parental control software

Ken Ibold

Ken Ibold

Final Approach
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Ken Ibold
Seems that within the last couple of weeks my 11-year-old has discovered the dark side of the internet. Any recommendations on which of the myriad of babysitter software to use?

And yes, mother hens out there, we've had a talk about morals and responsibility and trust (temporarily leaving out exploitation). But a little backup won't hurt!
 
Ken:

This is very intersting!!! I just received an e-mail on another board from a young man asking about the same thing: software to control parents. Your boy wasn't on line last night, was he? Hee heee.
 
Ken Ibold said:
And yes, mother hens out there, we've had a talk about morals and responsibility and trust
Click to expand...

Trust by verify.
- Reagan

Ken,

Good luck. From what I understand...the kids know software better than adults...adults configure protective software...kids figure out ways around the configuration....done by cooperative effort with all of their chums.

I've come to belive that the school bus is the breading ground for all anti-parental behavior. Think of it...they ride the bus for over an hour each day...plotting, conniving, scheming...I'm sure of it. I can even prove where they hid the key to the strawberries.

:<)

Len
 
Wish I could help here, Ken, but my previous experience with content filtering (ie parental control on a school level) was measured in thousands of students and wouldn't be appropriate for your single instance. Unless you want to install a $10,000 appliance with a yearly subscription of $1,000+? ;)
 
I've just run afoul of the same issue with my 13 year old - discovered vi my router and firewall logfiles. Last time I looked, I didn't find any good recommendations for filtering software compatible with WinXP ... I had something a few years ago that was fairly effective on Win2K but don't recall which package I used... possibly Net Nanny.
 
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an easy fix for you Ken, in Firefox, goto control panel and under parental control / key phrases to block...type in democrat and your all set. that little bugger wont be able to participate in any left wing conspiracies any longer.
hope that helps.
 
Ken Ibold said:
Seems that within the last couple of weeks my 11-year-old has discovered the dark side of the internet. Any recommendations on which of the myriad of babysitter software to use?

And yes, mother hens out there, we've had a talk about morals and responsibility and trust (temporarily leaving out exploitation). But a little backup won't hurt!
Click to expand...

I am a library trustee in my town and we have some computer terminals that are filtered. We were asked by several families to do this as it made them feel safer about having their kids use the Internet. But the reality is that even though we have some of the best software (Cyberpatrol) available there is just not a good way to really restrict sites and certain content. You will not get a 100% or even a 90% close rate. BTW there is a very easy way around this software that your kids will learn fast enough. We catch kods bypassing it every once and a while. When theya re caught there parents are notified and they are restricted from the computers for a period of time.

One solution is to filter but also to not let your child have a computer in a part of the house that cannot be monitered, such as their room. Have it in the family room where you can see the screen. Look through the cache as well to see if there is something unwanted.
 
And the ways to bypass are pretty easy. Edit the registry, msconfig, yada yada yada. Heck even if you went with a BIOS password so he couldn't be on it when you aren't around, pulling the case and resetting a jumper / removing the battery passes that.

There isn't a parental control out there that can't be bypassed. Supervision, or a severe beating is probably the only way to keep it from happening. My teenage years aren't *that* far behind me, and I can say that a talking to never did any good. Heck, it still doesn't. Fear works

"Fear will keep the local systems in line."
 
Ken Ibold said:
Seems that within the last couple of weeks my 11-year-old has discovered the dark side of the internet. Any recommendations on which of the myriad of babysitter software to use?

And yes, mother hens out there, we've had a talk about morals and responsibility and trust (temporarily leaving out exploitation). But a little backup won't hurt!
Click to expand...
I hate to suggest this, because netgear routers have lately been cr_p. However, they have a service that allows you to pay and lookup from their service, all the places your DHCP assigned son's computer has been to, weekly/monthly etc.

That'll work....
 
N2212R said:
And the ways to bypass are pretty easy. Edit the registry, msconfig, yada yada yada. Heck even if you went with a BIOS password so he couldn't be on it when you aren't around, pulling the case and resetting a jumper / removing the battery passes that.

There isn't a parental control out there that can't be bypassed. Supervision, or a severe beating is probably the only way to keep it from happening. My teenage years aren't *that* far behind me, and I can say that a talking to never did any good. Heck, it still doesn't. Fear works

"Fear will keep the local systems in line."
Click to expand...

