Internet safety for parents

[Mercutio]

Earlier in the week I had a conversation with the parent of a 13 year old girl. She asked me how she could be sure her little darling/hellion was being safe on the internet.

I got the impression that her idea of what "safe" was meant an internet that ended at disney.com, but just the same, it's a topic I haven't given much thought and I really could not answer her questions about filtering software or activity logs at all.

So I've kind of been kicking around some thoughts about what would be worthwhile topics for discussion in a class about what a Parent might want to know about what their kid is doing on the Internet. It seems like fertile ground to me.

I'm thinking of the kinds of things a tween/teen would do online, rather than a younger child.

1. Popular "Teen" sites - Myspace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Journalspace, Blogger, flickr etc.
2. Parental Control/Internet Monitoring software
3. Instant Messaging Programs and Features esp. Voice and Video chat
4. Peer to Peer downloading software (Limewire)
5. Legal Download services (iTMS, MTV Zone, Napster etc)
6. ESRB Game Ratings & what they mean (aka Why you don't want your 8 year old playing Grand Theft Auto)
7. Features of Internet Enabled Games and Console Systems
8. Refillable Debit Cards (e.g. Visa Buxx) and single-use Credit Card Services
9. Privacy Protection
10. Downloads and Spyware
11. Advertising that targets kids

Those are things I can think of off the top of my head, but some of you are actual parents, some of you have even had children in the age of the Internet. Can anyone see anything else I might want to research or discuss in such a class?

 

[MaxBurn]

I know nothing of this sort of "net nanny" parental monitoring/limiting software but I can't figure that it will catch everything. I would suggest teaching parental involvement instead of having them look for software that will watch the kid instead of them doing what they should be doing. Set hours of access? Moving the computer into the living room/family room and out of the bedrooms? Maybe a little goatsecx or style project example session to let them know what's actually available out there and to scare them into taking an interest in actively monitoring whats going on in their kids on line lives?

I don't know about the refillable visa idea, I would want to know what my kids were ordering and have them come to me for purchases. But they have to learn somehow...

The really scary part? Actually having kids, I can't imagine.

 

[LiamC]

Smoothwall. Turn on Web proxy (transparent).

This will log the IP of every machine on your network, the URL's they connected to and the time at which they did so. Yes it can be used to snoop, but is it any worse than what web companies do without your knowledge?

Personally, I only use it for the Web proxying, I almost never look at the proxy log.

 

[sechs]

I agree with MaxBurn. You need to touch on "How to be a Parent in the Internet Age." Stuff like keeping the computer where you can see it (even if you don't look); monitoring what your children are doing on the Internet while at home *and* elsewhere, *and* letting them know that you're doing it; and talking to your children about how to behave and protect themselves on the Internet.

I'd suggest that, if a parent isn't willing to either monitor their children closely, or give them liberty and suffer the consequences, then they should simply not let their children use the Internet.

 

[ddrueding]

I'd suggest that, if a parent isn't willing to either monitor their children closely, or give them liberty and suffer the consequences, then they should simply not let their children use the Internet.

I agree completely. I had a client approach me on this subject a while ago. He started asking about software that could make the internet "safe". The first thing I touched on was that no matter what he did, his kids would be able to see anything they wanted (and likely stuff they didn't). I said that even with a security plan in place; he still needed to have talks with his kids to prepare them for what they might see. We touched on myspace, social networking, peer pressure, IM, internet predators, putting personal info on the web, and many other things. What we ended up doing was putting a nice screencap surveillence app on all the machines so he can see what they're doing all the time, and him having a very informative talk with his kids (which led to "the talk" - good for him).

 

[RWIndiana]

Smoothwall. Turn on Web proxy (transparent).

This will log the IP of every machine on your network, the URL's they connected to and the time at which they did so. Yes it can be used to snoop, but is it any worse than what web companies do without your knowledge?

Personally, I only use it for the Web proxying, I almost never look at the proxy log.

What are you talking about here, is it a program or the Linux distro? If it's a program, could one run it on a Linux file server connected to the local network?

 

[Tannin]

www.smoothwall.org