do 2 things:
• Grab her attention
• Give her clues about the content of the next two or three paragraphs.
Remember that reading from the screen puts extra strain on the eyes. Make the read easy, quick and informative.
6. Words (not) To Use
Good words:
Free; proven; discover; breakthrough; learn; you/your; benefit; first; complete; exclusive etc.
Bad words:
If; but; should; could; etc.
Powerful words:
Why say "If you want to get to the top of the Search Engines..." when you could say "Nail the search engines in five easy steps. Read on... ".
As a rule of thumb, assume that your visitor couldn't care less about you. Don't use "I" or "me" more than "you".
7. Keep It Short
I mentioned page-length up there at #2. The key is to keep it as short as you can. When you're done writing your killer copy, see if you can say it in half the words. Don't sacrifice quality though. Make it as long as it needs to be without dragging it out.
8. Create Urgency
Throw in something special for the first 100 subscribers or make it "this month only". Your word selection is important here. Don't say "Subscribe now!". Put a specific time limit to it - "Subscribe during July and I'll give you... ".
Try to get them to buy on their first visit, because chances of them returning later are slim.
9. Get A Response
Hook'em the first time.
If they don't bookmark you, they probably won't find you again. Have a back-up response ready.
For example:
Let's say that you have a visitor that just can't make up her mind. With a bit more convincing, you'll hook her, but she's at the end of the page and thinking about the dreaded back-button.
So give her something - like a free subscription to your newsletter or a trial download. That way you survive in her memory and you get another opportunity to persuade her.
10. Spelling, Grammar and Formatting
I won't tell you that a typo will kill your sales effort. The same applies to grammatical errors. Use a spellchecker of some sort. I make a habit of pasting my text in MS Word and running a spell-check. It saves a lot of time later.
EASY ON THOSE CAPS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!
They look unprofessional. Use bold text and color to highlight important points.
A Confession..
I learned almost everything I know about copy writing in Joe Robson's "Make Your Words Sell" ebook. It sells for under 30 bucks last time I checked and it comes with an unconditional money-back guarantee.
Nothing to loose and so much to gain.
If you're serious about selling online, this is a must read. Joe is a copy writing wiz and the book does not waste your time. Just real, step-by-step advice you can use from today to turn more of your site visitors into customers.
Monday, May 18, 2009
“Everyone lives by selling something.”
“Everyone lives by selling something.”
A thin man eats to live and a fat man lives to eat.
You don’t expect much from a cook, yet you expect a fine meal from a Chef.
How is it there’s such a vast difference in the way basic things are done? How is it those often almost unnoticeable differences produce such dramatically different outcomes?
These differences, my friend, are the result of:
Attention to detail
Passion
Commitment
The thin man, the cook, and the average sales person miss the mark on each count by just a little. Water at 211 degrees is just hot water, yet increase that temperature one teensy degree and you unleash enough power to pull a train with cars as far as the eye can see. Improve the way you sell one little degree and you transform from an average sales person to a top producer.
Read these three sentences placing emphasis on the italicized word in each sentence -
The red house is the one on fire.
The red house is the one on fire.
The red house is the one on fire.
Change the way you emphasize just one little word and the entire meaning changes.
The cook approaches the meal with the thought of getting it done. The Chef approaches the meal with the thought of creating an experience for the taste buds. The cook is happy when you are full. The Chef is only happy if you had a mouthwatering eating encounter.
The average sales person approaches sales with the thought of closing the sale. The top producer approaches sales as the beginning of a life-time relationship.
The average sales person thinks only of the process. The top producer is passionate about the engagement and discovery.
The average sales person always leaves a way out… a back door for escape. The top producer is all in all the time. There’s no need for back door options because the top producer’s focus is on the right option for both the producer and the new client.
Yes, sales is a process. However, sales done right is a passion fulfilled through a process.
6 Sales D’s
Yet another “no sale”. You followed your presentation exactly. You were on time looking good.
What happened? What went wrong?
You probably have run up against one or more of the 6 D’s of sales. You can’t sell when your potential buyer has one of these 6 reasons for not buying. They:
don’t like you
don’t trust you
don’t need what you have
don’t have a reason to buy now
don’t have the money
don’t have the authority to make a buying decision
If you act like a sales person your potential buyer automatically won’t like or trust you. They’ve been trained not to like and trust sales people. It doesn’t matter that you’re different or that you haven’t done anything to make them dislike or distrust you.
If you are a good person with good intentions there’s no valid reason for you to trigger the first two D’s. Change the way you position yourself.
If the reason the potential buyer can’t buy is because they don’t have a need for what you offer. Shame on you. You’ve needlessly wasted both your time and there’s. Make sure you prequalify every appointment so you’re only speaking with qualified prospects.
You overcome urgency and money by asking questions that help the potential buyer develop a reason to buy now and a reason doing so makes good financial sense. You never do it by telling them these things. It has to be their idea.
When you were qualifying the prospect before you met you should also have determined if they were the sole person needed to make a buying decision. If you don’t do that up front… telling you they can’t make a buying decision is an easy way to get rid of you without having to tell you the real reason they don’t want to buy.
Identify the D’s that kept you from getting the sale. Now how are you going to remove these D’s so the next sales ends the right way.
A thin man eats to live and a fat man lives to eat.
You don’t expect much from a cook, yet you expect a fine meal from a Chef.
How is it there’s such a vast difference in the way basic things are done? How is it those often almost unnoticeable differences produce such dramatically different outcomes?
These differences, my friend, are the result of:
Attention to detail
Passion
Commitment
The thin man, the cook, and the average sales person miss the mark on each count by just a little. Water at 211 degrees is just hot water, yet increase that temperature one teensy degree and you unleash enough power to pull a train with cars as far as the eye can see. Improve the way you sell one little degree and you transform from an average sales person to a top producer.
Read these three sentences placing emphasis on the italicized word in each sentence -
The red house is the one on fire.
The red house is the one on fire.
The red house is the one on fire.
Change the way you emphasize just one little word and the entire meaning changes.
The cook approaches the meal with the thought of getting it done. The Chef approaches the meal with the thought of creating an experience for the taste buds. The cook is happy when you are full. The Chef is only happy if you had a mouthwatering eating encounter.
The average sales person approaches sales with the thought of closing the sale. The top producer approaches sales as the beginning of a life-time relationship.
The average sales person thinks only of the process. The top producer is passionate about the engagement and discovery.
The average sales person always leaves a way out… a back door for escape. The top producer is all in all the time. There’s no need for back door options because the top producer’s focus is on the right option for both the producer and the new client.
Yes, sales is a process. However, sales done right is a passion fulfilled through a process.
6 Sales D’s
Yet another “no sale”. You followed your presentation exactly. You were on time looking good.
What happened? What went wrong?
You probably have run up against one or more of the 6 D’s of sales. You can’t sell when your potential buyer has one of these 6 reasons for not buying. They:
don’t like you
don’t trust you
don’t need what you have
don’t have a reason to buy now
don’t have the money
don’t have the authority to make a buying decision
If you act like a sales person your potential buyer automatically won’t like or trust you. They’ve been trained not to like and trust sales people. It doesn’t matter that you’re different or that you haven’t done anything to make them dislike or distrust you.
If you are a good person with good intentions there’s no valid reason for you to trigger the first two D’s. Change the way you position yourself.
If the reason the potential buyer can’t buy is because they don’t have a need for what you offer. Shame on you. You’ve needlessly wasted both your time and there’s. Make sure you prequalify every appointment so you’re only speaking with qualified prospects.
You overcome urgency and money by asking questions that help the potential buyer develop a reason to buy now and a reason doing so makes good financial sense. You never do it by telling them these things. It has to be their idea.
When you were qualifying the prospect before you met you should also have determined if they were the sole person needed to make a buying decision. If you don’t do that up front… telling you they can’t make a buying decision is an easy way to get rid of you without having to tell you the real reason they don’t want to buy.
Identify the D’s that kept you from getting the sale. Now how are you going to remove these D’s so the next sales ends the right way.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
The Tao of Making Money
The Tao of Making Money
Tao means Way. The Tao of Making Money is the Way of Making Money. What natural principles does making money follow?
Making money is part of nature, and struggle is a symptom that you are out of harmony with the flow of nature, how things work. The word prosperity originally meant "to be in the flow".
I would like you to grasp something simple yet elusive to many.
