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1st let me start off by saying that
as the parent you should be the boss of the computer just like in
the home. Being the boss you are the administrator of the pc. You
should only set yourself as the administrator and password protect
your account. Set the children as limited accounts. As the
administrator you can limit what the limited account can do as well
as view all files and folders under the users account. This step
will also save you money and frustration. As a technician people
often ask me what the most common problem is with a pc, and I have
to answer teenagers! They tend to try to view smutty sites, and
download games and visit sites that invite malware.
It is your job as parents to protect your kids
from danger. You would not let your child swim in shark infested
water would you? Believe it or not that’s what you’re doing when you
give your child unsupervised access to the internet. I would like to
show you some ways that your child can be monitored and protected
from predators. With great power great responsibility, please use
the information in this document wisely. Should you find something
make sure you pick your battle wisely, I don’t recommend going off
half cocked. Investigate the findings, think hard about your
responses and make an intelligent decision on the actions you take.
The obvious stuff is of course the browser
history. Your browser keeps a history of websites for a
predetermined amount of time and it is easy to browse that history
and see where your child has been surfing on the internet. If you
take my advice from earlier about setting them as a limited account
even if they password protect their profile you can remove their
password from your admin account. Then you can go in and see their
email, files, history ECT. Most kids today are more computer savvy
then the parents due to the fact that they have been around them all
their life, so you as a parent have to be sneaky and kind of know
your Childs skill level when it comes to the workings of the pc.
They may be able to easily undo anything you do if they are not
limited by you the administrator.
Today a lot of parents are giving their
children computers in their rooms or laptops, the kid has free run
on that pc, and that’s fine they need their pc for school and it is
a wonderful link to the rest of the world but gain the problem is
they are completely UN supervised. There are a couple of programs I
want to let you know about.
1.
ICU Insight into
your Children’s unaccompanied activity
This program is free and will let you monitor your child without
them even knowing they are being checked up on. For more information
visit their web site
http://www.icu-software.co.uk/child-monitoring-software.aspx
2.
IMMonitor,
No
Trial Period Limit, Free
version can monitor 3 stations.
This program is
great if you have high speed internet using a router for all the
computers in the house as they are networked, to share that internet
connection and it will look at the traffic from other computers on
the network from your bedroom or den. Very sneaky, if you catch my
drift.
One way children are in danger from online
predators is online chat programs such as yahoo messenger, ICQ,
Messenger, ECT. Most chat clients have a chat log in the program but
you have to turn it on inside the account and your child can turn it
off pretty easy. So I recommend a program called Chat Watch. It is
software by Zemericks and it monitors and records all major chat
programs.
Check out chatwatch5 it is not free but is cheap and besides can
you put a price on your child’s safety?
There are lots of other ways your child can be
in grave danger on the internet. E-mail, websites, ECT. Not
monitoring your child’s activity on their computer is not only
dangerous but can be costly so I hope this document helps you
parents protect your child. If my tech doc saves one child from an
online predator then it was worth every second it took to research
and write it
Jeremy M. Robertson
Senior Technician
The Computer Generation Inc. |
