Archive for the ‘Blocking Porn’ Category
How do I choose an Internet filter?
Protecting your family online is vitally important. Using an Internet filter is a great tool to help keep your family safe online.
There are many Internet filters to choose from and some can be downloaded online for free. How do you know which one to choose? When choosing an Internet filter, consider the following questions:
- How many categories does it provide for blocking inappropriate sites?
- Does the filter allow you to log in to your control panel from any Internet connection so that you can check activity and make updates from wherever you are?
- Does the filter force Safe Search on all the major search engines and re-force it on if someone attempts to turn Safe Search off?
- Does the filter allow you to schedule when your children can be online?
- Does the filter block Phishing, Malware and Spam sites?
- Does the filter have social networking protection?
- If so, does it only cover Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, or does it cover over 80 social networking sites?
- Does it give you exclusive access to the child’s social networking accounts?
- Does the filter allow you to set the MPAA and ESRB ratings for online TV, movies and games that your children are allowed to view and play online?
- Does the filter send you real-time text messages and/or e-mail alerts when suspicious activity is happening?
- If you are struggling with temptation of inappropriate sites or have an addiction, does the filter have a no-override option where you turn over the password to an accountability partner and cannot override any blocked sites or uninstall the software?
- How many computers does the filter cover and how many computer users will it cover for the base price?
- Does the company give you a money back guarantee?
There could be numerous reasons you are looking for an Internet filter today. These reasons could range from proactively wanting to protect your family from the bad stuff that’s out there to your child stumbling upon pornography unintentionally to needing help with overcoming an Internet addiction. Whatever the reason, find a trusted Internet filter that can be tailored to meet your needs, and grow with you.
Do you know who your daughter’s role model is?
What do Montana Fishburne, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson and Jenna Jameson all have in common? All of these are women in the main stream media and have released porn movies in recent years. Some of the movies were “leaked” tapes of the women, but that doesn’t negate the content. And apparently Heidi Montag has a video on the way. These women are all names that, chances are, your daughter knows. Montana Fishburne has been constantly in the news over the past few weeks promoting the release of her porn movie. She has even said that fans as young as thirteen are telling her she is their role model. Do you know who your daughter’s role model is?
A Google search of Montana Fishburne turns up 2,560,000 results. A search of Amelia Earhart only has about 1,490,000 results. One of the most noted women in American history, an aviation pioneer, turns up over a million less results than the porn star. It is no wonder young girls are confused as to who they should look up to.
According to Enough is Enough’s Internet Safety 101 Rules ‘N Tools Booklet, girls as young as eight to ten years old “may be influenced by media images…especially those that appear ‘cool’ or desirable.” By the time girls are between the ages of eleven and thirteen they “may try to imitate provocative media images and behaviors.” The main stream media images can be detrimental to a developing girl’s body image as well as her views on the expectations of women. According to the images we are surrounded by, a woman must look and act in an overtly sexual way in order to be famous and make a lot of money, the apparent markers of success in this society. Unless you tell your daughter differently that is what she might aspire to be.
You can’t make your child live life blind folded but there are some measures you can take to limit and monitor her media exposure:
<ul><li>Visit sites like pluggedin.com to get media reviews that will help you make age appropriate choices for your child</li>
<li>Make sure she watches age appropriate TV shows, movies and music videos</li>
<li>Know the music she listens to and what the lyrics are about</li>
<li>Install a trusted internet filter that will keep her from inappropriate sites online</li>
The best way to help you daughter is to talk to her. Tell her your expectations of what a young girl should be and show her what a woman should be by becoming a role model for her. Tell her how you feel about the images she is being bombarded with and ask her how she feels about it too. Talk to her about the women you admire in your life. What you think matters to her more than you realize.
Sexualization of the music industry
Mike Stock, a major music producer, has begun speaking out against his own industry, the pop music industry, saying it has gone too far with sexualizing its content to the point of soft pornography. Stock noted to Daily Mail, “Kids are being forced to grow up too young. Look at the videos. I wouldn’t necessarily want my young kids to watch them. I would certainly be embarrassed to sit there with my mum.”
Mike’s statement rings very true. If you have watched music videos lately, you clearly see the sexualization going on in the lyrics and the videos. Children as young as 9 years old go around talking about how Lady GaGa is their favorite artist.
My 11 year old started talking about Lady GaGa soon after her first hit on the radio. After listening to the music myself and seeing parts of the music videos, I decided she was too “mature” for my 11 year old to watch and listen to and talked to my son about the inappropriateness of the lyrics and the video. With all the sexualization going on in all the media outlets, our children are becoming desensitized and do not see things as a “big deal”.
