Make the thing with the buttons go good
Posts tagged security
Internet Content Filtering
9 years
Despite best intentions, good education and in-person monitoring, sometimes the internet can be a dangerous place full of things we’d rather not have our children accidentally exposed to. There is a category of software and other solutions for filtering these things out before you see them called Content Filtering. This post is designed to give an overview of the major content filtering software packages available. It isn’t a be-all and end-all and doesn’t go in-depth into each package but gives you an overview of the key points of difference and costs so you can find one and it out to see which one meets your needs. Where possible, prices are in NZ dollars and correct at time of publishing by may change over time – look up the website concerned for accurate pricing at the time of your purchase.
Software:
Net Nanny is the grand-daddy of internet filtering software and has been around and evolved over time almost since there was an internet to filter. It has solid filtering, a good feature set and time controls for limiting internet use (although this is apparently not customisable for specific applications).
Cost: 1 devices $39.99/year, 5 devices: $59.95/year, 10 devices $89.99
This is software from a Christian organisations, based around the scripture Job 31:1 “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.” The key point of difference of Covenant Eyes is that it includes accountability as well as internet filtering.
Cost: $10.99/month for individuals or couples without kids. $14.99/month for families with kids.
Norton Family and Norton Family Premier.
Norton Family is a free online tool for monitoring and filtering internet usage. You can sign up for a free account and download the client on different pcs.
Norton has a great history of solid antivirus products but on some systems has also had a history of being a bit resource intensive and may slow your computer down at times.
The Premier version adds mobile app supervision, location supervision, video supervision and weekly/monthly reports and costs $49.99 per year. For a full breakdown comparison see this chart.
Premier is also included in their full Norton Internet Security Suite if you buy the 3 devices option – This is good if you also want to combine internet filtering with antivirus, identity protection and backup.
Cost: Free for Norton Family, $49.95/year for Norton Family Premium. $79.99/year for Norton Internet Security for 3 devices (includes Family Premier).
Open DNS is a little trickier to understand but is a good solution for internet filtering. It uses the DNS (Domain Name Service) that the internet uses to convert domain names that you understand (like www.google.com) to IP addresses that computers understand (like 192.224.142.40). You tell your computer or router to use the Open DNS servers for DNS lookups and then set up you filter preferences with Open DNS to tell them what to block. They have guides on their website for setting up your computer or router.
While this option can be more technical to set up, the advantages are that it’s free and hard to bypass.
Cost: Free
K9 Protection is a free service that is focused around protecting children. It is small and has a web-based interface for configuration and can be difficult to bypass. The biggest limitation with this software is that it doesn’t appear to support multiple user accounts so you can’t set one rule for the children and one rule for adults for example. But if you can live with this, it’s worth a loo.
Cost: Free
Router Level Filtering:
A router is the device you most likely use to connect to the internet. Depending on the manufacturer, this device may have filtering built-in. Refer to the documentation that would have come with your router on how to access its configuration. Look in the setup or configuration page of your router and look for pages on Content Filtering or Parental Controls. Routers control the flow of your internet so it’s a logical place to set up content filtering and the configuration of these devices is not often changed so it’s difficult to bypass if the configuration is protected by a strong password.
ISP Level Filtering:
Some internet service providers will offer a service where they will do the filtering for you. The main advantage of this is that it is very difficult to bypass as all of your internet will go through their equipment and it’s not dependent on any hardware or software at your home. So if you buy a new computer for example, you don’t need to re-install the filtering software on the computer as the ISP will do the filtering for you.
2 ISPs I found will do this in New Zealand as an advertised service – Watchdog Internet (DSL Broadband Service with 40GB per month of data from $85.45 per month including GST) and Maxnet ($5 or $10 add-on to your internet plan depending on the level of customisation you want on the filtering). Other internet providers will usually have some form of add-on service or protection they recommend – give them a call and ask them what is available.
There’s more to security than just filtering:
There is much more to overall security than just filtering. You should consider strong passwords, the physical access to your devices and network, backups, anti-virus, malware scans and firewalls etc. I’m hoping to cover off some of these topics in an upcoming blog post – stay tuned.
Get Help:
If you want any assistance setting up the appropriate protections for you and your family or more advice on what the best options are for your situation, get in touch!
Prey
14 years
I’ve recently set up a system I’ve found to protect my home computer and laptop. I highly recommend this to everyone as it’s free, easy to set up, requires no maintenance and could be invaluable if your computer or smartphone is ever stolen. It’s called Prey.
Prey is ‘set and forget’ application for your laptop/smart phone/computer that can help with recovering it in the event that it gets stolen.
