Theology Meets Technology:Safe Surfing - How To Protect Your Family In Cyberspace

On Saturday January 25th, we presented a workshop on home internet security. This workshop, intended for parents, grandparents, and educators presented a practical five step approach to better on-line safety including:

• Some startling real-life statistics

• Explanation of the threats and dangers in easy to
understand terms

• Simple rules that will dramatically improve safety

• No cost and low cost tools that every family should have

• Technology tips to help over-come the pitfalls of having internet accessible technology in your homes—and pockets.

Click here to view the slides in Slideshark format.  The animations on the slides will automatically play on each slide.  Click pause to stop the animation. To continue to the next slide, click the play button.

These slides will be available for a limited time.

Wireless Router Security - Your First Line of Defense

Example Home Network

People tend to be lazy and take the easiest path to accomplish want they want. If someone wants to break into your home, they are going to check first for unlocked doors and windows.  This is the most obvious and easiest way in.

For your home computer network, the easiest way in is a poorly secured wireless router.  Please allow me to make this clear - There is no such thing as a completely safe and secure home network.  If someone wants in bad enough, there are ways to get in.   However, there are some ways to make your network safer then most.  Safe enough to make the cyber criminal give up and go find an easier target.

1) Wireless Encryption - Many people believe that the main purpose of the encryption key on your wireless network is to keep other people from using your internet access.  While this may be a secondary benefit, the main purpose is to keep hackers from reading the text of the messages you send between your computing devices and your router. This includes user IDs, passwords, and other personal and private information.

In a nutshell, here are your options in terms of encryption, ranked from worst to best:

• No encryption at all
• WEP (wireless equivalent privacy) is worthless - If your router only support WEP – throw it away and get another one. Decent routers can be purchased for $20
• WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) is slightly better than WEP
• WPA + TKIP
• WPA + AES
• WPA2 + AES

2) SSID -An SSID is a network name. Change it from the default and make it so that a potential hacker cannot associate you or your family with your network.  Your router is going to come with a default name, user ID and password.  The first thing you need to do when setting up your router is to change all of that information.

Most default SSIDs contain the router name, make and model.  This is information that a hacker can use to break in.  Many wireless routers supplied by telecom companies, in addition to having the make and model in the SSID, also use something such as your phone number as your password.  This is easy for a hacker to figure out and break in. The names, in general should not reveal the make or model of your router or the location or owner of the router.

Examples of good SSIDs are "TheStarShipEnterprise" "MyWirelessRouter"  and "Wireless1234567".  Some examples of bad SSIDs are "Linksys3020", "Smith Family Network" or "2121 Jefferson Avenue".

A wireless network has an SSID to distinguish it from other wireless networks in the vicinity. The SSID was never designed to be hidden, and therefore won't provide your network with any kind of protection if you try to hide it.

All wireless networks, regardless of the kind of operating system or encryption you might use, also emit unencrypted frames at times. One kind of unencrypted frame is an association frame. This is what a client computer emits when it wants to join a wireless network. Contained within the frame, in clear text of course (since the frame is unencrypted), is the SSID of the network the supplicant wants to join.

This behavior make it very easy for an attacker to discover your SSID. The bad guy  could run one of many wireless sniffer programs and simply capture the hundreds of association frames or probes that litter your air. No amount of "hiding" configured in your access points can prevent this kind of traffic interception.

3) MAC Address filtering -  By the way, ignore any advice that says to use MAC address filtering. It's amazingly trivial to spoof the MAC address of an allowed supplicant -- simply sniff the traffic, look at the MAC addresses, and use the neat little utility to change your MAC to one that's permitted.

4) IP Addresses - Every computer on your home network communicates by way of an Internet Protocol (IP) address. The default behavior for routers and computers is to enable what is called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).  With DHCP, the host (usually your wireless router) and the client (your computer, tablet, printer, etc.) negotiate a session based on a standard set of protocols.  The host assigned the client an IP address based on a predetermined pool of addresses.  It is the easiest and most convenient way to go..  No muss, no fuss.

However, using preassigned ( static) IP addresses on home networks gives somewhat better protection against network security problems than does DHCP address assignment.

When using static IP addresses on home and other private networks, they should be chosen from within the standard private IP address ranges listed:

    10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255
    172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255
    192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255

 Do not choose any addresses that end with ".0" or ".255" - these addresses are generally reserved for use by network protocols.

Do not choose the addresses at the beginning of a private range. IP addresses like 10.0.0.1 and 192.168.0.1 are very commonly used by network routers and other consumer devices. These are the first addresses someone will attack when trying to break into a private computer network.

5) Enable Firewall.  If your router has a built in firewall, make sure that it is turned on.

6) Turn off your network when you are on vacation -  As amazingly simple as this might seem, almost no one does this.   The exception to my statement at the beginning of this article that there is no such thing as a completely safe network does not apply to networks that are turned off.  If your router is turned off, there is no hack of which I am aware that will allow a criminal to remotely turn it on.  If you are gone from your home for more than a few days, turn off your router.

