Network Management in the Home, with guest Matthew Fisher

In order to become more competent in issues of filtering, I had my husband walk me through what he has set up both to keep our computers secure and how to filter them. He started with a tour of the basement, with our modem and wi fi. He explained that once he attached the computer directly to the modem and immediately had spammers from China try to infiltrate the computer. They were able to do this because the IP address was public, whereas if the computer was connected to the wi fi the information was private and not as easy to infiltrate. We also went through both the security and filtering programs on my laptop, and I changed the setting on my laptop so that I would be warned of objectionable material instead of being blocked. (Before pages would be blocked at very random times, such as leaving comments on people’s posts.) Then, he helped me get password safe set up, so that I had a way to generate and keep track of stronger passwords. Lastly (and he gets bonus points for this), he wrote some of his other thoughts, so that both I and you would have it. They follow (by the way, hubby’s name is Matthew Fisher and he did give permission to share this):

Our internet connection involves cable internet service, a cable modem, a wireless router, and software firewalls. In addition to this, we use a security software suite, a password manager, and content filtering.

The filtering actually begins with our router, which acts as a form of hardware firewall, and helps to make our internet connection more secure. A lot of modems feature built-in routers. In our case, the cable modem and the wireless router are two separate pieces of hardware.

The following article briefly explains how a router works, what the difference is between hardware and software firewalls, and why it's good to have both types of firewall.

http://www.howtogeek.com/122065/htg-explains-i-have-a-router-do-i-need-a-firewall/

By default, our router does not do any "port forwarding". This means that the world at large can see our modem's public IP address, but cannot initiate any communication with our computers' private IP addresses. What this boils down to is that some guy in China can't probe our computers for open ports.

If you've enabled port forwarding on your router, please Google the term "packet filter", and give some very serious thought to configuring packet filtering on your computer.

Firewalls and packet filters can only do so much. When we use a web browser to access a website, we are by definition giving the computer on the other end permission to send us something. If the other computer is compromised, what we receive back could be malware (malicious software). We can also receive malware in the form of email attachments.

This is why it's good to have a virus scanner. Most virus scanner vendors sell comprehensive security packages, which also include blocking websites with known security risks, scanning email attachments, etc.

There's some disagreement about whether computers running OS X or Linux need to have a virus scanner. The following short article explains that in fact it is a prudent measure, if only to protect the people with whom you share files:

http://macs.about.com/od/faq1/f/virusprotection.htm

The same could also be said for iPhones, iPads, Androids, etc. But in practice, who runs a virus scanner on their mobile devices? Who thinks about the bizarrely unrestrained security privileges that apps demand when you install them?

That's such a mess that all I can do is move on to another topic.

A basic security measure that is often overlooked is to use good "password hygiene". In other words, use strong passwords, use a different password for each account, and periodically change all of your passwords.

Reality check: There is no way that a normal person could possibly remember dozens of constantly changing strong passwords. This is where a password management program like Password Safe comes in.

Password Safe makes it very easy for you to generate, store, and retrieve a different strong password for each of your accounts. The password database itself is password-protected, but you only have to remember that one password. For further information about Password Safe, see:

https://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html

Another aspect of our computer setup is content filtering. A few free tools that can be helpful for content filtering are:

- Google's safety tools like Safe Search, and YouTube's Safety Mode:

http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/familysafety/tools/

- The parental controls in Microsoft Windows:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/parental-controls

- Additional internet filtering software such as K9, NetNanny, etc. (which we don't currently use)

Safe Search and Safety Mode are not just for children -- and in fact they're not robust enough to be used as serious parental controls. Basically they're just ways of opting into a more disciplined approach to search results.

If you use the internet for work or education, you'll find that Safe Search can remove a lot of "noise" that tends to distract and coarsen us. Similarly, Safety Mode can suppress comment streams and videos on YouTube that our better selves would have no interest in seeing. Both features are easily toggled on and off.

The horror that is internet advertising speaks for itself. One very effective means of controlling all sorts of ads is to install Adblock Plus:

https://adblockplus.org/

The amount of unsolicited crud that Adblock Plus eliminates is amazing.

Later this week, I’ll have to go through some of the computers we have and make sure they’re all appropriately set up (embarrassed to say we have five, some mac some non), play with the password safe, and Adblock.

This has been on the computer set up side of things, which I thought good to explore this week. On the children side, I have been fairly cautious in what they are allowed to do and have been slowly getting them into the digital world. Computers are kept in public spaces, and computer time is regulated. They are only allowed to go on sites they have permission to go on, unless they ask specifically to do a search. With younger children, I sit down with them for a search, but my 10 and 12 year old look things up on their own. The main things we have talked about are what to do if you see something weird (turn it off and tell me) and the importance of respecting copyright (huge issue as I have creators). My older two are fairly involved in Scratch and so have had a multitude of questions about how to handle various social situations online. My younger children have played with Scratch a bit, but not to the point that they have really engaged with the social part of it. With my eight year old, I don’t know if she is too young, or just not interested. I am wondering if something like youngzine.org would be an attractive place where she could make online contributions, and I could work with her on discussing digital citizenship. (Although the environments are different, scratch has moderators that help you when you need it, youngzine moderates every comment before it is posted. This makes it a very safe starting ground, but doesn’t give the same level of practice dealing with conflict. I have been very happy that scratch has provided a little bit of exposure to conflict without being over the top).

By the way, this is a link to the expectations Scratch has of its participants. We have looked it up and had discussions several times when we were unsure about something: http://scratch.mit.edu/community_guidelines/

This is a link a classroom project (not mine) in which sixth graders made scratch projects which demonstrated some aspect of digital citizenship, thought it would be fun to share: http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/437627/

I clearly have more work to do in thinking what it really means to be a digital citizen and passing that on to my kids. I am on the lookout for simple sources on what material should be covered with kids and places on the internet that serve as useful training grounds. I would love to hear what other people have come up with!

Resources

"Ad Block Plus" [web page]. Retrieved from: https://adblockplus.org/

"Digital Citizenship Studio" [web page], Retrieved from: http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/437627/

"Google's Saftey Tools" [web page]. Retrieved from: http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/familysafety/tools/

"HTG Explains: I have a router do I need a firewall?" [web page]. Retrieved from: http://www.howtogeek.com/122065/htg-explains-i-have-a-router-do-i-need-a-firewall/

Nelson, Tom. "Do I need an anti-virus program for my mac?" [web page]. Retrieved from:
http://macs.about.com/od/faq1/f/virusprotection.htm

"Net Nanny" [web page]. Retrieved from:
http://www.netnanny.com/

"K9 Web Protection" [web page]. Retrieved from: http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

"Password Safe" [web page], Retrieved from:  http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/

Schneier, Bruce. "Password Safe" [web page]. Retrieved from: https://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html

"Scratch Community Guidelines" [web page]. Retrieved from: http://scratch.mit.edu/community_guidelines/


 "Window's Parental Controls" [web page]. Retrieved from: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/parental-controls

"Youngzine" [web page]. Retrieved from: http://www.youngzine.org/