Illicit Material
There is
no doubt that questionable material and people with criminal motivations can be
encountered in the Internet. According to law enforcement agencies Internet
crime is reaching epidemic proportions.
|
|
The risks involved while
surfing the Internet can be similar to walking around a crowded city in an
underdeveloped country. There are a lot of new and exciting things to see,
bargains to be had, and plenty to learn. But there are risks; you could be
pick-pocketed, mugged or even kidnapped or killed. We often take our
chances to experience new things, but keep our guard up at all times. The
same should be done on the Internet.
Parental controls are often single computer
versions of their commercial cousin, content management. The big difference
in the corporate world is that machines or network devices are dedicated to
the task of monitoring the users. The users, who are being "controlled,"
have no access to the content manager, unlike the home versions that are
software application running on the individual systems. However on home
|
computers, keeping a motivated child from bypassing parental controls is
completely impossible. There is no such thing as a locked down computer if you
have physical access to it. Because of this reality, product vendors who are
selling personal controls to parents are playing on fear and ignorance. In fact
the easiest way to bypass almost every parental control software and service is
to load a browser besides Internet Explorer.
Information on how to bypass parental controls is very easy to find. For
example, type "bypass parental controls" in Google and see in the top ten
results you will see sites that explain, in detail, how to defeat many varieties
of parental controls. Try this example:
In the
formation of FamilyWatchdog.com, one of the goals was to be able to refer people
to effective parental control software. However, what we found after examining
dozens of parental control software packages that they are all a sham.
There is
hope. Corporate content filters when combined with a well configured firewall
can be very difficult to defeat. Unfortunately, for home users this is not
economically feasible. FamilyWatchdog.com is about to change that. Coming soon
we will be releasing our home router/firewall appliance that contains an
enterprise grade content filter and firewall. We will also have a users forum
to discuss ways that children, or even parents, are finding ways around our
product so we can continuously close each hole as it is discovered. We operate
on a no secrets policy. Our triumphs and failures will be in the open for
everyone to see and participate in making the Internet a safer place for our
children.
Watch
our products page for more information. |