If anyone wasn't paranoid about their kids being on the internet...

[south]

Sure, I agree with you.
The problem are the search engine also...you can set up filters on your family pc but porn is everywhere on the net...you click a family site and you can be redirect to a Jenna Jameson movie.

The tv is a shame too...but on Internet you can meet "real" dangerous people.

So my suggestion is: for Christmas buy some books for your childrens.
Read a book open the mind.

Agreed completely, but good luck trying to get them to read. Girls maybe, boys, not so easy. I have 5 kids between my wife's and mine from previous marriages.

The best thing is to have a "family computer" in the living room, where everyone can see what everyone else is doing. I unfortunately I do not practice this, as I realized it too late, but I do take their computers away or block their internet access if they slip below certain grades in school, get in trouble, etc. I also have some major rules in their router (I have a seperate dsl line for the kids, so my T1 at home doesn't get blacklisted). It attempts to block porn / adult, etc, and pop up a message to the effect of "this site may damage your computer, etc". It also shuts down access at 10:30 PM, so they can't stay up all night on it. I also occaisonally print out the log of everywhere they've been, and slide it under the door, just so they know there are no secrets.

Our kids only get a TV in their room if they keep their grades over C. If they get too many D's, F's they obviously haven't been spending enough time doing homework studying.

All that said though, kids need some exposure to the real world, at least in small doses. Eventually they're going to have to face it. They already get more than enough at school as it is.

[Stian]

Let's just say, as an example, that you are keylogging your 16 year old daughter (which is fine according to you). The internet is a youth's number one way of communicating nowadays, so she will chat with her friends about everything. Lots of personal stuff, like her period, her feelings about her friends and parents (you), sexual stuff (yes, 16 year olds talk about sex) and all the other intimate and personal stuff 16 year old girls talk about. Then you, her father, sits every day (or week) and reads through all this personal stuff she's talking to her friends about.

Now, what if she finds out one day that you have been logging her every word, watching her every life through her computer? What would happen then? She will most likely have problems trusting you ever again and she might do a lot more bad stuff than she would do if you gave her a little break.

*2 cents paid.*

[Carter]

Agreed completely, but good luck trying to get them to read. Girls maybe, boys, not so easy. I have 5 kids between my wife's and mine from previous marriages.

The best thing is to have a "family computer" in the living room, where everyone can see what everyone else is doing. I unfortunately I do not practice this, as I realized it too late, but I do take their computers away or block their internet access if they slip below certain grades in school, get in trouble, etc. I also have some major rules in their router (I have a seperate dsl line for the kids, so my T1 at home doesn't get blacklisted). It attempts to block porn / adult, etc, and pop up a message to the effect of "this site may damage your computer, etc". It also shuts down access at 10:30 PM, so they can't stay up all night on it. I also occaisonally print out the log of everywhere they've been, and slide it under the door, just so they know there are no secrets.

Our kids only get a TV in their room if they keep their grades over C. If they get too many D's, F's they obviously haven't been spending enough time doing homework studying.

All that said though, kids need some exposure to the real world, at least in small doses. Eventually they're going to have to face it. They already get more than enough at school as it is.

Agree 100%
Kids need parents near when they grow...too many dads working all day and the kids grow up lonely...when they find an idiot on the web promise bullshit they want meet him because the parents don't be near.

I've only a pc in my house (a laptop) with psw so I'm the only one can open it.
But my daughter now is too little to surf the web...the problems come when she have 11/12 years old.

[Stian]

The best thing is to have a "family computer" in the living room, where everyone can see what everyone else is doing. I unfortunately I do not practice this, as I realized it too late, but I do take their computers away or block their internet access if they slip below certain grades in school, get in trouble, etc. I also have some major rules in their router (I have a seperate dsl line for the kids, so my T1 at home doesn't get blacklisted). It attempts to block porn / adult, etc, and pop up a message to the effect of "this site may damage your computer, etc". It also shuts down access at 10:30 PM, so they can't stay up all night on it. I also occaisonally print out the log of everywhere they've been, and slide it under the door, just so they know there are no secrets.

These countermeasures are good practices. Keylogging is not IMO.

[Carter]

Let's just say, as an example, that you are keylogging your 16 year old daughter (which is fine according to you). The internet is a youth's number one way of communicating nowadays, so she will chat with her friends about everything. Lots of personal stuff, like her period, her feelings about her friends and parents (you), sexual stuff (yes, 16 year olds talk about sex) and all the other intimate and personal stuff 16 year old girls talk about. Then you, her father, sits every day (or week) and reads through all this personal stuff she's talking to her friends about.

