I always thought I had technology on the brain before, but it’s impossible to work in the Information Security industry without letting even more paranoia into your life outside of the office. My job has put me on the front lines of the cyber wars that are being fought every day, or rather, every second of the day. I’ve seen glimpses of digital grifters working hard to scam regular people out of their life savings, malware attacks being used to allow cyber criminals into protected systems, and Advanced Persistent Threats from organized professionals in other countries trying to attack our own. It’s enough to make anyone paranoid.
That’s why even before my son Kaden was born, and now that we have a little girl on the way, my mind has already been racing years into the future to make a game plan for how I can protect them from the dangers that lurk just beyond the keyboard.
The thing is, cybercrime isn’t always what Hollywood makes it out to be. Hackers aren’t always young, scrawny kids wearing sweatshirts with their hoods up, sitting in the dark in their parents’ basement as they clack away on their keyboards with their noses just mere inches from the screen. They’re not always hacking into banks to fill their accounts or their schools to bump up their GPA. They’re not always on a crusade against “the man.” In fact, you don’t even have to be a “hacker” to be a cyber criminal.
Cybercrime is exactly what it’s name implies…it is unlawful activity that just happens to take place on a computer. Theft, extortion, espionage, it can all happen online, and it does every day.
The Internet has also made many crimes must easier to commit. Decades ago, sexual predators would have to somehow charm their victims in person to gain their trust. Years ago they moved their playing field into chat rooms where they could pretend to be someone else and lure others into traps. Nowadays all they need is a Facebook account.
It’s a scary world out there, and there are several windows into that world scattered across our homes in the form of computers, tablets, smartphones, and now even watches. So what are we supposed to do? Do we boycot technology and purchase a horsedrawn carriage? Or more realistically, do we prevent our children from using computers outside of doing homework and keep them away from electronic devices?
This is the 21st century. Technology is a huge part of life and to force your kids back into the stone age is going to negatively affect their social and intellectual growth. When I was growing up, we didn’t actually get a computer in our home until I was around 9 or 10 years old. However, both of my grandparents had computers that they didn’t know how to use that I was immediately drawn to. My grandpa on my mom’s side had an old, DOS-based PC on which I used to write my own little stories using the text editor. Thinking back, I’m still surprised that I was able to teach myself how to navigate in that text-based operating system without Google to help me.
My grandma on my dad’s side had an old (well, “new” at that time) Apple Macintosh Classic II, which I fell in love with. Even though it was black and white and the drawing program only had different shades of gray, I had a lot of fun with that machine. I also introduced myself to the first stages of programming by figuring out how to edit a choose-your-own-adventure game that was installed and creating my own side-stories.
As years went on and my grandma replaced her Mac II with a blueberry iMac, I continued to experiment with the new technology as my cousin Ty and I discovered how to change the error sounds to be a voice recording of us chanting “Grandma you screwed up!” instead.
Comparing my life now to my adventures as a child, I see that I still learn the same way. Whenever I come across a new piece of technology, the way I figure it out is just by experimenting with it until I know how it works and what it’s capable of. It’s how I’ve made it where I am today. I’m grateful that my grandparents allowed me to play with their expensive toys, and that my parents were able to invest in some computers at our house as well so that I could improve my talents.
On the other hand, while growing up I was surprised at how dangerous the digital frontier could be. I’m not just talking about computer viruses or worms, but about how mature content could be introduced so easily. It was terrifying how easily a web search for how to beat a level on a Nintendo game could turn into pictures of naked women. Luckily I had trained myself to close the window as soon as I saw anything like that, but I’m sure not everyone who was surprised with those pop-ups would do the same.
In today’s world, the situation is both better and worse. With nearly all browsers including pop-up blockers and other similar features, it is much harder to come across offensive content on accident like it was years ago. It is much easier to protect our kids from getting blindsided by pornography by putting the proper filters in place. However, with the help of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines, finding the same content on purpose has never been easier and is only a search away.
Just as the threat landscape has changed, so has the need for us to protect our children in a different way. Is it enough anymore to put firewalls and content filters in place, or spy on your kids’ activities by rifling through their Internet history? First of all, boundaries can always be overcome when someone wants to badly enough. Firewalls have weaknesses and filters can be bypassed.
Does that mean you shouldn’t bother turn on parent controls at all? Of course not. But technology alone will not solve the problem. Let me talk about three things that need to be done to protect your family against the dark side of the digital world.
