I'd like to open this post up to you:
- What are you doing to control and monitor Internet usage?
- What products have you used and would you recommend? Which would you not recommend?
- What resources have helped or continue to help you?
Have at it...
NOTE: Nothing that you read in this post should be construed as an endorsement (or condemnation) of any product by either myself or by the Church. This is an opportunity for you to share information with each other. You should do your own research and analysis before purchasing any product listed here.
We use Mac OS X’s built-in parental controls. It’s pretty dang simple: you log in as an administrator (in our case, either parent), open System Preferences→Accounts, highlight the child’s account, and select Parental Controls. From there, it’s just a matter of following the on-screen directions!
ReplyDeleteBeing the Open Source advocate that I am, you may be shocked to hear this, but the best product I've seen is Windows Vista's built-in protections. I set a password for the admin accounts, and then I have an open account for my kids, of which I can monitor and tell exactly what their doing on the internet. It provides reports for me of those things, and I can specify what they can and can't browse on the internet, what applications they are allowed to run, and any other details of what I want them to do when they're using the computer.
ReplyDeleteI am still craving for an appliance similar to a linksys-type router that I can place at the router level to handle my parental controls and other protections. I have yet to see a mass-marketed solution good enough for my needs like this.
We use NetNanny. It works pretty well, is supported on Vista, etc. It requires you to log in before getting access to the net so various people in the household may have their own login with varying levels of filters applied.
ReplyDeleteBUT, from experience I know that if someone really wants to get access to inappropriate things, they can and will... I think having a good internet filter goes only so far. Parents need to bridge the gap by teaching their children (even younger ones) that indecency and immodesty (in all forms) should be avoided. If our families don't have a testimony rooted in the Savior and don't know the dangers of addiction, they could fall quickly and hard. The bottom line is: our children need to WANT to avoid these things. It is so accessible that they will find it if they want it.
I also feel that in our society and culture, our children our bound to run into inappropriate images sooner or later. The question is: what do they do once they so see something? How do they handle it? Do they tell their parents? Do they keep it a secret due to shame or embarrassment or misunderstanding?
This is a complex problem without one easy solution.
Computers are in the family room, so everyone knows where you are browsing.
ReplyDeleteAs far as URL access software is concerned, I use the built-in "Parental Controls" that come with Mac OS X. Each child has an account, and I limit the URLs they can get to. This also allows me to log everything. Additionally, I periodically review those logs. The children are too young to attempt any hacks to get around this.
The Bishop of our ward and his wife take the cable-modem whenever they leave the house. If Mom or Dad aren't there, the cable-modem isn't. They have teen-agers, so this works well for their peace-of-mind.
We use dansguardian for my linux box and k9 web protection for my windows boxes. K9 is easy to set and free. It seems to do a good job.
ReplyDeleteMy parents have never allowed us to get Internet access at home, so we use it at school or the public library. This way it's much easier to control our time and content usage, as we are on public computers with better security than we could implement by ourselves at home. While it has been difficult and inconvenient at times, it has been a good thing for our family overall.
ReplyDeleteMy children are too young yet to use the internet, but I have been looking at the options. I want to keep my home a safe haven, where my children can use the Internet for positive things and not have to worry too much about accidental exposure to something offensive.
ReplyDeleteI have been trying K9 Web Protection and really like it. It comes from the makers of enterprise filtering sofware, BlueCoat, but it is free for home users. It has all the features I was looking for:
- lightweight application
- logging of browser history
- easy to setup and use
- control of what is filtered and what isn't
- difficult to bypass
I would recommend it to non-techies and techies.
We keep our family iMac in the living room. I think it makes more sense anyway because much of our entertainment is coming from the computer, so having it next to the entertainment center is convenient as well as safer.
ReplyDeleteEach child has a separate OS X account, and we limit their accounts to the BumperCar web-browser, a customized version of Safari that has more control options than OS X. It also makes the browser more child-friendly by offering a customizable homepage that gives them options of where to browse.
For filtering and reporting we use ContentBarrier X. which works quite well with OS X accounts. It updates its blacklist monthly. It integrates well with OS-X user accounts. As the kids get older (they are all pretty young) I plan on upgrading them from BumperCar to Firefox, so this is why we use both.
