Welcome to the world of connectivity. Wake up with online news, check your email over breakfast, and run to the office... to sit behind another computer. And that’s just in the morning. Day or night, whether receiving updates on a handheld or making evening plans via Facebook, the opportunities for web-connected social interaction are limitless. Unfortunately, so are the opportunities for harassment, exploitation and cybercrime on the two-way street that is your online life.

Mobile coverage in Egypt is estimated at around 48 percent, with the online population increasing from 0.3 percent in 1999 to 17 percent in 2009. That means 13.3 million people are accessing the internet, many of whom are unconcerned with — or unaware of — basic online safety tips.

Children in particularly at risk, and in many cases, parents are in the dark when it comes to their children’s online activities. While young generations are increasingly tech-savvy, often moreso than their parents, they are also ignorant of basic procedures for safe web surfing.

The Cyber Peace Initiative (CPI), launched by the Suzanne Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement, hopes to change that. The CPI works in coordination with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), the Ministry of Interior, the private sector, NGOs and concerned citizens to empower youth how to use the vast reservoir of online resources in a safe way.

Nagwa Shoeb, director general of the Suzanne Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement, explains, “The language of youth has become information technology and internet and social websites, and definitely for young people this is the more natural way of communicating.”

This, she explains, gave birth to the CPI. Its goal? To raise awareness and educate families about how to use the internet without putting themselves and others at risk.

Young children may be too trusting of what people tell them in social networking sites.

The popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace means that more personal information, including addresses, phone numbers and pictures, is floating around online. Websites like Twitter encourage users to post updates about their movements in real time. This may keep friends and family in the loop but can also give complete strangers access to personal information.

Kim Sanchez, senior manager for privacy and online safety at Microsoft, explains the risks of being too forthcoming online: “If somebody knows your name, your birthday and your social security number [an American’s national ID number], then there could be identity theft.”

It may seem harmless to share pictures from last night’s party with your online friends, “but you don’t know who has access to your photos and how they will use them,” she says.

Jacqueline Bauchere, director of Microsoft’s Content and Engagement Program, explains that people often engage in risky behavior without realizing it. The common practice of responding to invitations on social networking sites by telling your host you will be out of town may alert friends to your absence, but it also alerts strangers that nobody is home.

Bauchere says that information shouldn’t enable people to track you down, citing pictures taken next to the place you live as a dangerous example. “You should be a bit more insular,” she says, adding that she wouldn’t put her full name on a social networking website.

Hoda Baraka, first deputy to the minister of CIT, explains that one of the key issues in Egypt is that people are mostly unaware of what they are getting into when they reveal too much on social networking websites.

She explains that the popularity and structure of social networking sites means that people using them are largely concerned with building their network, including people who may be friends of friends, whom they don’t necessarily trust. People are largely ignorant of how to adjust the built-in privacy settings on these sites to keep themselves secure.

According to Alexa.com, a site that tracks global web traffic, social networking sites are the seventh most popular type of website in Egypt. It all sounds pretty innocent: People meet up online, chat, keep in touch with old friends and meet new ones. But the alarm bells should go off when online friendships and chats start to replace real ones.

A rural 19-year-old girl meets a Frenchman online who says he is young, handsome and showers her with compliments. It sounds like a dream come true, so when he asks for her picture she sends it willingly. By the time he says he wants to meet up in person, she is already picking out outfits for the big date. But not only is her dream date probably not who he says he is, he is likely not interested in romance at all.

Baraka paints this picture vividly: Not everyone you meet online is who they say they are. More often than not, identity theft and fictional identities go hand-in-hand with blackmail, human trafficking, child abuse and fraud.

She adds that many times during online chats, two people start exchanging pictures or using a webcam. These simple acts can provide an ill-intentioned individual with material for blackmail, including scandalous photos or fake ones photoshopped from pictures received during chats.

“People don’t understand that identity theft is a crime,” says Baraka, adding that many who are arrested for identity theft claim they didn’t know they were committing a crime.

Children, generally trusting and unaware of online threats, are particularly at risk. A key pillar of the CPI’s work is cooperating with the education system to embed online safety into the curriculum. Shoeb explains that during internet awareness sessions held with kids in schools, the initiative had an adult pretending to be a young girl speak to children from behind a curtain. The children revealed personal information, including their addresses, to the hidden adult. When the curtain was removed, kids were shocked to learn the true identity of the person they thought was their new friend.

