Computer Security for Kids

There seems to be an assumption, at least on the parts of less tech-savvy parents, that all kids are computer whizzes. After all, the parents often have to call on their teenagers or pre-teens to figure out how to operate their own computers. In many cases, it's true that today's youngsters, who literally grew up with computers, are able to pick up on technology faster. But that leads to another assumption: that because the kids know how to use the computers, they also know something about protecting themselves and their systems. And that is not necessarily true.

I think there is a security gap here; schools are teaching computer literacy but they aren't necessarily teaching computer security to the extent and as early as they need to. That leaves a lot of kids out there on the 'Net without the knowledge they need, exposing a lot of systems to viruses, attacks, and more. It's sort of like teaching the kids how to operate a car in driver's ed, but not teaching them anything about driver safety.

We computer book authors, trainers and speakers haven't been paying a lot of attention to the younger set, either. Many of our tech books are a little on the dry side, even for adults. Given the attention spans of members of the MTV generation, many of them aren't going to be interested unless we specifically target them. Recently I got a look at a book that does just that.

“Always Use Protection: A Teen's Guide to Safe Computing” by Dan Appleman (published by Apress) impressed me as much by the author's writing style as anything else. All the information in the book is available elsewhere, but his presentation is such that I think kids just might read it. I don't know how old the author is, but it's obvious that he is actually involved with teenagers and knows their language and what they're doing on their computers. He neither talks down to them nor over their heads.

He covers many of the most common scams, explains concepts such as computer forensics and identity theft without getting bogged down in technical jargon or legalese, and describes both the dangers (malicious code, viruses, email scams and attacks) and preventative technologies (firewalls, anti-virus, security updates, good password practices) in a straightforward manner. The book is divided into logical sections: Protecting Your Machine, Protecting Your Privacy, and Protecting Yourself. It's actually a good introduction to computer security at a very high level for new computer users of any age.