We also use Covenant Eyes, which is an online accountability tool (not a filter). It records all sites visited and sends a report to mom each week. There is a Mac OS X 10.4 version and PC versions.
Our wireless router came with a trial parental controls program, but this was a pain to configure, and I dropped it because it was blocking sites like LinkedIn.com. What I wish is that AT&T-Yahoo would offer a filtered version of their DSL that filtered the content before it came into the home. Their "award winning" parental controls are really out-of-date codewise and crash frequently on our Windows PC. I have done several webhunts for filtered ISPs, but they are usually limited to a very specific geographical area, although I imagine if you live in Utah there are probably good filtered ISP options.
links:
BumperCar: http://www.freeverse.com/apps/app/?id=5003
ContentBarrier X: http://www.intego.com/contentbarrier
Covenant Eyes: http://www.covenanteyes.com/
We use no software. We put the computer in the most central-highest traffic room in our house. Our children's accounts, which are non-admin, have no password. My wife and I have admin accounts and have access to their history.
ReplyDeleteI agree that computers in a "public" area of the home is important, as is teaching them what is acceptable and why. When they are still fairly young, it is probably the best to use software that uses a white-list policy where only sites listed are accessible. (We used a product from McAfee) Then if they need to have access to a new site, a parent can login and add it. However, as an adult, this security became such a pain to get around whenever we wanted to go to a site not in the list that we eventually removed the software on the PC that we usually used. (It is still in place on the "kids" PC)
ReplyDeleteWhen the kids get older and need to do internet searching for school work, this white-list approach probably isn't going to work.
I have used www.familyconnect.com for many years with success. However, as my children got older and went off to college and needed a little more independence and ability to make their own decisions, I found that www.covenanteyes.com is the perfect solution as it doesn't block anything but logs all activity and sends me reports to review with them every three days.
ReplyDeleteI also used www.familyconnect.com for many years on the FHC computers in the Stake until the Cisco PIX was installed and SLC filtering took over.
...also, in past employment, I have used a device called 8e6 that sat on the network in a listening mode and audited/blocked traffic that had a great reporting system and active directory integration. After taking a peek at their site today, it appears they have a home product. Not sure how good it is but thought I would at least mention it...
ReplyDeletehttp://8e6home.com
While I was a student at BYU, I found the internet proxy filtering fairly effective. It would be nice if LDS members all over the world could somehow be allowed to use this same internet filtering. It must be something that is constantly updated and monitored. At the company I work for, they recently implemented SurfControl and it seems like a flexible and effective solution that protects against indecent content as well as malicious sites, etc.
ReplyDeleteOne thing is for certain, there is a great and urgent need for some sort of active, dynamic protection at the router/gateway level (where the Internet comes in) to protect our families.
In our home, we've done a few things to protect our children. We homeschool, so we have 3 computers in a public place for research, homework assignments, etc. We have talked to our older children about inappropriate websites, photos, pictures, etc., and what to do if they inadvertently come across something on the Internet (close it out and immediately get a parent). We also have a linux-based filtering server running SquidGuard. While this works quite well at filtering inappropriate websites, each computer must be setup to go through the filter, so computers without the proxy server settings bypass the filter completely. Because of this, I am building another server based on the PublicIP ZoneCD server that will set between my DSL modem and my home router which will force Internet filtering for all users. The ZoneCD includes DansGuardian which provides content-based filtering, which will complement the URL filtering of SquidGuard.
ReplyDeleteWe have SBC DSL and this past week I tried their parental control software. It seems to work good, but it's not compatible with the proxy server settings which are required for SquidGuard. While I will probably uninstall the software, it does provide some things that I would like to try (through another software or perhaps Vista) such as time limits.
We use CyberSitter and it's very much like NetNanny in terms of functionality and capabilities. However, as a software developer, I noticed it seems very heavy and really seemed to interfere with a lot of the applications that I need to do my work, and actually made development impossible in some cases. So, on my work laptop, I installed Covenant Eyes. I LOVE Covenant Eyes. It runs completely invisibly and IS NOT A FILTER. Instead, it just logs every site you visit and reports it to an "Accountability Partner", in my case, my wife. It's great because instead of feeling like I CAN'T get someplace I shouldn't be, I know I can, but I can CHOOSE not to. My wife gets a daily report of the sites I've visited ranked by "questionableness". Sometimes it's easy to forget that the Savior is always watching and aware of us. And this software enables us to kind of put our wives or whoever our accountability partner is, in that role of helping the Savior.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Net Nanny guy. It seems to work fairly well.
