Making the Internet Family Friendly

By Brian Lang and Bill Wilson

The Internet can offer great benefits to the education and enrichment of your family, or it can be a dangerous enemy that challenges your core Christian values. And it's up to you, as parents, to decide what kind of impact the Internet will have on you and your children. Making the Internet Family Friendly will lead you step by step through the Internet in an easy-to-understand language.

Authors Brian Lang and Bill Wilson, two Net insiders, have created a truly unique and helpful guide that explores the Internet and its impact on families from a Christian perspective. Some of the helpful material you will read include:

Guidelines for proper and safe E-mail and chat room communication.

Tips for establishing an online value system and creating a policy regarding online use.

Ways to monitor the amount of time spent online, as well as the different web sites.

Evaluations of different Internet content filtering software.

Suggested web sites and search engines that are beneficial to your family.

Instructions on keeping up with the tricks your children already know.

Plus, inside this book you also receive a free CD-ROM that includes free Internet access, free computer filtering software to protect your family from access to undesirable online content, and a selection of free software including a free Christian computer game!

PLEASE NOTE - NO TECHNICAL SUPPORT IS AVAILABLE FOR THE CD INCLUDED IN THE BOOK

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Jan 9, 1999
• ISBN: 9781418576783

Book preview

Making_the_internet_0173_002

Copyright © 1999 by Brian Lang and Bill Wilson

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

The Bible version used in this publication is THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright © 1979,1980,1982,1990, Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lang, Brian, 1962-

  Making the internet family friendly / Brian Lang and Bill Wilson.

    p. cm.

  ISBN 0-7852-7568-1

  1. Internet (Computer network) and children—United States.

  2. Computers and family—United States. 3. Internet (Computer network)—Security measures—United States. 4. Computers—Religious aspects—Christianity. 5. Computer networks—Access control—United States. I. Wilson, Bill, 1955- . II. Title.

  HQ784.158W55 1999

  025.04—dc21

98-46106

CIP

Printed in the United States of America.

12 3 4 5 6 QPK 04 03 02 01 00 99

Dedicated to our children,

Christian, Brittany, and Taylor

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. The Internet: Traveling the Information Superhighway

2. Chat: The CB Radio of the Internet

3. Family Boundaries

4. Search Engines, Education, and Learning

5. Online Commerce: The Interactive Toll Road

6. The Family-Friendly Internet

7. The Virtual Office, E-Mail, and Netiquette

8. UseNet: Danger on the Highway

9. The Red-Light District of the Internet

10. It's Not Free Speech, It's Breaking the Law

11. Online Ministry

12. The Interactive Revolution

13. Recognizing and Overcoming Internet Addiction

14. Logging Off, Looking Ahead

15. Signature File

Appendix: Origins and History

Glossary

About the Authors

Acknowledgments

We'd both like to thank Don Sapaugh, Kathy Wills, Janet Thoma, Todd Ross, and all the wonderful people at Thomas Nelson. This book would not have materialized without each of you. Special thanks to Doug Young, Leon Gentry, Ken Wilkinson, Troy McConnell, Steve Boyles, Larry Haege, Jan Loman, Cheryl Cicha, Amy Matthews, Betty Young-Smith, Melynda Steed, and all thefine folks at OnePlace for experimenting in the interactive laboratory with us, and for your dedication to making the Internet family friendly.

I would like to thank Jim and Dottie Lang for being the best parents a boy could ask for, and Charla Christopher for teaching me how to be a big brother. Special thanks to Wes Kussmaul, Digital Equipment Corporation, Dave Eichman at the University of Iowa, Randy Kunkee and Neosoft, Cameron Laird, Dr. Paul Harder, and Jon Rowell for educating me and keeping me up-to-date on the latest in Internet technology. To Dr. Robert Thibadeau at Carnegie Mellon and Hunter Carr at ITIS, thanks for sharing a vision for the future of how the Internet will serve the family. Dr. Morris Chapman at the SBC and the Ecunet Board are the coolest for leading the church into the next millennium on the Internet and for letting me play a small part in the charge. Special thanks to Dr. Tim Clinton at the American Association of Christian Counselors for his insights into Internet addiction. Profound thanks to Lou Ann, for bringing into the world our children—the two brightest, most talented young human beings with whom I have the privilege of journeying together through life; you are a wonderful mom. And finally, and with much gratitude, to Bill Wilson—your vision and research were invaluable to this book, and your dedication and Christian character are invaluable to me.

