J. A. Powell, Jr.
We have witnessed yet another tragedy in which a school boy, in this case boys, murdered his fellow classmates. There is a national outcry wanting to know why these young men went on their murderous rampage. Theories range from easy access to guns to violent video games to the evil influence of the Internet.
In a departure from my usual column, I will not discuss using a computer in the law office. Instead, I will show you the dangers of the Internet to your children and some things you can do to protect them from this danger.
The Internet is a wonderful source of information. For the first time in history, our children can see the works of art located in the Galerie Bassali at the Louvre and read about them in French. They can browse the Library of Congress. They can hear the cultural songs of Tibet. They can do all of this from the comfort of our homes.
The Internet, though, is a reflection of our world. For every good web site like that at the Louvre, there are dozens that spew forth the most vile trash imaginable. Everything from pornography of every description to Nazi propaganda to weapons design. The problem with the Internet is that for the first time anyone and everyone can be a publisher. In the past, layers of protections stood between us and the garbage information. The writer used to go through a publisher to get his work printed. Then, he had to convince the book seller to display his publication. Finally, the purchaser had to have money to buy the publication. All of these hurdles, prevented the harmful information from getting to our children. Now, the writer merely puts his works on his web page and waits for anyone to wander by. There are no checks and balances to protect our children.
After the Colorado tragedy, calls came out to censor the Internet. The problem is that the Internet cannot be censored. It was designed to survive a nuclear attack and, as a result, there is no central location to monitor the content of web pages. If the United States passes a law that prohibits Nazi propaganda, that law has no effect outside of our borders. Propagandist can still reach the readers in the U.S. with web sites located overseas.
The obvious solutions to the problem of inappropriate material getting to our children start at home. First and foremost, learn how to use the Internet. If a five-year-old can surf the World Wide Web, surely a forty-five-year-old can learn how. It just is not that complicated. Take a class. Read an "Idiot's Guide to the Internet" book.
Next, we need to monitor what our children are watching. For younger children, that means restricting Internet use for times when we can sit with them and see what is coming in over the Internet. As the children get older, place the computer monitor where it can be seen from the doorway. (This is a good suggestion for the workplace. See what your employees are really doing.)
Once a child gets to be about ten or eleven, their Internet sophistication raises to the level that will challenge most of us, but there is still hope. The two dominant web browsers, Netscape's Navigators and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, keep histories of where they have been. Take a look at that history log and see if your child is going where he does not belong. If the history file is deleted, you should suspect that he is trying to hide something. Many web sites place small files on your computer every time you access the site. These are called "cookies". If the history file is blank, search for the cookies and you may find information about where your child has been looking. This snooping is no more wrong than looking through your child's room for evidence of drugs or weapons.
Finally, software filters are available to block offensive sites from being accessed by your child. America On Line (AOL) has a good children only section that protects children from these inappropriate web sites. AOL employees actually monitor the chat rooms and web sites that are accessible to children. If you are using an Internet service provider other than AOL, there are programs that will watch for inappropriate words and will block the site containing that word. These are of some benefit, but any fourteen-year-old worth his salt can bypass these filters.
The ultimate protection you can provide your teenager from the garbage on the Internet is the same protection you give her from the real world garbage like drugs, that is common sense and morals. Don't let the Internet be the baby sitter for your eight-year-old. Teach her that there are bad people on the Internet just like there are bad people on the street. Hopefully, by the time your child gets to be a teenager, she can do her own filtering of the trash found on the Internet, TV, movies, and music.
In my next column, I will put up the soap box and return to writing about computers in your law office. I believe, however, that if Eric Harris' and Dylan Klebold's parents had spent a little more time with their boys while using the Internet, events might have been a little different.