The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Guidelines on Internet Access for Children and Parents Les Bell |
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Les Bell has written these guidelines for parents of children at primary or elementary schools, ie. aged 5 to 12. |
Brief Recommendations
About the Author
Introduction
Over the last decade the Internet has emerged as an important communications
medium for both professional and personal usage. People shop on the Internet,
book airline tickets on the Internet, use e-mail rather than paper mail, search
for information and do much more. It seems likely that by the time our young
children are in their late teens, they will routinely use Internet access to
perform tasks that we did with the Yellow Pages, a phone, paper and pencil, and
they will need to use some skills to do that - skills which can be acquired only
with some practice, making it undesirable to totally disallow Internet access.
The Internet provides a range of services. In the area of privacy and protection
of minors, the most important of these are:
Vulnerabilities Considered Here
Exposure to inappropriate content (pornography, advertising)
Exposure to privacy infringements (advertising, Spam, online stalkers, or worse)
Exposure to ethical or moral grey areas (mailing lists, free offers, scams)
Exposure to technical risks: viruses, worms, etc. which can "damage" home or
school computers
Absence of parental or other adult supervision
In this article I do not consider additional risks, such as the exposure to
hackers incurred by "always-on" cable modem and ADSL Internet connections, etc.
I also do not discuss addictive or compulsive behaviour, the effect of violent
video games, etc.
Internet Access Generally
Home computers should be placed in a family room, kitchen, study or other area
where the screen is visible to parents most of the time.
Teach children about "stranger danger online". Do not allow children to give
their name, address, e-mail address or other identifying information to
strangers in any way - whether by Web forms, e-mail, chat or discussion forums.
Remind them that you have no way of confirming the age, sex, location or other
information about people online.
Teach children to be reasonably sceptical about online advertising, free offers
and other scams. If it seems too good to be true, it always is - especially on
the Internet, where it is easy for offenders to hide.
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a complexly-linked (hence, Web) Network of documents and
services that are accessed via a Web browser such as Microsoft Internet
Explorer, Netscape Communicator and others. Accelerated marketing of Web content
by providers has made the Web easy to use (just point and click), rich (colourful
graphics, music, interactive games, etc) and attractive (interesting content).
The Web is an excellent educational resource, and to an increasing extent,
schools are going to have to reflect the reality that much professional and
educational research is conducted via the Web. There are many good and safe
sites for kids to use, both for education and entertainment, and a good starting
point is Berit's Best Sites for Children http://www.beritsbest.com/ Other sites
which are designed specifically for children include Yahooligans!
http://www.yahooligans.com/.
It is widely known that these attributes have made the Web an ideal mechanism
for the distribution of pornography, to the extent that pornographic Web sites
are held up as one of only a few examples of successful businesses on the
Internet (this is sad, but quite probably true). Pornography Web sites aim to
attract users by apparently offering free access but requiring credit card
details "as proof of age", although in fact the majority will then bill the
credit cards. Some also work by downloading a special dialler program, which
will then replace the computer's regular dialler, and will connect to the
Internet via an international toll call with added chargebacks.
I consider it unlikely that most primary-school children will have access to
credit cards, and unlikely that they will have the ability to download and
install a replacement dialler program.
Therefore, the threat comes from two areas:
Once again, it is unlikely that children will stumble across free pornography
sites. In fact, in my daily work, which sometimes takes me into the seamy
underbelly of the Internet, even I rarely come across such sites. The real worry
is area 2.
One technique used by pornography site operators is to put "keyword tags" at the
top of their Web pages, containing many quite inoffensive words that are likely
to be used in Web searches. The search engines' robots then come across these
pages and index them under the various keywords, so that subsequent searches
will turn up the pornography Web sites
amongst the useful ones. Our family has encountered at least one quite offensive
example of this practice while researching a school project.
Pornography Web sites also place banner advertisements on other Web sites, and
these generally seem to
be those in the "grey areas" of the Internet where they need the ad revenue:
warez sites, hacker sites and the like. These advertisements can be quite
explicit, and are very
eyecatching (yes, even for kids!).
"Warez" is software - games, operating systems, etc. - on which the copy
protection, if any, has been
defeated, and which can be freely downloaded. Examples include popular PC, PS2
and other games,
Windows XP, Microsoft Office, as well as other content such as music CDs and
even DVD movies. Such material breaches the Copyright Act in Australia, and
downloading it is illegal in most countries. Hence, the warez sites typically
move around, and are willing to accept banner advertising for pornography Web
sites to cover their costs.
Hacker sites are those used by computer hackers (crackers, computer terrorists,
attackers, call them what you will) to exchange "exploits", which are the
techniques used to defeat computer security. These also seem willing to accept
pornographic advertising.
It is unlikely that children will visit these sites; however, there is growing
interest in Web sites devoted to cheats, which are the undocumented secret
commands that can, for example, render one immortal in
a GameBoy game. These sites are somewhat borderline, in my opinion, and I
consider it possible that a child looking for cheat sites may blunder into warez
and hacker sites, and thence the pornography adverts.
