the mice will play as the English proverb goes and now with more children on line at home unsupervised, the possibilities for them to be exposed to all the ills of the Internet including pornography, lurking chat room stalkers and lurid violence are ever-present - not to mention the threat coming from trojans, spyware and virus infections via unwarranted game and mp3 downloads.
Already in the F-Secure Internet Security 2005 package, F-Secure had introduced the new feature, Parental Control, which created automated lists of sites under key categories which children were not allowed to browse.
This was a natural response to a social phenomenon, which is evolving right now the new generation gap between the computer literate children and their less computer-savvy parents. And this is no limited phenomenon; in the US alone it is estimated that as much as 50 per cent of all children have access to the Internet from home with many having a computer tucked away in the privacy of their own bedroom. With parents unaware of what their children are surfing or simply unable to understand the magnitude of the threat posed by unregulated Internet usage, there is a clear need for intervention to ensure safe surfing for the whole family.
The perils of the Internet
The facts behind the phenomenon are clear pornography on the Internet is big business and children are just as much a target for the people who peddle their wares on line. Not only this, but children can equally be directed to such sites by their friends and enter into adult chat rooms where paedophiles may be lurking. Peer to peer networks can also steer children into areas of the web where they are better off not going. Sometimes sharing a common interest may lead to havoc given access to otherwise restricted information - the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the US where two boys learned to construct home-made bombs with information provided directly from the Internet is a good example of this.
Aside from anything else, the Internet has replaced television as the biggest distraction for an information-hungry younger generation dependent on fast access to news, fashion trends and peer-group communication. The Internet is effectively interactive TV for a new generation with an endless supply of new channels and exciting new friends.
While there is much software on the market to regulate Internet behaviour amongst minors, some examples perhaps go too far to the extent where parents will be able to covertly keylog the data their child inputs into a computer, list all the sites they have visited or spy on their email or other communications. Clearly this enters the grey area where responsible concern for the welfare of ones children is overturned by a need to exercise complete control.
Assured control
F-Secures solution uses a more straightforward approach with its Parental Control feature. The feature was incorporated into the Internet Security 2005 package specifically with childrens welfare in mind, not covert control. Certain defaults do, however, exist within this feature to ensure that the system is not overridden by tricky teenagers looking for a workaround.
The first line of defence for parents is an individual password, which prevents others from changing the software settings without it. And once enabled, specific websites are blocked using the web page filter, which also lists all sites that have been accessed.
Specifically, the Parental Control feature filters seven separate categories of websites that are generally considered off limits to children. These are: Adult, Weapons, Gambling, Chat, Webmail, Hate and Drugs. Attempts to enter sites that are on the access denied list simply prompt a message informing the user that the site has been blocked. Accordingly, no further intervention is necessary from parents.
F-Secures Parental Control feature also differs from other offerings on the market in that it scans the content of a site, not just the URL to determine if the site is off limits. As an extra layer of protection, the site is also able to read through the filter of other languages in order to determine if the site falls into those categories which it designates as censored.
Parents are also able to limit the amount of time their children spend on the Internet with the time lock feature in F-Secures Internet Security package. No longer is there a need for parents to argue or negotiate about the time their children spend surfing, online gaming or communicating with strangers on the Internet.
Using these simple but effective tools, everybody can be assured within the family that the Internet becomes an effective tool for education, instruction and entertainment, not a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
Common sense rules for regulating Internet usageWith the new phenomenon of Internet usage comes new etiquette with appropriate strategies for different age groups dealing with an eight-year-old is clearly a different challenge to the parameters set by a surly teenager hooked on the Internet. If younger children can be taught the rules early on, regulation later is less of a problem. Nevertheless, for any parent suspicious of problem usage with their children, certain common sense tips can easily be instituted on top of automated control.
These include:- Putting your home computer in an open area accessible to all family members· Setting agreed and reasonable time limits for your childrens Internet usage
- Encourage real time activities that involve the whole family and friends away from the computer
- Talk to your children about what they are doing on line communication is the first line of defence
- If your child has clearly become over dependent on the Internet, seek professional help and resolve the issue as a family
Author: Mark Woods, Corporate Communicator
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