Safe Browsing for the Next Generation

So you have the BIG idea that the Church or community needs to develop. Discuss that idea here. Maybe you just want to make a suggestion on a new forum topic. Let us know.
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jhammond
New Member
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2011 4:34 am

Safe Browsing for the Next Generation

#1

Post by jhammond »

What if our children could sit down to use the internet and parents could know that only "Strength for Youth" approved content was accessible? The church has plenty of IT talent and a vested interest in protecting the next generation of church members from the filth that flows on the information highway.

I think it would be excellent for the church to offer either a third party application parents could install or a browsing framework (pseudo-firewall) or even an ISP/ISP-like service that members could access. This service would provide the filtering mentioned, perhaps modeled after the meeting house protections levels or something appropriate for education minded youth. I would compare this to the BYU channel. You can turn on the BYU channel and KNOW that nothing your child sees there will harm them spiritually. What if the same could be said for a portal to the internet.

This would represent a significant cost to the church, I'm guessing, but well worth it if you consider all of the cost in failed marriages and families that are accruing due to internet pollution. As a parent of five children, I can tell you that the free access to addictive material on-line is one of my greatest fears for my children. I'm sure they can conquer every other challenge that comes their way. For now it's up to me to be vigilant but I think the church could really help here.
Aczlan
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Posts: 358
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2010 5:29 pm
Location: Upstate, NY, USA

#2

Post by Aczlan »

The problem is that nothing is foolproof. I work with libraries and their internet filtering. While we can filter quite a bit at the firewall level by forcing Google Safe Search and not allowing patrons to use other DNS servers, it can still be bypassed fairly easily.
While the most effective filter resides between one's ears, I would highly recommend something like K9 (which my parents use) on each computer for filtering as well as running Firefox with Adblock Plus. Adblock Plus will get rid of 90% of the advertisements out there on the web (many of which are not so good).

On the firewall level, if you use something like Dyn for your DNS server, you can use their very effective filtering.

If you want to guarantee only "Strength for Youth approved content" you will need a whitelist filtering system and that severely limits where you can go online.
See: http://www.guardureyes.com/GUE/Filters/FilterInfo.asp for a good summary of the filtering options available

Aaron Z
kisaac
Community Moderators
Posts: 1184
Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 6:04 am
Location: Utah, united states

#3

Post by kisaac »

jhammond wrote:What if our children could sit down to use the internet and parents could know that only "Strength for Youth" approved content was accessible? The church has plenty of IT talent and a vested interest in protecting the next generation of church members from the filth that flows on the information highway.
Welcome to the forum!

I suspect this is one of those items you will never see. The church cannot protect us from the evils of the world, and indeed, on a very basic level, one could say it should not.
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marianomarini
Senior Member
Posts: 619
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:13 am
Location: Vicenza. Italy

#4

Post by marianomarini »

kisaac wrote:Welcome to the forum!

I suspect this is one of those items you will never see. The church cannot protect us from the evils of the world, and indeed, on a very basic level, one could say it should not.
The first ONE was Geova in the premortal life!
The only thing we can do is preventing the unwilling contents.
This require personal involvement into the process and not delegate to others, church included.
But we can accept the jhammond request including Internet security class into church programs or activities.
This way any member can setup his own and/or their children security policy.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34422
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

#5

Post by russellhltn »

Any useful discussion of "safe browsing" will have to include how to protect mobile devices. It appears to me that smartphones are quickly becoming the "norm" and not the exception.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
crislapi
Senior Member
Posts: 1267
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm
Location: USA

#6

Post by crislapi »

Perhaps one day they will consider it, but there are currently options, both free and for purchase, that can be used to filter internet content. Some of these have been discussed previously on this forum. See the following threads:
https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... a-bad-idea
https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... ch-Members
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