Protecting our kids online..a good reminder after a close call

[moonglow]

My sister's teenage son is here in town spending the week with his grandparents (my mom and her husband) and he has been getting on the computer there alot (yes its in a centrally located room)...he is getting on a kids site my son showed him that allows the kids to play games and pm each other and so on. Anyway my son introduced him to some of his friends on there and this girl that my son had witnessed too (which I posted about on here), gave my son and his cousin her phone number. Now I am constantly reminding Nate how giving out personal information is a big no no...and the others shouldn't do this either. And I have explained why many times. Now I know my sister would have told her son this too...but I am not sure because he abused his privilege with the computer too many times and I don't think she has even allowed him on it in years except for short periods of time and only certain sites. So it could have been awhile since she reminded him of such things.

Well anyway to make a long story short, nephew went and called this girl! Not a bright thing to do and very dangerous!

He asked his grandparents if it was ok to call his girlfriend and another girl here in town he is friends with but didn't mention calling this internet girl. Nate was with him. :cool: Nate thankfully is a babbler mouth and told me about it when he got back from his grandparents and I called grandpa right away! Now this time ..it really was a teenage girl...but next time it might not be. I am sure my nephew was probably thinking since HE didn't give out personal information..it was ok to call her..

My nephew lacks a great deal of common sense. He really does...even though he will be 18 this spring its like dealing with someone much, much younger. He knows enough to be sneaky about things, but doesn't realize the danger he can put himself into.

Grandma and grandpa both had a long talk with him about how people lie on the net...they can pretend to be 14 yr old girls or whatever...when at the other end it may be some older man that is a pedophile. :( If they have caller ID they can easily get your phone number, then type it into the net and it will come up with the kids address. If its unlisted I think they can pay a small fee and still get it. Its not that hard to figure out where these kids live.

So please remind your teenager, that while no they don't want to give out personal information such as their phone numbers, addresses, full real names...its just as dangerous to get that information from someone else! Its not ok to call an internet friend...even if they didn't give them their phone number.

Like I said, thankfully in this case, it really was a girl...but next time it might not be...

God bless

[ServantofTruth]

Good reminder. Our computers never leave the lounge or dinning room - lap tops. There's also the Wii game system and DS hand held, both which can connect through the internet to talk to strangers on line. Our children have never been allowed to do this and to my knowledge never have.

They are very rarely alone in the house and because we have control/ authority, would be unlikely to disobey us.

My advise would be never let a child use a computer where you can't see them, walk by regularly, and never let them talk to anyone via it, it starts with only friends and before you know it it snowballs - only from what I hear and the amount of problems parents and their school have to deal with.

Lastly don't fall for the I can't do complacated work with the family noise. My children are straight A high achievers. They can work 3 in one room, with a 6 & 3 years old around and my wife and I walking in and out and constantly asking questions, checking what they are doing. SofTy.

[moonglow]

Good reminder. Our computers never leave the lounge or dinning room - lap tops. There's also the Wii game system and DS hand held, both which can connect through the internet to talk to strangers on line. Our children have never been allowed to do this and to my knowledge never have.

They are very rarely alone in the house and because we have control/ authority, would be unlikely to disobey us.

My advise would be never let a child use a computer where you can't see them, walk by regularly, and never let them talk to anyone via it, it starts with only friends and before you know it it snowballs - only from what I hear and the amount of problems parents and their school have to deal with.

Lastly don't fall for the I can't do complacated work with the family noise. My children are straight A high achievers. They can work 3 in one room, with a 6 & 3 years old around and my wife and I walking in and out and constantly asking questions, checking what they are doing. SofTy.

Very true. I have the computer in the dinning room. Nate would like a laptop to go hang out with in his room...(he can dream ..:lol:) cause that won't happen. (no lap top and no going in his room with it if he had one.)

I just wanted to remind parents that while your children may know not to give out personal information,..they may not think about getting personal information...and think its ok to contact someone that way on the net...but its just as dangerous...

God bless

[sunsetssplendor]

I really wish the internet was safer for our children. My daughter loves email. Her Dad and I are the only people that email her. Anyway I decided to look in her junk/ spam mail the other day and my heart nearly stopped. There were five pornorgraphic messages in subject line that had never been opened (Thank you Lord) but went immediately to spam. I immediately closed the email account. I was furious. This was our little innocent thing and even it wasn't safe.

Thank goodness your nephew is okay and the girl was who she said.

[moonglow]

I really wish the internet was safer for our children. My daughter loves email. Her Dad and I are the only people that email her. Anyway I decided to look in her junk/ spam mail the other day and my heart nearly stopped. There were five pornorgraphic messages in subject line that had never been opened (Thank you Lord) but went immediately to spam. I immediately closed the email account. I was furious. This was our little innocent thing and even it wasn't safe.