Now, what if she finds out one day that you have been logging her every word, watching her every life through her computer? What would happen then? She will most likely have problems trusting you ever again and she might do a lot more bad stuff than she would do if you gave her a little break.

*2 cents paid.*

Very interesting point of view.

[diecipher]

My point is kids do a lot more than just chat with strangers online. Listening in to private conversations between friends and all sorts of other things, if they don't know they are being monitored and then find out, they will never come to you with their problems. There has to be trust between child and parent. If you just want to play police officer, your kid is gonna rebel big time.

I understand your point. The bottom line is that they can chat all day at school, on the cell phone, hanging out at the mall, or whatever and have plenty of privacy. I'm not trying to invade and police every activity, I'm paying attention to the net where most "anonymous" solicitation takes place.

Have I seen things kids chat about and thought "hmm, I didn't know they did that?" sure, so what. I'm not trying to collect data on them and be a hard ***, I'm trying to make sure the real important issues don't slip through.

Kids need some monitoring, period. They are too immature and naive.

[Stian]

I could care less if my kid trusts me or not.

Do you really mean that? ..

[DomainsInc]

I understand your point. The bottom line is that they can chat all day at school, on the cell phone, hanging out at the mall, or whatever and have plenty of privacy. I'm not trying to invade and police every activity, I'm paying attention to the net where most "anonymous" solicitation takes place.

Have I seen things kids chat about and thought "hmm, I didn't know they did that?" sure, so what. I'm not trying to collect data on them and be a hard ***, I'm trying to make sure the real important issues don't slip through.

Kids need some monitoring, period. They are too immature and naive.

I do plan to moniter my childs internet activities, however they will know that I will be watching. Chances are they will stay away from such activities knowing that.

[diecipher]

Do you really mean that? ..

Do I really care if they trust me? it depends on the issue.

My kid (and even nieces and nephews) have come to me with embarrassing or private issues before that I would have never talked to my parents about when I was young. So do they trust me on most levels? I would think so.

Would they be mad if they knew I read some of their private stuff while checking random log files for something not safe? probably, but I don't care. They can thank me when Chris Hansen and team is tackling their "new internet friend" creeping out my back door with them in the middle of the night.

[south]

These countermeasures are good practices. Keylogging is not IMO.

Yes, rules must be made clear to the children, and then enforced. But you need to be very specific as to what the rules are. And all the authority figures in the house need to back each other in them. In addition, and even more important, is giving praise when they do good things.

[HarveyJ]

In this regard, blaming the internet really shits me.
I've been using various online telecommunications since I was 9.

Did I ever get raped by a pedophile? No.
Why? Because my parents told me not to give away details to people that I didn't know, and that if anyone ever suggested meeting, that I did it with some friends.

However, for every parent that tries to teach their kids something, there are dozens that over react, and more still that do nothing.

Over reacting is bad. It's a sure way to get any kid with half a brain to make countermeasures. My parents tried to block my access to porn when I was 14. I removed their administrator privileges from the network. As it is, the porn hasn't done anything particularly bad to my sex life or my attitude towards women.
Fercrisakes eveyr 14 year old kid is whacking off every day. This includes the girls, believe it or not.

Which brings me to my next point: Don't let them have a webcam, unless you want them to be making porn of themselves. And disable the video mode on their phone's camera while you're at it.
I used to OP for a few IRC channels on Austnet (yeah, IRC is still heavily used, even nowadays). The number of kids trying to basically sell sexual services to each other in exchange for smokes, booze, drugs or even phone credit is really bloody creepy. One chatter I tried to discpline started PMing asking if I'd like a freebie, and still attempted to initiate a videochat with me when I declined.
Hell, I even read a newspaper article the other day saying that the majority of childporn is made by the kids themselves nowadays!!

My point is that kids are kids. want them to be safe?
Educate them.
Make sure the computer is in a public place.
If they have their own computers, keystroke logging is pointless (like you have the time to really read all that crap?), simply make sure you know who they're talking to.
And bloody well make sure you know more about how to lock them out befiore they lock you out of your own system.

[jberryhill]

Two days ago they decided to see how hard it is for a child to get in contact with a predator. They have one of their younger members (low 20s and "hip") act as a 14 year old girl.

