Trend Micro PC-cillin and BSafe Filtering Software

[Charles Wiggins]

My 12-year-old son is venturing online more and more and I'm really hesitant about it because I know how easy it is to end up somewhere that you did not intend, staring at something you never wanted to.

Is anyone out there using BSafe (http://www.bsafehome.com/) in conjunction with Trend's PC-cillin Internet Security Suite? BSafe has the option of buying it bundled together with MacAfee. Well, I've already had MacAfee and I like Trend better but I was wondering about compatibility with BSafe.

[Al Willits]

Not a comp wiz, but personal experience has told me that two different antivirsus programs rarely work well together.

If its a real concern, maybe buy the kid a basic comp to wander on line with, and just don't put anything you want anybody to get to in it, password any other comps on the network and when his gets so bad it won't run, reformat it and start over.

Lots of on line freeware to fight virus's and such with too.

Al

[Bart Leetch]

Another thing I've heard is make sure to keep the computer out in the open in a family area not in the Child's bedroom.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

My 12-year-old son is venturing online more and more and I'm really hesitant about it because I know how easy it is to end up somewhere that you did not intend, staring at something you never wanted to.


It's way far worse than that. Think prison and criminal charges of child pornography~!!

Be careful be very careful.
Spend the money have a router and the best firewall and antivirus money can buy and get a keystroke logger and frequently check the child's online activity.

There are multiple incidents around the country where local prosecutors went insane ruining a family doing the wrong thing and prosecuting a kid for things they did not do.
The situation tends to repeat.
1.) No router
2.) No high end firewall and antivirus
3.) Kid surfs interesting places
4.) He gets malware loaded to his PC that he didn't know existed.
5.) The malware works with encrypted information usually images and video.
6.) The encryption is way far beyond the kid's technological savy.
7.) The images and video are Child Porn and snuff films
8.) The kid's computer is literally being used as a warehouse for online transactions.
8.) Some one in the loop reports ( usually a techie at one of the ISPs)
9.) the real criminal is entirely invisible and the kid takes the rap.

The result is:
1.) Hundreds of thousands of dollars in defense costs and technical experts spent by the family who knows little jimmy is not a child pornographer.
2.) A ruined reputation for the whole family.
3.) A public spectacle humiliating the family.
4.) A nightmare of a prosecution that can last more than a few years.
and
The Worst case: kiddie porn is a strict liability crime. You don't actually have to know you have it to be guilty. The jury may not agree with your defense and your child goes to prison.

Be careful be very careful.
Spend the money have a router and the best firewall and antivirus money can buy and get a keystroke logger and frequently check the child's online activity.

It's happened in Arizona, Colorado, and PA recently.

It has recently happened to a guy who owns a small business in PA. An employee got infected while surfing. The owner of the business is now facing prison.

I tell all my clients to remove and destroy all hard drives every 6 months like clockwork as part of the regular business security protocol. By destroy I don't mean throw away I mean disassemble and shatter & burn the disks themselves. There is nothing you can do that makes it impossible to restore data. No software no "military grade" cleansing software - - nothing. There is nothing that can withstand a brute force reconstruction of everything on a disk by the state and they have the money to do it.

Yah it is that bad.

Here's an ABC story about one in AZ
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2791168

[Charles Wiggins]

Interesting that so far no one has answered the question that I asked.

[Jim Becker]

Never heard of BSafe before your post, Charles. The best I can suggest is to contact the vendor to see if they have tested it with the Trend application. It is likely there is no problem, but good to ask. The bundfle with McAfee is probably more of a marketing opportunity rather than a compatibility situation.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Interesting that so far no one has answered the question that I asked.

I did answer your question.

As I said in my post: Spend the money for the top of the line industry standard anti-virus and firewall and keep it up to date. Don't mess around trying to save a few dollars here or there - - - and - - - use a router.

For reasons I won't go into, a router makes it all that much harder to hack your box. Don't use a radio router (wireless) unless you are willing to go through the bother of good encryption.


Of course the question you asked was so very product specific that only a few people might actually know the products.
I have one experience with PCillin and it's about 10 years old so I can't guess whether it's valid as to the product as it is today. It made such a mess of everything that I had to reformat and F-disk my hard drive and re install everything.

[Charles Wiggins]

I did answer your question.

As I said in my post: Spend the money for the top of the line industry standard anti-virus and firewall and keep it up to date. Don't mess around trying to save a few dollars here or there - - - and - - - use a router.

For reasons I won't go into, a router makes it all that much harder to hack your box. Don't use a radio router (wireless) unless you are willing to go through the bother of good encryption.


Of course the question you asked was so very product specific that only a few people might actually know the products.
I have one experience with PCillin and it's about 10 years old so I can't guess whether it's valid as to the product as it is today. It made such a mess of everything that I had to reformat and F-disk my hard drive and re install everything.

