Threats to Children

As we have already discussed, the dangers that children face in their online activities are much the same as what you face. Both legal and illegal threats can compromise their personal information and even cause their computers to be hacked. The security software and measures needed to protect computer and home networks should be applied to any computer that your children use. The problem you face in protecting children is how they use technologies such as chat and e-mail, as well as why they are targets of attack. The technologies that are available to children have opened them up to new threats that they have never been faced with in the past.

E-mail

Kids face e-mail threats through viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spam on a constant basis. Because they are children, these threats can be more powerful. Imagine if your child's e-mail address went onto an adult spam list. Your child would start receiving all sorts of inappropriate e-mails. What if your child's e-mail account got a virus and the virus detection software didn't catch it? Would your child know that the computer was infected when it started acting strange? Even if the virus detection software caught it, would your child know that he should delete or quarantine the e-mail?

E-mail has evolved into the de-facto form of communication on the Internet. Your kids might have multiple e-mail addresses you don't even know about. Free e-mail from sites such as LokMail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, and Eudora is easy to add to the AOL e-mail account you set up for them. Anyone could be communicating with your kids via e-mail without your even knowing it. Receiving spam e-mail is a way of life on the Internet; it could be harmless such as junk about a discount on purchasing toys, or it could be dangerous such as pornographic material. It's hard to get off spam e-mail lists.

As a communications vehicle, e-mail is private and anything could be exchanged with someone, such as pictures that you do not know about. Strangers could be e-mailing your children and you wouldn't know about it. Such e-mails could be links to Web sites that a stranger or even a marketing company wants them to visit, or they could be more nefarious such as setting up a meeting with some stranger.

Your kids probably wouldn't look into the security measures many popular e-mail programs have, such as the ability to block some spam or deny e-mail from certain addresses. Encryption of e-mail is probably something that your kids would never consider either. Your filter and security mechanisms need constant attention, and this is something most children will not know about or be concerned about.

You can take many steps to protect your children from e-mail threats:

• Ensure that you have virus scanner software running. A virus scanner ensures that your system is protected from viruses that can enter your system through e-mail, file downloads, or Web browsing. Educate your kids on what it does and how to use it when an alert pops up.
  
  
• Be sure your kids know not to click anything in e-mail. This includes an attachment that hasn't been virus scanned, and especially anything from someone they don't know.
  
  
• If your kids are young, monitor what e-mails they are sending and receiving.
  
  
• Try to limit their access to e-mail accounts you know about. Also, have them use e-mail only when you can monitor them.
  
  
• Remove their e-mail accounts from spam lists as soon as you detect spam mail in their Inboxes.
  
  
• Apply filtering rules to block spam e-mail as much as possible.
  
  
• Disable functionality in mail that allows scripts to run or HTML to be used in e-mail.
  
  

Chat

Chat rooms can be an entertaining place for children. They can talk to people with their same interests and hobbies and still not have to go anywhere to meet them. However, chat rooms have gotten a bad reputation of being a place for cyber stalkers and child molesters because of the very reason they have become popular. It's easy for someone of evil intent to be in a chat room and gain the confidence of a young person, eventually trying to convince the child to meet in person.

Chat rooms are public places, and anyone can be anonymous in them. The person your children might be chatting with could have fabricated his entire life—you can't really validate who he says he is. Gaining the confidence of children is easy. The same warning you give your children about not talking to someone on the street doesn't really apply to the online world. Everyone is a stranger and caution should be used, especially when it comes to children. Strangers can easily convince children to give away personal information such as their real full names and where they live. Because they are behind a computer and not in person meeting a stranger, kids might feel more secure in talking about their life and giving away personal data.

Following are some rules you should institute with chat room usage:

• Never let your child meet someone in person without your full knowledge and consent— Chaperone the meeting in a public place.

• Allow your child to use only chat rooms that are moderated for language and content.

• Educate your child on the dangers of giving out personal information.

• Educate your children on the potential dangers— These include kidnapping if they agree to meet someone or give out personal information about themselves. This can be scary for the child, but it's better to discuss it than have it happen.