Be aware of what’s out there
Not everyone is tech savvy. In fact, many don’t know how to do more on a computer outside of checking their email, writing a document, and looking at Facebook. However, if you are a parent then you need to know a little more than that if you want to keep your children safe. That doesn’t mean that you need to rush to the library and check out “Internet for Dummies” or sign up for an adult learning class (although if you’re ambitious enough to do that then well done!), but you do need to become familiar with the risks that your children have the potential of facing every day so that you can help them to overcome them.
Every year the company that I work for holds a security conference known as RSA Conference, which features many very interesting security-related keynote presentations. One of these presentations was called Into the Woods: Protecting Our Youth from the Wolves of Cyberspace. One of the panelists in this presentation, Alicia Kozakiewwics, shares the story of how she was abducted as a young girl because she was innocently chatting with her would-be captor on the Internet, believing the person was somebody else. You can watch her story on YouTube here.
Because of what happened to her, she started The Alicia Project, the purpose of which is to raise awareness of Internet safety with children. On her website is a great page of Internet Safety Tips that I highly recommend to parents so that they can know at a high level how to prepare their children for the dangers that are out there. This leads me to my next suggestion.
Train them while they’re young
While it is never too late to teach your children about Internet safety, your advice will be much more influential if you can train them from the beginning. Teach them to never share private or identifying information like their home address, where they go to school, etc. Teach them the dangers of “checking in” with apps like FourSquare and Facebook, as it can alert potential predators to their location. Engraining these habits in your children while they’re young will make sure that they exercise these good practices for years to come.
Make them a part of the team
So what is the best way to go about teaching your children? Do you use scare tactics to try to make them afraid of the Internet? No, rather than telling cyber ghost stories, it is better to make them a part of the team so that they can work with you to keep your family safe. So how do you go about doing this? Another panelist from from same keynote presentation I mentioned gave a good example of how this technique can be done.
Let’s say you are concerned about how much time your child spends on Instagram. and are worried that the wrong types of people could be following her profile. Since we all know that kids in this day and age become one with technology from the ground up, we can always count on them to teach us something new. (Heck, my one-year-old son has somehow already managed to learn how to scroll through photos on an iPhone whenever he can manage to get his hands on one.)
Imagine you walk up to your child and find her looking at Instagram on her phone.
“What are you doing?” you ask.
“Just looking at Instagram,” she replies.
“Oh yeah? How does it work?”
“C’mon Dad, you’ve seen it before. I follow my friends and I get to see when they post pictures, and they get to see mine.”
“Wow, that’s pretty cool. Do you think it’s something I would like?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Alright, do you think you could help me set it up on my phone? And maybe I could follow you so that I can see your pictures too.”
“Ok sure. It’s easy, I’ll show you.”
There you have it. It’s not rocket science, and now instead of playing Big Brother and spying on your kids and their Internet usage, you are able to show your trust in them while still being able to know what’s going on in their digital lives. It also opens the door for you to teach them about potential pitfalls that may come about and make it into a learning experience rather than scolding them on how they are acting.
Here’s another example:
“Is that Minecraft you’re playing?” you ask your son.
“Yep, I’m just playing it with my friend down the street.”
“Oh nice, so you can chat with him while you play?”
“Yeah, see? I just sent him a message.”
“Oh yeah you’re right. So can other people on the Internet chat with you too?”
“Sometimes. I usually don’t though.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t dare either.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, remember how we taught you when you were younger not to talk to strangers?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember why?”
“Yeah, it’s because they could really be bad guys and try to steal me or hurt me.”
“Exactly. So chatting with people you don’t know on the computer is just like talking to strangers in real life. You don’t know who they really are and if they’re really bad guys.”
“Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
Giving your kids the opportunity to have open discussions with you about these sorts of things is much better than having them be afraid to talk to you or believe that you won’t understand or relate to them.
Conclusion
It is a scary world out there, but that doesn’t mean you have to shut all the blinds and unplug your modems. The Internet is hear to stay and is only becoming more and more prevalent in our lives. The more that we can go on the offensive and preemptively train our children to be on the lookout for digital hazards, the more rewarding your lives will be.
I don’t pretend to be an expert, especially seeing as my oldest child hasn’t even learned to walk yet. But I know that every parent has or will face these dangers and it is important to know what we can do to protect our family from the seen and the unseen. There are many resources at our fingertips and we just have to use them. But on top of that, we just have to continue to love our children and be willing to communicate with them. By doing this, we will know that our families are protected from any dangers that the Internet may introduce.
