“A Man has got to know his limitation!” (Dirty Harry)

Parents are always looking for ways to keep their kids safe.  Windows Vista has added a cool feature called Parental Controls which are very easy to use which help when it comes to computers and the Internet. 

While it is great to have your children use and learn the latest technology, spending too much time with video games and surfing the Web can be unproductive.  Ultimately it is the parent’s responsibility to monitor their children’s activities but today’s tip will show you how to utilize a great tool in Vista to help out.  This feature of Vista actually allows you to control the time a user can access their account.

Open Control Panel and click on Set up parental controls for any user.

Next, choose your kids account … or whoever you want to limit time on.

Make sure Parental Controls are on then click on Time Limits under Windows Settings.

Now simply select the the schedule for time allowed on the Internet and when it will be blocked then click OK.  That is all there is to it!

While you child is logged into their account there will be an icon in the lower right corner by the clock showing Parental Controls are enabled.  Also, as the time gets closer for them to get off the computer, balloon notifications will appear in periodically telling them how much time is left.  When the time runs out…the user is logged off automatically.

I’m OUT!

Protect Your Family with OpenDNS

This week I have been covering tools to use within Windows Vista to help keep your kids safe using the PC and while being online.  This article will apply will show how to use Open DNS with any Operating System to help filter undesirable web content.  Simply put DNS (Domain Name System) translates IP address to an easy to remember hostname.  For example if you were to type “216.239.51.99” without the quotes into your web browser you will be directed to google.com.

There is a lot of web content filtering possibilities which include specific sites, specific content, and adult website filtering.

The first thing you will want to do is sign up for a free account and download the OpenDNS Updater application.  OpenDNS will automatically detect your IP address and will prompt you to create a name and download the Updater application.

After signing up go to your Dashboard where you can start creating rules for filtering, manage your administrator settings, and add additional networks.  Basically your dashboard is where you will make all changes you need.  If you ever get stuck or have questions they also have a cool support system which includes a knowledge base and user forum.

Lets take a look at filtering content.  From your dashboard click on Settings.  You will then be prompted to choose a basic filtering level from None to High.  This might be a good choice if you want to easily filter out several categories.  To view what the categories are in each level just click on View for a detailed look.

This is an example of the detailed categories in the Low filter setting.  This helps you choose what types of content you want blocked.

Here is a list of all the categories available to block through OpenDNS.  As you can see this service will work for your children as well as any user on your network and also for business.

You can choose a filtering level and add customized domain filtering to it, or completely customize everything.  Probably one of the more publicized social sites you may want to block your child from is MySpace so I will use it as my example.  Below the filtering levels you will see Manage individual domains.  This is where you can get more specific in what your filtering.  The two options are Never Block or Always Block.

Just type in the address of the site to block and click on the Add Domain button.  You can then choose to just block the domain or better yet, block all of the categories in the sub-domain.  This means although you block myspace.com if you do not block the sub-domains within the user can access some of the content.  Any changes you make will take about 3 minutes to update.

On the reverse side…I can always allow a site that might otherwise be blocked…Example: I might want to allow facebook.com.  It might be blocked because it’s category is under “social networking” (which I block).

Once you have created all of your filters and a user tries to go to a blocked site they will get a message telling them it is blocked and why.  This is the standard message they will get.

Another cool feature is the ability to customize the message the user sees.  You can customize it with say your company logo or a picture of yourself.  So if you child tries to go to a pornography site and they see a picture of their parent … well … that might urge them to never try that again!  This is an example of a custom message I made.

You can also get statistic logs  which will show you what type of traffic was blocked and other stats to allow you to better filter content.

OpenDNS is a great way to protect your kids from undesirable Internet content but that is not all.  Businesses can definitely use it in the workplace.  I personally use it to improve my Internet experience.  In future articles we will be covering a lot more on this incredible web service!  To get an idea of how popular, effective, and trusted OpenDNS is you can check out a list of their business customers.

I’m OUT!

It’s not just computers!

Houston Chronicle (www.chron.com)

Ky. man got Humble girl to send him nude photos

A Kentucky man is accused of persuading an 11-year-old Humble girl to send him nude photos of herself while the pair played video games online.

Anthony Scott O’Shea, 24, of Somerset, Ky., has been charged with promotion of child pornography, online solicitation of a minor and sexual performance of a child. He will soon be transferred to Houston, said Sgt. Gary Spurger of the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office. The girl sent the man photos over the course of several weeks as they played games online with their PlayStation 3 consoles in December, Spurger said.

“She realized what she had done and felt bad about it and told her parents,” said Spurger, who investigated the case and coordinated the man’s arrest with Kentucky officials.

Online contact

The Precinct 4 Constable’s Office routinely investigates child pornography cases, but this is the first case Spurger said he’s aware of where the online predator contacted a child through a game console’s online network.

“This is another venue these guys are getting to use now that hasn’t been seen before,” Spurger said. “They’re on PlayStation or Xbox playing online games.”

According to court documents, the girl “performed” for the man using a Web camera. She said she met O’Shea playing the game Warhawk and that he had used the screen name “Thunder-kid.”

During interviews with investigators, the girl said that the man “kept pressuring her for more pictures and wanted to set up a meeting with her in order to engage in sexual activity,” the court record states.

The girl told the man that she was only 11, according to records.

Spurger subpoenaed information tied to the screen name, which led him to O’Shea in Kentucky.

On March 2, authorities searched O’Shea’s home. He acknowledged that he had been in contact with the girl and that he had received her photos, officials said.

Authorities said they also discovered that O’Shea had distributed the girl’s photos to other people.

Why…is the big question

My name is Dale Meredith.  As a Certified Ethical Hacker and Microsoft Trainer, I find myself educating IT directors and personal in “What is coming at you” as far as security is concerned.  I teach them to “think” like an “attacker”, which in turn helps them to understand what to lookout for as far as security and protection is concerned in this digital age. 

A couple of weeks ago, I had the thought…”Who’s teaching parents?”…”Where can parents go to learn to protect themselves and their families?”  As a parent, I’m always trying to protect my children from certain aspects of the internet.  I’m also going through the day to day battle of protecting who I am.

I’ve started this blog as a help to those parents that feel “outdated” when it comes to the digital world that we live in. 

I will focus my attention on helping parents learn about different tools, articles and techniques that they can use to protect themselves and their families. 

Our kids are EXTREMLY smart, as they grow up around this fantastic time where information is available anytime, anywhere and (unfortunately) by anyone.  Computers and digital devices are second nature to our kids…kind of like when I grew up, my father struggled to set the clock on a VCR…as a kid I thought “Come on dad…it’s not that hard”, our kids are learning at an incredible rate.  Information is available to them, which is great.

Before I start, please note that I have a RULE.  It’s a RULE that is true in may things in life…it goes like this:

EVERYTHING CREATED IS FOR GOOD, HOWEVER THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT WILL ALWAYS DISTORT AND USE THE SAME THING FOR EVIL.

That being said…This blog is not meant to scare anyone…One of my favorite quotes is “Knowledge builds Confidence”.  This is a wonderful time to be live.  To witness the advancement in this computer/digital age is amazing.  I think I know how my grandparents felt when they witnessed “the horseless carriage”, “talking movies” or telephone.  I’m sure one day my great-grandkids will say “my great-grandpa, worked on a computer with only 4GIGS of RAM” or “can you believe my great-grandpa used a keyboard and mouse!”.

So, I hope the information I share with you will be of help to you.  I don’t claim to know everything, I’m always learning….so here we go!

-SuperDale