by Scully 34 Replies latest social family
What kind of measures do other parents take to help kids navigate the internet safely?
I hate MSN and other IMing programs - there's far too much potential for mischief with that service available.
Are there some easy ways to block sites or ISPs? Or is it better to set it up with approved sites only?
What about time limits? Are there programs that will automatically turn off the computer after a certain amount of login time per day?
Well it might be a good idea for kids to earn Internet Access, for example, give your kids some chores around the house and earn some Internet priveleges. I would not call it curbing, but I think it is beneficial.
Also, be sure that you can see the computer where your kids will be using.
First off... How young are these kids?
Are they very tech savy? Personally, I have yet to come across a filter or blocker that I couldn't bypass. But then again, I've had unsupervised internet access practically every day since I was 13, and I have yet to get myself molested, lose all my money, or anything else dangerous.
(But on the other hand, I do stuff on the computer that would probably send my parents into seizures if they found out. IE: I changed religious beliefs for one thing!)
Could I ask what prompted this sudden desire for censorship?
Lore
I know that our internet provider provides parental controls with their software. For instance, my son is 11. His email account is set up so that we have to approve who he emails to, who is added to his address book and who he can receive emails from. It also emails us once per week information on the sites that he visits.
We also have him earn computer time. And the computer with internet access is in public family area. He is not allowed to have one in his room, at this point. And when he does have one in his room, it won't have internet access.
In my opinion, trying to technologically filter your kid's access is going at the problem from the wrong end. Discuss with them what sites they should and should not visit, so they will no what you expect of them. Also, keeping the computer in a common room is a good idea. While they're surfing, periodically ask them what they're doing. Maintain an interest in what they're watching.
Finally, realize that not everything can be protected against. Sometimes we have to trust kids to make good decisions.
AOL is our service provider and we can block absolutely anything we want including emails, web browsing, chat rooms, control time etc.
It has never been a problem for us as AOL act as our 'babysitter' when the kids are on line and we can limit them to one hour a day and we both have the balls to just switch the computer off at the plug if they refuse to come off it!
It's all about them knowing what it is all right to do and what is not, and that we will enforce what we say!
My eldest son was a total moron when on the computer. I cut his internet access at age 18 onwards to 'children's settings' after finding porn on the computer and checking what sites he had been on. I then cut his time. Finally he was removed as a member of our computer users list and THAT as they say is the END of THAT! When you have children as young as six on your computer you Cannot allow an idiot to mess with your computer. He actually put 126 viruses on our computer! Idiot!!
Skully,
I'm inclined to agree with John Doe.
I've controlled the internet access of adults in the workplace (Who actually act very much like children when it comes to the internet) and while it certainly can be done, it's a more daunting and time consuming task than it sounds like even when you have the proper resources. (e.g. GFI Web Monitor running on an MS ISA server --My "weapon" of choice.)
A lot depends on the level of computer expertise you are trying to control, but the downfall of client based solutions (Software that installs on the machine the user is accessing the web from) is that they can usually be defeated at the client level.
For example, there's free software out there that will defeat and disable most Windows blocking schemes including Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, Surf Watch and Cyber Sitter. Most computer savy teens know this.
Gateway based approaches work much better, but unfortunately, aside from whatever controls your ISP might provide, most homes don't have a gateway that can be controlled
Take the typical home network topology for example:
Cable/DSL Modem ----> Router ----> Desktop(s) and Laptop(s)
The gateway here is the router itself and the computers are all peers. While some home type routers do allow you to create blocklists and shut down ports used by IM software, most don't.
Even with a gateway based approach, there will always be holes. For example it's possible to modify URL's in ways that defeat AOL's parental controls. For a long, long time, this could be done just by adding an extra dot at the end of a blocked site's address.
The kids at my daughter's high school had a good laugh a year or two ago when they found out that is was possible to modify the URL for Google's "Translate this page" option to set the source and target languages both to English. This completely fooled the Symantec Gateway Securty software the school was running and allowed them to veiw any web content they wanted.
KidSafe Security Key - http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/936f/, one option.
Try to raise the kid right. (And I'm not referring to you specifically, Scully, but all of us parents.) If you think you have reason to believe something is going on that shouldn't be, become technically savvy enough to monitor their computer use. If you can't, restrict their access. Don't let them have a PC in their bedrooms. If they prove to be untrustworthy, shut off access completely.
My son is six. He's not old enough to be that technically savvy, but he still has a locked down profile on the PC, which is in the living room. He can't do much of anything on it but run the applications he has icons for on the desktop, even if he knew how.
With Internet access, start from a state of no access at all, then allow them access to the sites you want to let them have access to. Check logs on occasion to make sure they haven't bypassed the security. If you even suspect that they have, lock it down completely.
Hopefully, we raise our kids to be more trustworthy than this, but...
KidSafe Security Key - http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/936f/, one option.
--Would slow my teen down by about 20 minutes. --Driver would not survive a rollback to an earlier Ghost or True Image of the C partition
