[ale] [OT] parental control - was Mozy is changing the pricing model.

[Ron Frazier]

This is really getting a bit off topic, but what the heck.  I've 
certainly taught my teen the right places and wrong places to go on the 
net.  But I cannot watch him all the time.  And he knows the ground 
rules which govern the use of his PC.  However, all teens occasionally 
get a stubborn streak in their head and want to bend the rules, or they 
just get careless.  My son is certainly intellectually smart enough to 
"hack" the computer.  However, he has no inclination to learn the least 
bit about its technicalities.  He doesn't want to know or care how the 
system works.  He only wants it to work, so he can look up information 
on hunting or fishing or write papers, etc.  The router is programmed to 
only use opendns, as is the wifi port on his machine.  So, while he 
could go look up the IP for raunchy sites, and he could type it in 
directly, I have no reason to believe he even knows that's possible.  
The computer is restricted in such a way that he cannot change the DNS 
settings, as is the router.  It would also be difficult for him to 
access common proxy sites.  So, while this is far from bullet proof, for 
my purposes, I find it useful.  He would have to be very determined, and 
have significant intent, to bypass these measures.  Also, while his 
friends could tell him the latest things going on at playboy.com, and he 
may try to go there, he will not get any quick satisfaction.  That in 
itself, will probably persuade him to do something else.  Yes, yes, I 
know he could probably look at it on his friend's computer.  But, you 
can only do what you can do.  At some point, he has to be responsible to 
society and ultimately to God for his actions.

For my purposes preventing computers on my network from accessing:

95% of the porn
95% of the phishing sites
95% of the hate speech

is all worthy of the effort.  Should I have the motive, I can check the 
logs to see what's been visited.

I cannot even bypass my security screens in a couple of minutes unless I 
go turn off opendns.

Sincerely,

Ron

On 02/04/2011 02:19 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> I agree totally. If they WANT to see it, they will and there's no
> stopping them. Better practice is build the trust by helping them see
> what right and wrong in an open manner.
>
> That said I do recommend some reasonable blocks for known sites that
> can do "browse by infections" and tailor the locks to discussed needs
> for access otherwise.
>
> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 2:01 PM, Michael B. Trausch<mike at trausch.us>  wrote:
>    
>> On Fri, 2011-02-04 at 13:49 -0500, Ron Frazier wrote:
>>      
>>> I've used opendns for years without much problem.  It's good for
>>> limiting what your teenager can do.
>>>        
>> Speaking as someone who remembers clearly being a teenager _and_ as a
>> parent, this is fundamentally flawed.
>>
>> Parental supervision is the _only_ way one can effectively teach what to
>> do and what not to do on the net.  Using OpenDNS to "filter" the
>> connection not only strikes me as incredulous, but unless you have a
>> firewall that blocks outbound DNS to everything save for OpenDNS, it's
>> going to be absolutely ineffective.  My five year old son can do
>> surprising things with my computer if left to his own devices.  I know
>> this because I've let him at it, just to see what he can do.  I'm
>> telling you, it was absolutely shocking.  In another year or two, it
>> won't be beyond his capability at all to update the DNS resolver
>> configuration.
>>
>> A teenager can figure out how to do that (and do it) in no more than a
>> couple of minutes.  The only knowledge required is how to use a search
>> engine---no technical skill whatsoever is required.  At all.
>>
>>         --- Mike

-- 

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Ron Frazier

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