First, let us hear a few words from the wise and successful, and then we can move on to the Tao of Making Money:
"To live through an impossible situation, you don't need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do." --Anthony Greenbank
"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." --Seneca
"The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order." --Henry Miller
"If we do not know what port we're steering for, no wind is favorable." --Seneca
"There is a science of getting rich, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic. There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty." --Wallace D. Wattles
"The reality of life is that your perceptions - right or wrong - influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place." --Roger Birkman
"Our life is what our thoughts make it." --Marcus Aelius Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher.
"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step." --Antoine De Saint-Exupery
"Vision is not enough unless combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps unless we also step up the stairs." --Vance Havner
"Nothing comes from doing nothing." --William Shakespeare
"To your subconscious mind the solutions to your problems of poverty is to become rich, but it is logically invalid for it to pursue this course of action if it has been told that it will make you a bad person." --Simon Hall
"To be ambitious for wealth and yet expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy which will help man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure." --Charles Bandouin
Do you see a pattern there? Well, I will spell it out for you. Here, then, is the Tao of Making Money:
Wealth Consciousness + Mindset + Strategies + Action = Great Wealth Guaranteed
To understand it, let us look at it backwards.
The result you want is wealth
Your results always follow your actions (and beliefs). If you don't get into a car and drive to London, you will stay where you are. If you don't get off the couch, you will stay on the couch. Simple: the result is the child of the action.
Your actions follow your beliefs. You cannot act outside of what you believe. Have you noticed that?
Your beliefs are simply thoughts that you think over and over again (mindset). And your thoughts can be organized into a system that works (a strategy). And a strategy can be learnt; all you need is to be exposed to it to come from not knowing to knowing.
Most importantly, your thoughts arise from your state of being (consciousness).
When you are happy, you have happy thoughts and you feel happy. When you are sad, you have sad thoughts and you feel sad. State comes first, followed by thought and then the corresponding emotion. You may not know it, but you always choose your state; it just doesn't happen randomly (maybe unconsciously, but not randomly, and you will learn how to make the unconscious conscious).
A state of being that believes in abundance, infinity, possibility, openness, flow, and so on, is a state of wealth consciousness. If you have a lack consciousness state of being as your predominant one, you cannot make wealth. It defies natural law and hence it is impossible. In fact, if you don't have wealth consciousness, you will not even believe or perceive opportunities to make money even if they are staring at you right in your face (you wouldn't know money if it hit you in the face).
You must first create within you a state of wealth consciousness. This must be your primary mission.
Your subconscious mind (the storehouse of your beliefs) controls almost everything about you. For example, it controls your autonomic nervous system. What is that? Here is what the Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia says: "Autonomic Nervous System, in vertebrate anatomy, one of the two main divisions of the nervous system, supplying impulses to the body's heart muscles, smooth muscles, and glands. The autonomic system controls the action of the glands; the functions of the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and urogenital systems; and the involuntary muscles in these systems and in the skin. Controlled by nerve centers in the lower part of the brain, the system also has a reciprocal effect on the internal secretions, being controlled to some degree by the hormones and exercising some control, in turn, on hormone production."
Which all means that your hormones, energy levels, actions and so forth are controlled by the subconscious mind. If you have told yourself that you are clumsy, the subconscious will work with your hormones, motor skills, and so on and make you act, move and talk stupid. If you have told yourself that you don't fit in social situations, you will find yourself standing in the corner not fitting. Whatever you say, boss. Your subconscious is like a computer. Whatever you program into it, it makes happen. No questions asked. You are the boss, and whatever you say, happens.
Your imagination, your thoughts, what you perceive, what you don't perceive, what you see and what you miss, how you act, what you feel... these are all determined by one thing: your programming, what you repetitively tell yourself (and what you repetitively got told or observed during your youthful formation years).
So how do you take the quantum leap, how do you step out of the box of your own thoughts and see beyond it. How do you program yourself for success? Well, the same way you create all programming: practice. Repetition. You have to not only find what works positively for you, but you have to practice that new positive way over and over until it becomes part of you. Positive thinking and self-help advice will not work unless you make it permanent for you by practicing it over and over. Your entire physiology has to be rewired; your neural pathways (which create pattern and memory) have to be redrawn. All this happens by practice.
Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Practice. Then one day, like with everything else you ever learnt through practice, you just find yourself automatically doing it! It becomes you! Take right action - repeatedly! Learn and practice right thought repeatedly!
Tao means Way. The Tao of Making Money is the Way of Making Money. What natural principles does making money follow?
Making money is part of nature, and struggle is a symptom that you are out of harmony with the flow of nature, how things work. The word prosperity originally meant "to be in the flow".
I would like you to grasp something simple yet elusive to many.
First, let us hear a few words from the wise and successful, and then we can move on to the Tao of Making Money:
"To live through an impossible situation, you don't need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do." --Anthony Greenbank
"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." --Seneca
"The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order." --Henry Miller
"If we do not know what port we're steering for, no wind is favorable." --Seneca
"There is a science of getting rich, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic. There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty." --Wallace D. Wattles
"The reality of life is that your perceptions - right or wrong - influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place." --Roger Birkman
"Our life is what our thoughts make it." --Marcus Aelius Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher.
"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step." --Antoine De Saint-Exupery
"Vision is not enough unless combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps unless we also step up the stairs." --Vance Havner
"Nothing comes from doing nothing." --William Shakespeare
"To your subconscious mind the solutions to your problems of poverty is to become rich, but it is logically invalid for it to pursue this course of action if it has been told that it will make you a bad person." --Simon Hall
"To be ambitious for wealth and yet expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy which will help man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure." --Charles Bandouin
Do you see a pattern there? Well, I will spell it out for you. Here, then, is the Tao of Making Money:
Wealth Consciousness + Mindset + Strategies + Action = Great Wealth Guaranteed
To understand it, let us look at it backwards.
The result you want is wealth
Your results always follow your actions (and beliefs). If you don't get into a car and drive to London, you will stay where you are. If you don't get off the couch, you will stay on the couch. Simple: the result is the child of the action.
Your actions follow your beliefs. You cannot act outside of what you believe. Have you noticed that?
Your beliefs are simply thoughts that you think over and over again (mindset). And your thoughts can be organized into a system that works (a strategy). And a strategy can be learnt; all you need is to be exposed to it to come from not knowing to knowing.
Most importantly, your thoughts arise from your state of being (consciousness).
When you are happy, you have happy thoughts and you feel happy. When you are sad, you have sad thoughts and you feel sad. State comes first, followed by thought and then the corresponding emotion. You may not know it, but you always choose your state; it just doesn't happen randomly (maybe unconsciously, but not randomly, and you will learn how to make the unconscious conscious).
A state of being that believes in abundance, infinity, possibility, openness, flow, and so on, is a state of wealth consciousness. If you have a lack consciousness state of being as your predominant one, you cannot make wealth. It defies natural law and hence it is impossible. In fact, if you don't have wealth consciousness, you will not even believe or perceive opportunities to make money even if they are staring at you right in your face (you wouldn't know money if it hit you in the face).
You must first create within you a state of wealth consciousness. This must be your primary mission.
Your subconscious mind (the storehouse of your beliefs) controls almost everything about you. For example, it controls your autonomic nervous system. What is that? Here is what the Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia says: "Autonomic Nervous System, in vertebrate anatomy, one of the two main divisions of the nervous system, supplying impulses to the body's heart muscles, smooth muscles, and glands. The autonomic system controls the action of the glands; the functions of the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and urogenital systems; and the involuntary muscles in these systems and in the skin. Controlled by nerve centers in the lower part of the brain, the system also has a reciprocal effect on the internal secretions, being controlled to some degree by the hormones and exercising some control, in turn, on hormone production."
Which all means that your hormones, energy levels, actions and so forth are controlled by the subconscious mind. If you have told yourself that you are clumsy, the subconscious will work with your hormones, motor skills, and so on and make you act, move and talk stupid. If you have told yourself that you don't fit in social situations, you will find yourself standing in the corner not fitting. Whatever you say, boss. Your subconscious is like a computer. Whatever you program into it, it makes happen. No questions asked. You are the boss, and whatever you say, happens.
Your imagination, your thoughts, what you perceive, what you don't perceive, what you see and what you miss, how you act, what you feel... these are all determined by one thing: your programming, what you repetitively tell yourself (and what you repetitively got told or observed during your youthful formation years).
