VPN Technology for 'Child Safe' Internet
Introduction by Friendly Wi-Fi
Friendly WiFi Partners ‘SafeLabs’ have created a ‘Child Safe’ simple to use method allowing families to connect safely to the internet. They have launched a ‘Child Safe’ VPN service, which is easily applied to any device (PC, Laptop, mobile or tablet) giving parents and their children peace of mind that when browsing the internet they are protected from accessing inappropriate material. Most of today's children have the ability via their device to access any network which provides free access to the world wide web. This presents a whole host of risks and demonstrates how vulnerable today's children can actually be when given the opportunity to open many different doors to the internet without any protection. Using a simple service such as ‘Child Safe’ VPN from SafeLabs is the answer and provides only ‘one’ door to the internet, a Safe way to browse and stay protected.
Our Partners SafeLabs have provided below a useful summary of VPN technology, how it works, including options for connecting the service.
SafeLabs White Paper
VPN technology is a configuration available in all new mobile phones, laptops. PCs and even Wi-Fi routers that enables forwarding all Internet traffic first to a remote server called ‘VPN Server’.
This technology is usually used by Enterprises to let their employees connect to their corporate servers securely and also enables a way for them to monitor everything from a single VPN server.
SafeLabs uses this technology to provide a ‘Child Safe’ Internet experience. All Internet traffic from SafeLabs customers PCs, Laptops and mobile devices is forwarded to SafeLabs VPN servers which apply different measures to keep children’s online experience as safe as possible.
Block Inappropriate websites
There are around 1 million websites on the Internet with explicit adult content. It is impossible to manually track or block them. There are around 200 new domain names coming everyday that show adult content.
SafeLabs is continuously monitoring the web and adding domains into its blacklists within 24 to 48 hours of the them being identified.
Restrict Search Engine Results
Search engines are the primary gateway of users to unknown websites and domains. SafeLabs enforces safe search options in all search results.
Location Privacy Protection
Location is the primary way to expose a child to any form of physical abuse. The predators are looking out for active connections in their vicinity.
SafeLabs VPN hides the true IP address of the users. All others see are the public IP addresses of our VPN servers located around the world.
How it works; Normal Internet Access
Typically users will connect and use Internet as mentioned above. They will connect to a wi-fi router. Any websites or other requests you make, first go through your ISP. From there it passes through different networks most commonly across your national boundaries, through the Internet and reaches your target websites.
Problems accessing Internet without a VPN
First problem is that it is the wi-fi router which assigns you the public IP address or in other words publishes your ‘location’. Every single entity in the path of communications knows your almost exact location. You can check this by navigating to any site like http://ipstack.com and see the amount of details available to all third party websites and all networks in between.
Secondly, at every stage, the entities know which websites and applications you are accessing. If communications are unencrypted, they can also read it, watch it, listen to it, whatever the case may be. They can also keep a log of the activity and apply ‘policies’ as well. Common policies are to block some applications like some games or torrents or whatsapp / Skype calling etc.
You cannot make WhatsApp and Skype calls from some countries.
Other possible policies are to block access to websites like in some countries access to Facebook, Twitter and even Google are blocked.