Published on June 8th, 2022 📆 | 2893 Views ⚑
0Monitoring internet use is key to cybersecurity for kids
The world changes fast, Jeremy Bandre told the Columbus Rotary Club Tuesday afternoon at Lion Hills Center.
âIn the 1950s the word sex was taboo,â he said. âIn the 1960s culture, the taboo was abortion and divorce. In the â70s it was casual nudity and lewd language. In the â80s it was drug abuse. In the â90s, it was homosexuality and pornography. In the 2000s, it was cloning humans and suicide.â
Bandre, the president of Exceed Technologies, said that âreally quickâ progression from taboo to normalization could be traced back to desensitization.
âIf you want to desensitize society, all you need is a method of mass distribution and to slowly increase the severity of the delivered content,â he said. âIn just the matter of a few minutes, anybody in this room could go home, sit in your living room and watch real murder, real decapitations, sex, rape ⌠or anything you can imagine, for free. Just pull up your phone.â
As both an information technologies professional and a parent, Bandre is very aware of the dangers posed by the internet and that children more commonly have internet access via cell phones and tablets.
He offered Rotarians tips on how to mitigate the dangers kids can encounter through technology, especially when dealing with browsing and social media.
âAt age 12, and thatâs typically the age, we give our children cell phone service,â he said. âWe ask our best friend what monitoring software to use, and we put it on there and we give it to them.â
There are no monitoring apps that are 100 percent effective, he said.
âIt is easy, easy, easy, to get around those,â he said. âIf you think you have the right app, open up Google. Letâs say itâs Life360. Type in âhow to hack Life360â and spend 15 minutes. I promise you if your child wants to get around the app, they will.â
That being said, something is better than nothing, he said.
âCall your friend, ask them and install it,â he said. âJust because they can hack it doesnât mean we give up. Thatâs actually the worst thing we can do. Put it on the phone, but monitor it.â
Stop claiming ignorance when it comes to technology, Bandre said.
âOnce they hit 14 or so theyâre smarter than us already,â he said. âWe donât need to give them anymore. All youâre doing is reinforcing the idea to that inquisitive kid that theyâre smarter than you.â
Install, set up and use the same apps your kids use, he said.
âIf your kidâs talking about TikTok, donât say you donât have TikTok,â he said. âInstall TikTok.â
Bandre ran down a list of bad and, if not good, at least less bad apps. He began by cautioning parents against the Tor browser, an encrypted browser designed for a high degree of anonymity.
âIt should never end up on any computer or cell phone,â he said. âTor is what is used to enter the dark web. ⌠Once you launch it, it establishes a (virtual private network) connection and makes everyone anonymous. You can buy Social Security numbers, passwords, real child pornography.â
Age-appropriate Snapchat, he said, is âprobably goodâ because it has at least a modicum of privacy.
âEverybody in this room did and said really stupid things when you were growing up,â he said. âIt wasnât recorded, and itâs not haunting us everytime we turn around. ⌠Everything on social media is there forever. But there is a place for age-appropriate Snapchat because itâs the only app that has at least some ability to erase part of that footprint.â
Twitter is now âvery heavyâ in pornography, he said.
âItâs been shocking over the past six months where weâve seen Twitter go,â he said.
Much of that is because of how Twitterâs algorithm works, he said.
âIf Iâm friends with you, and youâre friends with somebody else, and that somebody else sends a pornographic tweet, it will end up in my timeline,â Bandre said. âThey interlink all friends of friends of friends. So there is no Twitter at our house now.â
TikTok is âphenomenalâ if age-appropriate, he said.
âTikTok is great, if itâs done right,â he said. âThe longer you look at a video, the more it knows you like it. I let my 13-year-old have TikTok, waited about 60 days and then called all (three) of my kids downstairs and told them to give their phone to somebody else. Then swipe 25 times (to see videos) and anybody who can yell âinappropriateâ is doing well.â
Bandre said he gets his kids together for âTikTok challengeâ randomly.
He said he allows both Facebook and Instagram, but he requires his kids be friends with him.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
Gloss