Hacking parental control

[magnemoe]

Worse that this filter is EVERYwhere, any kind of provider you get. [local mode] My home wi-fi use FirstMedia anyway, so none of it for Imgur, which mean no problem with this forum [/local mode] . Yeah, I have and had used Tor, but Imgur, reddit, vimeo (yeah ! it sucks), or almost any other website won't work properly without any script...

Why should an ISP filter out Imgur or reddit, curious cat want to know, I would understand if an school or workplace did but an ISP?

[kurja]

Why should an ISP filter out Imgur or reddit, curious cat want to know, I would understand if an school or workplace did but an ISP?

Don't know about this case but there are countries out there where such things may be considered to be immoral.

[YNM]

Why should an ISP filter out Imgur or reddit, curious cat want to know, I would understand if an school or workplace did but an ISP?

I don't know, guess they got too serious looking at the first options for issues. Should note that most issues are simply unsound and better be dismissed. (nationstates ! But yeah I hope we can get someone to dismiss things IRL)

Actual answer: probably terrified over a small possible XXX section of Imgur or reddit or any other website (which none I found evidence for, maybe someone can point it out), and their potentials. Stupendous indeed, blocks are failure, educating properly is a far better option. Small childrens (below 7 I suppose, older than that you should be able to tell them) aren't supposed to hold or use devices, they should instead go out and have some physical activities with their friends and neighbors !

Edited July 15, 2015 by YNM

[PB666]

Even now, when the people who grew up with windows PCs are having children, kids can figure it out much faster. My parents grew up without even VCR's, so I cant blame them for being outsmarted (I once locked them out of the news channels on the cable box). Partly because kids have more to lose, partly because (assumption warning) anyone who tries to use parental controls is A) probably not very technically smart anyway and has the wrong outlook on parenting. Also that software usually sucks balls, made by shovelware devs.

Nah, nah, nah . . . .this problem is way older than the VCR, it goes back to the person who invented the phrase.

"Its difficult to make something foolproof because fools are pretty damn clever"

[steve_v]

Small childrens (below 7 I suppose, older than that you should be able to tell them) aren't supposed to hold or use devices, they should instead go out and have some physical activities with their friends and neighbors !

Yeah, this^. I really don't see why children need their own internet capable devices before they are mature enough to use the internet unsupervised. Go climb a tree or something. Using a tablet as a pacifier, or giving a child access to the internet in lieu of actually engaging with them is just lazy parenting.

No 'net filter will make the internet into a playground for young children. It's a complicated place, education and supervision is required in it's use.

[Camacha]

Yeah, this^. I really don't see why children need their own internet capable devices before they are mature enough to use the internet unsupervised. Go climb a tree or something. Using a tablet as a pacifier, or giving a child access to the internet in lieu of actually engaging with them is just lazy parenting.

No 'net filter will make the internet into a playground for young children. It's a complicated place, education and supervision is required in it's use.

Climbing trees and running around is part of a kid's life, but electronic devices are too. They need to learn about them from the start, make mistakes and have their own experiences. Of course, you do need some restrictions to protect them from the worst, but the only thing that would be bad parenting is cutting them off completely from something that will inevitably be a valuable life skill.

Keeping things from kids too much will ensure them falling hard on their faces when the ban is lifted. Learning self control and making small mistakes is rather more valuable than being kept safe until you hit the ground hard.

Edit: I might have reacted a bit harsh, I think we are largely in agreement

Edited July 16, 2015 by Camacha

[steve_v]

Key concepts: education, supervision. Teaching a child how to use the 'net safely and productively vs. just giving them a device and expecting the technology to do all the work for you.

But yeah, we probably are

[YNM]

Climbing trees and running around is part of a kid's life, but electronic devices are too. They need to learn about them from the start, make mistakes and have their own experiences. Of course, you do need some restrictions to protect them from the worst, but the only thing that would be bad parenting is cutting them off completely from something that will inevitably be a valuable life skill.

Keeping things from kids too much will ensure them falling hard on their faces when the ban is lifted. Learning self control and making small mistakes is rather more valuable than being kept safe until you hit the ground hard.

Well, but not for 5 years old ones. If you're >12 years old then go ahead, maybe fiddle with codes a bit (I did that, but stopped for lack of interest - learned C++ but I can't get any UIs than command line, which is boring).

[Aghanim]

Why should an ISP filter out Imgur or reddit, curious cat want to know, I would understand if an school or workplace did but an ISP?

Imgur and Reddit: A small part of it contains NSFW content, hence all of it is NSFW site and needs to be blocked to protect us, which in the process destroys all forums that rely on imgur for image hosting, which is like most of them.

[wumpus]

A quick update from someone with a nephew or two that could use such protection...

The first issue is the goal: prevention or detection.

Prevention is the typical sales pitch. "Use this product and little Jimmy will never know there is a big, bad, evil world out there". Then Jimmy downloads a VNC client, connects to a proxy and has the complete internet at his fingertips. This will pretty much only work on kids incapable of using google and on connections you are willing to limit *entirely* to kid friendly content (not a bad idea for preschoolers, but ferrgitaboutit once they do off to middle school (and possibly before)).

