How To Configure Real PC Parental Controls? 618
Orange Crush writes "As the resident computer geek in an office full of accountants, my boss recently asked me how she could reasonably keep her teenage son from using the family computer to 'access inappropriate sites.' I of course responded 'Give up now. There's nothing in this world that can keep a determined teenager from acquiring porn.' Sadly, she was dissatisfied with this answer. I mentioned that there was in fact software available for this purpose, but that all of it was trivially easy to bypass for a clever young mind. I really can't think of another answer. She could password protect the BIOS to prevent booting a different OS, but that's easily defeated with a screwdriver at most. The only solutions I can think of involve upstream firewalls/proxies/etc to which I gleefully redirected her to her ISPs tech support number. As much as I disagree with her reasoning — and ignoring the obvious 'go to a friend's house' loophole — is there really any other way (on a home budget) to netnanny a household computer?"
ChInA (Score:0, Funny)
Just tell her (Score:0, Funny)
Take away the video card? (Score:5, Funny)
Simple (Score:5, Funny)
Use humiliation. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Take away the video card? (Score:4, Funny)
Braille porn! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Use humiliation. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Assuming a slight level of trust (Score:3, Funny)
The time is college, and the answer is 50% dropout rates.
Re:Assuming a slight level of trust (Score:5, Funny)
Re:logging firewall and TALKING (Score:5, Funny)
"I had a bunch of friends who had ssh servers... "
Chances are you needed the pr0n 'cos i get the feeling you weren't hanging out with any chicks...
Re:Edwards' Law, Dogbert's Corollary (Score:5, Funny)
>
>It's not exactly true. You can very well do so. To expect a determinable result is to court dissapointment, however.
Or as Scott Adams put it (01/23/1996):
(Dilbert is working on a "new technology to prevent kids from seeing smut on the Internet")
Dogbert:"So, you're pitting your intelligence against the collective sex drive of all the teenagers who own computers?"
Dilbert: "What is your point?"
Dogbert: "Did you know that if you put a little hat on a snowball it can last a long time in hell?"
Re:logging firewall and TALKING (Score:5, Funny)
No risk of that, I assure you. However, I think it likely to remain in that state for at least that long.
Re:PLEASE MOD EINSTEIN DOWN (Score:4, Funny)
No, there's a much simpler answer. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:K9 Web Protection? AN EASIER & FREE WAY! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Take away the video card? (Score:5, Funny)
Your 13 year old son, massive amounts of hormones pumping through his body, is horny as hell. He goes to the computer for a quick bout of self abuse, and can't see anything! But he's 13, so he's still horny, and about ready to go off all over the place. All he needs is even the slightest stimulation. He looks around frantically for anything at all. Unfortunately, you've already taken the precaution of cutting all of the underwear ads out of the newspaper, and parental controls on the TV limit him to TV-G programming. What is he going to do now?!
Suddenly, he spies the picture of Jesus on top of the monitor. Not exactly what he was looking for, but hey...Jesus has long hair, and if you sort of squint he looks kind of feminine. So, your son says what the hell, and touches himself. He's 13 of course, so that's all it takes. Congratulations, you've just made your son jack off to Jesus. Now you won't even be able to take him to church without getting him going.
I've had FANTASTIC results with dansguardian (Score:1, Funny)
Only my Linux box in the basement has internet access. It'd dual-NIC'd; one port goes to the DSL box and the other to a switch where all the house computers are connected. The only way they can do websurfing is via the dansguardian filtering proxy on the Linux box. You can tune it to how much or how little you are willing to tolerate. If you set it ridiculously strict, it'll even block all .zip and .rar files "just in case".
But! The best side benefits is the logging. My son does all the hard work of trying to find good porn sites, and then all I have to do is check the log for autoblocked sites to go look at every now and then!
Who needs a porn aggregator site when you have a 15 year old lad hunting them out for you?
Re:parenting? (Score:3, Funny)
Not that I disagree with the point you're making, just don't even think of comparing the interweb with a typical softcore magazine from your childhood.
Re:No, there's a much simpler answer. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:parenting? (Score:5, Funny)
Umm, link please.... ?
Lynx (Score:2, Funny)
Re:parenting? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Take away the video card? (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like a good fit (pun intended) for the priesthood!
Re:Not really (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, and this post telling people to read your post. I think if there are two posts in this entire discussion that need to be read...eh, you get the idea.