Internet child protection software

[kciN]

Looking at buying or downloading some child protection software.
(Need to keep an 8 year old in check) :wink:

Anyone got any recommendations.

Preferably cheap/free :wink: logs all keystrokes etc...

(BTW, I'm very PC literate! Most things PC wise are easy for me to understand)

Ta very Muchly...

[sharriso74]

This one seems to have good reviews.

http://www.cybersitter.com/cybinfo.htm

It also logs both sides of messenger conversations

[SoulKiss]

Which means - watching the little buggers like a hawk.

Backgound - I used to work for an ISP which supplied ISDN connections to schools (before ADSL :P)

We used to have a filtered service.

How this worked was that we blocked the standard HTTP port on the router and only allowed connections on port 8080 - the standard Proxy server port.

This meant that in order to use the www you had to connect to our Proxy Server, which had a filtering list on it - it only allowed clean sites through (It blocked ones on a blacklist that were added weekly)

This didn't really work because

1) New porn sites came up every day, if not hour, so there was a lag time where a site was available - teachers could report any sites and we could add them manually - in fact for a week a few years ago I was covering for the guy that looked after that (amongst other things) so I was actually getting paid to surf for porn at work - YAY!!!!!!

2) The little buggers were more IT literate than the teachers. All they needed to do was to find an open Proxy server that didn't filter the content and change the Internet Explorer setting to point to that.

Anyways back to your problem.

1) This software is not fool proof

2) If they want to look at porn, they will look at porn, even if that means going round to a friends house and doing it there - CD Burners are in every PC so he/she could be bringing 600MB of porn into the house all the time and no need to bypass the protection - and if they have an iPod/PSP then they dont even need PC access !!!

Solution.

Dont let them near an internet connected PC unsupervised.

or

Wait till you catch them at it and then embarress the hell out of them. Ask them why they wanted to go to those sites, what it was that they wanted to see etc. Then explain to them why they shouldn't go to those sites.

David

PS A cheap (as in free) way of blocking the odd site (say YouTube ot MySpace is via the hosts file

Open c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in notepad

Add a line at the bottom that says

24.75.231.189 www.myspace.com myspace.com

Then whenever anyone wants to go to www.myspace.com they will come to this site (24.75.231.189 is the IP Address for www.sv650.org)

[kciN]

SoulKiss,

I agree it's not foolproof and I will watch like a hawk, but you just can't be there all the time!

Don't wanna change proxy server settings, always seem to have trouble when I've done that before!

Change the IP address is a good idea, but if they come here instead of youtube, it might mean they join up! The amount of links posted here to youtube, would be very confusing for them, every time they click on one, it cycles back to the org!! :wink:

Quick story:
He's 8 and typed the word s*x in google. Lucky I had image filter set so no explicit images appeared.
I found this in the history and the girlfriend confronted him - the conversation went like this..

'Why are you looking at s*x on the internet?'
'I was looking for dinosaurs and typed t-rex and accidentally deleted the t and r and somehow that word came up and I clicked mouse accidentally'!
'Don't forget, young man, anything you do, we know what you've done'
Him being very red and sheepish, 'yes mum'!!

Gotta give him credit for that answer, must've been thinking up an excuse for ages!!

[SoulKiss]

Don't wanna change proxy server settings, always seem to have trouble when I've done that before!

You may find thats what some of these programs do - the "installer" just changes your proxy settings automagically for you in come cases, but yes it is a hassle.

I only mentioned proxies as part of my story of how resourcefull the little beggars can be, not as a solution.

Quick story:
He's 8 and typed the word s*x in google. Lucky I had image filter set so no explicit images appeared.
I found this in the history and the girlfriend confronted him - the conversation went like this..

'Why are you looking at s*x on the internet?'
'I was looking for dinosaurs and typed t-rex and accidentally deleted the t and r and somehow that word came up and I clicked mouse accidentally'!
'Don't forget, young man, anything you do, we know what you've done'
Him being very red and sheepish, 'yes mum'!!

Gotta give him credit for that answer, must've been thinking up an excuse for ages!!

See I told you they are slippery :) Just wait till he learns how to clear the history (and if you are using Firefox as a browser (and you should) he could learn to switch it so that it ALWAYS clears the history when you close the browser.

Not a parent so I cant really comment - but I do know that a week of HAVING to look at porn put me off porn on the net pretty much - dont think its an appropriate solution for an 8 yo tho :P

Good luck.

David

[falc]

Give em a playstation thats only connected to the TV, that should be pretty safe

[SoulKiss]

Give em a playstation thats only connected to the TV, that should be pretty safe

You never saw BMXXX did you :P

David

[kciN]

Give em a playstation thats only connected to the TV, that should be pretty safe

He's got an Xbox and a Nintendo DS, which he plays often.

I have a PS2, which he plays under strict orders if he loses a game, not to throw the controller in a mood! (I tell him off big time for that so he know not to!)

Thing is, his friends introduced him to the 'murky world' of MSN Messenger!
As we all know, a total time killer/waster!!

[SoulKiss]

Ban him from using them now.

Another funny story.......

I have a friend that used to have a certain MSN handle.

She hadn't been online for a while, then one day she pops back on.

So I started chatting to her as I normally would, taking about the pub, clubbing and what she had been up to - fairly adult stuff.

Something didn't really seem right.

Reason for that - she had stopped using that account for so long that a 16 yo girl was able to register it.

Could have been VERY dodgy considering some of the conversations we have had in the past.

So lesson is - you NEVER know who is at the end of the line on messenger - have had my wife have conversations with people I know without them realising it was her and not me (mutual friends I will add, and not intentionally sometimes)

Messenger is talking to strangers for the 21st Century.

Great tool , great fun - I started off on IRC over 10 years ago, but not somewhere for kids.

David

[mysteryjimbo]

1) This software is not fool proof

2) If they want to look at porn, they will look at porn, even if that means going round to a friends house and doing it there - CD Burners are in every PC so he/she could be bringing 600MB of porn into the house all the time and no need to bypass the protection - and if they have an iPod/PSP then they dont even need PC access !!!


Is that all! I can get tons more than that on a dual layer DVD. Even more compressed!

Open c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in notepad

Add a line at the bottom that says

24.75.231.189 www.myspace.com myspace.com

Then whenever anyone wants to go to www.myspace.com they will come to this site (24.75.231.189 is the IP Address for www.sv650.org)

This one will work. But you could end up with a HUGE host file. Also, if he redirects here they got the solution right here in your post! :lol:

Something like cybersitter would do i think under a restricted user account in windows 2k or XP. They're only 8. Supervision would help as well, the software would be for peace of mind.