Guidelines for Safe Surfing
There's nothing inherently dangerous about a PC (unless you drop it on your foot, perhaps), but attach it to the Internet, and it becomes a minefield: Step carefully and you have an educational, rewarding and important resource; step errantly and you have danger, indecency and destruction.St. Paul's School is committed to teaching its students how to use technology, including the web, in a safe and carefully-supervised environment. But there are freely available computers in places other than the school--in libraries, other children's homes and, most prominently, in your own home. What can you do to protect your children?
There are many solutions, some draconian, others more sensible, and while this overview is not exhaustive, it does give a generally good summary of the techniques available for ensuring that your child uses the internet safely.
First and Foremost:
The most effective way of getting comfortable with your child's internet use is to guide him as a parent. You are the person who knows best what is and isn't appropriate for your child. Learn to use the internet with your child, imparting the values you want him to have when selecting websites and materials. The lessons you impart will carry over when no one is around and will survive software upgrades, peer pressure and other unpredictable events. If you don't know how to use a computer, take a course. You cannot properly monitor your child's use of the internet if he knows more than you do.Make it easy to monitor your child's internet activity: Put computers in common rooms: the den, a playroom or a parent’s room, but not in a child’s bedroom. Children are less likely to seek out inappropriate information if they are in general view, and parents can more easily monitor the websites their children are visiting if they can see the computer screen easily.
Take an interest in what your children are doing online. With whom are they chatting? What websites are they visiting?
It is also very important to talk with your children. Let them know what dangers lurk on the web and make it imperative that they come to you if they are having a problem. (More on this topic is given, below, in "Recognizing and Forestalling Problems.")
Parental Controls
Many companies offer products and services aimed at helping parents keep the internet safe for their children. (Some, frankly, are concerned with government attempts to regulate the internet, and thus are pushing parental controls.) By "parental controls," software makers mean filtering software (which prevents particular content from being able to be displayed on a browser or emailed to you), so-called spy software which captures every keystroke made on a PC so you can later see what is being done on the machine, and kid-friendly browsers, sites and search engines, which have had their content severely restricted to child-suitable sites and materials. There is an enormous amount of such software in all price ranges available, if you are considering purchasing some for your home computer.No software is completely reliable, but control software has become quite sophisticated and most programs have enough options to let parents adjust filtering to meet different needs for different ages, or to meet their own personal standards. If you are considering the purchase of filtering software, you should review available software and decide what best fits your needs. www.internet-filter-review.toptenreivews.com rates several top filtering software packages.
Other websites with useful information or software include:
www.getNetWise.org contains a plethora of information about internet safety for children, virus and hacker-protection, filtering software, internet crime, etc. You are advised to read it for a general overview of the services and software available to protect and monitor your family's interenet use.
www.surfmonitor.com is filtering software that blocks and reports inappropriate web material. (The company offers a free trial for download). www.BsafeHome also provides filtering software.
www.kidsnet.com is a browser for kids: The child can only go on the internet using the KidsNet browser (which requires a password) and can only go to a limited set of sites. (KidsNet parents review and restrict the sites.)
www.netopia.com takes an unusual approach, offering a variety of parental controls, including filtering software and time-based limits on PC use through a WiFi gateway. Essentially, any PC or PDA in your house has to go through a filtering WiFi gateway.
www.spectorsoft.com makes a variety of so-called spy software, which essentially records all keystrokes made on a PC, including emails, chats, Instant Messaging, etc. It also has blocking software, with keyword detection and intervention.
Recognizing and Forestalling Problems
It is estimated that about 17 million kids between 12-17 years old are on the Internet regularly. That's fully three-quarters of all young people in the US. Children can happen upon harmful or inappropriate material just about everywhere: in an e-mail, an instant message, accidentally finding a pornographic wesite, chat room, on bulletin boards, or in internet groups. And if children don't stumble upon inappropriate material, other young people and adults deliberately send offending material (much of it as spam).More serious situations arise when children are solicited for sex. Solicitation can occur in seemingly safe situations. For example, your child might play chess online, but during games, it’s often possible to have typed conversations with an opponent. The conversation may begin innocently but can escalate over time to sexual topics. Even more troubling are attempts at cyberstalking (when other children, teens, or adults meet young people online but continue to seek them out at their homes and schools, generally with the ultimate intent of an in-person rendezvous).
There are warning signs of unsafe and unsavory internet activity:
- Regulary going online late at night, especially after the family is asleep
- Excessive use of the internet
- Closing computer applications when a parent/guardian walks into the room
- Having a huge stash of downloaded picture files (i.e., files with jpg, gif, bmp, tif, pcx extensions)
- Never give out personal information (name, address, age, school, birthdate, phone #, etc.)
- Never use a screen name that implicitly provides personal information. This means, do not use names like saragirl15, tommyboy, girl-in-denver, babygirl12, etc.!
- Don’t share your password with anyone except your parents--not even with a best friend.
- Don’t respond to unwanted, mean, offensive or threatening emails or chat room dialogues.
- Never send pictures of yourself to someone you don’t know.
- NEVER agree to meet someone you met on the Internet.
- Remember that it is easy to disguise oneself online. There's no way to tell whether someone is who he says he is. Be cynical and assume the worst.
- Promise to tell an adult if you ever feel uncomfortable online.
Any incident of internet solicitation or harassment should be taken seriously. A copy of the email message and any other available information about the originator should be reported to your own ISP (Internet Service Provider) as well as the local police:
www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/reporting.htm
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC):
www.missingkids.com/cybertip
www.safekids.com offers a contract regarding safe internet use that kids can be asked to sign and adhere to.