ReplyDeleteI recently learned of family where internet supported addictions were an issue, and their approach was to ensure that each spouse only had half of the family computer password. If the computer was going to be used, both partners had to be involved. It is a pretty dramatic approach, but if trust is gone that may be a workable approach.
I think all of the above are great ideas. I have a radical one.
ReplyDeleteWhat if there were a new internet? A totally separate one. Kind of a "members only" type of thing. Different network/backbone structure and its own websites that must meet cleanliness requirements.
Sure, this wouldn't really be THE internet anymore, and you'd need people to populate it with content. But with the user-driven content movement and wiki approach to web publishing, this could work with lots of like-minded folks. I guess I'm thinking of a Millennium Internet, where the Saints make their own and Babylon's contributions are long-gone. I guess I'd like to see it happen before the Millennium.
All of society's filtering solutions are band-aids to something Satan has a good handle on. I want to surf the Lord's Internet.
We're in the process of relocating, so we've been slow to build our protection beyond keeping the computer in a public place. When we settle down, we'll be using Microsoft's Windows Live security product, which relies on Windows Live logins. My wife will have admin, my kids and I user permissions per the recommendations of several church leaders.
ReplyDeleteJoel's question got me thinking... 30 years ago our parents struggled to protect us from pornography in print, video, and other formats. There was always a work-around. I look at the filterin and such much like I do locks on our windows at home. They keep honest people honest, but they don't keep out the bad guys. I want to prevent my children from having pornography pushed at them. I want to make it difficult for them to get to it at all but I don't think I can prevent it entirely. I think if they learn about and want to use anonymizing proxies, they will.At that point, it all comes down to testimony and strength. Do they ultimately want to do what's right?
So our protection has to be a realistic level of protection on the computers and within the network. There should be a trust-but-verify element of logging and log scanning (we are behind a Windows Server 2003 Small Business Server with ISA, so logging and reporting *should* be simple; I just have to configure it). And there must be instruction. Above all, we need to be working on our children's testimony and desire to do right. I've been blessed so far--my children are approaching the age when they'll start to look at this. Today, this month, so far they're uninterested. But we're running out of time!
I'm a software developer and very technical so my solution isn't something that your Joe Average user could install. I have a Linux based Internet router that I've customized to log all web traffic. My wife and I monitor these logs. I also produce a special report that shows what's being searched for at Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other big search engines.
ReplyDeleteLike others here, I believe in a trust but verify approach. I've taught my kids the gospel and I've taught them about the dangers of the Internet. I trust them to use the Internet for good but I still monitor their use to be on the safe side. I also appreciate my wife monitoring my Internet use to keep me from being tempted. Fortunately my kids are still young and I haven't had any issues with their Internet use but I try to be careful.
All that being said, technology is not the solution to keeping our kids safe on the Internet. The key is educating them and always talking with them about their Internet usage. If they know what's right and wrong and want to do what's right, that's what they'll do. If they want to do what's wrong, no amount of technology is going to stop them. They can always go to a friend's house and I can't monitor the Internet usage of my kids' friends.
We've taken a "Big Brother" approach, installing applications like VNC or PCAnywhere on all computers in the house. Everyone knows that "Big Brother" can and will pop in at anytime of the day or night and watch what is being viewed or talked about in chat sessions. If anyone is caught tampering with the settings, then computer privileges are revoked.
ReplyDeleteI have no controls whatsoever on my system, which is used by both my children and grandchildren. I have taught them respect for the human body, and He in whose image it was created, and taught them to recognize the differences between pornography and art. They enjoy Michelangelo and other classic artists, and neither enjoy nor are attracted to the stuff foisted upon us by the Hugh Heffners and Larry Flynts of this world.
ReplyDeleteTelling children [of any age] to merely "turn it off" is like telling an alcoholic to not drink. There needs to be respect and understanding of the body, and the purposes for which it was created, and an openness between them and me so that they can come to me with any questions or problems.