Cliff,

Please pull out the section in either of your posts where you tell me if you use BSafe & Trend together and if there are any compatibility issues. THAT was my question. I appreciate your concern, but I am fully aware of the other issues you raised. I work in a library and manage 15 public access PCs, 10 laptops and 4 staff PCs. I just have no experience with using these two software packages together, and THAT's what I want to know about.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

And all I have is a rather ugly experience with PCillin.

[Curt Harms]

I don't doubt for a moment that what You relate happened. Perhaps it's time for the legislative and legal folks to rethink this issue. There are a lot of people using computers that no way have the sophistication to know they're being victimized. It'd be sort of like a murderer throwing a weapon just used in a murder in the back of my truck and I had no idea it was there.The cops find the weapon and my butt is accused of murder because the murder weapon was found in the back of my truck that I didn't know was there. If I don't have the resources to fight it, I'm screwed. I suspect it'd be a lot easier for a jury to understand how that can happen than to understand how somebody could have kiddie porn on their computer and not know it.

[Frank Hagan]

Interesting that so far no one has answered the question that I asked.

I think the basic BSafe application will work with any anti-virus; its a content filter, so its sitting between the AV app and the browser. I know it works with Norton (had a friend who used it after finding out about some sites his kid visited).

Where you might get conflicts is if you have the "security suite" from Trend that includes other content-filters. But I would vote for the BSafe or equivalent app, and then work from there with anti-virus that works with it, rather than the other way around. You can replace a computer, but not a childhood.

[Charles Wiggins]

I think the basic BSafe application will work with any anti-virus; its a content filter, so its sitting between the AV app and the browser. I know it works with Norton (had a friend who used it after finding out about some sites his kid visited).

Where you might get conflicts is if you have the "security suite" from Trend that includes other content-filters. But I would vote for the BSafe or equivalent app, and then work from there with anti-virus that works with it, rather than the other way around. You can replace a computer, but not a childhood.

Thanks Frank. That was helpful.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Perhaps it's time for the legislative and legal folks to rethink this issue.

Generally they tend to prefer the path of simple easy feel-good lawmaking. After all it's what the punters seem to understand. And of course the devil take the results when such laws find their way into the wild of human interaction.


It'd be sort of like a murderer throwing a weapon just used in a murder in the back of my truck and [...] accused of murder [...] don't have the resources to fight it, I'm screwed.It's worse. The possession of the weapon is merely evidence that you may have done it. And in fact if that happened, it would be. But the state would need to prove more than the mere possession.

Every crime is defined by elements. The elements are laid out in the stature or the case law that interprets the statutes. Each element must be proved to the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt." Failure to prove just one element is failure of the entire case. The defense wins.


The mere possession of child porn is a strict liability crime. It is the only element the state needs in order to send you to prison. The state does not need to prove you knew about, it or used, it or saw it, or anything more. The only proof they need to present to meet the elements of the crime is that you had it.

How it came to be that you had it, is your problem


I suspect it'd be a lot easier for a jury to understand how that can happen than to understand how somebody could have kiddie porn on their computer and not know it.Juries can be very difficult sometimes.

As an aside: Currently we are sending people to prison for cartoons.

[Robert McGowen]

Hi Charles,

To answer part of your question........ I have Bsafe on 3 computers at home, one desktop and two laptops. It works as advertised. I just downloaded it straight off of their website with no problems. It can be annoying at times, like when it pops up asking for the password as it has determined that there is "possible pornography" on the Bank of America website! :) You can add websites to the list so that they come up without a password and there are several different features. They will also e-mail you a list of addresses both attempted and blocked or successfully accessed every week, along with the times that there was internet access. After having used it for a while, I personally would not be without it.

The other part of the question was answered earlier. Bsafe is just a filter. It is not an anti-virus software. It should be compatible with anything.

[Jeff Kerr]

Charles,

I haven't tried Bsafe but it does get good reviews. Anyway I opted for a free product from the company that makes Bluecoat content filters. Bluecoat is a copmany that sells to large corporations etc. very good and has great filtering.

They offer a free version for home use. It can be found here http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

I used to be responsible for this type of product for a fortune 100 firm with about 60,000 users. Either K9 or Bsafe will do the job for the most part.

I use K9 at home with my kids. They cannot disable it or uninstall it. It is password protected and has a web page that will show the stats of what pages they tried to get to.

Hope this helps.

[Jim Becker]

Jeff, thanks for the tip on that product...I have several friends/former coworkers who are with Bluecoat. I'll consider it out as one of the possibilities when I buy a computer for the girls. The one thing that that it seems to be currently lacking based on reading the site quickly, is the ability to set different levels of "protection" for different users. Since my kids are 4 years apart in age and three years apart in school, their access needs might need to be different relative to content. Am I wrong on that capability not being there?

[Jeff Kerr]

Jim,

It has been a while since I played with the settings but I don't recall it having the concept of users level settings.