Internet Monitoring Software

[Jeff]

We don't have any software installed, but use the \"family room\" method that kmv mentioned.  My understanding is that all of the Net Nanny software out there has a hard time staying up with the world's efforts to thwart it.  I would expect a teen that wants to access porn will find a way to do that even with the software installed.  I'm also inferring that in this case it might have been a \"chat room\" or IM event, in which case the keystroke recording type software would be the way to go.  I would think that would be very unwieldy and a huge log file, no?

I am so glad I am an adult now! :D

[Vindice]

LOLOLOL....that's tooooo funny!

[seekr]

I have to tell you something funny that just happened...speaking of monitoring. My 15 year old daughter just tattled on her 13 year old brother saying he was watching TBN. Now I really appreciate my daughter's sense of humor.

seekr

[janine]

Just common courtesy and looking over the History on the computer would keep us from digging into the kids' emails, etc., until something happens that would make us not trust them.

We are responsible for them, and sitting back oblivious while they bring unmonitored trash into our home would not be an option.  Even just for the optimistic one look you imagine a good kid would need to know the stuff wasn't for him.

If they don't like the relatively light monitoring they get from us, they have access to the public library computers, about 1/2 mile from my front door.  The older kid has access to the university's computer lab - she's on campus almost every day.  All three children will have access to the computers at church - we're setting up a little lab of our own, with perhaps 5 computers, for whoever needs to use them.

Home, library, college and church.  That's a lot of access.  If they are doing/writing/viewing anything they cannot in my dining room, the church office, the public library or the university... they don't need to be into it.

[janine]

That's not disturbing.  Was the computer being looked at in her house, or not?

Suppose brother wanted to rent some videos or dvd's from Blockbuster, to view in Mom's house.  Has she no right to a say in whether or not she'll allow 'em in her home?

How about books?  Music?  Visitors?

There may be some difference between what's permissible for a 5-yr-old and a 15-yr-old... but, in general, I don't care if the viewer or computer user or listener or reader is 43 years old, if they plan to do anything in my house, it'll rest within my guidelines or they can go get their own house.

[Talulah]

Actually, yes.  I do believe she had some other way of looking at them though.

[janine]

Excellent!  :thumbup:

[spurly]

I have a questions for the parents on this board.  How many of you use internet monitoring software when your children are on the net.  If you don't, why don't you?

Here's why I ask.  I just had a parent send me a log that their monitoring software made on Monday and Tuesday for me to read through.  he wanted advice on what to do.  It seems that his son (13) is getting into some things with his \"girlfriend\" that he shouldn't, and his parents found out about it with this software.  They have two sons, and the sons don't know that they have the software on the computer.  It records every keystroke that is made on line and off line.

Hopefully, it has helped them bring up their son in a more godly way.  What do you think about it?  

Kevin

[Jim Abb]

Sounds like a good program to help keep the kids in line, but I think they should be honest and tell the kids that they will be monitoring their computer use. They don't have to specify how, but I think being honest, especially with a teenager is VERY crucial to maintaining trust and communication.

[spurly]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Jeff @ Feb. 06 2003,9:44)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]We don't have any software installed, but use the \"family room\" method that kmv mentioned.  My understanding is that all of the Net Nanny software out there has a hard time staying up with the world's efforts to thwart it.  I would expect a teen that wants to access porn will find a way to do that even with the software installed.  I'm also inferring that in this case it might have been a \"chat room\" or IM event, in which case the keystroke recording type software would be the way to go.  I would think that would be very unwieldy and a huge log file, no?[/quote]
Yes,

It was messaging that tipped him off, although this software also records every site visited and takes screen shots every couple of minutes.  The file was very large.  It took a couple of hours to read through it.  (And read past all the stuff that wasn't really important).

I think he plans on informing his sons of the software and letting them know that he placed it on the computer to help keep them accountable.

Kevin

[Bon Voyage]

I think in addition to the family room thing, if using dialup internet it might be an advantage to change the password so the kids have to ask you to put in the password to get on the internet.