• Constantly remind your children of the dangers of the online world— Repetition is needed to educate children. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reported that one in five Internet users under 17 received an online sexual solicitation or approach during the past year. Also, 1 in 33 received an aggressive sexual solicitation for offline meetings.

Newsgroups

Newsgroups, forums, and message boards are the new pinup boards on the Internet. People can post anything from messages to software programs in these venues. Thousands of newsgroups, forums, and message boards on all sorts of topics are available. These are the same as Web sites in a way; if someone has an interest, a place on the Internet exists for it to reside. Most groups are not aimed at children. The odds of your child finding a “good” group site versus a “bad” group site are pretty small. Groups are often used to share pirated and pornographic material. Software tools make it easy to scan newsgroups for whatever interests you, and rarely will kids find a newsgroup that they should be viewing.

Newsgroups, forums, and message boards are interactive. You can read and post messages there, and so could a child. Your child could easily post a message with personal information or even a picture that anyone could view. This information can be dispersed beyond the limited number of people that are in chat rooms.

You can take the following steps to protect your kids from newsgroups:

• Use blocking software to restrict access to newsgroups with questionable material.
  
  
• Do not install software to read newsgroups. Newsgroups are usually unfiltered, and just about any type of material can be downloaded, from pirated software to pornographic material.
  
  
• Block ports that are used by newsgroup access.
  
  
• Monitor what Web sites, forums, and message boards your children use.
  
  
• Educate your children on the dangers of reading and posting messages to newsgroups.
  
  

Web Surfing

Web surfing probably poses the largest threat to children. Content is so varied that it's hard to monitor what children are doing online; even the blocking software cannot keep up with the questionable material. Every bit of information you or a child would want to know is available.

As we have discussed, Web sites collect information about you through obvious methods such as online questions, surveys, and registrations and through not so obvious methods such as Web bugs and cookies. This information about you is valuable, and information about the habits and preferences of children is also worthy of collection. It's easy for you to miss what information your child is entering on a registration form or what information is collected with spyware, Web bugs, and cookies.

Another major threat that you are faced with that has sprung up in the past year or two is the easy ability for anyone to set up a personal Web site. Most e-mail accounts you set up allow you to set up a personal Web page free. The process is so simple that you don't need Web design skills; sites provide wizards and walk-throughs to set up the site within minutes. The danger of setting up a Web site is that your kids can put up anything they want, from pictures of themselves to home phone numbers and addresses.

Be sure your kids don't post personal information, photos, or anything else that could identify them. Also, be sure that nothing on the site could get your child into trouble at school or with the law, or might be harmful or offensive to other people. Kids frequently want to post pictures of themselves for their friends to see, but sexual deviants could just as easily view their pictures and information.

Web browsing is probably the hardest thing to protect, but some steps you can take include the following:

• Monitor what your kids put up on their personal Web page.
  
  
• Use blocking software to filter dangerous Web sites.
  
  
• Use antivirus software to check all downloaded files.
  
  
• Disable or filter scripting languages such as Java or ActiveX. Java and ActiveX can allow malicious code to be run on your computer when you surf a Web site. This code could harm your computer or capture information about your computer.
  
  
• Disable or erase cookies with built-in Web browser features or third-party software.
  
  
• Educate your child on the dangers of Web surfing, giving away personal information through Web sites, and downloading questionable software.
  
  

Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) is fast becoming as ingrained in Internet usage as e-mail. (You can find more about IM in Chapter 12, “Securing Your Standalone PC: Viruses, Chat, and Encryption.”) Many sites, including AOL, Yahoo!, and ICQ, provide IM. Cell phones and other mobile devices are even getting IM capability. Like chat rooms and newsgroups, you can interact with others in small groups or on a one-on-one basis. The same threats posed by chat rooms are prevalent in IM contact. Someone can find your child's IM name, send messages, and begin a dialog to gain your child's confidence. IM contact does not have the monitoring capability of chat room or newsgroups. This form of communication can be controlled only through your vigilance and third-party blocking software.

You can take several steps to restrict IM access:

• Remove IM software from your computer.
  
