According to the NSPCC, three out of four children have since images on the ‘internet’ that have disturbed them.

The poll has renewed calls for the computer software manufacturers to make sure they install security which will stop children seeing this explicitly violent or sexual activity.

Policy advisor Zoe Hilton said:  “Children are just a few clicks away from innocently stumbling across upsetting or even dangerous pictures and films such as adult sex scenes, violent dog fights, people self-harming and children being assaulted.”

Guess this isn’t surprising. There have been some occasions where I’ve found images which even I’ve found disturbing, and I’m quite a liberal person.

However my opinion is that the responsibility for this is still very much about the mums and dads. The same with television, where it is the responsibility of parents to make sure they know what they are looking at late at night - computer manufacturers can put all the security controls they want - it needs to be activated by parents and you wouldn’t be surprised if clever kids could bypass the controls anyway.

This means no television or moniors in bedrooms, and for parents to be always conscious to what their kids are looking at - a quick flick through the history of a browser would show you what they’ve been looking at.

My liberal bent always thinks that kids shouldn’t be mollycoddled. My attitude towards videos was that kids should be able to watch scary movies meant for adults - at some point they will find it out anyway.

With the net it’s different as from a few clicks on a Google search it is possible to find material which even I could recognise would screw me up for life if I was younger. However again I say to parents - what are you doing letting little kids surf by themselves anyway?

For teenagers I’m not sure -  Sooner or later they’re going to encounter this sort of stuff or have kids talk about it, and worldly self-aware teens aren’t going to be twisted by stuff which they’ve probably seen before.

As the medals are awarded in Beijing it looks like China are dominating all before them with a massive medal haul beating the USA into first place, with the UK doing astonishingly well this year.

However when it comes to the real competition - The Malware Olympics - it seems that the USA are beating allcomers with a massive amount of PC’s infected compared to the number two in Japan. It looks quite bad for the UK, who only get to a lowly ninth in the table.

Here’s the medal table courtesy of Trend Micro.

PC’s infected

1 USA                                 66,756,766

2 Japan                              10,654,594

3 Taiwan                            6,734,286

4 China                               3,711,602

5 Australia                         1,856,557

6 Spain                               1,548,261

7 France                             1,434,987

8 Netherlands                   466,071

9 United Kingdom            451,652

10 Turkey                         437, 849

I  am sure you’ll join me in a massive cheer for all the participants and it is sure to say that this a proud moment and great source for national pride.

Seven months in working as a Staff Writer at IT PRO… What can i say? Probably the best thing to do is in what my editor does - write a list based thing about what I’ve learned.

1 Journalists always complain about pay (especially me)

2 Some IT journalists are very strange. It’s a very incestious bunch.

3 IT journalists love getting free stuff - and won’t give it back unless prompted by the PR about fifty times.

4 Once you get a reputation in IT journalism, it’s very difficult to lose it.

5  You’re never sure if a PR is being friendly because they want you to write a story, or because they genuinely like you. I’m hoping they like me.

6 You only get back what you give.

7 Arrogance gets you nowhere.

8 I’m awful at podcasting, but I’m trying to get better.

9 I place a lot of importance in readers looking at my stories - hence I try to write good ones rather than rehashed press releases (as much as I can anyway).

10 If you give me free pints, I will drink as many as I can before the bar shuts.

11 I think IT PRO has a lot of potential, but we’re young and we’re still learning.

12 Lists are a good way of saying something if you’ve got nothing to say.

13 Facebook is the best social network and I’ve got too many drunk pics on it (that’s not directly related to IT PRO, but it seems to have happened more in the last six months).

14 I’m a reasonably decent journalist - This is pretty much my chosen career.

15 I’m really not geeky. I like tech like normal people - after a while I get bored and want to talk about something like movies or what club to go to.

16  Cycling to work is fun, and I’m glad Dennis got me a discounted bike.

17 Las Vegas is one of the maddest places I’ve ever been to. It’s like a cartoon world, but there’s no soul underneath.

18 I like writing about security, but I’m not exactly the best in practising what I preach.

19 I like free lunches.

20 I think I’ll be in tech journalism a long while yet.

Ah the press trip. The journalist’s reward for crap pay and long hours. And how about it - I’m going to Sin City tomorrow.

I’m covering the huge EMC World Conference in Manderlay Bay, so I’ll be hearing guys like Joe Tucci talking about storage for EMC and more interestingly for me thanks to my security beat Arthur Coviello talking about the security aspects for RSA.

 RSA is going to be interesting. So far in my five months working on security I’ve had a lot of contact with the big players - Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky, Sophos etc, as well as companies like Microsoft and IBM who place a lot of importance in the area.

 But it’s only recently I’ve been talking to RSA about the company, its plans and its future. I missed the RSA Conference in San Francisco - which was a shame as I would have been interested in a more US-centric view of security, and hear more about its well-known securID authentication technology.

 Ah Las Vegas. It seems a well-known place for tech folk to go there. I’m already aware of our editor going over there for a Lawson conference and our contributing editor Stephen Pritchard going over there for a Windows Mobile launch, but it’ll be the first time for little old Staff Writer me.

 I think I’ve watched enough Ocean films to know what to expect. I’ve got a sharp enough black suit so maybe I’lll try and do my best Brad or George impression walking around the strip. Maybe I’ll lose some money at the tables. Maybe see a strip show. Of course I’ll do some work - but I’m not likely to ever go to Vegas on my own time so I think I should make the best of it.

 One thing I was actually shocked about was how hot it was supposed to be. 31 degrees centigrade! That’s just crazy - Even with our hot spell the UK it only reached a few digits above 20. I should have figured though - it is a desert after all.

 Amongst all the gambling, touring and interviewing I’ve also got a chance to see the Goo Goo Dolls, known for a cracking song as few years ago called ‘Iris’. I do kind of like them, even if they are getting on a bit. I do find it quite funny though - what does a glammy type rock band has to do do with storage? I’m hoping next time they get Kiss to front an IBM show. That would rock.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Asavin Wattanajantra, I’m the new staff writer at IT PRO and I am very excited to have joined the team here to write news and features for the business and IT decision makers.

Longer term, I also hope to get my teeth stuck into the multimedia side of things such as pod casting and video.

The new year has seen a new start for me career-wise, so I’d like to offer up my predictions of what 2008 has in store for the industry…

Personally, my feeling for this year is that security (as always) is going to be big on everyone’s agenda. It’s a huge issue that companies, including the government given recent high-profile data breaches, are going to have to deal with. Last year saw a number of almost unbelievable security breaches, with personal details ‘disappearing’ to unknown destinations. Breaches like this should not have happened and must not be allowed to happen again, particularly considering that the government is planning on pushing ID card plans further this year.

Malware is also becoming more and more of a problem. This is something Windows Vista must be able to contend with if it is going to make the same impact as Windows XP has. This isn’t the only problem that Ballmer et al will have to deal with as Bill Gates finally leaves and Microsoft’s remaining leadership team begin the process of awakening the slumbering giant.

Apple will also have a big part to play this year, and although in my opinion it is doubtful that 2008 will be dominated by a product in the way the iPhone hogged the limelight in 2007, Steve Jobs is still likely to set much of IT’s future agenda.

Social networking and innovations like Facebook are also ones to watch this year, although I think that it remains to be seen what the future holds for Zuckerberg’s baby and whether it can keep up with the growing band of pretenders, including Cisco, who I predict is likely to have a big role in consumers’ access to social media this year.