Does "Teach then correct principles and let them govern themselves" ring a bell with anyone? It should, and if it doesn't, then your children are not being taught how to make decisions and value judgements. If you make all the decisions for them, they will never learn how to make their own.
And whose plan was it to remove all temptation from God's children, so that none would be lost?
ReplyDeleteWhile I believe that certain safeguards are advisable and useful, I also believe that our children, who are commanded to be "in the world" will not be well served by us keeping them from the world. The best of filtering software is fallible, and for that bit of objectionable material that might penetrate whatever defenses we erect, if our children are not properly prepared, they will not know how to deal with the threat. It will surely come, in some form or another, and pretending that we have completely closed it off from our families is tantamount to putting our heads in the sand.
Read the article in July's Ensign that deals with the need to have open and candid dialogue with our children about sexuality, and teach them reverence and respect for the body [God's greatest creation]. Any vacuum we leave in their education will be filled - if not by us, then by the philsosphies of the world. We need only ask ourselves where we would like them to get their information. We cannot pretend that they will not get it somewhere, and if not from us, likely in a format that is inconsistent with what we would like them to receive.
Paul, I'm not arguing with your point that it is key to prepare our children spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually for the world by actively teaching them truths and setting an example. You're right. And I'm not arguing that installing a filter will solve the problem. You're right again. I just believe it is a false dichotomy to say it has to be one or the other. A soldier is given a sword AND a shield.
ReplyDeleteI'm an open source programmer and advocate of FOSS, so I use the tools at hand to protect my family.
ReplyDelete1. I use SmoothWall as my router firewall. It has a built in web proxi server, and my kids know that I monitor it and will immediately spot anything in the logs even is the history of the browser was erased.
2. I have all the computer monitors facing the bedroom doors, so my wife and I can see what's on the screen any time we pass by.
3. I have installed RealVNC in the machines in the network and use it to help the kids when they need help with some software they need configured but also can be used to monitor what they are doing at any given time.
4. Last but not list, we talked to the children about the dangers of the web and pornography and continue to do so from time to time.
I want to put another plug in for K9 Web Protector http://www.k9webprotection.com/ - This solution is a free product for Windows that is distributed by a Company that also has an excellent commercil solution. I am able to view all web sites visited by who, etc... I also have just begun to use the Microsoft Vista tools and think they've really upplied a family friendly solution there.
ReplyDeleteWe don't use Internet filtering systems at our home. We've found them in the past to be too prohibitive so our children couldn't do school research as needed. We keep the "family" computer in the family room with the screen facing the room for all to see. We've spoken as a family about internet viewing and the good and bad of it. We've learned to police ourselves and police each other. The biggest problems we've seen on internet abuse have been very late at night when the mind seems to disengage. We've set a bios password on the machine and shut it down at 10:00 PM and turn it back on at 6:00 AM. Only my wife and I have the password. I periodically check IE logs to see if there's abuse problems. Our family works to use the Internet well and be responsible with it.
ReplyDeleteWe use Safe Eyes (http://www.internetsafety.com/safe-eyes). We picked it because it was highly rated on Consumer Reports. I have computer smart kids. So, I needed a filter that they couldn't get around. So I checked it out by doing searches on google looking for any posts inquiring how to get around Safe Eyes. I read some desparate posts of people trying. The replies were always the same -- that you can't do it without messing up your whole computer.
ReplyDeleteWe've liked it so far. It has alerts. I can set "timers" so that the internet is not accessible after 10:00 pm. I can "allow" certain sites. I forgot part of my administrator password. I was impressed that I had to call to reset it -- and I had to correctly answer several questions for them to help me. Though women can become involved in pornography, it is more often men that become addicted. Because of that, I am the password holder on our filter account. And I set up my "password questions" very carefully. I used questions that my husband could not answer (and I would know if he was prodding). It's not that I don't trust my husband -- I do. But our Bishop's advice to our ward was to not even trust yourself.
I like the ideas of the "buddy accounts" for husband and wife. I'm not sure I like that for kids. I don't even want them to stumble upon questionable content. All it takes is one look and they can be in trouble.
We use K9 Web Protection - free for home use and simple to use. I echo the comments about having the computers in the open -- never behind closed doors. It's also importnat to help our kids understand the rules when visiting friends homes.
