Four
Steps to Protect Your Family Online -
cont'd
by Quent Casperson
2. Be active in your family’s Internet choices and make rules.
Make sure your children know that they shouldn’t give out
personal information to strangers through email or while
chatting. Limit ‘alone’ computer time for everyone, especially
at night. Talk about what sites your family visits.
3. Delete file-sharing programs You’ve probably heard of
Napster, Kazaa, Morpheus, and a dozen other programs used to
trade music on the Internet. These programs are also used to
trade pornographic pictures and movies. They can find and
download pornography more efficiently than any Website, and can
be accessed even if you use a filter or a filtered Internet
service provider. You might want to get rid of these anyway
because the music industry has started suing individual users of
these programs who download pirated music files.
4. Choose an advanced Internet filter The problem with many
Internet filters is that there are so many new sites every day.
Some filters just block out certain keywords, like “xxx”. The
problem with this is, it blocks out sites that have nothing to
do with pornography. It also doesn’t block out sites that are in
different languages or that may not use certain keywords.
Choose a filter that updates dynamically or automatically, so it
blocks out the thousands of new sites set up every day. Another
key component is to choose a filter that blocks more than just
pornographic Websites. For example, blocking out file-sharing
sites once you delete file-sharing programs from your computer
will help keep your computer safe. Other categories you might
want to block: alternative lifestyle, dating sites, lingerie,
illegal activities (like how to make bombs, etc.) and crude or
obscene sites.
Making your computer safe from Internet filth is easy. I love
being able to surf worry-free with my family.