Countermeasures
The most commonly-cited technical countermeasure to inappropriate Web content is
so-called filtering software for home computers, such as Net Nanny, Cyber
Patrol, CyberSitter, etc. I have experimented with Net Nanny, and found that it
interfered with the operation of the computer to a level that we found
unacceptable while
being fairly ineffective at filtering
out objectionable content. On one memorable occasion, my wife lost all her work
when Net Nanny took
offence to something she had typed and killed Microsoft Word. Unless these
products have improved considerably, I fear the cure may be worse than the
disease. Comments on specific products are invited. Tools for blocking and
filtering Internet access can be found in a directory at
http://www.getnetwise.org/tools/.
Results of a CSIRO test of filtering software is expected to appear at CyberSmart Kids
http://www.cybersmartkids.com.au/.
The second approach is to use content filtering at the Network level. This is
done by a server called a proxy Web server, which is able to block or allow
access to Web sites based upon various rules such as the site name, address,
time of day, the user name and, in some cases, the content of the pages. The NSW
Department of Education operates such a filter between the outside world and the
departmental intranet, and it is fairly effective. Blocking of sites can be done
either on a black-list basis - this blocks access to known objectionable sites,
but new sites will not be blocked until they appear on the list - or on a
white-list basis, which allows access to only known "good" sites, but may be
overly-restrictive. However, the use of a proxy Web server is not something
available to most home users.
America OnLine (AOL) claims to filter content available to its customers via
this method. However, it is a commonly held view that most
pornography trading takes place among AOL customers on the AOL Network, and that
the primary purpose of AOL's filters is to restrict customers to AOL's premium
(i.e.
extra-cost) services. I remain unconvinced of the effectiveness of AOL's content
filtering.
The third technique is to use a proxy Web server, not to block access, but only
to log all sites which are visited. The same information can be retrieved from
the "history" files of Web browsers. For Netscape, the history can be seen by
simply clicking the down-arrow at the right end of the "Location" bar (it is
stored in C:\Program Files\Netscape Communicator\ Users\<username>\prefs.js).
For Internet Explorer, recent site URLs can be obtained by clicking on the
pull-down arrow at the right end of the "Address" bar, but a much more
comprehensive list of site URLs can be retrieved from (at least, under Windows
2000) "C:\documents and
settings\<username> \Local Settings\ History", where it is organized into a
series of folders, by age. Internet Explorer preserves a lot more history
information than Netscape.
Make it clear to children that you can easily see what Web sites they have
visited.
The fourth approach - which I recommend - is the use of a Web search engine
which filters out inappropriate material. To date, the best I have seen is
Google SafeSearch (see http://www.google.com/help/customize.html#safe). I
include this on our intranet home page and highly recommend it, and will put it
on our school Web site home page.
The best non-technical countermeasure is adult supervision and
involvement in online activities.
Other Miscellaneous Advice
Do not allow children to register at Web sites without parental permission.
Always read the privacy policy of the site operator. If there is no policy, or
if it looks suspicious, do not register. Sites run by major companies with a
family-friendly image to uphold (e.g., Lego) are usually safe - but check
anyway.
Do not allow children to download and install software such as free demo games,
etc. Some downloads, such as the execrable "Bonzi Buddy" are designed to present
continual banner advertising while invading your privacy by capturing
information about the Web sites that you visit and relaying it to an
unidentified third party. Children are, by their natures, excessively trusting,
and will happily install virus, trojan horse and worm programs which can cause
damage to your computer.
Do not allow children unlimited downloads of music and video - the large size of
these files can easily cause you to exceed the download allowance provided by
your Internet service provider and inadvertently incur substantial additional
charges. In a recent case a colleague reported, a secretary at a small business
amused herself by downloading lots of music over her employers' new
high-bandwidth ADSL line, incurring a $2,000 surcharge for the first month of
operation.
E-mail Services
Electronic mail should be quite safe, when used between children with a minimal
level of supervision. Indeed, e-mail can be a useful and fun way for children to
keep in touch with distant relatives, dads on business trips, etc. Starting next
year, the NSW Department of Education will provide all children (and parents)
with e-mail accounts, and e-mail will be a fact of life for all.
Threats and Defences
E-mail accounts with free providers such as Hotmail/ninemsn, Yahoo! and others
seem to be publicly visible and harvestable by spammers and others. This will
lead to receipt of unsolicited e-mails from a variety of sources.
Do not create e-mail accounts for children based upon their real names. Always
make up a "screen name" or "handle" that is not directly traceable back to the
child, but take care to avoid inappropriate connotations or age references, e.g.
"biker_man171", "hotlips69","hottiexxx", etc.
If children (or adults) are receiving Spam (unsolicited commercial e-mail) do
not reply to any suggested "Remove" address! Replying merely informs the spammer
that a human read the e-mail, which shows the e-mail address to be "live" and
therefore more valuable (a process known as "list-washing"). Once they know
this, your level of Spam will rapidly increase.
To deal with SPAM, register with a service like SpamCop
http://spamcop.net. This
will allow you to paste the complete e-mail - including the headers which are
normally not displayed - into a Web form, where SpamCop will then analyse the
header information and automatically generate complaint e-mails to the upstream
Internet Service Provider of the spammer. The e-mail does not identify you, and
the ISP should close the account of the offender (who will then simply move on
to the next ISP, typically on a 30-day free trial basis).