So how do you take the quantum leap, how do you step out of the box of your own thoughts and see beyond it. How do you program yourself for success? Well, the same way you create all programming: practice. Repetition. You have to not only find what works positively for you, but you have to practice that new positive way over and over until it becomes part of you. Positive thinking and self-help advice will not work unless you make it permanent for you by practicing it over and over. Your entire physiology has to be rewired; your neural pathways (which create pattern and memory) have to be redrawn. All this happens by practice.
Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Practice. Then one day, like with everything else you ever learnt through practice, you just find yourself automatically doing it! It becomes you! Take right action - repeatedly! Learn and practice right thought repeatedly!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The (Mistaken) Sense Of Control
The (Mistaken) Sense Of Control
What in your life can you control?
Not much, as it happens. In fact, most of the areas we feel most in control of are riddled with uncertainty and unpredictability: business, health, parenting, finances. In a lot of cases - like picking which stocks to invest in - the average person actually underperforms random selection. That is, when it comes to picking stocks, a monkey with a dart board and a copy of the stock page can do a better job picking winning stocks than most ostensibly informed humans.
Why is that?
In the case of selecting stocks, it's because while a random selection has a 50/50 chance of going up or down, we humans tend to invest our choices with emotional weight that keeps us in markets too long or too short - unlike randomness, we act on hunches, fears, and hopes.
More generally, we tend to be poor judges of risk and uncertainty, yet we have brains that are more than willing to impose patterns and meaning that cover up rather than address such unknowns. So we act as if we knew what we were doing, and as if we had some level of control over the situation, when really we're at the mercy of luck - and the more uncertain the situation, the more likely we are to act as if we were in control.
The (Mistaken) Sense of Control
Consider this situation:
Let's pretend you have an infant girl, and one night you get a call at 1 am from a friend across town who desperately needs your help. As you prepare to drive across town to meet your friend, you have a choice - leave the child sleeping in her crib, or bundle her into a car seat and take her with you.
For most parents, this is a no-brainer - of course you're going to take her with you. What if something happens in the house while you weren't there, like an electrical fire? What if someone broke into the house and kidnapped her? What if she stopped breathing?
The reality, though, is that the single riskiest thing you could do to an infant at 1:00 am is to take her driving in a car. Far more people die every year in car accidents than in all the potential risks to your child alone at home combined. In your car, she'll be exposed to danger from poor road conditions, mechanical failure, and worst of all, other drivers - who at 1:00 am are likely to either have been drinking or be exhausted, neither of which makes them safe to be sharing the road with.
But with our child with us, we feel in greater control than if she was left at home, unattended. There's no rational basis to this feeling - it's entirely grounded in emotion, a poor comprehension of risk, and an over-assessment of the degree to which our own presence has any significance.
Our failure to understand risk and the role chance plays in our lives is profound and cuts across a wide swathe of our lives. Consider the efforts we make to assure our children grow up with decent values - and how often parents raise kids that completely reject their values. Or consider how many businesses go under every year, and how many of them were headed up by people with strong qualifications, solid training, and a clear sense that they knew what they were doing. Or, in the financial sector, consider how many stock brokers, financial analysts, and others are caught entirely by surprise by massive shifts in the financial sector, like the recent collapse of the credit system - if there were really a pattern, and people really understood it, they all should have seen it coming.
Dealing with uncertainty
If we're really bad at understanding risk, and if we're led astray by a mistaken sense of control, then what should we do? Should we just throw up our hands and accept whatever Fate throws at us? Should we lock ourselves in our homes, wrap ourselves in padding, and huddle in a corner until our lives mercifully end?
Fatalism and despair are, thankfully, over-reactions to the uncertainty of life. As it happens, there are quite a few things we do control, even in the midst of uncertainty. For instance, while even the best poker players are largely at the mercy of luck as to what cards they hold, good players can control enough of the situation - their facial gestures, how much they bet, when to fold, etc. - to come out of even several lousy hands in a row ahead (at least sometimes).
While we can't eliminate uncertainty, there are ways we can act to minimize its effects - at least in some instances. If the Moon spins out of its orbit and collides with the Earth tomorrow, all bets are off. But for more everyday sorts of uncertainly, it pays to:
Be prepared.
Good planning leaves enough "slack" to adapt readily to unforeseen circumstances. For example, many people keep a "rainy day fund" to make sure they're prepared for an illness, loss of a job, accident, or other emergency.
Diversify.
Balancing high-risk options with low-risk ones can help make sure that a sudden freak occurrence wreck everything. It's the classic "don't put all your eggs in one basket" theory - balance your investment portfolio, hedge your bets, pursue multiple medical treatments (where possible), and so on.
Get a second opinion.
Or a 100th. James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds" shows how the cumulative voice of the many can be more accurate than any one individual, even an expert. Whenever undertaking a risky endeavor, make sure to consult as many people as possible - and find a way to split the difference.
Get another doctor's opinion before embarking on a course of treatment, Discuss investment options with more than one financial advisor. Get feedback from a range of employees before instituting a radical new policy or process. By sampling a variety of people, you'll have an opportunity to "cancel out" conflicting worldviews that, in most cases, have little to do with the reality at hand.
Create habits.
Uncertainty often leads us astray most when we respond directly to fluctuating and random events. For instance, maybe you go to Vegas with a $300 budget to spend on slot machines, but when you see a particular jackpot is up to $12 million you throw caution to the winds and drop $800 into the machine. Creating habits that you stick to religiously can help minimize the desire to act based on emotional factors that have little to do with the actual level of certainty or uncertainty involved.
Recognize risk.
There is a far higher injury rate for softball players than for base jumpers. Why? Because softball is seen as a safe sport and so players take few precautions, while base jumpers train heavily, invest in solid equipment, and approach the risk inherent in their sport seriously. When you recognize risk and respect it, you act smarter - which helps you to stay more in control when that's possible, and to minimize harm when control isn't possible.
Life itself is inherently uncertain - and that's a good part of its beauty. That uncertainty shouldn't paralyze us, it should energize us - it should make us doubly aware of our surroundings and doubly appreciative of our successes. By ignoring risk - or pretending it doesn't exist - we make ourselves stupider, which ironically leads us to act in riskier ways.
But by respecting and even embracing uncertainty, we can often come out further ahead than if we tried - usually in vain - to control inherently uncontrollable situations.
What in your life can you control?
Not much, as it happens. In fact, most of the areas we feel most in control of are riddled with uncertainty and unpredictability: business, health, parenting, finances. In a lot of cases - like picking which stocks to invest in - the average person actually underperforms random selection. That is, when it comes to picking stocks, a monkey with a dart board and a copy of the stock page can do a better job picking winning stocks than most ostensibly informed humans.
Why is that?
In the case of selecting stocks, it's because while a random selection has a 50/50 chance of going up or down, we humans tend to invest our choices with emotional weight that keeps us in markets too long or too short - unlike randomness, we act on hunches, fears, and hopes.
More generally, we tend to be poor judges of risk and uncertainty, yet we have brains that are more than willing to impose patterns and meaning that cover up rather than address such unknowns. So we act as if we knew what we were doing, and as if we had some level of control over the situation, when really we're at the mercy of luck - and the more uncertain the situation, the more likely we are to act as if we were in control.
The (Mistaken) Sense of Control
Consider this situation:
Let's pretend you have an infant girl, and one night you get a call at 1 am from a friend across town who desperately needs your help. As you prepare to drive across town to meet your friend, you have a choice - leave the child sleeping in her crib, or bundle her into a car seat and take her with you.
For most parents, this is a no-brainer - of course you're going to take her with you. What if something happens in the house while you weren't there, like an electrical fire? What if someone broke into the house and kidnapped her? What if she stopped breathing?
The reality, though, is that the single riskiest thing you could do to an infant at 1:00 am is to take her driving in a car. Far more people die every year in car accidents than in all the potential risks to your child alone at home combined. In your car, she'll be exposed to danger from poor road conditions, mechanical failure, and worst of all, other drivers - who at 1:00 am are likely to either have been drinking or be exhausted, neither of which makes them safe to be sharing the road with.
But with our child with us, we feel in greater control than if she was left at home, unattended. There's no rational basis to this feeling - it's entirely grounded in emotion, a poor comprehension of risk, and an over-assessment of the degree to which our own presence has any significance.
