My child has a new laptop - compliments of her school system, complete with internet access WIFI in a town that prides itself on free hotspots. Combined with my neighbor's insecure WIFI router, and the periling realities of online predators, I can understand how parents may want software to monitor their child's online activity.

In a meeting tonight, a parent raised this concern in the form of a question: "Is there anything that allows me to control what my child does online when I'm not able to control her access?"

Control? No! Don't be silly. Society has failed to guarantee teens won't get pregnant or do drugs, and those involve behavior that's a lot easier to monitor than internet communications. The best you can hope for is to limit the unwanted behavior, and perhaps catch and stop some children exposing themselves to dangerous elements.

However, a lack of monitoring exposes the school system to potential litigation and monitoring can be a useful tool for parents as well as a deterent. So, preventive tools should be supplied, or at least made available for those willing to purchase them. Parents should strongly consider using such tools to help protect their children.

• Spy Buddy - Can email details, offers reports in Microsoft Excel, HTML, CSV, Plain Text, and XML.
• Activity Logger
• KidsWatch - Offers tools to block certain websites (NO CHILD should have a MySpace account), reporting, and a remote management system. Downside: It also has a lot of system controls behavior that may conflict with other security protocols on your system's configuration.
• Keystroke Recorder - Primarily a keystroke recorder, and there's some maliciously designed programs that do that pretty lightweight (for free).
• WebWatcher by Awareness Tech - Has an online feature, so you can monitor your child's activity, including websites, accounts, instant messenger discussions, and email. They offer a video demo on their site.
• WebWatcher Kids - Another all around monitor system.
• Key Logger - Another all around monitor system.
• Spector Pro 5.0 - Awarded PC Magazine Editors Choice, and has a detailed listing of features on the product features page.
• Loxee - Rated 5 Stars by Tucows. It also claims to have strong compression - meaning it doesn't use as much internet resource to update you. It will update you via by e-mail or mobile phone text message when certain behavior is detected. This can be very useful. It also offers Webcam recording, which kind of sounds creepy. Don't give your children access to unmonitored webcams.
• iProtectYou by SoftforYou - Primarily serves as a blocking tool, but offers reporting and scheduled internet access.
• SentryPC - Offers extensive reporting and scheduled internet access.
• 007 - Advertised as "a stealthy computer monitoring software which allows you to secretly record all activities of computer users and automatically deliver logs to you via Email or FTP."

Of course, Google has a list

Posted in security | tech jasonn's blog