Thank goodness your nephew is okay and the girl was who she said.

Oh that is sad and awful! I get that kind of email...:( goes to spam most of the time or I spam it without opening it. Nate has an gmail and hasn't gotten anything like that at all. Not even in his spam part. I am thankful for that! I have no idea why he hasn't gotten any email like that. He doesn't even look at his email unless grandma calls and says she sent him something...to him email is boring. But I check it from time to time to make sure everything is ok.

The problem in this case was my nephew...as I said he is older and tries to get away with stuff...like making this call without asking first...but at the same time not realizing the danger involved. I think all teenager go through a phase of believing they know better then their parents so might try to do something like this..without realizing the danger of it. I know I was convinced as a teenager I knew more then my mom did...:rolleyes: Many won't realize these calls will also show up in the phone bill! So eventually they will be found out. In my mom's case though she said it wouldn't have shown up because of the type of account they have..they can make many long distance phone calls before actually being billed for it. So in that case, my nephew could have gotten away with it if my son hadn't told me what he did.

So I was hoping parents would have a talk with their teenagers about this if they haven't already..that getting and using personal information given to them is as dangerous as giving out personal information...

God bless

[sunsetssplendor]

I have a teen so I know exactly what you mean. They think they are smarter than their parents. They don't learn their lessons until later in life. I only hope my teen gets it before it is too late.

[moonglow]

I have a teen so I know exactly what you mean. They think they are smarter than their parents. They don't learn their lessons until later in life. I only hope my teen gets it before it is too late.

My son just turned 13 in December and so far still talks to me as if I know a few things...:lol: So I am drilling into his head while I have the chance...how teenagers do think they know enough and try sneaky things like what his cousin did but don't think about the consequence's...which is where they can really get hurt. :(

I know they have to learn many things the hard way in life...but you don't want some of those hard ways to be life threatening...:(

God bless

[th1bill]

... Being a security freak, when I say what I am about to I am not ragging on anyone. There is not a parent in this world that should ever turn a youngster loose with a Windows computer. There is an operating system that will run Microsoft's Window's software and it is written exclusively by Christians for Christians and it is free. It is called UbuntuCE and operates very, very closely to Windows. The learning curve is so shallow as to be described as nearly flat.
... Set the system up with you as the Administrator and never give your password to anyone and your children cannot turn Dan's Guardian off the way can in Windows. Not only that there are over 4000 programs that do anything a Windows unit will do that are also free and all the Administrator need do is to point and click and they are installed. If you do not format over the Windows Operating System you children will not be protected.
... This system is so secure I ran it for six months without a single problem and many business' use Ubuntu as their firewall because it is so secure.
... God bless and I hope you try it. If you do not know what to do with the file you download for free get me here or email me and I will help you.

[moonglow]

... Being a security freak, when I say what I am about to I am not ragging on anyone. There is not a parent in this world that should ever turn a youngster loose with a Windows computer. There is an operating system that will run Microsoft's Window's software and it is written exclusively by Christians for Christians and it is free. It is called UbuntuCE and operates very, very closely to Windows. The learning curve is so shallow as to be described as nearly flat.
... Set the system up with you as the Administrator and never give your password to anyone and your children cannot turn Dan's Guardian off the way can in Windows. Not only that there are over 4000 programs that do anything a Windows unit will do that are also free and all the Administrator need do is to point and click and they are installed. If you do not format over the Windows Operating System you children will not be protected.
... This system is so secure I ran it for six months without a single problem and many business' use Ubuntu as their firewall because it is so secure.
... God bless and I hope you try it. If you do not know what to do with the file you download for free get me here or email me and I will help you.


Ok sounds interesting...so how do we find it? Do we do a search for it on the net to dowload? What name do we put in? "UbuntuCE"?

God bless

[th1bill]

... I believe the easiest way will be to click on this. http://www.ubuntuce.com
Then click on the button at the top right, "Skip to content."

[tom4jesus]

...
... Set the system up with you as the Administrator and never give your password to anyone and your children cannot turn Dan's Guardian off the way can in Windows. Not only that there are over 4000 programs that do anything a Windows unit will do that are also free and all the Administrator need do is to point and click and they are installed. If you do not format over the Windows Operating System you children will not be protected.
... This system is so secure I ran it for six months without a single problem and many business' use Ubuntu as their firewall because it is so secure.


I am a long time Linux user and currently using Puppylinux where I am posting this from.
Ubuntu is nice but a bit too commercial for me.;)


I am not at all advertising a commercial product since Linux is open source and free.
The one thing I did want to add and hopefully will not be seen as an advertisement is the issue of filtering.