Our failure to understand risk and the role chance plays in our lives is profound and cuts across a wide swathe of our lives. Consider the efforts we make to assure our children grow up with decent values - and how often parents raise kids that completely reject their values. Or consider how many businesses go under every year, and how many of them were headed up by people with strong qualifications, solid training, and a clear sense that they knew what they were doing. Or, in the financial sector, consider how many stock brokers, financial analysts, and others are caught entirely by surprise by massive shifts in the financial sector, like the recent collapse of the credit system - if there were really a pattern, and people really understood it, they all should have seen it coming.
Dealing with uncertainty
If we're really bad at understanding risk, and if we're led astray by a mistaken sense of control, then what should we do? Should we just throw up our hands and accept whatever Fate throws at us? Should we lock ourselves in our homes, wrap ourselves in padding, and huddle in a corner until our lives mercifully end?
Fatalism and despair are, thankfully, over-reactions to the uncertainty of life. As it happens, there are quite a few things we do control, even in the midst of uncertainty. For instance, while even the best poker players are largely at the mercy of luck as to what cards they hold, good players can control enough of the situation - their facial gestures, how much they bet, when to fold, etc. - to come out of even several lousy hands in a row ahead (at least sometimes).
While we can't eliminate uncertainty, there are ways we can act to minimize its effects - at least in some instances. If the Moon spins out of its orbit and collides with the Earth tomorrow, all bets are off. But for more everyday sorts of uncertainly, it pays to:
Be prepared.
Good planning leaves enough "slack" to adapt readily to unforeseen circumstances. For example, many people keep a "rainy day fund" to make sure they're prepared for an illness, loss of a job, accident, or other emergency.
Diversify.
Balancing high-risk options with low-risk ones can help make sure that a sudden freak occurrence wreck everything. It's the classic "don't put all your eggs in one basket" theory - balance your investment portfolio, hedge your bets, pursue multiple medical treatments (where possible), and so on.
Get a second opinion.
Or a 100th. James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds" shows how the cumulative voice of the many can be more accurate than any one individual, even an expert. Whenever undertaking a risky endeavor, make sure to consult as many people as possible - and find a way to split the difference.
Get another doctor's opinion before embarking on a course of treatment, Discuss investment options with more than one financial advisor. Get feedback from a range of employees before instituting a radical new policy or process. By sampling a variety of people, you'll have an opportunity to "cancel out" conflicting worldviews that, in most cases, have little to do with the reality at hand.
Create habits.
Uncertainty often leads us astray most when we respond directly to fluctuating and random events. For instance, maybe you go to Vegas with a $300 budget to spend on slot machines, but when you see a particular jackpot is up to $12 million you throw caution to the winds and drop $800 into the machine. Creating habits that you stick to religiously can help minimize the desire to act based on emotional factors that have little to do with the actual level of certainty or uncertainty involved.
Recognize risk.
There is a far higher injury rate for softball players than for base jumpers. Why? Because softball is seen as a safe sport and so players take few precautions, while base jumpers train heavily, invest in solid equipment, and approach the risk inherent in their sport seriously. When you recognize risk and respect it, you act smarter - which helps you to stay more in control when that's possible, and to minimize harm when control isn't possible.
Life itself is inherently uncertain - and that's a good part of its beauty. That uncertainty shouldn't paralyze us, it should energize us - it should make us doubly aware of our surroundings and doubly appreciative of our successes. By ignoring risk - or pretending it doesn't exist - we make ourselves stupider, which ironically leads us to act in riskier ways.
But by respecting and even embracing uncertainty, we can often come out further ahead than if we tried - usually in vain - to control inherently uncontrollable situations.
Friday, March 6, 2009
WIRELESS SOHO
Mighty Tips to keep your SOHO - Wifi Network secure!!
These days wifi networks are found in abundance be it a home, a hotel, a motel, a small office....it is really a benefit and a ease to carry you laptop at any corner or any room and start working if that place is in the reach and you wifi strength covers it....be it in a cafe takin coffee sips and clicks or be it a motel having a hard time as the presentation is tomorrow..wifi has made it all so easy and handy. But after having all these facilities deployed there a few questions that arises??
#) Are you the only one accessing your wi-fi Network?
#) Are you sure no body is sneaking around in your network?
As it is quiet easy to carry around a laptop and use the wifi connectivity in the same ration it is risky too when seen from a security perspective....All the digital transactions made via your laptop might be lying at someone's table ready to be analysed. These days wifi networking devices don't always help your need of security...so above all you your self need to be a bit conscious and take over the charge. Here are few points outlined that might help you in securing ur wifi network and keeping them out of reach of the Dirty Hands.
1)Turn the encryption system on (WPA/WEP whatever your wifi device supports):
Almost all of the wi-fi devices come up with in built encryption techniques. What these encryption system does is they just play a rumble with the data sent over the air and turn them in to sh!ts so that they are transformed in to unreadable formats often termed as craps....There are many different encryption mechanisms employed that exist for the facility today. Generally because of the human nature you will go for the best, conditions are they must work along with your network. All the devices (wi-fi) in the network must share a same encryption key to talk to eachother..so there might be chances that might create conflicts betn two devices that dont support a encryption mechanism used by one...or say the technique that one uses might not be supported by the other..so again her you will have to choose an option that will work for all. If the choices are WPA and WEP only than I wud recommend you to go with WPA ;) the reasons are obvious hehe..
2)Change the default login credentials:
By default every wi-fi vendor does implement some sort of access authentication systems in their devices..the general is a web based authentication that contains a username and a password. The first thing one must after he gets in is change in the default settings (password) and username too if possible. As because these devices are as a nucleus of any wi-fi network high priority must be given to the security of these devices as one mis-configuration might result in a chaos. In general, to configure, maintain and set up these devices a web base platform is provided that needs authentication and/or account information to be accessed for. These platforms generally come with a default set of everything..the login credentials too that are like
Username<==>Password
admin admin
admin NULL(means no password required)
NULL 00000 (they are zeros and must not be mistaken with the letter o)
and so on...so as these are the default set of login credentials and are different with vendors, but are known to public (and attackers more often) so it is indeed a good practice to change them up.
3)Enable MAC address or Hardware address filtering:
Every network device that exist in this world has its own unique identifier that is in no way same to any other device from the same vendor or from any other...these identifers are called physical address OR' MAC address. Access points and routers in the network keep a log of all the hardware addresses of all the devices (wifi cards) connected to them. And these days many of such AP(Access Points) and Routers have an option to restrict connections and or accesses to any hardware address defined in the AP or the router. This is generally a good practice if you dont want average computer users connect to your network and use your resources but if in case a intruder gets hand on the physical address of the devices in your network than s/he can easily make fake addresses and than be a part of your network. This feature is not as effective as it seems, the reason is clear....ah WHY??
4)Change the SSID name:
Wifi devices such as Access Points and wireless Routers use a network name known as the SSID (Service Set Identifier) to make the devices know of them. Generally vendors normally have their name as the default SSID names. For e.g, Dlink has the SSID name as "dlink" Linksys has "linksys" and so on. If you ask that what can one do if my SSID is known than the answer is they might be able to break into....though this is the first step one would take. Moreover there is a logic if someone finds a box with SSID set as default than there are chances that other things are kept default too..rite!! and thus are much more likely to make it a victim. So better change the SSID immediately as you change the password.
5)Hide the SSID from public:
In wireless networking, the AP or the router generally broadcasts the network name (SSID) as discussed above in the air at periods. It was generally designed for businesses and mobile hotspots where wireless clients may roam any where. This feature is generally unnecessary while being in a home or such places. So when not in use it is better to keep it off as it will just do the thing as "Hey do u see me I am a AP/Router and I am here".
6)Do not auto connect to wide open wi-fi networks:
While as it is a good thing and a luck to find open networks....it is a place of high risk in the same ratio..cases have been registered whereby open APs and Routers are setup to acquain victims and than play with them. So better not connect on any free hotspots till you trust them.
7)Disable DHCP in the AP or the Router:
It is generally seen that many of the APs or the Routers that are used are running DHCP server running in them that reduces the hectic job of assigning the IP address to each client on the network manually. But in the other hand it will notify the attacker of the IP address and the all the information being used as he might obtain a valid IP address automatically. So its a good practice to turn DHCP off and assign the addresses manually this wont let the intruder know of the subnet being used moreover user subnets else than 192.168.x.x as this is the most common subnet used.......
8)User firewalls:
As modern wifi devices come along with a builtin firewall and other options it is a good thing to make a use of them denying all unnecessary services and applications in the network...except from those which comes to regular uses.
