Cyber-safety

The internet is transforming the way people learn about the world. With nearly everything they want to know somewhere on the web, it can be a fascinating place. But it is also dangerous, both for your computer and for you and your children. In this backgrounder, William West outlines some technical strategies for ensuring that your forays into cyberspace will be safe.

Author

William West is the editor of Perspective, a Sydney-based magazine of news and views for the family. In his free time he moonlights as a geek specialising in home computing systems for his wife and three daughters.

The problem

Ten years ago when people first started talking about the “information superhighway”, no-one could have known just how perilous this thoroughfare would become. These days you almost need to have a degree in online security to defend your family from the threats that now exist on the internet – particularly if you are a user of Microsoft Windows. The list of protection programs needed to combat net nasties continues to grow by the day, but the main categories include anti-virus software, anti-spyware or anti-adware programs that fight unwanted web advertising and sleuthing, spam blockers that stop unsolicited email, web filters to block pornographic and other offensive websites, programs that supervise web-based chat sessions to prevent children from turning over sensitive details to undesirables, and firewalls to lock out computer hackers trying to gain access to your hard drive.

The computer I am using to write this backgrounder has three programs which download daily updates of the latest viruses and spyware, a web filter that checks every web page I try to access, and a firewall that examines every communication between cyberspace and my PC, whether I know about them or not (and there is another firewall built it to my network router, just to be sure). Long ago I moved to an email service which scans all my incoming mail for viruses and spam. Then there’s the Windows updater that downloads fixes for the latest security flaws found in my operating system. To tell the truth, after a decade of researching articles on the Internet, this correspondent is beginning to become a bit weary of it all. And when you find yourself spending the better part of a whole weekend reinstalling and updating operating systems and security programs on your children’s and wife’s computers, you start to wonder if it really is worth all the hassle. You even start considering other operating systems, like the Mac OS X or versions of the PC operating system, Linux. Those options involve other headaches… but more of that later.

Anti-virus programs

Let’s begin this excursion into cyber danger by taking a brief look at some of the programs now available to combat net nasties. To begin with, the oldest danger to personal computers, predating even the internet, is the humble computer virus. Before the net came along people used to pick up these digital infections from software passed around on floppy disks or via computer bulletin board services. Apparently one of the main reasons that computer “crackers” started writing viruses, is that they wanted to try to undermine the hugely successful Mr Bill Gates and his Disk Operating System (DOS) which evolved into the many versions of Windows we have today. This surely must be one of the great ironies of the digital age, given that today’s security threats have made it almost obligatory for PC users to keep buying new versions of Windows with the latest security fixes. Mr Gates is surely laughing all the way to the bank.

Viruses are simply hidden computer programs that secretly install themselves on your computer and set about causing all kinds of havoc, from sending out unsolicited email messages to disabling your operating system or even destroying all the files on your hard disk. Many parents are unaware of some of their other capabilities, which include, as the Be Safe Online web site warns may include linking the user to a pornographic website or installing a pornographic picture as a screensaver. To combat viruses, there are many anti-virus programs available today with many different features.

The best way to get an idea of how effective and user friendly each one can be is to read reviews published by computing magazines or online services like CNet or ZdNet. The two anti-virus programs that top the lists in most reviews are the Norton and McAfee anti-virus programs. Both come in standalone anti-virus programs or in suites that offer other security features as well. There is a range of prices for both, depending on the features you need, but you can often find bargain deals on Ebay.

If you are looking for a low-cost program specifically to protect family members using home computers, there are even some highly recommended anti-virus programs that offer free versions for home use. They include AVG and Avast! You can find download sites by searching services like Download or Tucows or simply by searching in Google. We have used AVG on our family computers for the past six months and have had no problems. It installs easily with a few clicks of the mouse and downloads daily virus updates automatically.

Spyware

These days, one of the biggest threats to anyone using the internet regularly is spyware. Unlike viruses, these programs don’t seek to interfere with the operation of your computer, but to spy on your online activity, particularly your online buying habits. They can report information back to businesses which then seek to interest you in their products or repeatedly open up advertisements called “pop-ups” on your computer screen. The impact can range from mild annoyance to making it almost impossible for you to browse the Web and like the viruses mentioned early, can sometimes include pornographic images.

As with anti-virus programs, there are many different anti-spyware programs available, but partly because spyware is still such a new phenomenon, none of the programs available seem to pick up all of the spying programs floating around in cyberspace. Most reviewers recommend that you choose at least two of the best programs available. Fortunately, competition is still so fierce in this market that many programs still come free of charge. For the past six months our home computers have been running two programs that have received good reviews, Spybot and Adaware, without any problems. But if you want to take a look at the latest reviews of what is available, you can always perform a quick search in Google or one of the other popular search engines. (This proceedure for tracking down and downloading software on the internet applies to all of the software downloads referred to in this backgrounder).