There is no service which can automatically deal with Spam of a
pornographic nature. In serious cases, the appropriate agency to contact is
obviously the Police Service.
Instant Messaging and "Chat Rooms"
Instant messaging software allows text, voice and even video communication in
real time, person to person. Such software also usually allows access to public
"chat rooms" in which mutual interests (hobbies, etc.) can be discussed.
Examples of such programs and services include MSN Messenger, Microsoft
NetMeeting, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
and others. They are enormously popular with young people, and there is no
reason to believe that children are not equally attracted. In fact, older
siblings may introduce younger children to such services.
Instant messaging software can be a terrific resource, especially for travelling
parents. I have a small Webcam attached to my notebook so that I can
"video-conference" with my family when travelling, and it is also great for
chatting to distant family members.
Threats and Defences
Instant Messaging software is probably the major exposure to
inappropriate content for our children. The real-time nature of the
communication renders any form of moderation (i.e. intervention to kill
inappropriate content) impossible. The bias of the age/sex distribution of users
towards males in their late teens leads to almost constant exposure to bad
lanuage, inappropriate comments, you name it (and I am basing my comments on my
experience in what I now know to be a fairly tranquil backwater of technical
users).
Spammers and others appear to collect user IDs (and the associated e-mail
addresses) from chat rooms, and users then become the recipients of unsolicited
commercial e-mails. In addition, it seems to be common practice for operators of
pornography Web sites to use "robots" (these are actually programs, although
they display some characteristics of human users, hence the name) to direct
solicitations and invitations via personal messaging or instant messaging to
users who are in a chat room at the time.
Example: "hottieamy44444: Heya! My name is Amy and my friends and i just made
our own adult site with free pics and videos on it so please check it out and
reply and tell me what ya think just click here -> http://www.amysnaughtysite.com
Thanks!! - Amy the Hottie "
Ethical issues: only today I witnessed a quite amazing diatribe about the
Holocaust and the Jesse Owens affair at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, conducted in a
Yahoo! chatroom by what I later discovered was a somewhat precocious
16-year-old. Regardless of one's personal beliefs, one might not wish one's
children to be exposed to debates about religion, race, etc. before they are
able to form a proper appreciation of the arguments involved.
It has been suggested that chat rooms are the most likely places for paedophiles
and child pornographers to attempt to ensnare kids. That seems quite probable,
although I have never seen any evidence of this kind of activity, I am not a
major user of chat rooms and have never explored the kinds of rooms where such
activity might be conducted.
All of these threats are inappropriate for children, and so children should not
be allowed to use such chat rooms. The only defence I can see is to ban their
use.
Some service providers, e.g. Yahoo!, provide an instant messenger and chat room
service specifically for children (e.g. "Yahooligans!",
http://www.yahooligans.com.
However, I am informed that this is not widely used, and kids will prefer more
open (and adult-oriented) systems.
One local "chat room" (actually a Web forum) which has appropriate controls is
the ABC Children's "Link Up" project at
http://www.abc.net.au/children/linkup.
Click on the "Ongoing Forum" link to continue from there. This Web forum
requires only a Web browser (no special software) and all posts are reviewed for
appropriateness by an adult moderator before being made public. No names or
other identifying data are permitted. This seems to be a particularly
appropriate way for primary-aged children to communicate online.
Note as of 16th August 2002: The "Link Up" site has now closed, but has been
replaced by two new ABC moderated sites: "shout"
http://www2b.abc.net.au/children/shout/ and "chatterbox"
http://www2b.abc.net.au/children/chatterbox/.
Usenet
Also known as "net news", this service is not commonly used by computer novices,
but enables unmoderated public discussion in the same way as chat rooms, only
not in real time. While some parts of Usenet are carefully structured into a
hierarchy (comp. for computing, comp.sys for computer systems, rec. for
recreation, rec.roller-coaster, aus.bushwalking, etc.) this is not the case of
the infamous alt. hierarchy, where anyone can create newsgroups on any topic -
and they do. This is where one will find the nefarious alt.sex.small-furry-animals,
for example, and other things best left to the imagination.
While newsgroups may be useful and interesting, there is minimal support for
content filtering, and children should generally not be permitted to use
newsreader programs such as Microsoft News or Netscape
Newsgroup.
Resources
Walt Disney Corporation has a Web site with some fun, interactive
lessons on online safety:
http://disney.go.com/cybersafety/index.html
The Kids on the Web:
http://www.zen.org/~brendan/kids.html
Kid's Tools for Searching the Internet:
http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm
Disney's Top Ten CyberNetiquette Tips:
http://disney.go.com/cybersafety/tips.html
Get Net Wise:
http://www.getnetwise.org/
NetAlert:
http://www.netalert.net.au
Australian Broadcasting Authority Cyber Smart Kids Site:
http://www.cybersmartkids.com.au/
Les Bell has been online since 1982, and is a Certified Information Systems
Security Professional.
Reprinted from the February 2004 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
