Internet Monitoring- Securing Your Home and Children Against Intrusion

Everyone takes care to lock their homes against intruders, but how many take the time to block access to their homes through the internet? Given the statistics of how many predators, hackers, and identity thefts occur through the internet every day it should be common sense to block access to our homes and children through the internet. It is a sad fact, however, that most people do not give thought to this doorway to their home until it is too late.

Here are some of the most recent statistics on internet crime:

• Only 1 in 3 households with internet access have any kind of filtering or monitoring software.
• 3 out of 4 children are willing to share personal and family information in exchange for goods and services.
• Only 1 in 4 children who encountered a sexual approach were willing to tell their parents.
• 1 in 4 teenagers who access the internet say they have had sexual approaches made.
• 1 in 30 youths have an aggressive approach made. This means asked a young person to meet somewhere, sent money through the mail, and/or talked on the phone with them.

These are just a few of the alarming statistics. Everyone has read or heard the frightening stories of children hurt by predators they have met online. Everyday stings find and take many of these off the streets, but there seems to be an endless supply of predators still visiting chatrooms and finding ways to gain access to your children. Many parents respond to this information by telling themselves they monitor their children well enough that this cannot happen to them, but child predators can be very creative in getting what they want.

The most immediate solution is to have a way of knowing what is going on on the computer at all times. Most people are not aware that for a very affordable price (anywhere from $29 to $99 for more advanced software) they can download a simple to use software to monitor all activity on the computer. Over the past few years this software has acqired many new features and is relatively simple to use and easy to install.  First of all, this type of software usually comes in two categories: filtering software, which blocks unwanted sites, chat, etc, and monitoring software, which secretly logs everything that goes on on the computer. Decide which type best suits your needs.

1. Stealth.  Most monitoring software has this feature, which allows the program to monitor and record undetected. This way, others who use the computer are not aware that their activities are being recorded.
2. Keylogger.  This feature also is standard for monitoring software. It records everthing typed on the computer. All logs are placed and accessed in a secret file which can only be accessed by the user who has the password.
3. Internet messaging (IM).  This feature records both sides of the conversation.
4. Chat rooms. Records everything said in the chat room and usually identifies the name of the chat room.
5. email.  Makes a record of incoming and outgoing emails.
6. Remote Monitoring.  A special feature available on many, but not all, monitoring software. This allows the user to access logs from another computer. This is useful if the child has his or her own computer and internet access. Many versions of software only allow this with a seperate monthly fee.
7. Blocking/filtering.  Most monitoring software is just tailored for monitoring. If you have blocking and filtering needs this is usually best done with software designed for that purpose.

Many people now have security software which blocks spyware. If this is the case be sure to change the settings to allow access to your software after downloading it. Be aware that there is much software to choose from so research and find one that best fits your needs. Reviews of some of the top selling monitoring software can be found at http://relationship-free-help.com/compmon.html