9)Turn the network when not in use:
Well I needn't tell this but there are ppl who want their wi-fi devices be online always though not in use...why to take risks and provide a long lasting window to the attackers instead it is a better to turn the device off if they wont be in use for a long time.....saves both electrcity bill and your network ..... ;)
These days wifi networks are found in abundance be it a home, a hotel, a motel, a small office....it is really a benefit and a ease to carry you laptop at any corner or any room and start working if that place is in the reach and you wifi strength covers it....be it in a cafe takin coffee sips and clicks or be it a motel having a hard time as the presentation is tomorrow..wifi has made it all so easy and handy. But after having all these facilities deployed there a few questions that arises??
#) Are you the only one accessing your wi-fi Network?
#) Are you sure no body is sneaking around in your network?
As it is quiet easy to carry around a laptop and use the wifi connectivity in the same ration it is risky too when seen from a security perspective....All the digital transactions made via your laptop might be lying at someone's table ready to be analysed. These days wifi networking devices don't always help your need of security...so above all you your self need to be a bit conscious and take over the charge. Here are few points outlined that might help you in securing ur wifi network and keeping them out of reach of the Dirty Hands.
1)Turn the encryption system on (WPA/WEP whatever your wifi device supports):
Almost all of the wi-fi devices come up with in built encryption techniques. What these encryption system does is they just play a rumble with the data sent over the air and turn them in to sh!ts so that they are transformed in to unreadable formats often termed as craps....There are many different encryption mechanisms employed that exist for the facility today. Generally because of the human nature you will go for the best, conditions are they must work along with your network. All the devices (wi-fi) in the network must share a same encryption key to talk to eachother..so there might be chances that might create conflicts betn two devices that dont support a encryption mechanism used by one...or say the technique that one uses might not be supported by the other..so again her you will have to choose an option that will work for all. If the choices are WPA and WEP only than I wud recommend you to go with WPA ;) the reasons are obvious hehe..
2)Change the default login credentials:
By default every wi-fi vendor does implement some sort of access authentication systems in their devices..the general is a web based authentication that contains a username and a password. The first thing one must after he gets in is change in the default settings (password) and username too if possible. As because these devices are as a nucleus of any wi-fi network high priority must be given to the security of these devices as one mis-configuration might result in a chaos. In general, to configure, maintain and set up these devices a web base platform is provided that needs authentication and/or account information to be accessed for. These platforms generally come with a default set of everything..the login credentials too that are like
Username<==>Password
admin admin
admin NULL(means no password required)
NULL 00000 (they are zeros and must not be mistaken with the letter o)
and so on...so as these are the default set of login credentials and are different with vendors, but are known to public (and attackers more often) so it is indeed a good practice to change them up.
3)Enable MAC address or Hardware address filtering:
Every network device that exist in this world has its own unique identifier that is in no way same to any other device from the same vendor or from any other...these identifers are called physical address OR' MAC address. Access points and routers in the network keep a log of all the hardware addresses of all the devices (wifi cards) connected to them. And these days many of such AP(Access Points) and Routers have an option to restrict connections and or accesses to any hardware address defined in the AP or the router. This is generally a good practice if you dont want average computer users connect to your network and use your resources but if in case a intruder gets hand on the physical address of the devices in your network than s/he can easily make fake addresses and than be a part of your network. This feature is not as effective as it seems, the reason is clear....ah WHY??
4)Change the SSID name:
Wifi devices such as Access Points and wireless Routers use a network name known as the SSID (Service Set Identifier) to make the devices know of them. Generally vendors normally have their name as the default SSID names. For e.g, Dlink has the SSID name as "dlink" Linksys has "linksys" and so on. If you ask that what can one do if my SSID is known than the answer is they might be able to break into....though this is the first step one would take. Moreover there is a logic if someone finds a box with SSID set as default than there are chances that other things are kept default too..rite!! and thus are much more likely to make it a victim. So better change the SSID immediately as you change the password.
5)Hide the SSID from public:
In wireless networking, the AP or the router generally broadcasts the network name (SSID) as discussed above in the air at periods. It was generally designed for businesses and mobile hotspots where wireless clients may roam any where. This feature is generally unnecessary while being in a home or such places. So when not in use it is better to keep it off as it will just do the thing as "Hey do u see me I am a AP/Router and I am here".
6)Do not auto connect to wide open wi-fi networks:
While as it is a good thing and a luck to find open networks....it is a place of high risk in the same ratio..cases have been registered whereby open APs and Routers are setup to acquain victims and than play with them. So better not connect on any free hotspots till you trust them.
7)Disable DHCP in the AP or the Router:
It is generally seen that many of the APs or the Routers that are used are running DHCP server running in them that reduces the hectic job of assigning the IP address to each client on the network manually. But in the other hand it will notify the attacker of the IP address and the all the information being used as he might obtain a valid IP address automatically. So its a good practice to turn DHCP off and assign the addresses manually this wont let the intruder know of the subnet being used moreover user subnets else than 192.168.x.x as this is the most common subnet used.......
8)User firewalls:
As modern wifi devices come along with a builtin firewall and other options it is a good thing to make a use of them denying all unnecessary services and applications in the network...except from those which comes to regular uses.
9)Turn the network when not in use:
Well I needn't tell this but there are ppl who want their wi-fi devices be online always though not in use...why to take risks and provide a long lasting window to the attackers instead it is a better to turn the device off if they wont be in use for a long time.....saves both electrcity bill and your network ..... ;)
Saturday, February 14, 2009
SCHOOL CHILD PROTECTION POLICY(Offline/Online)
1. Introduction
Small Office Home Office (SOHO) Computer Network Nepal PVT LTD believes that all children have a right to be protected from harm. Children cannot learn effectively if they do not feel secure. Awareness of safety and self-protection should be included in the curriculum where appropriate. So SOHO launch business project with Amajika Nepal (NGO) about Cyber Crime Investigation and Online Children Protection. Initially we go to field and conduct seminar and then develop software or work as agent of different countries of working areas of that field as firewall which will protect child and youth.
All staff and principals have a pastoral responsibility towards the children and they must ensure that the correct procedures are followed in order to protect children from abuse or further abuse. We also have a legal duty of the Children Act to assist local authority social services departments acting on behalf of children in need or enquiring into allegations of child abuse. The aim of this policy is to:
• protect the children and recognise the signs of abuse
• to ensure everyone knows the correct procedures
This procedure is in line with the statutory duties and procedures and follows the guidance in Safer Working Practice for the Protection of Children and Staff in Education Settings Area Child Protection Committee procedures and advice from the Education Department Designated Child Protection Office. The Head Teacher and the Child Protection Officer (CPO) will refer to online multi-agency child protection procedures in each case of suspected or actual abuse.
2. The Child Protection Officer/Designated Teacher
Responsibility is given to head teacher. He/She should be contacted immediately if any member of staff has a concern that could be considered to be about child protection. Her Role is discussed further in Section 9. All concerns must be reported to the CPO, the Head Teacher or the project co-ordinator. Concerns should be recorded on a child welfare/child protection form which will be kept in a confidential file in the Principal’s office.
3. Definitions of Abuse
The Abuse children suffer from usually falls into one of four main categories defined in Safer Working Practice for the Protection of Children and Staff in Education Settings , but a single child may suffer more than one type of abuse.
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer feigns symptoms of or deliberately causes ill health to a child they are looking after. This situation is commonly described using terms such as factitious illness by proxy or Munchausen's syndrome by proxy.
Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is the persistent emotional ill treatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child's emotional development: It may involve conveying to the child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only in so far as they meet the needs of another person. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. It may involve causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger or the exploitation or corruption of children. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of ill treatment of a child although it may occur alone.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including penetrative, e.g. rape or buggery or non-penetrative acts. They may include non-contact activities such as involving children in looking at or in the production of pornographic material or watching sexual activities or encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.
Neglect
Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child's basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child's health or development. It may involve a parent or carer failing to provide adequate food, shelter and clothing, failure to protect a child from physical harm or danger. Alternatively neglect is the failure by the parent or carer to ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment for the child. It may also include neglect of or unresponsiveness to a child's basic emotional needs.
4. Possible Signs of Abuse
Staff should be alert to possible indicators of abuse of children in their care, but should also be aware that the following signs may also have other explanations.