Firewalls

Once you have locked out viruses and spyware, you should also look at firewalls. As already indicated, a firewall is a program which prevents computer “crackers” from invading your computer via your internet connection. This aspect of internet activity is becoming more crucial as more people move from “dialup” to “broadband” connections. For anyone who still hasn’t caught up with broadband yet, it is simply an umbrella term which refers to all high-speed forms of accessing the internet.

At present the most common varieties of broadband are cable access like that offered by cable television providers and ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line) internet, which uses your ordinary old copper telephone line for high speed access. ADSL actually splits your telephone line into two bandwidths, using one for your phone calls and the other for internet access so that you can continue to use your phone in the same way without any interference. One advantage is that you don’t have to make a phone call every time you want to look something up on the internet. Other types of broadband include satellite access which is mainly used outside of major cities and electrical cable access which has already been successfully trialled but which has not yet been offered for widespread use.

Whichever form of broadband is used, there is still a very real security problem: because your computer is online for very lengthy periods (from days to weeks, or even months at a time) it is more likely that some enterprising computer cracker will succeed in gaining access to your hard drive to create mischief of one sort or another.

This happened to yours truly once years ago when I first gained full-time internet access. I only realised it when I accidentally clicked on Network Neighborhood and discovered a number of computer names with disk drives that contained lots of files with Chinese names. I am not sure what this particular cracker was up to (probably just hitching a free ride on my internet access), but the experience was creepy to say the least.

One solution to this problem is to purchase a router with a built-in firewall that prevents anyone from gaining access to your computer without permission. However, it is also a good idea to have a firewall on your computer because some programs may not be picked up by the router’s firewall. Thankfully, many of the latest operating systems, like Windows XP come with a reasonably effective built-in firewall that works without you having to go through any complicated configuration procedures.

For those with older operating systems, there are a number of software firewalls available at download sites, including some which are free. One of the most popular is Zone Alarm which comes in a free version for home use. The only catch is that if you are sharing your internet connection between several computers on a home network, the free version will prevent other computers from communicating with the internet and even with the other computers on your network. The only solution is to pay for the professional version of the product.

Web filters

Of all the threats on the internet, there is probably none that causes more anxiety for parents than the thought that their children might accidentally stumble on pornographic web sites. If you needed evidence that there is a clear and present danger to kids online, the latest statistics available would certainly provide grounds for concern. The following figures on children's exposure to eornography were compiled by toptenreviews.

• Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography: 11 years old
• Largest consumer of internet pornography: 12-17 age group 1
• 5-17 year olds having multiple hard-core exposures: 80%
• 8-16 year olds having viewed porn online: 90% (most while doing homework)
• 7-17 year olds who would freely give out home address: 29% 7-17 year olds who would freely give out email address: 14%
• Children's characters linked to thousands of porn links: 26 (including Pokemon and Action Man)

Today there are scores of web filters available, all promising to protect your kids while they are online from everything from porn sites to sites promoting racial hatred and violence. There are so many programs out there now, the biggest problem for most parents is trying to decide which one to use. You will be glad to hear that reviewers have found that most of the top programs have a high rating when it comes to effectiveness. In fact, one of the main things blurring the lines between programs is that some are a little over zealous and prevent access to many innocent sites and documents on the internet.

Many programs also come with so many controls and functions that configuring them and keeping up with the many reports they offer you on your child’s internet activity that managing them could become a very time-consuming project. Among the most highly rated programs, according to toptenreviews.com, are Content Protect, Cybersitter, Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, FilterPak and McAfee Parental Controls – all of which achieved three out of a possible four stars. Unfortunately, no program was given a full four stars by reviewers, indicating that none can be considered as being 100% effective (although this, again, is partly because they block out too many innocent web pages).

The leading filtering programs are priced from $US29.99 to $US49.95. Budget conscious parents will be pleased to know that the top performing program at present, Content Protect, is also one of the cheapest at $US29.99. Although most filtering programs allow you for several users on a single computer, they can become very costly if you have more than one computer linked to the internet – something that is becoming more common in families that have two or more children in high school.

One possible solution is to try out a free web filter. They include We-Blocker, NetPurity and ParentalFilter 0.2. The first two seem to work fine (we have used We-Blocker for the past year without any problems). The only obvious weak point would appear to be that both We-Blocker and NetPurity only work with Internet Explorer. Any youngster who knows how to install another browser, like Firefox, could surf the Web free from any restrictions. By contrast, ParentalFilter 0.2 works with other browsers as well.