  
• Check on your child when he is online to see what programs he is using.
  
  
• Use blocking software to restrict IM software.
  
  
• Use firewall filter rules to block the common ports used by IM software if it uses a port other that 80 (http).
  
  

Privacy Loss

Being online in your home provides some comfort and security to children. They aren't encountering the people they are chatting with or e-mailing, so they aren't easily scared by the things that strangers say to them or ask them. This level of comfort can be detrimental to their privacy. Every bit of technology used has the potential to disclose information about the user. Chatting with someone might also let the user disclose personal information that should not be given to a stranger. By now, most people and children are educated enough to know that they should not talk to strangers or give out personal information over the phone to just anyone who calls. This same type of education needs to happen in the online world. We have discussed all the technological methods of disclosing information. Education of what to say on the Internet is up to the parent. It's also important to warn children not to give out information because not only can it hurt them, but it can also hurt anyone else they talk about, such as friends and family.

Not only do you have to worry about your kids giving away information about you and your family in your home, but you also have to worry about public access your kids might have to the Internet. The information that kids might view in Web browsers can be cached, and passwords they store can be saved to the computer in a public space. In public places such as libraries or cyber cafes, you have no way of monitoring what your child does on the Internet.

Through the use of technology and Web sites that children surf, companies collect information for marketing purposes. More dangerous reasons could also be for luring a child into being kidnapped or other equally dangerous activities. This information can be collected in numerous ways, such as registering for contests, filling out forms in exchange for prizes, or downloading a game. All these methods lead to a loss of privacy.

Online Fighting

Online fighting might seem absurd, but it happens. Fighting could occur in a chat room, message board, or newsgroup. People can get into verbal wars that spill over into the real world. Children can be exposed to these verbal duels that can get vicious. If a child gets involved directly in fighting with someone, it could be even worse. Because you are just writing, subtle hints as to the turn the conversation is taking are sometimes not available, and you can easily get into a dispute with someone. Disputes can lead to cyber stalking and hacking attacks against your system.

The best thing you can tell your child about online fighting is not to get involved. The same way you don't want your kids fighting at school, you don't want them fighting online. Children will face more dangers online than they will face in a school fight. Education is your only real defense against your child fighting online unless you want to read everything they write online. They have to know that nothing they read or people they deal with online require anger or verbal abuse.

Breaking Laws

With all the powerful tools available to kids, it can be easy for them to break the law knowingly or unknowingly. They can be the ones starting the fights or putting out a virus or worm that causes damage to other systems. Many of the news stories we read in the popular press these days seem to involve teenagers. The case involved a person going by the name Mafiaboy who launched denial of service attacks against major Web sites such as Yahoo! This person was recently sentenced to jail time for his attacks, and he is only a teenager.

Internet crime is being taken seriously these days with laws in many countries being passed to prosecute anyone, including minors, for hacking. Kids can post harassing or threatening e-mails and newsgroup messages the same as an adult. Just because children are minors doesn't mean they're protected. Making threats against people is being taken more seriously. If your child sends a threatening e-mail to the president of the United States, that e-mail will be investigated.

Posting inappropriate messages can lead to problems for you and your child. It could be something as simple as insulting a schoolmate to something as damaging as slandering a public figure, such as a musician. If you work for a publicly traded company and discuss company business at home and your child posts some sensitive information, that could be a serious problem for you. You need to educate your children on what is appropriate to post to the Internet via any means, such as chat rooms, personal Web sites, or forum boards.

Threat Response

The best thing we can suggest for you to do in regards to your children's safety on the Internet is to know what they are doing. In the same manner that you want to know who they hang out with, whose house they go to after school, and what TV shows and movies they watch, you must be fully aware of everything they do on the Internet. Not talking to them about it is the same as not discussing the evils of substance abuse.

The second best thing to do is to implement technology to secure the threats faced by your children. Monitoring and blocking software are available for content filtering and use of software. As we saw with some of the personal firewalls, you can block traffic as well as limit access to running programs. Inherent controls built into the major browsers and third-party software such as Cyber Snoop and Net Nanny are available to help you protect your kids.