surfing the Web, reading newsgroups, or using email, children can be exposed to extremely inappropriate material. Pornographic sites tend to make sure they are the first sites to be listed in any search area; thus, children come across such sites easily. A man from Pearl, Mississippi was arrested in 1996 for downloading pornographic images of children from the Internet. He was charged with 290 counts of child pornography . Some critics say that parents are responsible for their own children on the Internet because there are available services to protect children. To keep children safe, parents and teachers must be aware of the dangers. They must actively guide and guard their children online. Parents should talk to their children about what is online and what might happen online, claims Howard Rheingold, writer of The Virtual Community . There are a number of tools available today that may help keep the Internet environment safer for children. Some companies, such as America Online, try to monitor everything that is said and done on their online service; however, because thousands of chat rooms are available, it is simply impossible for everything to be monitored, claims Tricia Primrose, worker for America Online . In other words, children want to explore things; however, there are people on the Internet that are just too persuasive.