With four children growing up in the digital age, I should hardly be surprised at how fast kids pick up new technology. Just a couple of weeks ago, my eight year old son figured out he could look up pretty much anything he wanted on Google. To my horror, his first independent Internet search string was “how to curse people” (It seems he was trying to get back at his brothers for some perceived wrong). Obviously I was a bit shocked at his intentions, but what worried me the most were the potential search results. Fortunately, I had little to worry about as I had at least some foresight to install web content filtering on the “kid’s” computer when I first built it for them. Having used Blue Coat’s commercial web content filtering at work, I have been extremely impressed with Blue Coat’s technology so choosing their “Free” version was a no brainer.
About K9
Blue Coat’s K9 Web Protection is a web content filter that works (and works really well) with any browser. It runs on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7 and now Mac OSX Snow Leopard (in beta). Installing and configuring K9 literally takes only a few minutes. Did I mention that it’s free? I can see how this sounds like a shameless plug, but I assure you it is not, it is in fact free for home users with no strings attached (other than your standard user licensing agreement).
How it works
K9 is actually runs as a “service”, with a very small installation footprint. All the work is done behind the scenes on Blue Coat Servers resulting in negligible performance degradation once its installed.
According to the folks at Blue Coat, K9 performs checks against a…
…database of Web sites that contain pornography, hate speech, violence, gambling and more than 55 other categories. When a computer user tries to go to a site that’s in a category you want blocked, the “prohibited” screen appears, and Zander the K9 Watch Dog barks.
If a user tries to go to a Web site that the database hasn’t seen before, it scans the content of the site for inappropriate material, and then either permits or prohibits the site (we call this process DRTR ? Dynamic Real-Time Rating). This happens so quickly that the user doesn’t realize it’s happening. New prohibited Web sites are added to the database.
To speed up the user’s experience with K9 Web Protection, the program will save or “cache” ratings it retrieves from our database for a few days. This prevents unnecessary database lookups when users visit their favorite websites.
Boy do the kids hate that bark! Fortunately you can choose to also turn off the bark but I like to leave it on so I can hear it from the other room. Its kind of reassuring.
K9 has a simple interface that is intuitive and easy to navigate…
K9’s setup has seven intuitive and easy to setup options:
1. Categories
- High – Protects against all default-level categories, plus chat, newsgroup and unrated sites
- Default – Protects against all adult content, security threats, illegal activity, sexually related sites and online community sites
- Moderate – Protects against all adult content, security threats and illegal activity
- Minimal – Protects against pornography and security threats
- Monitor – Allows all categories – only logs traffic
- Custom – Select your own set of categories to block
For our kids computer, we use the custom category and further refine that with Web site exceptions to block or allow certain URLs. This gives a far greater granular control over what is allowed or blocked. Although our kids are generally not allowed to play on my computer or my wife’s for that matter, we do have K9 installed on our systems for the rare occasion when we allow them access (or more often when they are jumping onto our unlocked machines). On our computers, we have found (with a few URL exceptions) the moderate setting works rather well and we are rarely blocked from accessing a site. However, when a web site is blocked, you can enter and administrative override for the site or even that sites category, either temporarily (15, 30 or 60 minutes) or permanently.
2. Time Restrictions
Time restrictions simply allow you to control what time of day you allow Internet Access. It is set to unrestricted by default. However, we configure the kids computer to block web access 24/7. When they want to get on the Internet, they must ask a parent and we can then enter the administrative password to block the time restriction. We actually use this as an Internet timer as well such that when we enable Internet access, we can choose to allow access for a set period of time such as 15, 30 or 60 minutes. That way, access is automatically blocked at the end of the time period and ensures proper turn based sharing between the kids.
I know this sounds a bit draconian but when you have 4 kids under the age of 9, it is really easy to get distracted and I don’t want to let them loose on the Internet at will.
3. Web Site Exceptions
This includes a basic block and allow list. Unless you have specific web sites in mind, you will probably populate this on the fly.
However, one of nice things about K9 is that it does not block an “allowed” site that pulls data from a “blocked” site. For example, an allowed site that pulls pictures from a blocked source. This is really handy if you want to configure an advertisement free web surfing experience, just add the URLs of some of the more common and annoying Ad sits in the block list.
4. Blocking Effects
This is where you can either turn off or on the barking, you’ll want to turn it on, crank up the volume and watch the kids jump out of their seats 
5. URL Keywords
You can block specific keywords in URLs such as *sex* but I don’t generally use this as the default categories work pretty darn well. Besides, keyword filtering is like filtering with a sledge hammer, blocking both bad and good sites without impunity.
6. Advanced
In addition to the categories, K9 can enforce the “Safe Search” setting for popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and blocks search engines that do not support safe search.
You can also enter “supervisor” mode here which means nothing will be blocked for the time period specified.