I don't know what else you could do about broadband.  Don't have it up here.

[Vindice]

Keep a good eye on them.....they will stray....we all did when we were their age.....and I'm sure most if not all of us do now and again at whatever age we are.  The best thing you can do is try to learn as much as you can about computers (easy for the computer guy to say).  They are being taught a massive amount in school about computers these days and WILL use it against you if they can.  LEARN as much as you can or they will just bypass the monitoring software...and yes...they CAN and WILL do it....I don't care how good you think they are.

[seekr]

Hey, Vindice, I like what you say. I also do not think in terms of \"goodness\"...it doesn't realy exist, except in a spiritual sense and then it is about God's goodness in us. Too often we as parents try so hard to monitor our children and they can ACT certain ways around us, but that does not really promote righteousness. I would much rather give my children freedom and allow them to fail than wear the mask of hypocrisy so prevalent in the church today. I am not saying I do not discipline or teach them choices, but I do know their nature as it is mine also.

seekr

[janine]

All we do is the \"right out in the open\"- in the dining room- method.

Also, Mike makes it a point to cruise through the History and Recycle Bin every now-and-then.

I have seen the rare nasty thing that gets through my email filters, and I have been typing along at lightspeed and accidentally clicked a sneaky pop-up ad before, so I can understand how bad things can show up.  I just get rid of them, unless they really seem to be something I should quiz the kids about.  

Mike, on the other hand, tends to grill the kids about anything less than savory, until he's satisfied they aren't doing something they shouldn't.

:D  :p  :frowning::lookaround:
This approach has occasionally backfired on him... he and Mikey III have backtracked questionable items before and had it turn out to be Daddy's fault the things showed up!  Haw!
:help:  :doh:  :eek:  :D

[Barb1957]

I'm not crazy about the blockers; they too often tend to block things that don't need to be blocked.

Earthlink took over our old isp and since we're on it (earthlink) now, their pop-up blocker would be a huge aid in the event one of us clicked unknowingly on what turned out to be a porno link (which are notorius for myriad pop-ups).  Something else helpful is our Trend PC-cillin antivirus software which also has a web filter; you can block sites you don't want accessed. If you try to go to a blocked site, you get a page that says \"This URL has been blocked by Trend PC-cillin as a banned/restricted site.\"  Another help is in IE, under Tools/Internet Options/Content, you can use the Content Adviser to set levels for Language, Nudity, Sex, and Violence.

I agree with seekr. Our 16 year old is the only kid in the house who uses the computer, and we trust him. Not to say I don't think natural teenage boy curiousity could come into play. I just don't worry about it too much.

Like Vindice said, kids are computer savvy and know how to get around things.

Our computer is in our family/living room too.

[Barb1957]

hey, seekr, whatever works, right? I don't think any of us can make rules about computer use that will cover everyone's needs and situation. What you say makes a lot of sense and seems to work for your family. We've had our computer in our bedroom too. I can see pros and cons for both as far as our family goes.

[Barb1957]

lol, seekr ... I bet she gets a lot of that sense of humor from her mom!  I read that TBN now has or is adding something called JC-tv, aimed at youth, for digital tv.
I don't know digital tv from an egg beater. I think we have a tv tv, what do I know??

[Talulah]

I think installing monitoring software on a computer and not telling the persons using the computer is a horrible violation of privacy.  Despicable.  Got a problem with just saying 'I don't want you looking at certain sites, therefore I have found a program that moniters what you look at?'  First of all, what if he just got curious and looked one day, then made up his own mind that there were better things to do with his time/parents would be mad/wasn't his thing anyway?  My brother is 15 and he knows how to override all that stuff anyway and I say good for him.  I think he has a right to look at anything he wants.  And that boy's parents were reading his chat logs.  Again I say, utterly despicable.

At any rate, they will be lucky if their son ever trusts them again and the son will fell terribly violated, with reason.  He is a person, not a lump of clay!

