Computer
Location
The ultimate defense against exposing your child to inappropriate material on
the Internet is to have a computer for schoolwork that is not connected to the
Internet. If your family updates the home computer to a newer model the
old computer can be used for word processing, spreadsheets, and other basic
functions without the distractions of instant messenger and email. If you
have such a computer, it can be placed in a quiet area of the home for study and
writing.
If you have only one computer that is shared by the entire family it should
be located in a common area that has a high traffic pattern. Never
install a computer connected to the Internet in a child's bedroom.
Kitchens and family rooms are choice areas. The constant and unpredictable
passing of family members will reduce the probability a child will involve
themselves in inappropriate activity and increase the likelihood someone else in
the family will observe any intended or unintended inappropriate activity.
Rules of Use
Clear rules of use should be established for any child that will use the
Internet. The basic questions of Who, What, and When should be clearly
answered.
Who is allowed to use the Internet connected computer?
Children of different ages should have different Rules of Use. For
example, very young children might not be allowed to use an Internet
connected computer under any circumstances. A slightly older child
might be permitted supervised use only. An even older child might be
permitted unsupervised use.
What are the permissible activities when using the computer?
There should be a clear statement of permissible activities. For
example, you might permit your child to use an Internet connected computer
in your home to search the Internet for information relating to school work,
or visit a teacher's web site. However, you might not permit the child
to install or use Instant Messenger or Email. You might permit the
child to listen to music on the computer from the CD-ROM drive, but not
permit them to install and use peer-to-peer music download programs such as
Napster or Kazaa. The important thing is to establish the rules for
each child, discuss them, and apply them.
When can the computer be used?
You should establish times when your children can use the Internet
computer and specify the types of activity they might engage in. For
example, you might tell your high school age child they can use the computer
at any time specifically for writing papers or doing research for school
work. You might also say that they can use email two times a day for
no longer than 30 minutes. You might also say that Instant Messenger
can only be used between 8PM and 8:30PM. The important thing is to set
the rules, discuss them with the child, and apply them.
Contracts
Particularly for younger children, contracts can be very useful to set out
the guidelines for using the Internet and provide them with actions they might
take in certain circumstances. An example of a contract produced by the
Children's Partnership for a younger child can be viewed by
Clicking Here.
Random
Interruption
A parent should practice the "pop-in" when a child is using an Internet
connected computer, by walking by the computer area randomly. When you
"pop-in" you should be aware of your child closing windows or moving the full
screen window to the icon tray at the bottom of the computer screen. They
can icon windows with remarkable speed, but if you are aware of the icon tray
you will be able to see what was open just as you approached.
Individual Accounts
Newer operating systems, such as Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Mac OSX
support multiple user logins. Parents should hold the Administrator
account name and password. It should not be shared with children. You can
then create additional accounts for your children to use. There are now
some control techniques that can be applied in this manner to the basic
operating system, and applications such as Internet Explorer, Windows Media
Player, and others.
If you use Windows you should visit Microsoft's page of links to help protect
children at the following address. It gives specific instructions on how
to setup individual user accounts and set specific controls in applications.:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/articles/childrenonline.asp
Review Browser History
Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator maintain a
history of web sites that are visited. For example, the default settings
in Internet Explorer are to maintain 20 days of history. If click on the
History button at the top of the web browser screen a column will open up on the
left side. In that column will be the last 20 days of web sites visited.
You can browse through that list to see what sites are being visited.
For specific instructions on how to set this up in Internet Explorer visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/using/howto/history/button.asp
Search *jpg and *gif
Older children quickly learn that the history of their web browsing will be
stored on the local computer and can be viewed. To prevent this from
happening they will often reset the history settings to maintain 1 or 0 days of
history. In addition, they will delete the history. You can control this
by setting up individual accounts as described in the
Individual Accounts section.
If you have not yet setup Individual accounts you can still get a sense of
what users of the computer are looking at - even if the History has been
deleted.
When you visit a web site on the Internet you are not really viewing the
original copy on the hosting server. Rather, a copy of the page you
requested is downloaded to your computer to a temporary internet files directory
and you are viewing it from there. These files are maintained on your
computer until they exceed a designated amount of space, then they are replaced
newest for oldest.
The result is that a large amount of files are stored in these directories.
Web pages are mostly comprised of photographs. So, you can search the
computer to find these web pages and photographs.
To do this you simply search the computer as follows:
Click on Start
Click on Search
Click on Files or Folders
In the block that says "Search for files or folders named:"
Type in the following *.htm
Click on Search Now
Your computer will then search the entire hard drive for any files that have the
file extension .htm (web pages)
They will appear in the box to the right. You can scan them and sort them there
by date and time. This will give you a sense of what types of sites are being
visited and when they were visited.
When you have finished searching for *.htm files you should then search for
picture files. Most web pages are really made up of several pictures.
They are identified by the file extension .jpg and .gif.
To search for them you should follow the same instructions as above but
subsititute *.jpg for *.htm and then do the same with *.gif.
