Internet Monitoring - Part 2

In my first part of this series I talked about our need as parents to engage in our children’s use of the internet and that we need to establish guidelines. I touched on why I feel this is so and clarified what my guidelines are with the main one being that we must talk to our children. As promised, I stated that I would follow that article up with a second one discussing some of the ways in which we, as parents, can actively or passively monitor our children’s usage of the internet.

Specifically I will try not to deal in absolutes but out of necessity I will occasionally touch on specific software or services. Secondly due to the fact that the majority of those who will find this article most useful will be those using Windows of some variety - then most of my posting will apply to that platform. The generic advice though can be utilised on any platform but some specifics can be ignored. For example it is widely accepted that the Mac and *nix platforms don’t require active anti-virus software but that this is a necessity with Windows.

What I won’t be doing in this post is delving into the ins and outs of good security practice but I will presume that you have and are using a firewall (hardware or software or both); anti-virus and performing a regular scan for malware. See here for an in-depth series on free versus paid security software.

The first thing I need to re-clarify is that unless you are under orders from a boss (but then again I am discussing home use) then all of the following fall in to the category of “must discuss with my child and advise on what and why I am doing what I’m doing”. So if you employ an internet filter then advise your child that this is the case and that you will periodically review the sites visited or blocked. If you use a keystroke logger, then likewise advise but make sure they understand the consequences of what this tool does.

You may have gathered that I am an advocate for talking things through and not just blindly applying rules and regulations. However I do accept that there are some situations where discussion is moot and if you are applying sanctions then you’ve likely exhausted discussion and blocking or restricting access is the only solution. Again, this is not the aim of this post and I’m not in the market for telling you how to parent but am trying to provide you, the reader, with practical information that can help you.

Before getting down to the nuts and bolts let me add one other comment - if you don’t understand any of what I’m saying then please ask for details and I will expand in future articles. Alternatively, find a friendly nerd or geek or even a teenager and ask them. Do start to investigate the technology you use and begin to learn about it. Finally I need to add that nothing is perfect and that enterprising children can find ways around most things.

The rule of thumb for any of the software categories mentioned here is to never ever write down your password(s) and to change them on a regular basis. Secondly you need to ensure you review the logs and test the system on a regular basis to ensure it is doing what it says on the tin.

One final caveat – don’t just blindly install a product because it’s free or says it does what you want it to do. Investigate it first and check out if there are any reviews that will guide you. One site I use to check software is SpywareGuide.

OK. So what do we want to monitor?

Well the most obvious category is the actual websites our children want to visit. As shown in my last article, recent research by The Consumer Panel shows that “57% of nine to nineteen-year-olds who go online once a week have been exposed to online pornography and 38% have been exposed to pornographic pop-up advertising while doing something unrelated to pornography on their computer”. It added that 10% of the children studied had deliberately visited these sites - possibly because a friend had given them the link – this is what happened when my then young teen decided to visit, so I’m told, a popular porn site.

There are three basic approaches to internet filtering.

· Do nothing

· Use a Category based URL filter

· Use a walled garden

Typically the walled garden approach is the most restrictive. In this environment only pre-approved URLs are accessible and to access anything not on the list usually entails going through a process of either amending a white list or contacting the provider of the service and requesting they allow the URL. There is a down side here in that you may get directed to less common resources, or those with biased views as they have come to an agreement with the provider. There is nothing wrong with this but it does need to be clarified.

This type of service is typically secure in that it is provided by a third party so that the children can’t alter it but usually they are easy to get around as it is just a manual re-direction of the browser. Of course one could always lock down the browser interface which is yet another post. The main benefit of this service though is that there is nothing to maintain or setup other than the browser re-direction.

The biggest walled garden access to the internet is in China with, I recall reading recently, some 10 to 40,000 people employed to monitor internet access!

The second approach is to use a dedicated piece of software that installs on your machine. Typically, said software has several important areas – the first to my mind is how easy is it to circumvent the software, the second is does it update its categories and the third is does it allow me to secure the settings with a password of my choice?

The reality is that the first is only likely to be found out in use or by looking to see if others have reported vulnerabilities with the software. By category updates we simply mean the company behind the software regularly add and review websites in their stated categories. Last, but certainly not least is the password protection. If you can’t apply a password then don’t use the software. Beyond these three basics I would suggest you need to do some research based on what you want from the software.

As a guide, here’s one review that discusses 10 different software packages that will protect you to one degree or another. Here’s another and here’s one more that isn’t a review but lists age categories the product is suitable for. For what it’s worth though, the first linked review’s top rated software is one I would never use but that’s based on them once threatening to sue me because I tried to tell them of a bug in the early version of their software. So yes I’m biased.

But should you use one? Well really only you can answer that but filtering can have a positive impact as well as the controlling one.

If you filter, typically categories such as phishing, pharming, malware and other such nasties then these have one less chance of getting on to your machine. Secondly you could opt to push all internet traffic through a proxy and garner the benefits of caching more frequently visited pages and graphics. Apart from the added side benefit of reporting that proxies can usually provide.

Finally filtering can help to keep one legal – a phrase my teenager has heard more times than he cares (from his mother as well as myself) is “when you live on your own and you are responsible for you, then you can do what you want”. In short we will discuss his requirement to access P2P content and he will put his reasons forward. I, for my part, will listen patiently and then explain why it is illegal and why I’m not allowing it on my network. For his part he will then continue to keep trying to find ways around my setup (so far that’s a negative) and I expect nothing less from a bright, inquisitive teen.

(to be continued)

[tags]internet, monitoring, children, safety, security, guidelines, parents, software[/tags]