Even easier than that. Send the link to a hotmail account. Then log into hotmail, see the link in the message and click. Hotmail will go to the site, encapsulate the link in a hotmail url and display it.
 
I tried Cybersitter. It works until they get wise enough to figure a way around it. But, with a typical 11 year old you should get a couple of years. I also added In the Know ( http://www.itksoft.com/ ) to monitor what sites he was visiting and messages he was sending. I felt a little guilty, but then again, the things depicted on some (most) of these sites are filth. If it were simply teenage curiosity (wanting to see a little skin) I'd disapprove but understand.

Good luck.
 
If you have a router, you can usually see the history of pages viewed with it. Perhaps you could let the kid play, and then later verify what's been done.

Then you can bring the kid proof that he/she has violated your rules.

I'm also not a parent....
 
Supervision is the ONLY reliable method. Family computers should be in open areas, not in children/teen bedrooms. You can add all the software you want, but the bottom line is the computer is much more open media source than a TV.

If you wouldn't put the playboy channel in your child's room, you shouldn't put a computer there either. ;)
 
I'll agree with everyone so far that parental monitoring is the final failsafe, but if you'd like some help with that monitoring, I'm told that the service offered by www.bsafeonline.com is good. and like most stuff now it has a virus scan/popup blocker/etc.

I haven't used their products personally, but those who have say they work well. As with all products posted on this board, I have no affiliation with bsafeonline
 
Len Lanetti said:
IIRC...Ken's kids build programmable robots for a hobby.

Len
Click to expand...
Yup. He's a smart one. He just didn't know the default settings on his new computer were to store his browsing history. I'm sure he'll change that and learn how to delete cache by the end of the week.
 
Ok, Ken, here's one thing you can try.

Change the security policy on your computer. This assumes you are using Windows XP. It also assumes YOU have the computer administrator account and your son has only a general user account.

First, open the policy editor: Click Start - Run and type in gpedit.msc

Go into "User Configuration", "Administrative Templates", "Windows Components", "Internet Explorer"

One of the options there at that level is "Disable changing history settings".

Set that to Enabled.

That will prevent regular users from clearing history, changing history settings, and that means no clearing the cache.

CH
 
Oh and there are many other useful policies you should look at and consider in that section, such as "Disable changing rating settings". Too many to explain them all here. :)
 
Greebo said:
That will prevent regular users from clearing history, changing history settings, and that means no clearing the cache.
Click to expand...
Oh, that's a good idea. So far it's only set to boot up directly to his username because it was bought as his computer. I'll take this step immediately.
 
Ken Ibold said:
Yup. He's a smart one. He just didn't know the default settings on his new computer were to store his browsing history. I'm sure he'll change that and learn how to delete cache by the end of the week.
Click to expand...

Another place to look...the directory that stores the cookie files.

A give away to the directory being "purged" will be...no cookie files or only a few.

The simplistic en mass "clean up" functions are found on Internet Explorer under Tools Internet Options.

Len
 
I put Cybersitter on my Mom/niece's PC. I liked it because it hides pretty well and doesn't have a requirement that you pay them for updates for the rest of your life. Just don't forget the password like I think I may have. :rolleyes:
 
Ken Ibold said:
Oh, that's a good idea. So far it's only set to boot up directly to his username because it was bought as his computer. I'll take this step immediately.
Click to expand...
In that case, he's probably the Administrator. Which means you need to add a new account to be the administrator and give it a password.

Then you log out of his account and log into the administrator account.

Then you can change his account to be a regular user.

That will mean he can't change policies.
 
Ken Ibold said:
Seems that within the last couple of weeks my 11-year-old has discovered the dark side of the internet. Any recommendations on which of the myriad of babysitter software to use?

And yes, mother hens out there, we've had a talk about morals and responsibility and trust (temporarily leaving out exploitation). But a little backup won't hurt!
Click to expand...



I'd recommend parenting over software. Takes more time, but let the kid see what's out there but be watchful and explain and educate him on the porn, weirdos, violence, etc of the net.

All the kids from my childhood that lived in a censored world (be it no "R" moves, or no internet, filtered social groups, etc) ended up rather F'd up later in life.

I'm very thankfull that my parents were active in my life, they let me explore the world around me and wernt afraid of the difficult discussions.