There are 2 parts to it. An application that is installed, configured and then runs silently on your device and a website (or you can use your own if you prefer and have the skills). You install the app and set up an account, change a few settings and forget about it until (heaven forbid) your device is stolen. You can then log into their website, mark your devices as missing and initiate a number of reports and actions.
Pros/Features:
– Search for and use nearby wireless networks to send reports.
– Take pictures from the webcam.
– Collect information about files changed and network information.
– On a phone, can collect gps information.
– It works with Windows, Linux, Max OS and works on most laptops, computers, servers and smart phones.
– You can track up to 3 devices for free and you can pay a fee to track more if you look after a fleet of
Cons/Limitations:
– The big limitation is that it relies on the thief booting up your computer and prey being able to find useful information to help in recovery.
This means if the thief is smart/determined they can either format the whole drive or log in and very quickly disable the app (assuming the know it exists). But chances are they are not that smart or they might try to recover your information and copy off your videos/audio first which gives Prey a chance to work.
Notes:
– Do not set Prey up to send reports to your email address if you have email access from your computer without a password. You don’t want whoever has stolen your pc to be receiving copies of the reports that Prey is sending out.
– Overall, despite the limitations, it is much better than nothing. It will dramatically increase the chances of recovering your device if it is ever stolen.
For more information check out:
The Prey website: http://preyproject.com/
Lifehacker’s review: http://lifehacker.com/5643460/how-to-track-and-potentially-recover-your-stolen-laptop-or-android-with-prey
Own Your Space – Keep Yourself and Your Stuff Safe Online
14 years
Microsoft has published a free eBook about keeping yourself and your stuff safe online. It’s aimed primarily at teenagers but has excellent information for anyone who is interested in protecting themselves, their identity and their computers while online.
It is written in very easy to understand English and covers topics like spam, malware, your online identity, browser security, social networking and much more. I’ve had a look through it and can highly recommend it for anyone who uses the internet.
Download the whole book or individual chapters from Microsoft’s Website here.
(It’s probably easier to stick with the pdf format as you are more likely to have a reader for it than xps format)
Own Your Space–Keep Yourself and Your Stuff Safe Online
Strong Passwords
15 years
I’ve come across an alarming number of people in my travels who have no password at all on their computers or have very easy to guess passwords.
People tell me that they don’t care if someone gets into their computer and they don’t have anything to hide or anything worth stealing but they still call me when all of their data goes missing or someone hacks their wifi connection or emails.
Think your password system is pretty secure. Read this article (How I’d hack your weak passwords) and let me know how well your password would hold up.
A case for decent passwords:
1. Your data is your data. If it isn’t well protected you could loose it forever or have it stolen and used for malicious purposes like identity theft etc. How much would your family photos on your computer be worth to someone else? How much would they be worth to get them back if you lost them?
2. Computers are always getting faster, tools are always getting more complex and hackers are always getting more ingenious. The amount of time required for a decently spec’d computer to crack password with brute force is going down by the day. And the tools for password recover, network sniffers, trojans etc are getting more ellaborate by the day.
3. If nothing else, there is hassle involved when someone else gains your password. At the very least there is the hassle to change your password and remember a new one. At worst, there is time and money spent on repairing the operating system on your computer, rebuilding your online identity and recovering your files.
How to make your passwords stronger
1. Don’t use real words, names or birthdays.
2. Use a combination of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers and symbols. The more the merrier and the longer the merrier. Many corporate organisations enforce a policy of have at least 3 of the 4 groups mentioned here and a minimum of 7 characters.
3. Try a song that you know well and use the first letter of each word as your password – “Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high” becomes sotrwuh. Then mix this up with some capital letters or numbers (don’t just capitalise the first letter add 1 to the end).
4. If you touch-type, try shifting your fingers one space to the left or right. This makes otherwise easy passwords harder to guess. password becomes [sddeptf for example.
Some suggestions for managing passwords
1. Get some software to help you remember. I recommend Keypass (http://keepass.info/) for your system passwords and LastPass (http://lastpass.com/) which specialises in Internet passwords and logins. Using these you can set strong different passwords for different systems, applications and internet sites and you only have to remember one password for your Keepass and/or Lastpass software.
2. Change your passwords regularly. I know this makes them harder to remember but it is a great security measure. If someone spends a month cracking your password but you changed it a week ago, it isn’t going to help them much.
3. Use different passwords for different systems. Some systems are more secure than others and yet people generally use the same password for everything. If someone gets your password form an insecure site on the net that you signed up to a newsletter on or something, can they then use the same password for accessing your email and bank account details?