Wall Street Journal: New service software helps parents monitor children's Facebook accounts

August 3, according to foreign media reports, parents are always hurting themselves to protect their children from being hurt on Facebook, but many of the products and services I see as protective are always intrusive, trying to get parents to infiltrate their children in a way that makes both sides feel awkward. Healthy online social life circle.

With these services, you can manage your accounts with your children or "add them as friends", technically, the minimum age for a user is 13 years. However, these practices are time-consuming and embarrassing, especially when your child is a teenager, and they are basically eager to preserve some degree of privacy, even though they should not be treated as adults at all.

So, I recently tested a service called "ZoneAlarm SocialGuard", which I think is a good balance between security and privacy, as well as the ease of parents and the sense of freedom among teens. Every five minutes, it monitors the child's Facebook account to see if there are potential cyber attackers and strangers trying to keep up with the kids, checking the accounts for Internet hooligans, withholding age and account hacking, and seeing if the child has links to inappropriate or malicious websites. It uses algorithms that can focus on certain kinds of language, personal data, or other clues that show that a bad activity may be happening.

Socialguard, however, provides the services in a way that is not visible to their children's friends, and does not require any parental vigilance or even access to Facebook. If the service finds a possible problem, it sends a message to both parents and children. It's all done outside the confines of Facebook. The service is not for parents to read the child's Facebook message directly or to leave a message on it.

ZoneAlarm Socialguard is produced by a seasoned network security firm, Check Point Software technologies. It costs 2 dollars a month or 20 dollars a year, but has a seven-day free probationary period (the company is also randomly testing a 30-day free trial). It uses a stand-alone computer program that is connected to the Terminal monitor service and can be downloaded from the HTTP://BIT.LY/HGO0C5 Web site. A new version that will be available in August this year will add several features, including a toolbar that communicates Socialguard warning messages when you try IE or Firefox.

Before I begin to explain how it works, let me give you a few instructions on how to use Socialguard.

First, this program (and the toolbar) can only be run on a PC computer that has a Windows operating system installed. There are no versions running on Mac computers, Web browsers, smartphones, and tablets, and they will certainly not be available in the future. However, it can monitor your child's access to a Facebook account via a Mac, mobile device, or non-Windows PC computer.

In other words, the software you use to monitor does not have to be installed on the device the child is using to log on to Facebook.

Secondly, there are some loopholes in its coverage. While it can monitor messages, profiles, and stickers on Facebook accounts, it cannot monitor conversations on Facebook, monitor sites and events, or monitor photos (although it can view text descriptions accompanying photos and people who post them). So if your daughter has posted a picture that you think is inappropriate, Socialguard will not give you a warning.

Also, if your child builds a second secret Facebook account that you and Socialguard do not know about, the service will not provide protection for him or her.

Finally, like all security software, it is not a foolproof evil nemesis, even in the area it can cover. You must also actively perform parenting duties and often discuss problems with your children. The child may also find that Socialguard is monitoring his or her account because you have to use the child's Facebook credentials to set it up. In fact, the company stresses this point, pointing out that if you really get an email warning you that a message is posted on a language that has internet rogue suspicion, then you should talk to your child.

However, through my tests, I found that Socialguard did what it promised, and I believe it was good for both parents and children, who were able to be informed of potential problems early on.

Socialguard can cover up to five Facebook accounts at the same time, each account can set its own content to be monitored, and when suspicious events occur, the system is only sending alerts to parents or sending messages to both parents and children. For example, for an older teenager, you may not be worried about being classed as "sex education", and you may be worried about the problem for younger children.

My test went like this: I logged into my real Facebook account, a bogus account I created, and several test accounts that the company created based on several imaginary children of different ages, and then cooperated with some human events that prompted the system to send mail to me.

When I tried to make friends with one of my fake accounts, I was labeled "a potential stranger" according to the system's algorithms because I had nothing to do with the child or any of her friends. As another example, I was warned that one of the children's friends claimed to be 14 years old, but he also said on Facebook that he graduated from high school 1972 years ago.

In other cases, a language or link that is considered alarming is sent to my email address. I received a warning when a child sent a link to a Web page that was a pry-lock site to another child. When an imaginary friend messages on one of my imaginary children using a villain's usual vulgar language, it is labeled as a possible cyber-rogue behavior.

Obviously, not all of these things are really worth the worry of parents. Real friends sometimes use some indecent statements, they are not bullying people. Some sites have been socialguard classified as malicious or inappropriate, but the sender does not think so. An older aunt who is outside the child's social circle may want to be friends with him. and different families have different degrees of tolerance for these things. So it's important to talk about parents and children. Socialguard only warns that it does not block these activities.

I also tested the upcoming toolbar and was not very optimistic about it. Part of this toolbar is managed by another company that has many features, such as the search box designed for Bing search engines and links to online stores selling online games and other services that are not related to Socialguard's core mission, which I think is boring Also makes the software not focus on the purpose of security services.

But, on the whole, Socialguard is worth a try if you are a father or a mother who has limited time and is concerned about the security of a child using Facebook but wants to keep her privacy.

(Responsible editor: admin)