7. Password/Email
This is where you can change the K9 administrator password as well as the email address used if you need to reset your password. Using a private and protected email address is key here because K9 makes it really easy to request a password reset. My 8 year old is smart enough to request a password reset (I get several a day from him trying to crack the system) and then come look over my shoulder at my personal email to see if the request has come in.
8. K9 Update
You can verify you have the latest and greatest update.
Privacy Concerns
This is always a concern when using software as a service, especially when it comes to your surfing habits. However, Blue Coat’s (rather lengthy) license agreement states:
… the (web rating) service does not track which web sites you request to have rated under your Product license, and the Service does not develop any history of any of your web browsing activities.
A privacy statement is one thing and a company’s actions or respect for their own publicly stated policy is another but I happen to believe that Blue Coat is a highly reputable company so I don’t see any cause for alarm here.
Problems with K9
Don’t get me wrong, I think it is absolutely wonderful that Blue Coat provides K9 free of charge, especially since it easily easily competes (and wins) against other cost based web filtering software, but there are a couple of items on my wish list for future updates.
With multiple computers in the house, it “would be nice” if the K9 systems could be centrally managed. Alternatively, it would be convenient to be able to connect remotely to any of the computers in the house in order to configure K9. Since it is managed via local web server on port 2372, this should theoretically be possible but I would want to ensure it could only be managed from specific IPs or Range of IPs.
Also, it sure would be nice if it could be configured on a per user basis. With multiple people using the same computer, Mom and Dad, a Teenager and young kids certainly don’t need the same filtering. I realize it is difficult to ask for corporate level filtering capabilities on free software but again, it sure would be nice. However, you can essentially have two filtering profiles where K9 is either Off (for Mom and Dad) or On (for the kids). My eight year old has been asking for his own laptop and I actually have an extra but my wife and I decided that we would stick to desktops in public areas of the home for now but I think when he gets older, he may need a separate, less restrictive filtering policy than his younger siblings.
In Summary
K9 does a great job on individual systems for users (kids) needing a common filtering policy on a single PC. It is easily configurable and highly customizable. In fact, I’ve found it an indispensible tool to allow my kids to use the Internet safely.
On a side note: If you have a well connected household such as mine, where laptops and desktop computers are not the only devices with Internet access, Windows is not the only operating system (K9 certainly doesn’t work on my Linux server or the IPod I leave floating around the house), you may want to think about adding another layer of defense or filtering. Personally, I’m rather fond of the inline content filter and firewall combo Endian Firewall community version.
Finally, no technology solution is the silver bullet to keeping kids safe online. In addition to running something like K9, one of the easiest things you can do is to ensure your kids computer is in a public area of your house so that you can easily monitor their activity and as with any other parenting activity, get informed and talk to your kids about the dangers they may face on the Internet. Bluecoat actually has an online safety page listing a number of resources for parents you may want to check out.
Although I am pretty strict right now when it comes to Internet Safety with my kids, I think the alternative would be irresponsible. However, I do think filtering should be performed only to ensure age appropriate content gets through and we will be easing those restrictions as the kids get older (which I’m sure will be fraught with new and difficult challenges).
Paul Beckford is an IT professional based in Denver, Colorado. Over the last dozen years, Paul has worked “hands-on” in an IT Operations role deploying and supporting a multitude of technologies, such as Network Infrastructure, Windows and Linux servers, most Microsoft Back Office & Infrastructure applications, Virtual Computing, Mobile Computing and Information Security.
Hello –
You may also be interested in looking at our new product – http://www.k9safesearch.com. This search engine goes beyond the “safety mode” that is provided by other search engines, by filtering the actual results through Blue Coat’s ThreatPulse database – the same one that K9 uses.
We have found that this gives a much safer search environment. It can also be used in conjunction with K9 Web Protection for your computer. If you block the Open Image/Media category in K9, and then set your browser to use K9 Safe search by default (see http://www.k9safesearch.com/providers.jsp for instructions), you can, in effect, “pre-screen” all your search results before they are even delivered to your computer.
For more information about how it works, and how it compares with other search engines, see http://www.k9safesearch.com/about.html .
This is actually the same search engine that is used by the K9 Web Browser on iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod).
It is still in its early release stages, so we would encourage any feedback that you may have on the site – you can post feedback for it on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/K9-Web-Protection-by-Blue-Coat-Systems/215414518798
need children kids protection every kind of photo and sex
Is there any mobile K9 Programs or anything like k9 for mobile devices out there?
no mobil
From what I understand, developing K9 for mobile devices is not an easy proposition, and is something BlueCoat is looking into. However, there appears to be a K9 iOS browser:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2375663,00.asp#fbid=fup8WDyss89
Although I have not tried the K9 iOS browser, it would seem trivial circumvent. Regarding Android, it appears they are looking into an android version as well. http://k9webprotection.uservoice.com/forums/84793-general
Again, no easy development path.