Detection is "if you go there/do that you will be grounded [insert correct punishment here]". Basically the idea is that with prevention the attacker only has to succeed once and has access and can try, try again until he finds a hole. Detection means that to evade detection Jimmy has to successfully evade detection *every* time he wants to access the forbidden. Presumably this happens right after your "big brother" software gets an update.

The other big thing to know about cybersecurity is that physical access means full control over any computer. There must be a single access point to the internet and the computer running your cybersecurity system must be connected to it behind a locked door. Depending on your broadband provider, this is likely to be impossible (I expect that you can connect a modem to any cable/phone port depending on your service). If you think that any security on a single computer connected to net will help, try googling "live linux" or "tails linux" to see how to bypass literally every single piece of software on a computer (the same software will usually allow you to remove passwords or do any "admin only" work on any unencrypted disk as well). My suggestion: replace the router with something that you can load OpenWRT, and put the parental controls on that. Buy some warranty stickers (about $10, and try to get some that your kids can't find the source easily to) and tape up the modem/cable/router so they can't re-flash it without detection.

To recap, detection works. Prevention doesn't. A computer in the kid's bedroom will allow access you wouldn't believe, while a computer in the kitchen at least has to pass the "parent walks by" test (here the kid learns that "boss buttons" are not 100% foolproof). And quite frankly, if your kid is a computer geek and you aren't expect that you probably won't even detect what the kid is doing. In the end, detection is pretty much the primary means of parenting since day one (although detecting that Cain killed Able really is a bad example) and will continue to be regardless of the next "game changing technology". Also the kid's friends are still the biggest influence on them: and at least one friend will be more computer savvy than at least one [probably other] kid's parents, so he will have full access somewhere.

[Duxwing]

I agree! Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding, kids smart-enough to overcome parental controls are smart-enough not to need them. Besides, preventing their accessing the Internet is unfeasible:

-All computers must be surveilled and inspected lest the kid should tamper with either his own or, to affect it, another.

-External Wi-Fi connections must be either secured, blocked, or jammed lest the kid should bypass security.

-The kid may not any web service permitting any attachments

-The kid may not access any website linking to an uncontrolled connection, or any other such site, and so on

-The kid may not simply access the forbidden content somewhere so insecure as a friend's house.

-The kid's belongings must be inspected for data storage devices, wherein elsewhere-gotten data may be stashed

-The kid may have only a 'dumb' phone lest he should use its cellular data connection

-The two previous requirements apply to whoever may eventually help the kid; e.g., friends, guests, and workers

Essentially, the kid would have to be homeschooled, confined to his room, deprived of all but trivially-connected devices, and speak to his friends through a fine grate. You know what? Forget extenuating circumstances: any parent implementing such measures should either admit error or commit their child to another's care. The 'cure' is worse than the disease.

-Duxwing

[Camacha]

Well, but not for 5 years old ones.

Why not? Get 'm coding and get 'm coding young. Most people underestimate what these tiny hoomans can and will do.

[SAI Peregrinus]

If/when I have kids, I'll use parental control software. If they can't bypass it I'll be very disappointed in them.

[kurja]

Why not? Get 'm coding and get 'm coding young. Most people underestimate what these tiny hoomans can and will do.

A five year old is big enough to start learning computers, but really at that age kids should still be learning motor and social skills above all (for very good reasons). If a five year old gets interested in coding well why not have him/her introduced to it, but let's remember that kids that age can't really read and write, not too well at least which is a kinda necessary prerequisite to learn coding. It doesn't make matters any easier that in practice one should also understand English (which to many of us is a foreign language). There are learning tools for kids to start getting into programming, I've been looking at those for a while now but haven't so far seen one that would really have caught my interest. My kids are about six and eight. And have by now assembled computers and installed ubuntu on them, which they were required to do so they'd get to play super tux kart

[SciMan]

I think that when someone considers using any kind of parental controls, they should first consider WHY they want to use it. Then, they should also consider how much effort it will take to maintain the blocks, because if the kid learns that a block exists, they'll try to circumvent it.

I guarantee it's going to take more effort to maintain than you think it is, ESPECIALLY with kids, because they have more time to dedicate to disabling the blocks than you have time to dedicate to re-enabling them. And they have Google, which will of course have the answer they seek.

[WinkAllKerb'']

bingo : )

1944 speaking for fr as i m there but mostly the same everywhere

1 tv channel

then 3 tv channel

then 6 then 15,

then 2000,

then internet

(apply the same statement too as much domain as you want regarding the last 115 years // the 50 000 before)

i do believe there is a huge rift in the amount of info nowdays (and tommorrow ...) generation are able to manage due to media/tech/whatever expense ... it could end both well or very bad depending of "parents" that want to control too much than they can effictevly do and that tend to understimate the effect of this rising ratio of stimuli upon neuronal scheme ; ) (for some at least)

Edited July 20, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''