Code of Conduct for Computer and Internet Use

The internet has made everyday tasks much easier, letting us share information with each other in an instant. But using a computer or the internet without knowing or following the right rules can create real problems. Trusting a friend made only through a screen can sometimes lead to private information leaking out, causing financial loss too. Digital theft and scams are reported often enough that being careful matters. This is why knowing and following a code of conduct is so important.

A long list of rules is hard to remember and easy to argue with. It becomes much easier once you see that every rule on the list comes from the same three differences between talking to someone online and standing in front of them.

Read the rules below with those three in mind and they stop feeling like a list somebody invented. Do not give personal details to a stranger, because you cannot see who the stranger is. Do not post a photo that shows you are away from home, because it goes further than you meant it to. Every rule is one of these three differences turned into something you can actually do.

Some simple rules can keep us much safer online.

• Never give personal details, such as your name, birth date, age, or mobile number, to someone you do not know.
• Never share someone's personal information without their permission.
• Never share your password with anyone.
• Never save a password automatically on a computer that other people also use.
• Never post a personal or group photo without the permission of everyone in it.
• Never create a social media account using someone else's name.
• Report a stolen or hacked account to the Nepal Police cyber bureau or another official authority right away.
• Tell a parent or teacher right away if a stranger tries to get close to you or sends unwanted messages on social media.
• Never open an email without checking who sent it, and never open spam mail or forward it to others.
• Never trust a message about winning a prize or a reward you did not expect, since it may be an attempt to steal personal information.
• Never upload a photo on social media that reveals where you are, or that you are away from home, to people who should not know that.

Students often say that not sharing a password means not trusting your friends, and it feels unfair. It is worth answering that properly, because the rule is not about trust at all. A password is not a promise, it is a key. The moment two people know it, it stops being a secret and becomes a shared piece of information, and shared information travels.

Your friend might be completely honest and still lose it for you. They might type it on a shared computer that saves it automatically. They might tell one other person, meaning no harm at all. Their phone might be borrowed by a cousin for an afternoon. None of that requires anyone to be dishonest. It only requires a secret to have left one head, which is why the rule is about how information behaves, not about how much you like someone.

Messages about unexpected prizes are on the rules list, but knowing the technique behind them protects you far better than remembering one example. Almost every scam is built the same way, and once you can see the shape you will recognise the ones you have never met before.

First it offers something good or threatens something bad, so that you feel a strong pull. Then it makes you hurry, with a deadline, a countdown, or a warning that the offer ends today. The hurry is the important part. A person who stops to think will almost always spot the problem, so the whole trick depends on stopping you from thinking. Finally it asks for something small: a name, a phone number, a code sent to your phone, a click on a link. Small enough to feel harmless, which is exactly why it is asked for last.

Some of the rules on the list are not about protecting yourself at all. Not sharing someone's personal information, not posting a group photo without asking, not making an account in another person's name: all three protect somebody else, and it is easy to skip past them because breaking them costs you nothing.

A group photo is the clearest case. The photo belongs to you because you took it, but the faces in it do not. Everyone in that picture is deciding something about themselves when they choose whether to be seen online, and posting it takes that decision away from them without asking. Asking first takes about four seconds. It also means that when somebody asks you, you know exactly why they are doing it.

This is the most important part of the whole topic, and it is the part most often skipped. Sometimes a rule gets broken. A password gets shared, a link gets clicked, a stranger gets an answer. When that happens, the single most dangerous thought a student can have is that telling an adult will get them into trouble, because that thought is exactly what makes a small problem grow into a large one.

Reporting early almost always works. A password changed within the hour usually costs nothing at all. An account reported to the Nepal Police cyber bureau while the trail is fresh is far easier to deal with. A stranger reported to a parent or teacher on the first message is a much smaller problem than the same stranger a month later. Speed matters more than anything else here, and the only thing that slows people down is embarrassment. That is not a good enough reason.