Physical Abuse
• Unexplained injuries or burns, particularly if they are recurrent
• Improbable reasons given for injuries either by the child or the parent
• Refusal to discuss injuries
• Admission of punishment that appears excessive
• Fear of parents being contacted
• Bald patches
• Withdrawal from physical contact
• Arms and legs kept covered in hot weather
• Fear of returning home
• Fear of medical help
• Self destructive tendencies
• Aggression towards others
• Chronic running away
Neglect
• Constant hunger
• Poor personal hygiene
• Constant tiredness
• Poor state of clothing
• Emaciation
• Frequent lateness or non-attendance at school
• Untreated medical problems
• Destructive tendencies
• Low self esteem
• Neurotic behaviour (e.g. rocking, hair twisting, thumb sucking
• No social relationships
• Chronic running away
• Compulsive stealing or scavenging
Emotional Abuse
• Physical, mental and emotional development lags
• Admission of punishment that appears excessive
• Overreaction to mistakes
• Sudden speech disorders
• Fear of new situations
• Inappropriate emotional responses to painful situations
• Neurotic behaviour
• Self-mutilation
• Fear of parents being contacted
• Extremes of passivity or aggression
• Drug/solvent abuse
• Chronic running away
• Compulsive stealing/scavenging
Sexual Abuse
Children may show no signs at al1 or they may show some of the following signs
• Hint about secrets that they cannot tell about
• Say a friend has a problem
• Ask if you will keep a secret if they tell you something
• Begin lying, stealing, blatantly cheating in the hope of being caught
• Have unexplained sources of money
• Have terrifying dreams
• Start wetting themselves
• Exhibit sudden inexplicable changes in behaviour, such as becoming aggressive or withdrawn
• Stop enjoying previously liked activities such as music, sports, art, gym, uniformed organisations
• Become fearful or refuse to see certain adults for no apparent reason; dislike a baby sitter, relative or other adult
• Act in a sexual way inappropriate for their age
• Draw sexually explicit pictures depicting some act of abuse
• Seem to be keeping secret something that is worrying them
• Have frequent urinary infections, bleeding in the genital or anal areas
• Have soreness or bleeding in the throat
• Have chronic ailments, such as stomach pains or headaches
• Develop eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia
• Become severely depressed and even attempt suicide
• Have a poor self image, self mutilate
• Continually running away
• Regress to younger behaviour such as thumb sucking, surrounding themselves with previously discarded toys
• Show discomfort when walking
• Say they are no good, dirty, rotten
• Be wary, watchful
• Repeat obscene words or phrases which may have been said during the abuse
• Attempt to sexually abuse another younger child
• Talk or write about sexual matters
• Find hundreds of excuses for not going home or to a friend's house after school (places where abuse may be happening) .
5. Responding to Concerns
If staff are concerned that children are showing any of the above behaviours or children speak to them about abuse they should immediately contact the Child Protection Officer for the school and she will instigate the procedures as appropriate.
The Child Protection Officer must inform the local Social Services department immediately of any child protection concern and this must be supported by written confirmation within 24 hours.
Staff should record their concern on a dated sheet, with details as follows:
• What the concern is
• What was the evidence that led to the concern
• What the child said
• What the member of staff said or did in response
• Always sign and date the notes
• Never offer to maintain confidentiality but always ensure that information is only disclosed to those who 'need to know'.
This record should use the actual words spoken as far as possible, at the outset if an investigation takes place it may be used as evidence.
If a member of staff is the first to see an injury then they must inform the Child Protection Officer immediately.
If a child chooses a member of staff to disclose abuse to, they should try to ensure a degree of privacy and arrange for cover for the class if necessary.
6. The Distinctions between an Allegation and a Suspicion
The differences between these two possible Child Protection .issues are very important when bringing them to the attention of the Child Protection Officer. An allegation is very important and should be dealt with immediately. Once the allegation has been brought to the member of staff's attention then this member of staff should immediately inform the Child Protection Officer so that the correct procedures can be put into place. Along with this, when an allegation is made the member of staff should ask the minimum number of questions to satisfy them self of abuse in order not to compromise any police or social services investigation. The child should be allowed to talk and the member of staff should not try to pose situations that may have happened so that the child can say yes or no. Do not tell the child that his or her secret can be kept and nobody else will need to know and as soon as possible after the conversation with the child write down a transcript of the conversation so that you have an accurate account of what was said should be needed in the future.
With a suspicion there is not the urgency that an allegation would create. Again the Child Protection Officer will need to be told as quickly as possible but it does not need to be immediately. Similar actions as stated above should still be used in case in the future the suspicion becomes an allegation.
7. Helping the Child when Abuse is Disclosed
• Be prepared to listen and comfort
• Do not show revulsion or distress however distasteful the events are
• Stay calm and controlled
• Don't make false promises i.e. that you will keep the abuse a secret or that the police will be involved
• Let the child know at once that it was not his or her fault and keep restating this
• Be aware of your own feelings about abuse and find someone that you can share those feelings with once the procedures have been completed Reassure the child that you still care for them and that what they have said does not make you care less for them
• Reassure the child that they were right to tell, even though the abuse may have happened a long time ago
• As soon as possible write a first hand account of what was said and done
• Follow internal procedures
• Information will only be shared on a need to know basis
• Do not ask leading questions
• Offer to stay with the child
8. Reactions to Abuse
What to expect from a child who has been abused. A child may experience a range of reactions to abuse, including some or all of the following:
• A feeling of shame or guilt. 'It must have been my fault', ‘I'm bad’
• A feeling that she is dirty - Spoilt - degraded
• Embarrassment 'I'm sure everyone knows'
• A desire to continually talk about the abuse and to gain reassurance
• Dislike of being touched and touching others
• Loss of confidence
• Trouble sleeping, nightmares
• Hatred of self and of his or her body
• Destructive behaviour
• Inability to complete school work
• Inability to relate to other children or adults
• Many of the behaviours indicated are an attempt by the child to express feelings that he/she cannot express in words and are a response/reaction to abuse
• Difficulties may continue for a long time after the abuse and the child may need specialist support.
9. The Role of the Child Protection Officer
The designated teacher has the responsibility for ensuring that the procedures are followed and for liaising with the local Social Services Area Office i for any cases of abuse.
All child protection concerns or allegations should be discussed with the Child Protection Officer (CPO).
The CPO will decide which cases should be referred to or discussed with the duty officer at Social Services.
When you have raised your concerns with the CPO and he/she has decided that further action needs to be taken then the CPO will contact the local Social Services Department during the normal working day or the emergency duty team at all other times.
10. Protecting Children
Appointment of Staff
Our recruitment and selection procedures follow guidance in 'Safeguarding children: Safer Recruitment and Selection in Education Settings'. We are committed to safeguarding the promoting the welfare of children and young people and we expect all staff and volunteers to share this_ commitment. For this reason all staff will be required to complete a CRB check at the enhanced level and all positions will be made firm only after receiving satisfactory references and medical affirmation.
How to Behave Appropriately as a Member of Staff
Remember to never get yourself into a situation that could be misconstrued by the pupil. Some things to remember would be do not speak or touch a pupil in a way that could be interpreted as a sexual insult, do not offer to meet a pupil in a closed space, when in a room make sure that the door is left open, do not show open favouritism and refrain from making remarks that could be seen as showing favouritism. These are only a few pointers, as a member of staff you should be aware of other things that may not be appropriate and could lead to allegations.
Male Members of Staff
It is recommended that male members of staff do not go into any of the areas which are private to the girls, without a female member of staff present. This is to protect both the pupils and the members of staff and to give girls privacy within their own areas.
Female Members of Staff
It is recommended that female members of staff do not go into any of the areas which are private to the boys, without a male member of staff present. This is to protect both the pupils and the members of staff and to give boys the privacy within their own areas.
Internet Safety
All computers at the school which are connected to the internet are screened by the service provider to ensure that only material suitable for children are accessible through them.
11. The Procedure to follow if the allegation of abuse is against a Member of Staff
If an allegation is made against a member of staff it must be responded to: there is an obvious need to act immediately and with utmost discretion. The informant should be told that the matter will be referred in confidence to the appropriate people. This must be done, and the written record passed on the same day to the CPO or the Head Teacher.
The circumstances should be kept strictly confidential until the Head Teacher has been able to judge whether or not an allegation or concern indicates possible abuse. The next step is always to discuss the situation with the appropriate Social Services Manager.
If it is decided that an investigation is called for, it is the responsibility of the Social Services Manager to arrange a meeting to discuss how the next steps are handled. This would normally involve the Police and the Head Teacher.