Dansgaurdian can be quite a challenge to set up even for people experienced in Linux.

I found a much better solution that is totally free and works great for filtering all the computers in my house, "opendns.com".
It is a totally free service that you can set up either on your computer or on a wireless router.
All you have to do is add a couple lines to a dialog box in your wireless router setup or computer and it sends all your traffic to their service and filters it. You make an account and can change the filter any way you like. There are categories like most filters.

How it works is that when ever you type in a web address that is text it is actually sending you to a web address that is a number, all web address work that way.
And your Internet service then uses a dns server to interpret the text and it then sends you to the right place, all ISP's work this way.
In the case of opendns instead of your Internet service interpreting the website name opendns does and will block access to the categories you don't want. I have it on my router and it filters everything in the house; 2 desktops, a wireless laptop. and even the Wii !
The only way to bypass it is to plug a computer directly into the cable router and bypass our wireless router, which the kids have not figured out yet. :pray:
And besides I have everything centrally located in the house, no computers in private places.

This solution works for both Linux computers and windows, and is completely free.
The only thing you might have to install, which I did, was a small program that detects my dynamic ip address and updates the opendns account.
Don't worry, if you don't know what that is there is very easy instructions on the site to set it up that explains it.

Again, I'm an RN and not an IT guy, and not at all advertising a product, I have nothing at all to do with opendns, I just want to see families stay safe!
I think anyone that uses unfiltered Internet with kids in the house hinges on being criminal.
And for that matter I think all Christians should be filtered too, I like to be filtered myself so I don't accidentally run into the wrong sites.

Tom


**EDIT
I don't want to leave the wrong impression for those not familiar with Linux
Ubuntu is free, as is Dansgaurdian, but Ubuntu was developed by a billionaire and the company behind Unbuntu is very commercial.
They provide the operating system for free but charge companies for tech support.
Ubuntu being so big and popular has made Linux much better known but there is a lot of debate in the Linux community as to whether that is good publicity or not.

Additionally, I have used the Christian version of Ubuntu referred to above, and Dansgaurdian does come preconfigured on it. Dansgaurdian can be hard to set up yourself though. The Christian Ubuntu is also privately developed by a guy out of his home using Ubuntu for its base system, but my understanding is that he is no longer developing it and although you can still download it there will be no future versions or updates.


To be fair, the service I mention above, opendns, also charges cooperations for tech support even though it is completely free to use their service. I suppose they do need to make a living and keep the company going.

Puppylinux, on the the other hand, (like many of the Linux verities, there are over 300 versions of Lunux, take a look at distrowatch.com)
Puppylinux, was developed by a retired electrical engineer in Australia as a hobby and he is not making anything off of it at all, it is completely free for all to use, but the only "tech support" they have is through their forum, LOL.
End of edit

[tom4jesus]

... There is an operating system that will run Microsoft's Window's software ...


Sir, if you're a regular Linux user then you know that this statement is misleading.

To clarify, you can use a program called "wine" that does allow you to run "some" windows programs in Linux, but it does not always work that well and there is a lot of setting up you have to do to get it to work. What it basically does is run windows programs in a virtual folder, and not always that well.
I had e-sword running in Umbuntu but only after a difficult installation that included my having to get missing .dll files directly from Microsoft to put in the e-sword directory. I got the info on how to do it from the Umbutu fourms, and I enjoy doing things like that, but that is not always for the average user.
You would be very disappointed if you think you can use all your windows software on Linux, you can't.
I don't want people to have the wrong impression that you can just pop a windows program into a computer running Linux, It does not work that way.
I am all for promoting Linux, but please be honest with people.

However, Linux does have plenty of it's own software that is great.
I don't use any windows programs myself, and am very happy not too. ;-)

[tom4jesus]

Greetings, This will not let me edit my former posts, i think because they are too old. So I will add this instead. I wanted to publicly apoligize to "th1bill" for the negative tone of my posts about Ubuntu and linux in general. I started using ubuntu myself again just this week and have to admit that Bill is correct and it is very easy to use. In fact it is the easiest to use version of Linux I have ever used.

Not an excuse but having participated in other Linux forums I have picked up wrong and rather snobbish attitudes about Ubuntu which quite frankly are wrong, and from my Christian perspective were sinful in the sence of a judgmental atttitude which did not reflect Christ. I do ask your forgiveness Bill, if you ever see this post again and wish you well brother in helping others on the forum with both Ubuntu and in other ways. I am very much enjoying Ubuntu again myself and have gone so far as to use it for my main operating system replacing Puppy Linux. Thanks for listening,
Tom