Your milage may vary.
 
I got into the dark side of the internet when I wasn't much older. I was computer savvy, parents were not, I was the only one who knew.

I went to college, I got a job, I got married, never got in any trouble or did any drugs or got into any "risky" type behavior parents always worry about. Most of my friends saw the same stuff and also turned out fine. Some of them had parents that locked things down and controlled it... they'd just go to another house and see it or hear about it from their friends.

The point I'm trying to make here is don't sweat it. Just set an example by being the kind of person you want your kid to turn out as and that's what they will probably become. That's how it went for just about everyone I grew up with and I bet if you think about it, that's how it was for your friends too.
 
gkainz said:
I've just run afoul of the same issue with my 13 year old - discovered vi my router and firewall logfiles. Last time I looked, I didn't find any good recommendations for filtering software compatible with WinXP ... I had something a few years ago that was fairly effective on Win2K but don't recall which package I used... possibly Net Nanny.
Click to expand...


We used to have NN at work. God forbid a dispatcher use some downtime to look at dancing cats.... hahaha

It worked really well, internet was basically useless.
 
Michael said:
an easy fix for you Ken, in Firefox, goto control panel and under parental control / key phrases to block...type in democrat and your all set. that little bugger wont be able to participate in any left wing conspiracies any longer.
hope that helps.
Click to expand...
:rofl:
You could just ask the NSA to see the report from the wire taps. or ask the IRS for there file on his personal activities.

Dave Siciliano said:
Ken:

This is very intersting!!! I just received an e-mail on another board from a young man asking about the same thing: software to control parents. Your boy wasn't on line last night, was he? Hee heee.
Click to expand...
That may have been my 13 and 8 yo you talked too. :dunno:
 
DeeG said:
We used to have NN at work. God forbid a dispatcher use some downtime to look at dancing cats.... hahaha

It worked really well, internet was basically useless.
Click to expand...

I used to get a lot of requests from parents for recommendations for effective parental control software that wouldn't render the computers useless. I told them that there was no such thing. Instead, I suggested that they use their eyeballs. Put all the kids' computers in the family room or some other room where they could be supervised, connect them through a wired router, and disable WiFi.

I never ceased to be amazed by the anger that suggestion provoked, nor by the reasons behind it. "But my children want computers in their bedrooms," was a common one. Yeah, I'm sure they do. And the people in hell want ice cream. So what?

The corporate world wasn't much better. They wanted software that would allow their employees to visit every possible site that they might need to access for work reasons, but to be blocked from every possible site that they had no work-related reasons to visit; they wanted it to be individualized for different employees; they wanted it to require no intervention from management; and they wanted it to work perfectly. And oh yeah, they wanted it to be free or cheap, too.

Such software not existing in any world that I know of, I would block the more notorious time-wasting destinations and services at the gateway. This would bring about a whole new set of "wants" from the employees, who believed that they had a "right" to spend their days checking their social networking sites, chatting away on IM clients, reading their personal email, downloading music, remotely monitoring their nanny cams, doing personal shopping, and basically doing anything else besides working.

The bosses, not wanting to take responsibility for the measures that they had instructed me to implement, would blame me and give the employees my number; and so I had to deal with calls from their employees threatening to sue me for violating their "constitutional right" to goof off.

I don't remember reading about that right, but I've heard about it so many times that I guess it must be in there somewhere. Maybe it's in the fine print.

-Rich
 
cowman said:
I got into the dark side of the internet when I wasn't much older. I was computer savvy, parents were not, I was the only one who knew.

I went to college, I got a job, I got married, never got in any trouble or did any drugs or got into any "risky" type behavior parents always worry about. Most of my friends saw the same stuff and also turned out fine. Some of them had parents that locked things down and controlled it... they'd just go to another house and see it or hear about it from their friends.

The point I'm trying to make here is don't sweat it. Just set an example by being the kind of person you want your kid to turn out as and that's what they will probably become. That's how it went for just about everyone I grew up with and I bet if you think about it, that's how it was for your friends too.
Click to expand...

I'll second this. We all turned out "normal". :yes:
 
Filtering the Internet only works for China, and not that well. If they can't do it, some parent with a curious kid in middle-class America certainly can't.

Teach the kid morals.
 
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