The Kid Safe Internet

I have a very long, discussion about networks and such that I will be posting later, but I have been asked about this enough times, to make me set this as a priority. Here is the basic issue.

The internet is a dirty filthy place and really no place for kids. If you have ever mistyped a simple network address, or clicked on an innocent looking search result, only to find some humans in various forms of undress doing things to each other...well, you get the idea. The internet, unbounded is just not safe for kids. I'm not taking a moral stance on PORN, or freedom of speech or the like. I'm just saying for my kids...I don't want them exposed to this stuff through access from my computers. When they are older, I will have the birds and bees discussion with them, but until then, I'd like to have a little bit of control over what they see.

So what are the issues...well there are several.

• The internet is a big place and there is PORN hiding in lots of small dark corners. So, the likelihood that you can find a 100% solution is slim. The best you can hope for is 80%-90%. I mean if you are a real hardliner, then you would have to cut access to Photos and reproductions of various works of art and science sites that show descriptive anatomy. I'm not that worried about this type of stuff, so the 80%-90% should keep most of the really bad stuff out.
• There are bad people out there that would like to exploit your kids. We know this from the news, and though I believe it's not an epidemic, it's bad enough for me to think about it when my kids access the net. The hard part here is that this covers a lot of area that are open to the public. Forums, are areas where people post information (Like I'm doing here) and others comment on it. You can easily find very disturbing forums on the internet that are frequented by bad people, doing bad things...or at least talking about doing bad things. There are also chat rooms and other types of conversation that go on that aren't monitored and can be easy picking for predators. I'm not going to get into the wide range of badness, instead, I'm going to focus on the most relavent stuff for me. If you have a specific issue, post a comment and I'll look it up for you. For me, I care most about blocking PORN from my kids at this age. I will block some other social networks when appropriate, but I'm not for the whole range.
• Where do you block the access to internet services like website? At the ISP (the service provider like COX)? At the application (like in Google)? At the desktop OS level? Well, you can do any or all of the above.

1. Some internet providers allow you to block Adult content from your entire feed...but I'm not sure how thorough this is and it would likely block the adults as well as the kids. Generally these top level blocks are very restrictive, so I stay away. Cox does not block at the ISP level, but they do offer McAfee Security suite which reports to have child protection. I talk more about this type of system later, but in short I wouldn't recommend it.
2. As for Application level security, Google has a "safe search" You can set this from the preferences http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35892 You can also choose from other safe search products from here. http://searchenginewatch.com/2156191 these are good, but like I said in point 1, don't expect it to be 100%. It will be pretty good, but if your child can type http://www.google.com/, then they can get around this filtering.
3. Then there is OS based filtering. As mentioned about McAfee and Norton and lots of other providers have security tools that they sell to filter content at the desktop. I have never used these tools, except to remove them when people start having issues with the security breaking other things and making life hell for the common user. As I will discuss later, I don't like and I don't support general security tools. There are however, very focused tools that just block adult content. There tools like NetNanny and more see here: http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/ You can choose from any of the listed software, but again, I haven't tested any of it. beware that your child might find a way around these and they are somewhat restrictive for the rest of us, not to mention the expense. If it were, me and I were looking for a host based system, I would choose NetNanny. It seems to have the best offering and the most features. The last killer issue is that you can only load this on certain systems of certain types (Vista, XP Mac etc) which is fine, but what about the itouch? or other device the child might have?
4. There is another method I've found which is pretty good. It's filtering at the DNS level. You don't need to know what all this means, but I'll explain a little bit of it. Basically DNS is the server system that translates a number into a name. Like a phonebook. when you type in http://www.google.com/, the request is sent to your DNS server (which is given to you by your ISP usually) and that responds back with the correct IP address of the site (64.233.161.99). If you don't have a DNS, you can't access google without typing in that address numbers. It's like having to remember everyone phone number in the world to make a call. So, like the Yellow pages of the old days, you need to have a DNS to make a call or connect to any site on the internet by name. So, more complications. This DNS address (actually 2 or more addresses for different servers, in case one dies) is automatically given to your computer or your router from the ISP. If you don't have a router it goes to the user PC, but if you have a router it goes to the router. Most people use routers, so let's talk about that some more. In order to get access to internet your PC or itouch or whatever, needs to get that DNS server address from the ISP. This happens automatically, when your PC boots up. It askes for Router for a bunch of information, and one piece of that is the list of DNS servers that it should use. Again, all automatically. If you sit at your PC and go to Control Panel -> Network Connections -> Local connection -> properties -> TCP/IP settings (properties). It's not that easy to get to, but there are various sources for helping you find this spot. In here there is a line for either: 1) obtain DNS addresses automatically or 2) use the following addresses. This is where the DNS server list lives on a windows PC. If you were to replace the automatic DNS servers list with a new one, it would be like swapping your old dirty smut filled yellow pages with one that is filtered for certain content types. That way, you can only get access to specific safe, filtered content. There is a FREE service on the net to help you do this. It's called OPENDNS.ORG. http://www.opendns.org/ Create an account and follow the instructions. Once you turn it on, you can choose how secure you want your access to be and what you want to filter. I've tried it and it's pretty good. It also has some pretty cool statistics, that will even show you all the sites that were blocked out. This is my best recommendation for a first shot at kid safe filtering. Please be mindful, that this will still not be a 100% solution. If your kids have an iPhone or other personal device that connects to the internet, they can always find an open network to let them in...but it's an 80% solution. If you setup the OPENDNS addresses on your router, which you can, you will then pass this along to all the connecting users automatically, which saves having to do the above steps to find the DNS server list and change them...But just remember that the change will then effect every system that connects to your router, which is good for the kids and will protect the itouch, but is a bit too secure for the adults.

