The Internet can be a very dangerous place nowadays, especially for children visiting various social networking websites or chat rooms where they can very easily fall pray to sexual predators on an online prowl. And one of the most interesting solutions parents can turn to in order to prevent such unwanted events is the XGate from Global Security One, a device that does more than managing the security of your Internet connection: it actually keeps your children safe.

Thus, at a first glance, the XGate is some sort of hardware protection system, not bigger than an average ADSL modem, which embeds some pretty "mundane" functions, as for example a firewall, anti-virus software, secure banking application, e-mail spam control system or identity protection. These functions allow the users to establish exactly what websites the children are allowed to visit, and thus prevent them from viewing any restricted content.

However, its two most important functions are dubbed "Child chat room protection" and "Intelligent chat room monitoring", which allow the parents to fully control their child's conversation, either by sending an SMS or an email.

The system works in quite a simple manner. The device allows the users to create a dictionary of potentially offensive or inappropriate words from a pre-programmed list, and setup a sensor that will monitor conversations within the chat room for your selected words. When it finds one, the user will immediately receive an SMS or email containing the actual transcript of that conversation, and will be able to immediately stop the conversation by using either a remote computer or a mobile phone.

This device could prove to be extremely useful, especially for those parents who can't always keep an eye on their children's activities, even if it does cost around 200 US dollars. But, after all, that's quite a small price to pay for your children's safety, isn't it?

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