Protecting Your Child from Internet Predators

Now that you have a computer for your child or you are allowing him/her to use yours, the question comes up, Should we allow him/her to access the Internet? There are tons of great educational and fun resources for kids on the Internet, but as we all know from the daily news, there is a lot of danger out there, so let s discuss some of our options. Not allowing access at all If you have enough software to keep your little brainiac interested, you may want to choose to not let them access the Internet at all. This is, of course, the safest method of keeping predators away from your little angel, but will limit their access to some really cool stuff. If your child has his/her own computer, simply deactivate their wireless connection or do not plug the PC into the Internet. If, however you share your computer with your child, you may want to set up separate profiles to limit Internet access to only your account. You can do this in Windows by selecting Control Panel, Users. Select add user and enter your child s name as the user name. You may also want to set them up as a limited access user account so they cannot install programs or change settings without your knowing. While you re here, add a password to your own account if you haven t already. My son was smart enough to change users on my wife s un-password protected computer and was able to wreak havoc on her laptop. For an easy way to limit access to the Internet, open Control Panel and select Internet Options while signed in on your child s account, Find the connections tab and click the LAN Settings button. Check the box next to where it says Use a proxy server for your LAN and type anything in the address box (something like No Internet for You will do.) This will prevent access to the Internet while anyone is signed on to your child s account. Allowing access to only specific sites Internet Explorer has a little known feature that will allow you to restrict access to only certain sites. Back in the Internet options screen, you can set Internet Explorer to only grant access to trusted specific sites or sites with ratings determined by an outside party. To enable this feature, open Internet Options in Control Panel or in Internet Explorer (Tools, Internet Options.) Select the Content tab. Under Content Advisor, Select Enable. At this point, you can determine what can and cannot be seen in Internet Explorer. The first tab is the ratings tab. The default is to disallow all sites no matter what their rating. Select each category of sites that you want to allow. Categories include alcohol, gambling, language, nudity, etc. Adjust the slider to modify the settings for each category from None to Limited to Some to Unrestricted. If you want to allow access only to specific sites, leave all these categories as none. The second tab is Approved Sites. Enter each site that is allowed and press the Always button to add it to the list of approved sites. If you want to specifically restrict a site, enter it here and click Never. Select the General and Advanced tabs to set passwords to override the security controls or to make changes to the default ratings system you want to use. If you are using a Windows Vista-based computer, Microsoft added a new Parental Controls feature for you. It can also be found in the Content tab in Internet Options. There are a multitude of new features and is out of scope for this article. Look for an entire article on these options soon. Using a Parental Control Filter There are two types of parental control filters: hardware based and software based. With a software based method, you will have to install the parental control software on each PC that you want to monitor and restrict access. You will also want to periodically check each computer to make sure that updates are being installed and the settings are still properly in place. There are several software based programs available including Sentry Remote - Parental Control Software, CA PC Protection Bundle 2007 and Net Nanny 5.5 Web Filtering Parental Control Software. If you only want to monitor one PC, the software solution may be the best for you. The hardware based parental control takes a little more knowledge of home networking, but once up and running, it is easier to maintain and harder for your little devil to circumvent. This method is what large corporations use to restrict access to unsavory sites by their employees. It is a device that sits between your modem and your PC or your wired or wireless router. The device I use is the D-Link SecureSpot Internet Security Adapter. Once the device is in place, you can connect to it through a web based interface to set rules and options. What I like about the SecureSpot is that i can set specific rules for individual users. I set user-names on all shared PCs in the house for each member of my family. That means that if my son signs in with his user-name on my computer, the Internet access restrictions follow him wherever he goes. I can also view logs of his browsing history and see what is being blocked. There is also an option that shuts off Internet access at certain times. For instance, if my son s bed time is eight thirty on weekdays and nine thirty on weekends, i can shut off Internet access at eight o clock and nine o clock respectively. That also prevents him from getting up in the middle of the night to surf the Internet while the rest of us are sleeping. Always remember, however that no method of web filtering and parental control is completely foolproof. Not amount of hardware or software will replace a parent who is willing to talk to their child about risks on the internet and what to do to avoid them. Dan Tervo is an IT professional and father of two young children. He regularly writes articles and how-to s on various IT, parenting and health related topics. You can read his blog at freechildrensgames.blogspot.com or kidcomputerwiz.com