This will also give you an indication of what types of web sites are being
visited.
The temporary internet files can also be deleted by your child. Once again,
this is why it is good to setup Individual
Accounts on your computer and restrict what functions they can perform.
Antivirus Software
It is very important that you install and maintain Antivirus Software on your
computer. This is to protect the entire family from a host of problems.
The major vendors for Antivirus software are Symantec (Norton Antivirus) and
McAfee. There are many others that can provide very good antivirus
protection. If you are going to protect your system from harmful worms, viruses,
and trojan horses you must:
1. Buy and install an antivirus program
2. Ensure you renew the annual license. These systems depend on
lists that are updated near daily. When your annual subscription runs out you
can no longer dowload the lists. Shortly after your system will no longer be
protected.
3. Schedule LiveUpdate to run daily to obtain up-to-date lists of definitions.
4. Schedule Full Scans of your computer at least weekly.
5. Enable Realtime protection and email protection.
Privacy Protection
Software
A growing problem for many Internet users is the irritation of pop-ups.
Pop-ups are caused by "spyware" that is redirecting your computer to advertising
pages. They are irritating and sometimes harmful in content.
To prevent this problem from occurring on your computer you should be careful
about the sites you visit and the responses you give to information boxes that
might appear.
You can set options in Internet Explorer to be more restrictive and protect
your privacy.
You can install third party software specifically for the purpose of finding
and eliminating spyware from your computer. Ad-Aware is an award
winning freeware that can be installed on your computer and clear it of spyware.
You can obtain it for free by visiting
http://www.twocows.com
and searching for Ad-Aware. Another freeware program that can be obtained
at twocows is spybot. It too is very effective in finding and eliminating
spyware from you computer.
Another type of pop-up that might occur on your computer is one that appears
when you are not browsing the Internet. At any hour a screen with an
advertisement or some other irritating message might appear, normally in a gray
rectangular box. These messages are being sent as broadcasts through a
network. You can prevent them by a number of methods. It is best to
review Microsoft's article: "Messenger Service Window That Contains an Internet
Advertisement Appears" at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330904
Parental
Controls
Parental controls can be very effective in limiting a child's access to many
activities on your computer. The major Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
AOL and MSN have built-in parental controls that are very effective.
Instructions for setting up parental controls for AOL can be found at
http://www.aol.com/info/parentcontrol.html
Instructions for setting up parental controls for MSN can be found at
http://www.microsoft.com/security/articles/childrenonline.asp
If you are a COMCAST or Verizon DSL broadband user you will need to use the
Internet Explorer controls and operating system user accounts to enforce control
or you can purchase a third party product for this purpose.
PC Magazine conducted a review of several parental control applications.
They all have their own strengths and weaknesses. CyberSitter won the
Editor's Choice Award. The results of that review can be viewed by
Clicking Here.
Parental controls can be very effective in controlling a broad array of your
child's activities on the computer. The amount of time they can spend on
the computer, the times they can be on, the sites they can visit, instant
messenger or not, etc. etc. The key to using them successfully is the
parent's inclination to understand how to use them. If you are going to
ask your child how to set it up you may as well not set it up at all.
Activity
Monitors
This is a very detailed monitoring tool. You can record every screen your
child sees and every letter they type. You can store it and review at your
convenience or you can set it up to permit you to observe their activity live
from another computer in the house or at the office.
There are trust and privacy issues in many of the categories listed here, but
this category represents the greatest challenge.
Two popular applications in this category are Kid Defender
http://www.kiddefender.com and Spector
Pro http://www.spectorsoft.com/
You should also know that these tools can be used against you by your child
or a hacker. They are commonly used to record key strokes in order to
obtain passwords. If your child is skilled in computer technology and
wants to obtain your password this is a common way to do it.
Firewalls
Firewalls are a very powerful tool in defending your computer or home
network. They can stop unwanted communications, deter hackers, and filter
web sites.
Particularly if you are using a broadband connection (e.g. Comcast or Verizon
DSL), you should have some type of firewall in place. A software firewall
is adequate for a single computer. Windows XP has a built-in firewall function.
Zone Alarm Pro http://www.zonelabs.com and
Norton Personal Firewall
http://www.symantec.com are two popular software firewalls. PC
Magazine conducted a recent review of this type application that can be viewed
at
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1370707,00.asp
If you have more than one computer in your home (especially wireless) or wish
to improve security with relative ease you should purchase a hardware
router/gateway/firewall device. They are cheap (in many cases under
$100) and effective. Particularly if you have several computers in the
home, you should have a hardware router/gateway/firewall. There are a variety of
vendors out there for these products. Netgear
http://www.netgear.com is a large
manufacturer of hardware devices that can improve the security of your home
network.
If you are not comfortable about the security of your home network or setting
up these devices you should consider hiring technical support to help you with
its implementation. Massachusetts Technology Solutions, Inc.
(http://www.masstechsolutions.com)