Our children’s worldview is influenced by what they see and how they focus their time online and with other media outlets. We must re-enforce in our children our family’s worldview. Some helpful tips on reinforcing our worldview in our children are by:
Knowing what your children are listening to. If your child has an iPod or other portable MP3 device, know what they are buying and listening to. If you are purchasing their music for them or need information on a certain artist, check with a reputable music review such as www.pluggedin.com.
Knowing that your child is watching what you have decided are appropriate videos for them to view online. YouTube is very popular. My son uses YouTube more than Google any more, as he likes to watch how to do something or watch a video game review versus read text about it. Use a trusted Parental Controls system such as Bsecure Online to set ratings on what’s appropriate for your child based on your child’s age and your family worldview.
Communicating with your children. Let your children know what your family believes and why. Talk to them regularly about their music choices; find out what they think is “cool” and discuss why it may not be so “cool”. If your children are anything like mine, they want me to be involved in their life. They want to know that I care and love them. They also love seeing me be involved in their activities. I’m sure that may eventually change, but while that door is open, let’s take the opportunity to build those strong foundations now.
Approval of .XXX domain does not make the Internet safer
ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) gave the initial approval for the creation of .XXX Web domains for pornography. Although this sounds like a very good protective measure, do not be misled.
Although .XXX sites are reserved for porn sites, many porn sites will still choose to keep their current .com sites and purchase .XXX sites as well. This, in turn, will increase the number of porn sites on the Internet. It is not mandatory that they close their current Web sites to move to the .XXX Web sites; this is strictly voluntary. A well known site will not change from its .com address to a .XXX address. Instead, it will keep its .com address, purchase a .XXX address and redirect the new .XXX address to the established .com address.
Over 110,0000 .XXX domains have already been pre-reserved, with a potential date of early 2011 for these sites to go live. A BBC news report cited that some of the board members ere personally “uncomfortable” with approving the domain, but had to do so because the process for approval of the new domain followed ICANN’s rules.
Understand the facts and know that just because a .XXX domain was approved does not mean that the Internet will be safer for you and your family.
SEC Employees Surfing Porn Sites At Work
News has traveled quickly after hearing that some SEC employees were viewing porn sites during the 2008 financial crises instead of focusing on their job duties.
Employees have admitted to viewing porn at work for over a year and viewing porn on SEC-issues laptops while outside of the office. One of the staff accountants was extremely persistent and tried 16,000 times in one month to access porn sites and filled his work hard drive with inappropriate images. And, a senior attorney admitted to sometimes spending eight hours per day searching for porn. (See the article by MarketWatch)
Here’s a dose of reality. The people in the news lately could have very easily been you or me. It’s easy to say “I’d never do that”, but, the truth of the matter is that you never know what might happen. With all the inappropriate sites out there today, it is so easy to accidentally stumble upon one by mistake. Maybe you type in the URL wrong, or innocently click a link in your search engine and it bring up a bad site. Then, that image stays in your mind and you keep thinking about it until your curiosity gets to you so you tinker a little bit. Then, before you know it, you’ve fallen into that slippery slope.
We are all tempted in different areas of life. And, because we are human, we are not perfect. Therefore, we need to place hedges around us to help us fight off those temptations. I’d like to challenge you to get an accountability party that you can talk to on a regular basis to help you through whatever struggles you are facing. Secondly, I’d like to challenge you to be proactive in placing a hedge of protection around your virtual world by installing a trusted Internet filter. Just as you wouldn’t live in a home with no locks on the doors to protect yourself from physical harm, don’t let you and your family live unprotected from inappropriate sites on the Internet that could harm you or your family’s mind.
Is someone viewing porn on your Internet connection?
I came across a news article today in which an 18 year old broke into a church to view pornography on the church computer. What’s even worse is that people can view pornography on your computer network even without physically breaking into your home and/or business and you never know it.
To help protect your home and/or business network against strangers from surfing pornography on your Internet connection from a laptop in their car or physically on one of your computers:
1. Make sure your wireless router’s security settings are enabled. Many people purchase a wireless router for their home and/or business and plug it up without changing any of the default settings. By doing this, you are allowing anyone outside your home, within range, to use YOUR Internet connection any way they want, including surfing porn sites. If they were to access anything illegal, it would come back to you and your network and you would have to prove otherwise. Take the time to go through your wireless router’s manual to set up WPA2 security on it. I personally advise to also set it to not broadcast your wireless network’s name.
