LocalMommy.com

Child Safe Internet

12th October, 2008 - Posted by LocalMommy -

Hello Students ,

I have been tasked by LocalMommy to give tips and  advice on computers, internet, and various other “techie” information. As you’ve already guessed, this is LocalMommy’s “techie” husband.  I will occasionally give technical advice listed in the Techie Tips Category.  Today lets talk about making you home computer safe for you children.  There are many products out there to assist you in doing this.  When we got married I inherited teenagers, we now also have a 2.5 year old (my first biological). Back to the teenagers, (since the little one hasn’t got on the internet yet…..not that he hasn’t tried) but checking the “cache” and “internet history” I quickly seen we had a problem.

We had the typical talk about what is acceptable to surf on the internet and what is not, and all was well……….Sure it was.  Fortunately the teenagers were not savvy enough to cover their tracks or I was to computer savvy.  I discovered that the “talks” did not do so well.  Back then Internet Security Suites (Antivirus/Firewalls) did not offer Parental controls.  So I purchased a copy of Net-Nanny and this did a fantastic job.  Over the years we have upgraded computers and added more computers etc.  Interent Security Suites have also added parental controls.  These work great also.  I have used Symantec’s Nortons Internet Security (which done the job), but in the last 2 years I have been using Trend Micro’s Internet Security Suite.  I no longer use Net nanny since I have TM’s ISS.  I launched the parental controls and added a password so that the wife and I can disable if need be, because sometimes the filters will filter sites that are not necessarily dangerous or “bad”.  They have generic filters to disable hate sites, gambling sites, hack sites, adult sites, dating sites, and many others.  The best thing though is they have a specific area where you can add your own blocks.  Example:  If I want to block Myspace then I can add Myspace.com to the filter or use wildcards such as *myspace* and then anything with myspace in the url no matter the beggining or end will be blocked.  These are great tools, but don’t stop reading yet…..class isn’t over.  Teenagers are very very sneaky and smart, and where there’s a will there’s a way.  Enter PROXIES.  Yes most of you have never heard of them.  Basically they are a website that for the most part is not dangerous or on lists to be block, but kids go to them and then via the proxy they can bypass your filter.  Back to my example of myspace.  Kids will just go to site like proxyunlimited.com and then enter myspace into proxy’s url box and viola…..your there.  The parental control only sees the proxy’s url and doesn’t see the what is entered into the proxy so all info is passed and the teens rejoice. That is why in my parental list I also block *proxy* This sometimes is bothersome too such as the RSS feed from LocalMommy is http://feedproxy.google.com/Localmommycom so since it has proxy in the name it is blocked.  Its kind of like juggling sometimes but its worth it.  All I have to do is disable parental controls when I log on by entering my password and all is good……just don’t forget to enable it when you log off.  Hopefully this will enable you parents to outwit those tricky teens.  If you have any questions on this subject just post a comment and I will reply.  I will also try to give techie tips at least once a week.

R/

Todd