Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Dangers of the Internet - The Internet Buddy System


I want to share a vital shmira, and I received this from my rebbe, that any Jew who must expose himself to the internet, for whatever reason, must make sure that he does not access the internet without some sort of supervision or accountability. This would usually be accomplished in the form of some kind of internet buddy, where you install software on every computer you have access to, which reports any problematic sites you may visit to whatever trusted person you designate (wife, chevrusa, whatever).

I heard one person comment that if computers existed in the time of Chazal, then they surely would have made an issur yichud with a computer. Since that is not the case, for those of us who do need to use the internet, I'm putting this out there as an important safeguard on what we look at with our eyes.

I don't feel comfortable sharing the link to the software that I use for this purpose at this time, until I can find out if it is appropriate to share the name of the website that manufactures it publicly in the Jewish community.

I did just want to share this idea to help us not fall into the various pitfalls of blogging and being involved with the internet. Kol tuv!

-Dixie Yid

5 comments:

yitz said...

what would b great would be if I could just capture my entire click-stream and publish it to my blog automatically.. that way anyone who wanted could visit my blog and see exactly what I just last clicked on...

this would be ideal, because it would make me more aware of HaShem always watching me.

DixieYid (يهودي جنوبي) said...

Wow! Now that would really be a an unbelievable shmira!!!

Can you design something like that. I looked on your CV and see that you're a versetile programer and even have some experimental web utilities you've worked on.

Something like what you're suggesting would really serve a great need for Klal Yisroel.

Just throwing out ideas: Even if it didn't get published on the web, it could be e-mailed to someone of your choice.

Also, if you ever disabled it, it would show that as well to wherever your clicks are being posted/published/e-mailed/whatever.

Please consider this!

-Dixie Yid

Anonymous said...

I like this buddy system. It makes sense. Can you email me the name of the program you use?

Anonymous said...

I have written a follow up post on this subject that may be useful to the Jewish community and internet users.

Link: http://www.ajewishblog.com/an-internet-filter-to-protect-the-jewish-community/

Anonymous said...

sorry, link again:
Internet protection