My mother monitored me and my brother even into our 20's.  Some of it was on my own [that I bought and paid for in college] computer after I moved back home, trying to break into my email, instant relay chat accounts etc.  

Vile!

[Talulah]

Maybe I should clear my position up.  That just sparked a nerve.  

I understand there is a lot of trash on the internet that children don't need to see.  I am not against filtering software for children though I have seen where some wives have installed it for their husbands, which in my opinion is pretty silly, not to mention paranoid and jealous.  I actually have a preacher friend who installed one on his computer for himself for accountability purposes. :D

The problem I do have, is that while you still need to protect a 5, 8, 13 year olds from themselves and predators, I don't think there is any reason to be reading things they are typing to friends (with possible exceptions for serious mental health issues) combined with the fact, that I think invasivness like that is just wrong and damaging to relationships that could be built on trust, but are in fact based on secrecy.

[WileyClarkson]

Talulah, Janine, and all.

A couple of comments.  If the dialup is paid for with your money and/or if you own the computer, there is no such thing as privacy on that computer for other users besides yourself.  It doesn't matter who uses the equipment, you own it, you regulate it, you have a right to check it, and you have the right to take the necessary actions to protect yourself from someone else's possible illegal activity or abise of the rules that you set for the use of what you own and pay for.  You will be the first person who is held responsible for the illegal/improper use of the computer and dialup.  This also holds true for the business world.  There is no such thing as true privacy on a business network.  Most corporations have policy statements reqarding privacy and what they will allow, and they reserve the right to investigate if they feel the need.  Where I work, they not only have a very clear and strict policy on pornography, they also use site blocking software that blocks the site, displays a warning of policy violation, and makes a record of the blocks.  This includes email sites.  They also use specific software that can track all email, etc within the network.

At ACU, there is a policy with extreme consequences for repeated violations that there will be no pornography viewed through their student dialups.  They keep a record of all transactions that go through the connection and occassionally do an audit to see if anyone is not following the rules.  If they find someone breaking the rules, they can be expelled from the school.  One of my daughters had a roommate that we thought was a nice girl.  My wife and I visited one weekend and while we were there, my daughter asked her to check out her computer because of a little problem she was having.  She also asked me to look at the useage while I was working on it.  Since they were on different schedules, one would use my daughter's computer and then the other would have time on the computer.  The history files were set for 1 or 2 days, which is not unusual for my systems.  I keep them set that way on ost of my family computers.  Of course history can be cleared at anytime.  It didn't show anything out of the ordinary.  However, when I checked the temporary file storage, I found alot of pages that were to very hardcore porno sites.  When I told my daughter what I had found, she just about came unwound at the fact that her roommate would risk my daughter's education like that, especially when my daughter had told her to follow ACU rules on what to sites this girl was allowed to visit.  There was a very serious talk when my daughter's roommate came home that night!  They quit sharing quarters together the next semester.

About a year later, my daughter moved to a two bedroom apartment off campus and the same ex-roommate took the other bedroom (my daughter is somewhat like me in that we like to think that people change for the better and will not go against our wishes a second time!).  My daughter would not let her use the computer and connection though.  However, one week when she was out of town for several days on a school function, that same girl decided to use my daughter's computer again.  This time when my daughter used the checking techniques I had shown her, she found that this girl had spent more than 8 straight hours one day just going from one XXX hard core site to another while my daughter was gone.  My daughter then contacted the ACU IT department to have them check their records and to also get it into an official record that she was not the one doing the hard core sites.  The IT department confirmed that the browsing had occured (and more than once) when my daughter was out of town on a school sponsered activity, which cleared my daughter of anything that would have come from an audit which had already been started on a number of dialup accounts.  This brought about a permanent split between the two that ended not long after.

