Your family and online security
We are all aware of the possible dangers associated with the Internet, but finding the right balance that allows everyone in your household the freedom to explore whilst preventing unwanted intrusions is easier than ever.
There are a few potential threats to the eFamily.
Cybercrime and Computer viruses
Cybercriminals operate for profit, attempting to scam information and money out of you through phishing emails and by installing spyware.
Computer viruses can enter your PC and cause considerable damage to your hardware at considerable financial cost.
Children and the Internet
Cyberbullying is a growing problem. It is hurtful and can be as depressing to your child as bullying in the playground. The problem with it is that there is no real escape in cyberspace and the bullying takes place in full view of your child’s peers.
Secondly, we have the problems associated with children making friends with strangers on the Internet, in social networking sites and chatrooms. This should not always be seen as a problem but close monitoring of the situation is required, along with making sure that your child is aware of the dangers.
Last but not least is the amount of offensive material that exists on the Internet, from adult content to violent images – unfortunately the freedom of the digital world means that it isn’t always the best place to let a child run free, but most antivirus software comes with parental controls.
Social networking sites are such an increasingly huge part of many young people’s lives, the ease with which a person can set up a bogus account and the fact that many parents simply don’t understand the dangers and benefits.
The signs of cyber-bullying are much the same as normal bullying, your child may appear withdrawn and depressed, have mood-swings, falling grades at school and other signs of unhappiness. As with normal bullying the best way to deal with things is to talk your child and try and find out what’s wrong. There are many sites offering advice including iSafe.org and stopcyberbullying.org.
With predators the amount of time your child spends online may shoot up dramatically. Watch out for any mention of a new friend met online, and be especially concerned if this person wants to meet your child.
It isn’t going to be great for your child’s social life if you ban them completely from social networking sites, but it is vital to maintain tabs on what your child is doing online.
If you are concerned you can buy software that will record which sites your child visits, logs their internet activity and even makes copies of all correspondence your child makes through email, social networking and instant messaging. It is quite an invasion of privacy, but if you are seriously concerned it may be the best option for you.
In the case of cyber-bullying it is very simple to block people from their friends on sites like Facebook. If the bully is someone from school your child may find it difficult to block them but it’s a necessary step. Keep all the abusive comments and messages to show the school.
All the tools you need for Facebook are in Settings and then Privacy Settings. Here you can add people to the blocked list.
Myspace also allows you set your profile to private, so only friends can view it. Blocking someone is under the contact info.
Good anti-virus software offers protection from phishing, malware and viruses is vital.
Make sure your child’s social networking accounts are set to high privacy levels to ensure that people can’t simply stumble onto their profiles and access content, which could be used to befriend them.
If you are worried about the content your child can access there are a number of solutions.
Mozilla Firefox does not feature in built parental controls but these can be added in a variety of ways. For young children there is glubble which doesn’t just act as a filter, but a whole online activity centre with games, activities. The family can upload photos and is great way to introduce your kids to the internet safely.
ProCon Latte is a free filter that uses a list of inappropriate words, which are then asterisked out. It also allows traffic according to “white” lists and “black” lists of sites, which you can set yourself.
Windows allows you to set up a range of parental controls, which are then replicated in Internet Explorer, these limit the hours your kids can use the use the computer, the types of content they can access and the programs they can run. They can all be found by accessing
- Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Family Safety ->
- Set up parental controls -> Select your child’s account -> On -> Enforce current settings .
- From here you can then enforce limits on time, content, programs etc.
In Internet Explorer select Tools -> Internet Options -> Content. From here you can then use “content advisor” to filter what content can be viewed.
Images by D’Arcy Norman, ericskiff
Written by John Hillman
John Hillman is the editor of PC Site and a writer/journalist who spends his days researching and writing about new technology, cybercrime and social media.
Fri, Nov 13, 2009