The arrangements agreed upon will include informing the parents and seeking their consent for any immediate medical examination if necessary.
He/She would normally be informed as soon as possible after the result of the initial investigation is known, or the decision is made to dispense with one, but not invited to make a response. There should be a warning that anything said will be recorded.
If it is established that the allegation is not well founded, either on the basis of the medical evidence or further statements, then the person against whom the complaint has been made would normally be informed that the matter is closed. The complainant and the parents would also need to be informed of this.
If the Police decide to take the case further and the allegation is against a member of staff, he/she would normally be suspended or, where the circumstances are considered to warrant it, dismissed. It is reasonable to ask the Police to give some indication of their timescale. There have been cases where the period of suspension has been unacceptably long.
12. Allegations Involving Sexual Impropriety
Whenever a member of staff is approached by a pupil concerning an event involving sexual impropriety of any kind, whether between pupils or staff and pupils, the following steps should be taken:
• Listen sympathetically and afterwards briefly note the content of what was disclosed, sign and date it.
• Contact the CPO immediately, who will discuss with the Head Teacher whether Social Services should be notified.
• If Social Services are notified and express no great concern, the CPO will interview the complainant and report as quickly as possible to the Head Teacher, who will oversee the disciplinary aspects of the enquiry.
• If Social Services express concern, they will themselves open an enquiry. In these circumstances, our own disciplinary enquiry will be suspended until cleared by the Social Services. This would normally involve the Police and the Head Teacher.
The above should be implemented regardless of whether the complainant is over or under 16. Parents should be informed as soon as a reference to the Social Services has been made by the CPO.
13. Confidentiality
Staff have a professional responsibility to share relevant information about the protection of children with other professionals.
Staff should not promise to keep secret information given to them by a child, but should explain that they will pass the information only to those who need to know can help.
14. What to do if the Designated Child Protection Officer is not in School
In the event of the designated Child Protection Officer not being in school for any reason then any member of staff who has concerns about any child should contact the Head Teacher. The Head Teacher will become the designated Child Protection Officer and continue to deal with concerns until the CPO returns to School. In the case of both the CPO and Head Teacher being absent from school, a senior member of staff will be designated as temporary CPO.
15. What to do if the Complaint is About the Child Protection Officer
If the allegation or complaint is about the person who is designated as the Child Protection Officer for the school then any information obtained from the child should be shared with the Head Teacher who will then act as the Child Protection Officer for the school during the investigations and communicate with the Social Services.
16. The Nursery Department
The named CPO for the Nursery Department is as required by OFSTED. He/She maintains a link with the CPO for the whole School and they will communicate of any issues that require it.
17. Training
The CPO will require training every two years in child protection and inter-agency liaison. The Head Teacher and all staff require training (updated every three years) and all part-time or voluntary staff who works with children is to be made aware of the arrangements.
Small Office Home Office (SOHO) Computer Network Nepal PVT LTD believes that all children have a right to be protected from harm. Children cannot learn effectively if they do not feel secure. Awareness of safety and self-protection should be included in the curriculum where appropriate. So SOHO launch business project with Amajika Nepal (NGO) about Cyber Crime Investigation and Online Children Protection. Initially we go to field and conduct seminar and then develop software or work as agent of different countries of working areas of that field as firewall which will protect child and youth.
All staff and principals have a pastoral responsibility towards the children and they must ensure that the correct procedures are followed in order to protect children from abuse or further abuse. We also have a legal duty of the Children Act to assist local authority social services departments acting on behalf of children in need or enquiring into allegations of child abuse. The aim of this policy is to:
• protect the children and recognise the signs of abuse
• to ensure everyone knows the correct procedures
This procedure is in line with the statutory duties and procedures and follows the guidance in Safer Working Practice for the Protection of Children and Staff in Education Settings Area Child Protection Committee procedures and advice from the Education Department Designated Child Protection Office. The Head Teacher and the Child Protection Officer (CPO) will refer to online multi-agency child protection procedures in each case of suspected or actual abuse.
2. The Child Protection Officer/Designated Teacher
Responsibility is given to head teacher. He/She should be contacted immediately if any member of staff has a concern that could be considered to be about child protection. Her Role is discussed further in Section 9. All concerns must be reported to the CPO, the Head Teacher or the project co-ordinator. Concerns should be recorded on a child welfare/child protection form which will be kept in a confidential file in the Principal’s office.
3. Definitions of Abuse
The Abuse children suffer from usually falls into one of four main categories defined in Safer Working Practice for the Protection of Children and Staff in Education Settings , but a single child may suffer more than one type of abuse.
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer feigns symptoms of or deliberately causes ill health to a child they are looking after. This situation is commonly described using terms such as factitious illness by proxy or Munchausen's syndrome by proxy.
Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is the persistent emotional ill treatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child's emotional development: It may involve conveying to the child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only in so far as they meet the needs of another person. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. It may involve causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger or the exploitation or corruption of children. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of ill treatment of a child although it may occur alone.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including penetrative, e.g. rape or buggery or non-penetrative acts. They may include non-contact activities such as involving children in looking at or in the production of pornographic material or watching sexual activities or encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.
Neglect
Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child's basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child's health or development. It may involve a parent or carer failing to provide adequate food, shelter and clothing, failure to protect a child from physical harm or danger. Alternatively neglect is the failure by the parent or carer to ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment for the child. It may also include neglect of or unresponsiveness to a child's basic emotional needs.
4. Possible Signs of Abuse
Staff should be alert to possible indicators of abuse of children in their care, but should also be aware that the following signs may also have other explanations.
Physical Abuse
• Unexplained injuries or burns, particularly if they are recurrent
• Improbable reasons given for injuries either by the child or the parent
• Refusal to discuss injuries
• Admission of punishment that appears excessive
• Fear of parents being contacted
• Bald patches
• Withdrawal from physical contact
• Arms and legs kept covered in hot weather
• Fear of returning home
• Fear of medical help
• Self destructive tendencies
• Aggression towards others
• Chronic running away
Neglect
• Constant hunger
• Poor personal hygiene
• Constant tiredness
• Poor state of clothing
• Emaciation
• Frequent lateness or non-attendance at school
• Untreated medical problems
• Destructive tendencies
• Low self esteem
• Neurotic behaviour (e.g. rocking, hair twisting, thumb sucking
• No social relationships
• Chronic running away
• Compulsive stealing or scavenging
Emotional Abuse
• Physical, mental and emotional development lags
• Admission of punishment that appears excessive
• Overreaction to mistakes
• Sudden speech disorders
• Fear of new situations
• Inappropriate emotional responses to painful situations
• Neurotic behaviour
• Self-mutilation
• Fear of parents being contacted
• Extremes of passivity or aggression
• Drug/solvent abuse
• Chronic running away
• Compulsive stealing/scavenging
Sexual Abuse
Children may show no signs at al1 or they may show some of the following signs
• Hint about secrets that they cannot tell about
• Say a friend has a problem
• Ask if you will keep a secret if they tell you something
• Begin lying, stealing, blatantly cheating in the hope of being caught
• Have unexplained sources of money
• Have terrifying dreams
• Start wetting themselves
• Exhibit sudden inexplicable changes in behaviour, such as becoming aggressive or withdrawn
• Stop enjoying previously liked activities such as music, sports, art, gym, uniformed organisations
• Become fearful or refuse to see certain adults for no apparent reason; dislike a baby sitter, relative or other adult
• Act in a sexual way inappropriate for their age
• Draw sexually explicit pictures depicting some act of abuse
• Seem to be keeping secret something that is worrying them
• Have frequent urinary infections, bleeding in the genital or anal areas
• Have soreness or bleeding in the throat
• Have chronic ailments, such as stomach pains or headaches
• Develop eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia
• Become severely depressed and even attempt suicide
• Have a poor self image, self mutilate
• Continually running away
• Regress to younger behaviour such as thumb sucking, surrounding themselves with previously discarded toys
• Show discomfort when walking
• Say they are no good, dirty, rotten
• Be wary, watchful
• Repeat obscene words or phrases which may have been said during the abuse
• Attempt to sexually abuse another younger child
• Talk or write about sexual matters
• Find hundreds of excuses for not going home or to a friend's house after school (places where abuse may be happening) .
5. Responding to Concerns
If staff are concerned that children are showing any of the above behaviours or children speak to them about abuse they should immediately contact the Child Protection Officer for the school and she will instigate the procedures as appropriate.