—Brian Lang

I would like to thank the many people who have made this book possible. I'd like to reach across the page and give Brian Lang a high five as the best Internet nerd I have ever met. Thank you to Ed Curry and Jim Reed, who gave feedback on our ideas and insight to our concepts, to my pastor, Tom Gue, and elders Gerry Baker, Marshall Thompson, Bob Thomas, and friend Tom Maestri, who covered me in prayer and helped keep me close to the Lord during our investigations. Thank you, Susan Hawkins and Kelly DeFranco Lee, for your invaluable contributions of reading copy and discussing concepts and providing encouragement. To my mother, Thelma, and in-laws Carl and Lori Bennett for always offering a warm comment. Thank you, Andrea, Ty, and Todd for enduring my entrepreneurial venture into cyberspace and all its side effects. And finally, all my love to my loving wife, Chris, who was patient and understanding even after hours of my reading copy over and over to her and taking or debating her suggestions—not to mention her toleration of the many sleepless nights listening to annoying fingers dancing across the keyboard of our computer in the study next to our bedroom. I would especially like to acknowledge my father, Carl, who went home to the Lord in 1989, and who instilled in his son the values that inspired this writing.

—Bill Wilson

1

The Internet:

Traveling the Information Superhighway

"Train up a child in the way he should go

And when he is old he will not depart from it"

—Proverbs 22:6

When high schooler Taylor Webb arrived home he dropped his books on his bed and almost immediately headed to his dad's office. He opened the closet door and got a Zip disk out of a shoe-box on the floor. Both expectation and anxiety arose in him as he carried the disk to the computer.

He sat in the reclining desk chair in front of the seventeen-inch monitor and leaned forward to plug the disk into the Zip drive on the computer tower. The disk clicked into place as he moved the mouse and was prompted for a password. Positioning the cursor in the dialog box, he keyed in the secret password.

From behind the Screensaver Agent appeared. Agent was his UseNet newsreader software, and Taylor had selected dozens of files to download from the newsgroups before he left for school this morning. He grinned with delight as row after row of red text headlines or headers appeared, each with a green document icon to the left of it, signifying that a file was attached. Taylor scrolled through the list to make sure all the files had downloaded.

UseNet wasn't the easiest way to get illegally copied software, also known as warez, on the Internet, but a constant supply of it was always online if you knew where to look. Downloading a big program that cost hundreds of dollars at a store usually meant an all-day or all-night download, and since Taylor had only a 28.8 modem, that meant starting a download after his mom and dad went to bed, or in the morning before he went to school.

Taylor copied all the files he had downloaded onto the Zip drive and then erased the originals on his dad's hard drive. Forty megabits! he exclaimed. He thought to himself that this disk only had 100 megabytes on it and would likely be full way too soon. (The disks weren't cheap, and he didn't have much money to spend on them, especially when he couldn't explain to his mom and dad why he used so many.)

It's not like I am collecting pornography, he thought. Some his Internet buddies had hundreds of megabytes of pornography; most of it downloaded from the newsgroups. Collecting warez was just a hobby, he told himself. He didn't even use half of the software he downloaded. Like other Internet hackers, he just liked the bragging rights to a large collection. Besides, I don't sell it, he thought, again attempting to justify his actions.

Taylor Webb closed Agent and started to open another software program or client to access the Internet. He remembered it had taken a while for him to explain to his mom that the Internet was not just the World Wide Web. These days Web addresses, also known as URLs or Universal Resource Locators, were on TV, in the newspapers, and on billboards.