Regarding children in your home, there should be no privacy on the coumpter for their protection.  They are particularly vulnerable to outside influence through the internet, and as parents, we are responsibility to make sure our kids are protected.  There are good ISP's who have filtered access for the protection of kids and those who would be offended by many sites.  Promise Keepers runs dialups all over the US with filters for a number of different offending type sites.

Got to go.  At work and it's time to go to my next assignment.

Those are my thoughts on the privacy issue.

[Talulah]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]My older son will be 18 in April, and my daughter will be 22 in August.  

I do not read their emails.  On the other hand, if they, or my husband even, give me cause to think they are into 'Net porn or other illegal stuff, in my house, I'm looking!  And maybe blocking![/quote]
Net porn is not illegal.

Besides, I worry about people like that (who follow adults around trying to control their behavoir.)  My mother would look at every link on the computer looked at by my brothers, every link on the history.  Disturbing.

[Talulah]

Sure, I think reasonable guidelines are in order in your home.  But when it comes to every book, every cd, every site on the internet, that is tyranical.

[Talulah]

Of course.

[Bon Voyage]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Net porn is not illegal.

Besides, I worry about people like that (who follow adults around trying to control their behavoir.)  My mother would look at every link on the computer looked at by my brothers, every link on the history.  Disturbing. [/quote]

Didn't your brothers learn how to clean the history?

[spurly]

Update  :announceit: Update

I talked to one of the sons of the gentleman who put the internet tracker on his computer.  

Is the son upset?  No.  Just the opposite, the son is very grateful.  His comment was that he is extremely tempted by lust and internet porn, and this helps him stay accountable, at least when he is at home.

No hard feelings there between the father and the son, but rather a sense of thankfulness that the father is helping him stay accountable.

Kevin :clap:

[kmv]

I wouldn't mind knowing more about internet blocking software.  Right now, though, we use the 'computer in the middle of the family room' method.  No computers and no tv in the bedrooms.

[julie danley]

I am with all you guys...computer in the middle of the family room.  It is in full view as anyone walks through.  Has been good so far but you can also look on the computer log and see what sites have been visited.  Have discussed with kids what is appropriate and what is not...also the whys and why I hold the views that I do.  We have parental control on the computer and our kids can't go to chat rooms.  I decided early on that was way too risky.  Too many kids end up in trouble or missing because of chat room contact.  It hit too close to home when a member of our church was arrested for soliciting a teenager(really an FBI agent) and it was all over the papers.  It could be anyone.  I am very careful!  
grace, Julie

[seekr]

I have my computer in my room, which actually helps me to not be too obsessive with it or having my 4 teens on it too much, because my husband goes to bed quite early. It is not available at that point and there is no arguing over taking turns. Gives a little bit of peace \"monitoring\" it that way.

seekr

[Bon Voyage]

you will know a lot about digital tv come 2007.

[janine]

Ominous prediction...  Or happy prophecy?

[janine]

My older son will be 18 in April, and my daughter will be 22 in August.  

I do not read their emails.  On the other hand, if they, or my husband even, give me cause to think they are into 'Net porn or other illegal stuff, in my house, I'm looking!  And maybe blocking!

[janine]

Well, there's the way we approach it...

We do not wring our hands and get out the Gestapo cattle prods over every email/book/movie/game/website/etc.

If... when... something happens that causes us to believe a facet of our kids' entertainment needs to be examined more closely, then we do.

So far, we haven't snooped into emails or chat stuff.  If we ever think it's called for, though, we sure will.

When Mike buzzes through the History, he's basically looking at a list of each view's browser bar title.  Very few things warrant an actual reading.  When the occasional item has looked bad, we've quizzed the kids about how it came to be there.  So far we have received satisfactory answers.

If we ever get unsatisfactory answers, we'll take appropriate action.

And, since we went \"on line\" here, the one and only bit of porn that made it past our filters (that I know about) was some child porn on in my Hotmail.  That's illegal, yes?

[Bon Voyage]

If you have children and want to keep track of what they do on the net, I would use special software.  It is very easy to delete any and all references to internet activity on the computer.