• You should always monitor your kids activity on the internet. But it's really hard to do and would take a lot of time and effort and not leave you with much of a life, if your kids are online for hours at a time. I still recommend, VERY HIGHLY, that you restrict computer access to public areas of the house. It makes it much harder for the kids to get into trouble when they know you can walk by and see the screen at any time.
• I personally, don't believe that Kids should have the same freedoms and rights to liberty and privacy as adults....That's me. And so, I would have no moral issues with loading covert monitoring software on their PC or looking at their accounts. If you have a moral issue with this, then I suggest you have a conversation with your kids and get their approval to look at all of their accounts. This point is more relavent for older kids that have social network pages (myspace, facebook etc...). For me, this should be mandatory. You should demand to have access to your kids computer accounts. Your landlord has the right to walk through your rented property...you own the computer and the internet and power...so you should have the right to look at their accounts. There are hundreds of sites that they can be frequenting that can be bad...so I would make sure that I have access to these accounts and I would want to look at the email.
• Time spent on the internet can be a big deal today. Kids are spending more and more time in front of a PC and less time outside. I'm not saying this is the end of the world, but if you want to control the amount of time your kids spend on the PC, there are some easy solutions. If you listened to the earlier point and put the PC in the living room, then it's pretty easy to kick them out. but if they have access in their room or from their PDA (Personal Data Assistant) then you will have a harder time. Kids will spend all night on games if they are left to make the choice on their own. If you care about curtailing the access, and the time of access, you can usually do this through your router. There are often tools that will restrict the hours of access, so you can say that the internet goes down at 11:00pm. You just need to look in your router configuration and change the setting appropriately. Routers will be discussed in a later post.
• Food, drinks and computers don't mix. It seems obvious, but kids don't inherently know that keyboards and PCs are NOT waterproof. You need to educate them on the proper care of the system. What not to Jam in where and what not to pull on...don't touch the screen, etc. This will keep you system healthy longer.
• Teach your kids about the perils of toolbars (discussed later) and viruses. Don't open email attachments from ANYONE, EVER!!!! this should be a good rule until they are like 14 or 15. You can set your email to lock out attachments, but that doesn't work for webmail and other sites. You just need to tell kids that they need to be really careful about what software they want to install, and this includes toolbars, games and just about anything that seems cool fun and free on the internet. Most of the time, slow computers are caused by these applications eating up your system resources.
• Multiple accounts...this is something that I think everyone should use. Most systems XP, Vista and Mac support multiple user accounts. This is generally a good thing, if you have multiple people using a single system. It help keep the kids wacky settings confined to their account. It can also be used to help secure you Operating system for the evil that kids do. In XP you can have an administrator account and a regular user account. The regular user (RU) is restricted from installing certain programs and making certain changes...the problem I've found is that it's too restrictive and takes a lot of tweaking to make sure it works and doesn't break anything. In Vista it's better. I think you can setup most users as (RU) types without much issue to running programs. This means that you can create unique user accounts for everyone who uses the computer. Each with passwords (though you should always know your kids passwords) and each with unique settings. This way their toolbar crud is kept somewhat contained. To setup accounts go to control panel - user accounts. Create an account and you are done.
• Cyber bullies -- I only bring this up because the media thinks its a big thing. Personally, I say if someone is bugging you online, block them, don't read their posts, don't talk to them...but for some kids this just isn't possible. i'm not going to talk about the psychology of bullies, but I will tell you to talk to your kids about it. Let them know that you can help them if they are getting overly hostile messages from anyone.

Summary for people that don't want to read all the stuff above:

• The internet is a bad place for kids to hangout unmonitored.
• Kids will explore...that's what they do...you should expect it...don't be surprised with what you find.
• use http://www.opendns.org/ to secure your connections and filter content
• setup unique user accounts for each kid
• know your kids passwords and know what they are doing online.
• put your PC in a public place and don't allow access behind locked doors
• talk to your kids about your expectations for appropriate use. THIS IS KEY! set the rules.
• be careful of what you download and don't open attachments in email.
• you can control internet access time through your router.