The Web was fun, usually pretty to look at, and easy to use. The Web made the Internet an environment anyone could enjoy. Or at least it made part of the Internet easy to use and understand. Most people didn't understand that the Internet was almost as diverse as the animal kingdom and the Web was just King of the Jungle. There were many other ways to use the Internet.

Taylor grinned to himself as he thought of how many different species roamed Planet Internet, and how he had become master of them all. Taylor spent the rest of the afternoon until his parents arrived home checking his E-mail and surfing the Web.

YOUR FAMILY AND THE INTERNET

Families can't escape the Internet. Not a day goes by that a billboard, television advertisement, or a radio commercial doesn't remind us of this mysterious new medium, which is growing in prominence and influence. Today over fifty million people use the Internet, and it is expected that the number of Internet users will grow to over one hundred million by the year 2002.

While the Internet has been around for over a decade, it wasn't until 1995 with the emergence of the World Wide Web that it became a medium for the masses. Up until then, the Net was the playground of scientists, academics, and the military. Using the Internet required some knowledge of advanced computer protocols.

The World Wide Web made using the Net as easy as point and click. Its very nature is to provide information in a graphical style, and in the years since its debut, the graphical face of the Internet has become more attractive and increasingly provides a captivating and enjoyable experience.

Occasionally there are news reports about how this new medium has been subverted for criminal purposes. A brilliant young computer hacker has compromised a security network at the Pentagon, or has broken into one of NASA's computers. The less technically adventurous have also appropriated the Internet as accounts increase of criminals roaming the Net. Children who have not been properly schooled on what areas and uses of the Internet are proper and safe have occasionally been scared or even hurt by these malicious individuals.

Keeping the family safe on the Internet is a commonsense procedure, which can be implemented in the same fashion as keeping an eye on your children while they are playing in their physical neighborhood. The first step is for parents to know the online neighborhood their children will visit. Often parents have little time or inclination to learn new technology. This is a loss to the family for many reasons, because the Internet could possibly be the richest source of learning you and your child will ever encounter. Worse, not becoming familiar with the Internet could be hazardous for your children as use of the Net will likely become a daily reality for your children and for your children's children.

Simmon's Market Research reported that the number of teenagers online has increased by 50 percent from 43 percent in 1996 to nearly 65 percent in 1998. Simmon's studied children ages twelve to nineteen and found that half a million teenage boys say they are losing sleep to the Internet and an additional 1.8 million are watching less TV. Girls, on the other hand, are using the Internet as an aid for study, and over 2 million said it has increased their desire to learn. Another 1.5 million said they were drawn by the social possibilities on the Net.

How much do you know about the Internet? Test your Internet literacy by answering these questions in your mind.

---

INTERNET LITERACY TEST

1. What is the Web?

2. What is Hypertext?

3. What does IRC stand for?

4. What is FTP?

5. What is Telnet?

6. What is UseNet?

7. What does ISP stand for?

8. What is SSL?

9. What is TCP/IP?

10. What is a Signature File?

Extra credit: Where did the term cyberspace originate?

Answers:

1. The World Wide Web (or the Web) is not the Internet. It is one of the many protocols used on the Internet. The Web is a global hypertext system that uses the Internet as its transport mechanism.

2. Hypertext is a system of writing and displaying text that enables the text to be linked in multiple ways, to be available at several levels of detail, and to contain links to related documents. Hypertext can usually be quickly identified on the Web because it is often underlined.

3. IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is the real-time chat area of the Internet where conversations between two or more people occur. IRC is considered another protocol of the Internet in the same way as FTP, Telnet, and the Web are.

4. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is the common procedure used for downloading and uploading files on the Internet.

5. Telnet is an Internet program for connecting to a remote host or server. The Telnet interface is text based and a user usually has to enter his log-on name and password before accessing a computer system (for advanced users only).

6. Often referred to as simply newsgroups, UseNet is a distributed bulletin board system supported mainly by UNIX machines. UseNet groups can be unmoderated (anyone can post) or moderated (submissions are automatically directed to a moderator, who edits or filters them and then posts the results).

7. ISP stands for Internet Service Provider. An ISP is a company that provides access to the Internet. Before a user can connect to the Internet