Make your
own kid-friendly home internet access
January 20, 2016 http://www.smh.com.au/
Adam Turner
It's not hard to filter out the worst of the internet
without installing crippling net nanny software on every device in your home.
There comes a time when every parent
is forced to consider the best way to keep their children safe online. The child-friendly plug n' play hub is one
solution, creating a separate filtered Wi-Fi network for the youngsters in your
house, but there are other solutions if this doesn't suit your needs.
The advantage of the plug n' play hub is that you don't need
to install filtering software on your end devices, which is useful because
you're unlikely to find software to protect every internet-enabled device in
your home such as the browser on your Smart TV. Net nanny software also has a
tendency to cripple end devices as it tries to block content on the fly.
The disadvantage of the plug n' play hub solution is that it
relies on a separate Wi-Fi network. This might not suit you if you're happy
with your existing wireless router, especially if you rely on Wi-Fi extenders
to reach the far corners of your home. The plug n' play hub also fails to
protect devices which are connected to your home network via Ethernet cables
rather than Wi-Fi.
Look
it up
The plug n' play hub doesn't inspect every webpage on the
fly, instead it relies on custom DNS servers. These are the telephony
directories of the internet, helping your devices look up webpages. By default
every device in your home probably uses your internet service provider's DNS
settings, but it's easy to change this -- across your entire home or just on
individual devices.
Services like OpenDNS and Norton ConnectSafe offer custom
DNS servers which modify the listings for inappropriate webpages, serving up a
"page blocked" message instead. They offer free and paid options,
granting you different levels of control over what's blocked.
The paid services are linked to your home IP address, which
can be a problem if your IP address changes whenever you reboot your modem.
There are websites and apps which make it easy to notify the service of your
new IP address, or you might find it easier to pay extra to your internet
service provider for a fixed IP address. This also comes in handy if you're
using DNS-based geo-dodging services like Unblock US to sneak into US Netflix.
Pick
and choose
If you want to protect your entire home then it's just a
matter of changing the DNS settings in your modem, so it automatically hands
out the address of your child-friendly DNS server to every device.
Alternatively you can protect individual devices by just
changing their DNS settings, which lets you stick with one Wi-Fi network. The
process of editing the DNS settings works slightly different on various
devices, but a quick Google search will help you along your way.
For example, on an iGadget you can't create a default DNS
setting for every Wi-Fi network, you can only change the DNS settings for
specific networks. This is useful in that you can configure child-friendly DNS
settings on an iPad at home and know these settings won't cause trouble when
your child connects their iPad to their school's network. Unfortunately you
can't enforce your child-friendly DNS over 3G/4G or when connecting to a new
Wi-Fi network.
Not a
magic bullet
DNS-based filtering is handy if you want to prevent young
children stumbling upon inappropriate content, but it's much more challenging
to stop older children who go actively looking for it.
Tech-savvy kids can beat DNS filtering by changing the DNS
settings themselves, using a VPN or proxy server to bypass the filtering or
simply switching to an unprotected Wi-Fi network. You can lock some of these
options down on a computer by ensuring your kids don't have administrator
rights, but it's harder to do on mobile devices.
Remember that at the end of the day web filtering is not a
substitute for adult supervision, so it's important to take an interest in your
children's online activities and discuss the dangers. How do you keep the
youngsters in your home safe when they're online?
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