About 90,000 sex offenders have been revealed and removed from the MySpace networking site, company and law enforcement officers said yesterday. Social networking sites, like MySpace and others, which allow people of all ages to communicate with each other, can be risky. And they can be particularly risky for children, without strict guidelines about their use.

John Lenardon, a computer forensics professor at the University of British Columbia, a criminal investigation consultant and author of “Protect Your Child on the Internet,” stressed the importance of protecting children online in a recent interview with Consumer Reports:

Consumer Reports: What are the dangers of the internet to children?
John Lenardon: Young kids are going into chat rooms, and chat rooms are terrible, because adults there can talk kids into meeting. Sites such as Facebook are dangerous for kids because they put lots of personal, traceable information online. And nothing online ever goes away, so it can affect a child for the rest of their lives. Many of their future employers will do a search. Web cams are another problem. Kids as young as 13 and 14 have them, and they can be hacked; a hacker can see through the Web cam and into the room, even when the person doesn’t know it.

CR: What are the cures?
JL: Parents are the first line of defense, but often they don’t understand computers and they don’t have the knowledge base to handle the situation. But there are things parents can do:
•  Keep the computer in a public area of your home, not the bedroom.
•  Parents can set up browsers for kids of a certain age that are very effective, such as NetNanny.
• You can also try keyloggers, which are undetectable to the user but help you see where the child goes online–what they type, chats, screen grabs–and it can send an e-mail to you at work telling you if something objectionable is going on. But software does not replace parental intervention.

CR: How does Internet safety affect younger kids versus older kids?
JL: It depends on the age, but every child is affected. For example, search engines can be tricked. Some pornography sites can be keyworded with “Mickey Mouse” or “Disney,” search terms young kids may look up. Web sites for “hate” groups will do the same thing, hoping to find recruits. It’s not the kid’s fault.

For younger kids, parents can install browser software geared toward them. The sites they’re directed to are very safe and educational, with games and quizzes. Moderated chat rooms that are geared for children are also OK. Since kids as young as seven may be able to crack those software programs, you can set up child protective software that only allows the computer to be available during certain hours of the day, such as 4 to 6 p.m.

See our related reports, Social networking: Kids at risk and Safe surfing for kids, for more information.

--Artemis DiBenedetto