2. Install an Internet Filter to block porn sites. In addition to securing your wireless router, add an additional internal layer of protection with an Internet filter, like Bsecure. An Internet filter like Bsecure can provide up to 58 categories that you can allow or block. It also provides graphical reporting of the types of sites that are being visited as well as sending you instant alerts of suspicious activity. This way, if someone were to physically breach your house or business to surf porn, they couldn’t. It will also protect yourself from guests or friends of your children who may be “curious” and try to go to sites they should not visit.
.xxx: A false sense of security?
The Internet corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board recently voted to postpone making a decision on their proposal to create a “.xxx” domain for adult Web sites. In the meantime, the CEO and general counsel of ICANN are to draft a “report of possible process options” over the next two weeks which will then be posted online for 45 days. The proposal will then be rediscussed at the June session.
Although having a “.xxx” domain for adult sites sounds great on the surface in protecting people online from inappropriate sites, there is still the issue of porn sites choosing not to change over and people outside the porn industry that post pornographic photos, videos and other content.
Stay informed. Know that even if the “.xxx” domain is passed in June, this is not guaranteed protection from inappropriate material. We still have the responsibility of protecting our families online.
Playing in Traffic - Basic Browsing
When my son first started understanding how the Internet could be used to help him find things he wanted to research, such as Spiderman, new toys, and Spongebob, I quickly saw that he needed to be taught some very basic safety rules. These rules can be helpful no matter your age.
Use a search engine to help locate the website. My son’s instinct was to just type into the browser address bar www. + whatever he wanted to look up + .com. As you can imagine, depending on what you typed in as the web address, you didn’t know what might pop up! One safety rule is to use a search engine like www.google.com to type in what you are looking for, then carefully read the descrptions to make sure you then choose the appropriate website to browse. Once you are on the website, you can then click various links in the site to go to different pages and see all the information the company has written about on its site.
Clicking on pop-up ads can be dangerous. As you start to feel more comfortable browsing the Internet and go to more and more sites, some might have pop-up advertisements that try to entice you to “click here” for a chance to win something, or to make sure your computer is running as efficiently as possible. My rule of thumb, is that if I’m looking for something, I will Google it and make sure I am on a legitimate website before I will ever click on a pop-up ad that might then place spyware or malware on my computer. Teach yourself and your kids that no matter how enticing the ad looks, ignore the pop-up, and go back to the basics of using Google or another search engine to make sure you choose a legitimate site.
Not all downloadable files are safe. My son loves gaming on his computer. He also loves finding cheat codes to unlock all the cars and tracks in a racing game. The other day, he found a blog post where someone was talking about how you could unlock all the features of a specific racing game by downloading and installing a certain file onto the computer. It even had additional posts from other people saying how awesome the cheats off that file were. My son knows to always ask me or his dad to check out a file before he downloads something and we will stop what we are doing and take the time to help him out. I saved the file that he was wanting to my hard drive, then told my Anti-Virus software to scan it. Sure enough, that file was a virus! Had my son downloaded and installed the file, our computer could have been infected with a nasty trojan virus that we would have spent hours trying to clean.
Add peace of mind to your computer with an Internet filter. Installing an Internet filter is a great way to help protect your family from stumbling upon inappropriate content. Internet filters like Bsecure Online provides this peace of mind by blocking inappropriate sites based on the categories you choose, allows you to see what sites have been visited, set the hours that each family member can be online, and many other features. It also provides anti-virus protection with the full security suite. As an added bonuses, customer support is more than glad to help walk you through installing the software and setting it up to best meet your needs if you are new at computers and want assurance.
Begin your path of learning today! Like I said the other day, you don’t have to know everything, but get a grasp on the basics and how to protect your family online. If your children seem “savvy”, let them know you want to learn and you’d like them to help show you the ropes, go to a local community hands-on class, or ask a good friend to teach you. Us parents have no quams when it comes to learning about keeping our physical homes safe for our family, so lets use that same zeal and confidence to learn how to keep our family safe online!
Internet Resolutions
Resolutions are made the beginning of every year and are typically broken by the end of February. It seems our intentions are much greater than our willpower sometimes. Let’s be honest, it takes a lot more effort for us to be diligent in doing the right things than to let things slide.
If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to conquer your addiction to porn or online gambling, partner with an Internet filter company that will come alongside you to help this resolution be one that you do not break.
Bsecure Online has a great feature that will disable the password override option. What this means is that if you go to a site that is categorized as porn or online gambling, you cannot get to the blocked site at all. Your password override feature has been disabled. If you feel it is really a safe site that should be allowed, call the Bsecure team who will manually review the site for you, and, put it on the allow list if it is a site that will not cause you to fall back into your addiction.
Ring in the New Year right by conquering your Internet addictions with Bsecure Online!