Cyber bullying can be just as harmful to children as the real thing. A high-profile case in the US ended in the tragic suicide of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl targeted online by the mother of a former friend. The mother pretended to be ‘Josh Evans,’ Megan’s online romance. ‘Josh’ flattered Megan over MySpace and then switched to bombarding her with nasty comments. Evans, already struggling with depression, took her own life when her online life was turned upside down.

Shoeb tells the story of her former secretary, who joined the CPI and then discovered that her child was being bullied on his mobile phone with a series of insulting text messages.

Parents are rarely aware of the bullying, partially because children are often ashamed to admit they are being harassed. Parents’ ignorance and the ease with which bullies operate anonymously online can have serious real-world repercussions.

Baraka explains that one of the biggest problems in online crime is cyber-theft and fraud. She says it is easy to hack into an email account and send messages to entire contact lists.

The nation was floored by a recent scam that involved 53 Egyptians cooperating with 50 Americans to steal over $1.53 million in a phishing scam. The cyber criminals tricked people into giving up sensitive banking information, such as passwords and pin numbers.

In other scams, online criminals also pretend to be banks asking for private information to update customers’ accounts, and convince unwitting internet users to part with financial information through a variety of schemes, including the classic lottery win.

Adults are becoming concerned that their children are using a tool they know little about, according to Shoeb. As a result, the CPI was launched in 2007. It was initially planned to last for two years, but has been extended to four.

Baraka explains that awareness is essential due to the number of crimes committed online. This was one of the catalysts for creating the CPI.

Although the issues are currently not as prevalent as they are in countries with larger numbers of internet users, the CPI aims to be preventative rather than reactive by raising awareness in all Arabic-speaking countries.

The initiative uses peer-to-peer methods to educate parents, kids and teachers about internet safety. Shoeb explains that this method is most effective because youth and parents tend to listen to people their own age.

NetAman, the CPI’s youth group whose name literally means ‘Net security,’ educates peers about online safety not simply in Cairo, but in all governorates, going into schools and universities and holding workshops and training volunteers.

Parents are trained to use information technology tools, starting with the basics of how to use a computer, navigate social networking sites and surf the internet safely. Additionally, CPI gives advice to parents about how to approach their children if they suspect a problem.

Baraka explains that educating and training parents is essential. “This is raising a child in the twenty-first century; it is different.”

The educational material used by the CPI is primarily the result of international efforts, though the content was adapted specifically to fit Egyptian society. Kandil explains that while they weren’t attempting to reinvent the wheel, they wanted to make content specific to the local culture.

All of CPI’s resources are being made available to the public via a new website to be launched in March. Created to raise awareness in the Arab world , the content is tailored to different age groups. Young children, for instance, will learn about online safety through animated characters or games. Kandil adds that the website will be a repository for knowledge as well as a place for sharing experiences and information in the Arab world.

Shoeb explains that when kids are taught safety measures early on, it becomes part of their habits and they will not need to make a significant effort to change their behavior later.

Because Egypt has a sizeable young population that is still relatively new to the internet, Bauchere thinks that the country has a great opportunity to avoid future problems by embedding internet safety habits before serious problems occur.

The CPI has trained 100,000 people in internet security in the past two years and has gained international recognition. To that end, Egypt chaired the working group for child safety in the International Telecommunications Union. It is also a participant in a number of projects run by international organizations for sharing online educational techniques, including the Child Online Protection Initiative, the Council of Europe and the Family Online Safety Institute.

Egyptian lawmakers are also starting to focus on online crimes. The Child Law’s Article 116 deals specifically with cybercrime, criminalizing identity theft and online child abuse.

“We try to stress that [the internet] is a very powerful tool, but you have to learn how to use it,” says Shoeb. “You don’t put a child behind the wheel of a car and tell them to drive.” et

1: Scan your computer with up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware software.

2: Set up a firewall to prevent unauthorized third party access to your computer.

3: Never give out personal information such as passwords, pin numbers and personal ID numbers.

4: Make sure the passwords you use are difficult to guess. They should contain a mix of numbers and both uppercase and lowercase letters.

5: If you use public computers make sure to erase all temporary data from the browser before leaving.

6: Do not put information online that would allow another person to physically track you down.

7: Limit who can see your personal information on social networking sites to protect your privacy.

8: If you choose to have an in-person meeting with someone you only know online, meet that person in a public place accompanied by someone that you trust.

9: Talk to your kids about internet safety and make sure you know what information they are putting online.

10: Don’t believe everything you read online.