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Please note: The reports in this section are not product reviews or tests; they're meant to spotlight options for you to consider, as well as milestones in children's online-safety technology development. Comments from readers on their own experiences with these products and services are most welcome - and, with your permission, we publish them. Do email us your own product reviews anytime!
New monitoring tool (March 10, '00 issue)
A young software company called Finer Technologies, owned and operated by an MBA student at Penn State University, has just introduced a monitoring software program called X-Detect. Founder and sole employee Joshua Finer wrote the X-Detect software himself.
That in itself is a fun story - one of those Internet startups spawned in school. Remember our item last week about Boston University's incubator, designed to keep students in school while they're running their businesses? The story's really about how the Internet has lowered the barriers to entry. (See a recent related news story, "Who Needs a Diploma?: "Why the high-tech industry wants dropouts".)
But this is also about a new online-safety resource for parents. X-Detect is interesting because it's a little different from most monitoring software. Usually, the monitoring function is one part of a Web filtering application that runs in the background while the user surfs the Web, "watching" where s/he goes. If a parent decides to use such a tool to monitor children's surfing patterns, the software needs to have been on the computer for a while before a "report" can be generated. The main distinction of X-Detect is that it can "spot check" various parts of the system (not just Web browser history) to see if sexually explicit or violence- or hate-related sites have been visited. That means it doesn't constantly "run in the background" - it's more like a drug test, as Joshua put it, detecting activity as far back as 30 days. That also makes it harder for smart young surfers to "hack" or manipulate the software (i.e., erase their "footprints").
The software uses keywords, which are disclosed in the documentation, as well as in the X-Detect Web site. Users can modify the keywords, based on a family's own criteria.
If you'd like to read about other monitoring products, a great resource is GetNetWise.org, which has a searchable database of all types of child-online-safety resources. For products in the monitoring category, go to GetNetWise.org's Tools for Families page. In the blue and yellow search engine box, just click/check "Monitors" under "What the tool does." Then click "Find My Tools," which will turn up 50 software products. You'll find, as we did, that many of these are filtering or blocking software applications that include monitoring as one of their features. Only a few - such as One Tough Computer COP, Spector, and SentryCam - are designed just to monitor. Some monitor email as well.
Editor's Note: 1) In our humble opinion, being up front with kids is best. If parents choose to use monitoring software, we suggest they let their kids know. Monitoring openly can be an effective "deterrent," just one part of a comprehensive family Internet-use policy. 2) We're not endorsing this product - we just report on new developments in online safety for kids. There are many tools for families who choose to use them - from software products for individual computers to filtered Internet services. The only recommendation we make is that any decision to use a Net safety product or service be accompanied with family discussion. Working together on Internet-use rules is a wonderful opportunity for parent-child communication. We'd love to hear from you, whether you try X-Detect and want to review it, or you have a story about family Net policymaking to tell. Do email us.
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