This site is a god-send for a culture full of fanatical social networking fans, but not many security buffs. Everybody these days has a MySpace, FaceBook, or some other form of Internet profile. Through these, friends stay in touch, people meet new people, and even businesses are run! While this all sounds good and dandy, it would be naïve and idyllic to believe that these sites only bring good things to the table. After losing our hedonistic outlooks, the fact of the matter these communication websites can be dangerous if not used correctly, and it’s scary how many people don’t use them correctly.

Enter ConnectSafely.com. This site is full of information. news, and guides to educate, inform, and help to protect social networking users online. Upon first entry, you’ll see that the site is quite aesthetically pleasing. A soft white background provides a perfect backdrop for nativity scenes of the information generation, skateboarders with iPods, kids using video cameras, and especially the woman on the computer. A quick viewing of the “About Us” page shows that the site is totally non-profit, and its sole aim is to propagate safety knowledge and make young people and adults more aware and cognizant of their roles online and how to become more safe.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (from here mentioned as the appropriate epithet EPIC) is an organization dedicated to identifying emerging civil rights issues and take action on them, and protecting privacy, and let the information age tear down  the people’s Constitutional rights.

Epic.org is one of the world’s leading privacy sites, and publishes the esteemed EPIC alert every two weeks, which highlights and raises awareness about struggles for civil and privacy rights all over the globe, along with other publications similar in nature. EPIC has always been an advocator of comprehensive personal privacy safeguards.

Along with these publications, EPIC propagates their righteous message through their website. The home page is loaded with the latest news in descending order, and everything on there is pertinent; no shameless self-advertising or pushing other websites. At the top of the site is easy-to-navigate buttons that can transport you from the home page, to a biographical one, to an online store, press, etc. This makes the site very user friendly and allows even an apprentice of the Internet to get what they need. On either side of the main articles are offshoots of the site, such as a search bar, a topic system, and a whole bunch of goings-on. The search bar is very useful as the site has accumulated tons of articles, and they can all be quickly sorted by a couple keystrokes of the information you wish to obtain.

EPIC realizes that not everyone likes to visit a website to get their information, or just wishes to connect further. Being that EPIC is for the people, they connect on the people’s level. They offer links to an EPIC FaceBook, Twitter, and for those utilizing RSS feeds, they broadcast in this way.

Privacy Gourmet is a useful Internet site that deals with a key issue of today’s Internet users: Getting and remaining anonymous and safe online.

Arranged in an easy-to-navigate post-by-post format, the site is quite user-friendly. The most recent posts are at the top, while older posts get closer to the bottom of the page, and once the page ends, there is a button that allows you to access even older posts.

It could get tedious clicking back over and over again to get to the older posts, but luckily there is a handy “Archives” function that sorts all posts by year and month.

If you are simply looking for information on a particular subject, and don’t know the date of the post, there is a “Categories” function. Each post is classified before it is uploaded, and then sorted into the specific category.

“CyberArmy” begins with a heavily detailed and slightly humorous trip through its history, which gets you up to speed on the site and its purpose. They advocate a self-regulated Internet, meaning an internal police system…. They have been responsible for the shutdown of almost 100 child pornographers!

Easy to navigate, CyberArmy has all of its links in the top of its page. This allows for one-click access to whatever you wish to browse. A log-in function is always located in the side of the screen too, so you don’t have to fumble around the site forever to try and login, as some pages require.

With a Army theme, the site is hard not to love. Each registered user (quick and easy to do so) gets a military rank. Beginners start out as a Recruit, and you can advance throughout the system all the way up to the head honcho, the CinC. The camaraderie between the site’s members is as palpable as the bonds that hold actual servicemen together.