The Child Protection Officer must inform the local Social Services department immediately of any child protection concern and this must be supported by written confirmation within 24 hours.
Staff should record their concern on a dated sheet, with details as follows:
• What the concern is
• What was the evidence that led to the concern
• What the child said
• What the member of staff said or did in response
• Always sign and date the notes
• Never offer to maintain confidentiality but always ensure that information is only disclosed to those who 'need to know'.
This record should use the actual words spoken as far as possible, at the outset if an investigation takes place it may be used as evidence.
If a member of staff is the first to see an injury then they must inform the Child Protection Officer immediately.
If a child chooses a member of staff to disclose abuse to, they should try to ensure a degree of privacy and arrange for cover for the class if necessary.
6. The Distinctions between an Allegation and a Suspicion
The differences between these two possible Child Protection .issues are very important when bringing them to the attention of the Child Protection Officer. An allegation is very important and should be dealt with immediately. Once the allegation has been brought to the member of staff's attention then this member of staff should immediately inform the Child Protection Officer so that the correct procedures can be put into place. Along with this, when an allegation is made the member of staff should ask the minimum number of questions to satisfy them self of abuse in order not to compromise any police or social services investigation. The child should be allowed to talk and the member of staff should not try to pose situations that may have happened so that the child can say yes or no. Do not tell the child that his or her secret can be kept and nobody else will need to know and as soon as possible after the conversation with the child write down a transcript of the conversation so that you have an accurate account of what was said should be needed in the future.
With a suspicion there is not the urgency that an allegation would create. Again the Child Protection Officer will need to be told as quickly as possible but it does not need to be immediately. Similar actions as stated above should still be used in case in the future the suspicion becomes an allegation.
7. Helping the Child when Abuse is Disclosed
• Be prepared to listen and comfort
• Do not show revulsion or distress however distasteful the events are
• Stay calm and controlled
• Don't make false promises i.e. that you will keep the abuse a secret or that the police will be involved
• Let the child know at once that it was not his or her fault and keep restating this
• Be aware of your own feelings about abuse and find someone that you can share those feelings with once the procedures have been completed Reassure the child that you still care for them and that what they have said does not make you care less for them
• Reassure the child that they were right to tell, even though the abuse may have happened a long time ago
• As soon as possible write a first hand account of what was said and done
• Follow internal procedures
• Information will only be shared on a need to know basis
• Do not ask leading questions
• Offer to stay with the child
8. Reactions to Abuse
What to expect from a child who has been abused. A child may experience a range of reactions to abuse, including some or all of the following:
• A feeling of shame or guilt. 'It must have been my fault', ‘I'm bad’
• A feeling that she is dirty - Spoilt - degraded
• Embarrassment 'I'm sure everyone knows'
• A desire to continually talk about the abuse and to gain reassurance
• Dislike of being touched and touching others
• Loss of confidence
• Trouble sleeping, nightmares
• Hatred of self and of his or her body
• Destructive behaviour
• Inability to complete school work
• Inability to relate to other children or adults
• Many of the behaviours indicated are an attempt by the child to express feelings that he/she cannot express in words and are a response/reaction to abuse
• Difficulties may continue for a long time after the abuse and the child may need specialist support.
9. The Role of the Child Protection Officer
The designated teacher has the responsibility for ensuring that the procedures are followed and for liaising with the local Social Services Area Office i for any cases of abuse.
All child protection concerns or allegations should be discussed with the Child Protection Officer (CPO).
The CPO will decide which cases should be referred to or discussed with the duty officer at Social Services.
When you have raised your concerns with the CPO and he/she has decided that further action needs to be taken then the CPO will contact the local Social Services Department during the normal working day or the emergency duty team at all other times.
10. Protecting Children
Appointment of Staff
Our recruitment and selection procedures follow guidance in 'Safeguarding children: Safer Recruitment and Selection in Education Settings'. We are committed to safeguarding the promoting the welfare of children and young people and we expect all staff and volunteers to share this_ commitment. For this reason all staff will be required to complete a CRB check at the enhanced level and all positions will be made firm only after receiving satisfactory references and medical affirmation.
How to Behave Appropriately as a Member of Staff
Remember to never get yourself into a situation that could be misconstrued by the pupil. Some things to remember would be do not speak or touch a pupil in a way that could be interpreted as a sexual insult, do not offer to meet a pupil in a closed space, when in a room make sure that the door is left open, do not show open favouritism and refrain from making remarks that could be seen as showing favouritism. These are only a few pointers, as a member of staff you should be aware of other things that may not be appropriate and could lead to allegations.
Male Members of Staff
It is recommended that male members of staff do not go into any of the areas which are private to the girls, without a female member of staff present. This is to protect both the pupils and the members of staff and to give girls privacy within their own areas.
Female Members of Staff
It is recommended that female members of staff do not go into any of the areas which are private to the boys, without a male member of staff present. This is to protect both the pupils and the members of staff and to give boys the privacy within their own areas.
Internet Safety
All computers at the school which are connected to the internet are screened by the service provider to ensure that only material suitable for children are accessible through them.
11. The Procedure to follow if the allegation of abuse is against a Member of Staff
If an allegation is made against a member of staff it must be responded to: there is an obvious need to act immediately and with utmost discretion. The informant should be told that the matter will be referred in confidence to the appropriate people. This must be done, and the written record passed on the same day to the CPO or the Head Teacher.
The circumstances should be kept strictly confidential until the Head Teacher has been able to judge whether or not an allegation or concern indicates possible abuse. The next step is always to discuss the situation with the appropriate Social Services Manager.
If it is decided that an investigation is called for, it is the responsibility of the Social Services Manager to arrange a meeting to discuss how the next steps are handled. This would normally involve the Police and the Head Teacher.
The arrangements agreed upon will include informing the parents and seeking their consent for any immediate medical examination if necessary.
He/She would normally be informed as soon as possible after the result of the initial investigation is known, or the decision is made to dispense with one, but not invited to make a response. There should be a warning that anything said will be recorded.
If it is established that the allegation is not well founded, either on the basis of the medical evidence or further statements, then the person against whom the complaint has been made would normally be informed that the matter is closed. The complainant and the parents would also need to be informed of this.
If the Police decide to take the case further and the allegation is against a member of staff, he/she would normally be suspended or, where the circumstances are considered to warrant it, dismissed. It is reasonable to ask the Police to give some indication of their timescale. There have been cases where the period of suspension has been unacceptably long.
12. Allegations Involving Sexual Impropriety
Whenever a member of staff is approached by a pupil concerning an event involving sexual impropriety of any kind, whether between pupils or staff and pupils, the following steps should be taken:
• Listen sympathetically and afterwards briefly note the content of what was disclosed, sign and date it.
• Contact the CPO immediately, who will discuss with the Head Teacher whether Social Services should be notified.
• If Social Services are notified and express no great concern, the CPO will interview the complainant and report as quickly as possible to the Head Teacher, who will oversee the disciplinary aspects of the enquiry.
• If Social Services express concern, they will themselves open an enquiry. In these circumstances, our own disciplinary enquiry will be suspended until cleared by the Social Services. This would normally involve the Police and the Head Teacher.
The above should be implemented regardless of whether the complainant is over or under 16. Parents should be informed as soon as a reference to the Social Services has been made by the CPO.
13. Confidentiality
Staff have a professional responsibility to share relevant information about the protection of children with other professionals.
Staff should not promise to keep secret information given to them by a child, but should explain that they will pass the information only to those who need to know can help.
14. What to do if the Designated Child Protection Officer is not in School
In the event of the designated Child Protection Officer not being in school for any reason then any member of staff who has concerns about any child should contact the Head Teacher. The Head Teacher will become the designated Child Protection Officer and continue to deal with concerns until the CPO returns to School. In the case of both the CPO and Head Teacher being absent from school, a senior member of staff will be designated as temporary CPO.
15. What to do if the Complaint is About the Child Protection Officer
If the allegation or complaint is about the person who is designated as the Child Protection Officer for the school then any information obtained from the child should be shared with the Head Teacher who will then act as the Child Protection Officer for the school during the investigations and communicate with the Social Services.
16. The Nursery Department
The named CPO for the Nursery Department is as required by OFSTED. He/She maintains a link with the CPO for the whole School and they will communicate of any issues that require it.
17. Training
The CPO will require training every two years in child protection and inter-agency liaison. The Head Teacher and all staff require training (updated every three years) and all part-time or voluntary staff who works with children is to be made aware of the arrangements.
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