Securus – A secure way to monitor internet access
The internet, it’s fair to say, houses its fair share of doggy material, and it can be hard to find a way to prevent children from accessing it. Securus is a monitoring system that keeps a close eye on the text of sites being viewed, rather than just images. If it sees contentious words it takes a screenshot. We tried and failed to use some of the usual tricks a technically savvy child might use to bypass parental control tools, and it is only possible to turn it off with access to the password.
One problem might be that it is impossible to uninstall without the password, and this can’t be retrieved if forgotten. So it might be worth making a note somewhere, although this could defeat the point. The default behavior notifies the user using a splash screen if it sees anything doggy, although this can be disabled for discreet monitoring. its even possible to make it shut down the offending application.
One possible snag is that the log file, which records the questionable content that a user has visited, only records Internet Explorer-visited sites, but the company is working on a Firefox-compatible version. However, it still makes a note of any doggy keywords it recognizes.
Acouple of minor qualms aside, Securus is a serious security tool and one that will no doubt appeal to any parent worried about what their children are getting up to online.