Let's just say within 30 minutes he was contacted by someone and on the second day of chatting he has set up a "date" with the "girl" including some interesting things he said in chat.

The thing with this sort of decoy operation is that it doesn't translate into a realistic perception of how an ordinary 14 year old girl is going to continue chatting with an adult who wants to have sex. The idea simply isn't that appealing to the overwhelming majority of 14 year old girls.

It doesn't take a keylogger to figure out whether your teenager wants to have sex with middle aged perverts, and as it turns out, practically none of them want to.

When you refer to "interesting things he said in chat", the question is whether your teenager is likely to be interested in those "interesting things".

Among real teenagers, and yes I raised a teenage daughter to successful adulthood with the internet continuously around, come-ons from old perverts are almost something of a joke.

I do plan to moniter my childs internet activities, however they will know that I will be watching. Chances are they will stay away from such activities knowing that.

Chances are they will stay away from them because they don't want to have sex with some old dude.

Really.

Let's just say, as an example, that you are keylogging your 16 year old daughter (which is fine according to you). The internet is a youth's number one way of communicating nowadays, so she will chat with her friends about everything. Lots of personal stuff, like her period, her feelings about her friends and parents (you), sexual stuff (yes, 16 year olds talk about sex) and all the other intimate and personal stuff 16 year old girls talk about. Then you, her father, sits every day (or week) and reads through all this personal stuff she's talking to her friends about.

Now, what if she finds out one day that you have been logging her every word, watching her every life through her computer? What would happen then? She will most likely have problems trusting you ever again and she might do a lot more bad stuff than she would do if you gave her a little break.

*2 cents paid.*

My sister did this with her daughter.

Ended up reading stuff that she didn't want to read, and couldn't "unread" it.

Most teenagers are sexually abused by parents, other relatives, and people they know. Next to that, "stranger rape" is statistically non-existent.

To put it very directly, I'm fairly suspect of a father who wants to know that much about his daughter's conversations, friends, etc. Seems like a great way for a sexual predator to get information.

Let's put it this way - Your daughter is chatting online with her friends. Her friends' fathers, guardians, or creepy Uncle Jack, are monitoring activity on the FRIENDS computers, and they are listening in on your daughter's most intimate conversations. Now how do you feel about parental monitoring?

[diecipher]

It doesn't take a keylogger to figure out whether your teenager wants to have sex with middle aged perverts, and as it turns out, practically none of them want to.

When you refer to "interesting things he said in chat", the question is whether your teenager is likely to be interested in those "interesting things".

Of course most teenage girls are not interested in sex with middle aged pervs, but money, concert tickets, beer, drugs, etc are appealing to alot of young teenagers struggling to fit in. Those are the things that are offered and accepted to eventually meet face to face.

Among real teenagers, and yes I raised a teenage daughter to successful adulthood with the internet continuously around, come-ons from old perverts are almost something of a joke.

For those that are naturally perceptive, it would be. Not all kids are like that. My younger sister is 28 and she is still clueless to "alternative" motives of men that say and do things for her.

Let's put it this way - Your daughter is chatting online with her friends. Her friends' fathers, guardians, or creepy Uncle Jack, are monitoring activity on the FRIENDS computers, and they are listening in on your daughter's most intimate conversations. Now how do you feel about parental monitoring?

Good point, but like a said above it depends on the who and the why. Some kids need to be watched out for.

[dodo1]

It is very easy for a predator to get in touch with a kid online. The Internet is very useful and kids should be allowed to use it, just make sure they don't access public chat rooms (especially if they are not moderated) or similar websites where predators tend to hang out.

@John: I fully agree with your opinion on parental monitoring. Regarding your argument that teenage girls wouldn't want to get into a sexual relationship with a 40-year old, you may be right, but I guess most predators pretend to be of the same age as their victims in order to get a date with them.

[jberryhill]

Good point, but like a said above it depends on the who and the why. Some kids need to be watched out for.

...ones with other problems in the first place, having nothing to do with the internet. But, I agree with that.

The biggest factor in whether a teenager is "safe" online is whether they are reasonably well-adjusted. And, no, that's not a blame-the-victim thing. Pedo's intentionally seek out kids with problems.

My younger sister is 28 and she is still clueless to "alternative" motives of men that say and do things for her.

PM me her email address.

[diecipher]

PM me her email address.

You'll have to ask her husband...