Internet Abbreviations and Acronyms That Every Parent Should Know

Our children seem to be communicating on-line in a foreign language.  In their social media and in their text messages, they use words and abbreviations that did not exists the last time I took an English class.

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Most of us have learned  that when something is a bit amusing we might be LOL(laughing out loud) or if we find it so hilarious that it bring us to tears, we may be ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing).  These have almost become part of the common lexicon of daily life.

However, did you know that if your teen receives a text asking him or her to NIFOC, that it is not to be a Newly Informed Friend of the Court, rather the requester is seeking him or her to become Nude (or Naked) In Front of the Computer.  .

Yikes! Parents need to learn the lingo.  The easiest way to stay ITK (in the know) about what your kids are doing online is to learn their language. Reading your child's instant messenger profile, MySpace page, or Livejournal won't be very helpful if you can't understand what they're talking about. The are many web sites that can help with this. Two that I find particularly helpful are the   NetLingo Internet Dictionary and  InternetSlang.com.

Below is a list compiled from multiple sources of what experts agree are the 100 most important internet slang terms that parents should know.  Feel free to disagree.

1174 - Nude club
1337 - Elite -or- leet -or- L337
143 - I love you
182 - I hate you
2nite - Tonight
420 - Marijuana
459 - I love you
8 - Oral sex
ADR - Address
AEAP - As Early As Possible
ALAP - As Late As Possible
ASL - Age/Sex/Location
AWGTHTGTTA - Are We Going To Have To Go Through This Again
B4YKI - Before You Know It
banana - code word for penis
BRB - Be Right Back
BRT - Be Right There
CD9 - Code 9 - it means parents are around
C-P - Sleepy
CWYL - Chat With You Later
CYT - See You Tomorrow
DIAF - Die In A Fire
DOC - Drug Of Choice
E123 - Easy as One, Two, Three
EM - Excuse Me
EOD - End Of Day -or- End Of Discussion
F2F - Face-to-Face, a.k.a. face time
FAH - F***ing A Hot
FB - F*** Buddy -or- FaceBook
FOAF - Friend Of A Friend
GLBT - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender
GNOC - Get Naked On Cam
GYPO - Get Your Pants Off
HAK - Hugs And Kisses
HBU - How Bout You?
HUYA - Head Up Your Ass
I&I - Intercourse & Inebriation
IDGI - I Don't Get It -or- I Don't Get Involved
ILU - I Love You
IMEZRU - I Am Easy, Are You?
IMNSHO - In My Not So Humble Opinion
IWSN - I Want Sex Now
J/C - Just Checking
J/O - Jerking Off
KFY -or- K4Y - Kiss For You
kitty - code word for vagina
KOTL - Kiss On The Lips
KPC - Keeping Parents Clueless
L8R - Later
LD - Long Distance -or- Later Dude
LMIRL - Let's Meet In Real Life
LMK - Let Me Know
LOL - Laughing Out Loud -or- Lots Of Love -or- Living On Lipitor
MOOS - Member Of The Opposite Sex
MorF - Male or Female
MOS - Mom Over Shoulder
MOSS - Member(s) Of The Same Sex
MPFB - My Personal F*** Buddy
NALOPKT - Not A Lot Of People Know That
N-A-Y-L - In A While
NAZ - Name, Address, Zip (also means Nasdaq)
NIFOC - Nude In Front Of The Computer
NM - Never Mind -or- Nothing Much -or Not Much -or- Nice Move
NMU - Not Much, You?
OLL - OnLine Love
OMW - On My Way -or- Oh My Word
OTP - On The Phone
P911 - Parent Alert
PAL - Parents Are Listening -or- Peace And Love
PAW - Parents Are Watching
PIR - Parent In Room
POS - Parent Over Shoulder -or- Piece Of Sh**
pron - porn
Q2C - Quick To Cum
QT - Cutie -or- Quiet
RN - Right Now
ROTFL - Rolling On The Floor Laughing
RU - Are You?
RU/18 - Are You Over 18?
RUH - Are You Horny?
RUMORF - Are You Male OR Female?
S2R - Send To Receive
SITD - Still In The Dark
SMEM - Send Me E-Mail
SMIM - Send Me an Instant Message
SO - Significant Other
SOHF - Sense Of Humor Failure
SorG - Straight or Gay
SWDYT - So What Do You Think?
TDTM - Talk Dirty To Me
TOM - Tomorrow
TS - Tough Sh** -or- Totally Stinks
TTFN - Ta Ta For Now
ur - you are
WFM - Works For Me
WTF - What The F***
WUF - Where You From
WYCM - Will You Call Me?
WYRN - What's Your Real Name?
zerg - To gang up on someone