The Nanny Notes

Ben Beck

Net Nanny is made by ContentWatch, my employers. The company is a for profit institution, and employs a good number of individuals that it pays well and that pay helps feed their families. We can't give Net Nanny away for free, or we'd all die. No money = no food = death. However, there are some companies out there that giveaway software because they don't need the money (or because they've monetized their free product in other ways). We salute those organizations. One such organization, the Website Rating and Advisory Council, has created a free web filter toolbar that you can add to Internet Explorer to enable safer searching. While our company does not make it a point to prop up competitors, we do see value in free tools, even ones that may compete with our own software. So, here's my review of the WRAAC's ParentalControlBar Internet Filter.

Installation:
Quick and easy. Your computer will continue to tell you that the program does not come from a trusted source. However, this is common with most software you try to install on a Microsoft Windows system - since we're telling you you can trust them, you can. Just click “run whenever you see that as an option. You'll be asked to enter a password and your email address. Very easy installation and I had the toolbar running in under 5 minutes.

First test:
So, I'm not a big pornographer myself. As such, my first test simply included me typing “playboy.com into the browser. Voila - blocked. It's nice that the block comes up with an override option, in case you feel the site is okay for yourself but not for the little ones. It also has an option to add the site to a white list, which would always let the site through in the future.

More extensive testing:
Tricky children may try to go through Google to get to their sites, instead of just typing the web address into the browser. So, my next test was to go to Google and search for “playboy. Blocked. No, not the search. The actual site “google.com was blocked. Hmm, guess it's because Google hasn't been living up to their “Do No Evil slogan as of late. Trying to navigate to bing.com - nope, they're blocked too. The reason for blocking is because these sites are “unlabeled. C'mon guys - two of the biggest sites on the web and you haven't categorized them?
Ultimately, however, the youngest of kids might not need access to search engines - they just need a couple fun, very child friendly sites, right? So, I'll test several Net Nanny suggested kid friendly sites see if they make it through:

• Nick.com - Blocked.
• BiologyInMotion.com - Blocked. Granted, this site does talk about bile, urine, and thyroid glands - maybe it should've been blocked. Really though, it made the Net Nanny safe sites list because it's full of fun and great tools to teach kids about biology.
• PBSKids.org - Blocked. Of any of the sites out there this should be classified as one of the most safe sites out there.
• All sites blocked - couldn't find one that wasn't.

• 666Gamer.com - found this site by searching Google (on a non-protected computer) for “best violent websites and then tried it on the protected computer - blocked as “unlabeled.
• umm - I don't follow the violence industry so I'm at a loss for more sites to try. I tested several that came back in Google search results and all were blocked as “unlabeled.

P. Ferioli

Last month I blogged about how the Australian government's decision to drop the educational NetAlert program and move forward with mandatory ISP filtering would do little to help protect families down under from the dangers on the Internet. 

To the surprise of many, including myself, it appears that the plan "has effectively been scuttled" according the the Sydney Morning Herald.  The fallout appears to come from independent Senator Nick Xenophon's decision to join the Greens and Opposition in blocking any legislation required to get the scheme started.

"The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has consistently ignored advice from a host of technical experts saying the filters would slow the internet, block legitimate sites, be easily bypassed and fall short of capturing all of the nasty content available online," the Morning Herald stated. On the heels of this, Senator Conroy still plans on moving ahead with the trial and even expanding it's scope outside of blocking illegal web site content. Senator Conroy recently said there was "a very strong case for blocking" other legal content that has been "refused classification." According to the classification code, this includes sites depicting drug use, crime, sex, cruelty, violence or "revolting and abhorrent phenomena" that "offend against the standards of morality".

Besides facing opposition from online consumers, lobby groups, ISPs, network administrators, some children's welfare groups, the Opposition, the Greens, NSW Young Labor and even the conservative Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who famously tried to censor the chef Gordon Ramsay's swearing on television, Senator Conroy faces the toughest battle against the families he believes he is protecting. A poll from 2 weeks ago found that only 5 per cent of Australians want ISPs to be responsible for protecting children online and only 4 per cent want Government to have this responsibility. Parents actuallly want to take responsibility for what content their children consume. 

Parental control?
Imagine that.

P. Ferioli

LeGrand Woolley

I’d like to use this time to discuss and educate parents about some of the latest and greatest features found with Net Nanny.  In this last release, Net Nanny 6.0 introduced several ground-breaking features, unfortunately many parents have a hard time grasping the importance and relevance of some of these features.  One of the main features introduced in this release was “Secure Internet Filtering. 

“What does that even mean?  Great question!  Let’s break it apart.  “Secure Internet or “Encrypted Internet describes all of the websites you would normally visit, except the encrypted versions of them.  For example, http://www.netnanny.com is a URL or website that you would regularly visit.  If we changed http://  to https:// you would now be visiting the secure version of the website.  All this really means is, any information you put on this website cannot be viewed by anyone that may be “tapping your internet line.  This is important for credit card transactions, usernames and passwords, and all that information you don’t want others to know about. Unfortunately tech-savvy kids are using this very technique to get around parental controls and internet filtering.  "https://some-adult-website-that-your-kids-shouldn’t-be-looking-at.com". 

Now the “Internet Filtering part of the puzzle.  This is the beauty of this new feature.  Net Nanny will be able to correctly filter the websites that use https:// whilst maintaining the security of your private information.  Although this ability has been around in the corporate and business environments for a while, no other family-friendly parental control product can do this.  We’ve simply taken the corporate appliance technology and brought it into your home.  Nice!!   

Now you might be saying, “I need another example, where else have I seen something like this?  Remember all of those espionage movies where the President says, “Is this line secure?, and he picks up the phone and talks to General Schwarzenegger about the “launch codes.  It’s a lot like that, but Net Nanny is like the Presidential aid in the background that screens the call and makes sure it’s secure before the President takes it.  Net Nanny will ensure your personal information is still secure, but prevent access to unwanted “calls or in our case objectionable websites.

I hope this helps you understand a little more about Secure Internet Filtering.  In upcoming posts I’ll tackle ESRB games, cyber-predators and cyber-bullying.  Stay tuned.