Another solution to the high cost of programs is to purchase a “router” for your home network. Routers not only act as “hubs” which keep all the computers on your home network connected together, they can also manage your internet connection, acting as a firewall and filtering the web sites that all the computers on your network can access. Routers with these capabilites at present include Belkin, Linksys and ZyXEL. Another leading router manufacturer, D-Link, is intending to upgrade its routers by July 2005 to include a new filtering service (at present the parental controls in D-Link routers only allow parents to set their own lists of allowed and banned sites). Probably the most cost effective filtering service at present is the one offered by Belkin, which comes with six months' access to the “Cerberian” filtering service. After that you can subscribe for $US19.99 per year to keep all of your home computers protected.

Changing your operating system

At this point, many parents may be getting to the stage where they are tempted to think that the whole thing is just too hard – so many programs, so many choices and so much time to install and configure hardware and software. This is particularly true in cases where families have two, three, or more computers. One avenue that an increasing number of parents are pursuing is to change to an alternative operating system that is not plagued by all the security issues that afflict Microsoft Windows.

Many are also spurred on by the high cost of software and the fact that Microsoft now has something approaching a monopoly position in both desktop operating systems and office software. Some research suggests that Windows is now installed on as many as 90 per cent of personal computers. While Apple Mac computers used to account for about 30 per cent of personal computers, that share is currently running at around 3 per cent.

One bright light on the horizon is the rise of the Linux operating system. The major barrier for most people trying out Linux is that it has traditionally been a toy for geeks who are happy to spend days or even weeks setting up their computers. Fortunately, there are now a number of user-friendly versions (or “distributions”) of Linux around that can be installed just as easily, or even more easily, than Windows. Don't be put off by the huge number of Linux “distros” that are available or by the unusual names they go by. Among the easiest of all are Ubuntu, Suse, Mandrake, Linspire (formerly known as “Lindows” until Microsoft took legal action), and Mepis.

But according to most reviewers, and our own tests, the easiest of all is a version known as Xandros. While some Linux purists may be put off by all the fact that it contains some commercial “proprietary” software and the fact that it is clearly designed to look and behave like Windows, you could not find an easier operating system to install. A free version (the “open circulation” version) with most of the features of commercial versions and many types of software not included in Windows, can be downloaded from http://www.xandros.com. (The only unusual thing about this process is that you need to download special software, called BitTorrent, to do it and you need to burn the downloaded “.iso” file as a “disk image”. If you are using Nero express to burn your CD, just click on “Disc Image or Saved Project” and then change the “Files of Type” dialogue box to “Saved Image”, and then burn the disc as usual.) Once it has been downloaded and burnt on to a CD, Xandros takes only 10 minutes and a few mouse clicks to install.

In addition to its free programs (including the fully functioning office suite Open Office (which includes a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation program that read Microsoft Office formats), a big advantage of Xandros is that it is immune to the vast majority of viruses and spyware programs that are floating around on the internet. That means most users will not need to bother installing three of the security programs that are now pretty much compulsory for Windows users – that is, a virus checker and two spyware programs. Xandros also comes with one of the latest and best browsers available, Firefox, which includes a pop-up blocker – a security feature that is to date only available to Windows users who are using the latest version of Windows XP. Xandros also has its own built-in firewall – again a feature that Windows only includes in its latest upgrade to XP.

Of course, one security feature that is still needed by anyone using Xandros is a web filter. One option is to download and install a free web filtering program called DansGuardian. We don’t recommend this though. It can be quite difficult to install and set up and updating the software to block all the latest offensive sites on the internet can be very costly. A simpler option is to just purchase one of the routers mentioned above with built-in web filtering.

One advantage of Xandros and most other Linux operating systems is that they come with a “boot loader” which allows you to have more than one operating system on your computer at the same time. So you can install Xandros on a computer which is presently running Windows and have a choice of launching either operating system when you start up your computer. That way, if you don’t like Xandros, you can just go back to Windows. There are also some programs that can be run from within Linux that allow you to run Windows programs or even install Windows within Linux itself and launch it in a window. Once launched you can install and run most of your old Windows programs. Although there are several programs available to do this, the only one that we could get working satisfactorily is Netraverse’s Win4Lin Home program which will install versions of Windows up to Windows 98 Second Edition. It will run most Windows programs, except for many multimedia programs and games, especially those that rely on Micrsosoft’s Active X software. There is also a “Professional” version of Win4Lin which will run Windows 2000 and Windows XP but we found that it ran far two slowly to be of much use.

But, in the final analysis, if you still need to run Windows programs, you will probably be better off sticking with Windows. Many people may also be put off Xandros because it tends to be a bit sluggish compared with Windows and it uses poor fonts it uses (they tend to be quite amateurish and blurry looking). If the fonts problem bothers you, you could always try the Ubuntu distro of Linux, but sooner or later you are likely to need some expert help. All in all, you might decide that Windows with all its security problems is still a better alternative. Whichever path you decide to go down, it seems certain that the security headaches that go with online computing are going to be with us for some time to come.