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Ok folks, esp parents, listen up. I work for IBM and it is my job to build security into our customer's networks. HOWEVER, this does not relieve you from the responsibility of knowing what your child is doing with your computer and Internet connection.

Consider the Internet no different than the rest of the world. Know where your kids are and what they are doing and when they are doing it and who they are talking to.

If you do not know how to do this, then LEARN!!!!! There are often many local community colleges and free classes on how to use computers and protect your kids. Take advantage of the classes.... and I don't want to hear any crap about not having enough time. Will that be any comfort when your shattered and emotionally scared daughter is crying because some boy or pervert raped her?!

Be the adult here and set some ground rules. Put your computer that the kids use out in the middle of the house WERE THERE IS NO PRIVACY. That one action alone will keep most people from going places they should not.

Some good suggestions in your post. Computer security helps protect the computer, home security helps protect the family. As with all things, you can make it "fool-proof", but you can't make it "damn-fool proof".

Be the adult here and set some ground rules. Put your computer that the kids use out in the middle of the house WERE THERE IS NO PRIVACY

Without question the single most effective method. My friends who have kids, knowing I have computer science degree, are always asking me what the best nanny-type software is.

If I'm in a smart-mouted mood my usualy reply is: "I suggest you install, and actually, use, Mom_and_Dad.exe".

Consider the Internet no different than the rest of the world. Know where your kids are and what they are doing and when they are doing it and who they are talking to.

I can't underunderstand the wisdom giving a computer with Internet access to a child, and then allowing such child to lock himself inside his bedroom for hours.

It's like little lambs being led to the slaughterhouse.

Put your computer that the kids use out in the middle of the house WERE THERE IS NO PRIVACY. That one action alone will keep most people from going places they should not.

Not enough. A man who investigated hundreds of cases of abuse (read about it in a thread on FR) in which teens were paid to show themselves naked on their webcams, decided to check the backgrounds in hundreds of these teen webcam caches. It made him ill but he did note that overwhelmingly the backgrounds were middle class dens, living rooms, dining rooms. "Public" rooms. Parents normally do leave teens alone in the house, sometimes just for brief shopping trips.

"Be the adult here and set some ground rules. Put your computer that the kids use out in the middle of the house WERE THERE IS NO PRIVACY. That one action alone will keep most people from going places they should not."

By golly I think you are on to something! Our girls have been on the internet for years...right here in the living room, the only internet connection in the house at the moment. And we talk often about the dangers out there.

Once our youngest (14) minimized the screen when I walked up behind her..so of course I had her immediately bring it back up. Seems a friend of hers was saying how much he f-ing hated Valentine's Day and she didn't want me to see the f-ing part. That led to a discussion about what my Grandpa always said about ignorance and using foul language.