ReplyDeleteI am not really sure where to post this question, but will hope to get some kind of response. I signed up as a PAF utility developer a few years ago and have a friend that wants to do this as well. However, I do not remember where or how this was done. Can you provide me with this information?
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, PAF has no support and no fixes or enhancements will be made. I know that several companies are creating PAF look-a-likes. What are the chances of getting the source code or it going into public domain?
[Joel: I've forwarded your question the Family History folks who work with developers. Thanks.]
We also put our computer in the central area of the home. The computer is password-protected and they can only use it with Mom's OK.
ReplyDeleteMy concern, though, is that as my children grow older, they could end up at a friend's house unsupervised. So along the way, we are trying to teach them the principles to help them keep themselves safe and clean.
We had a bishop who used to say: "We want to put them in an armored car, but we can't; we need to help them put on the armor of God." I love that.
Woow, I don't have children yet, but I like the suggestion of an integrated router, maybe I'll get to work inventing one... Actually, I like Vista's built in tools, as well as K9 as a free solution for XP (Though it's default settings go way over board and it has a habit of blocking more than it should); but I have to say that education is paramount to a parents success in keeping their children away form porn. There must be open communication between parents and children!
ReplyDeleteIf your kids are going through the trouble of hacking your setup just to avoid filtering and parental oversight, you have a serious trust issue, and your kid is probobly already got some problems that need addressed... (I'm not saying it's your fault, but you must take an active role in remedying it!)
Education, communication, and a simple implemntation of a sensible filtering solution should be proficient. Just ry not to block the entire Internet, it's such a useful tool, and essential to proper education in todays enviroment.
I have been struggling with an addiction to pornography, almost completely from the internet, for 8 years. I have used filters that have not worked. There are ways around them. I learned spanish on my mission and almos every filter I've encountered will not block out a spanish website with the same type of material. The better ones probably can do that now, but I don't know. The problem is that these filters are being created by clean minded people, monolingual people. I think that as a preventative measure, they work great. Buy one if you want to keep your kids from accidentally finding pornography. However, if you think your kids won't find a way around the filter if they really want to, you're wrong. They can even find a way to go to sites that appear to be fine. They could also have innappropriate material e-mailed to them. They could e-mail themselves and you would never know. There are millions of ways of getting around filters. They only prevent someone from seeing pornography if they don't want to see pornography. Anyone that wants to find it, will find it, whether or not a filter is installed. I know from my own experience and from the experience of other adddicts
ReplyDeleteUsing DansGuardian and Squid Web cache proxy does cost a little time in configuration, which may be out of the ability of some, but I have found that it does a robust job of filtering. I can specifically weed out inappropriate material within any page, block sites altogether, match through regular expressions, only allow listed sites, check through "grey" listed sites, etc. so that much of it can be customized to suit your desire/needs. It can even "score" pages that you request so that certain words add a specific to the score and words like "cancer" subtract from the score. Thereby, pages with a certain score can be set to be blocked. We probably could set up a good configuration for Latter-day Saints and make installers for Windows, Linux, and OS X.
ReplyDeleteDansGuardian's ability stems from reading the pages before they get to you rather than updating a list of sites that becomes outdated. It can use those too nonetheless for a speed increase. Getting around it can be made challenging also if one allows for a box to sit in front of their connection that they do not have user/pass access to. Although, understood in a home that physical access can void this security.
I'm surprised so little has been said about covenant eyes.
ReplyDeleteI've had serious problems with porn for a long time, and am quite technically inclined too. I can't hack in to OSX's internals, so perhaps I'm not as savvy as others, but for me Covenant Eyes has been a spiritual life-saver. Every single bit of incoming traffic seems to be monitored and recorded. While it doesn't block anything, the fact that my accountability partners will see my log is enough to motivate me to stay away from anything questionable.
My biggest problem now is my mobile phone, with it's high speed data connection and full web browser. I'd really like to know how to corrupt the browser so that it doesn't work, but hacking Symbian OS is way above my level of technical expertise...
I think more attention needs to be paid to these mobile devices. They are MUCH harder to control and much harder to live without. Filtering and monitoring software for mobile platforms is a golden opportunity for developers right now.
[...] on the Internet is a blight. In this post I asked for feedback on what people are doing in their homes to educate and protect. The [...]
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