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Ethically Monitoring Your Kid's Net Access
"She will be using a Mac, so I s'pose Apple's KidSafe is an option, but I'm not really keen on the concept - seems a little too limiting - kinda like going to the library and only having access to the encyclopedias. Any ideas?"
Jamie wanted to add a few comments:
Yes, KidSafe is a whitelist. Basically you'd be allowing access only to a carefully chosen, tiny fraction of the web. It's exactly like going to the library and only being able to look at the reference section.
If that's what you want and that's all your child is ready for, I can't see any problem with this. It's honest because everybody knows what they're getting. When they want out of the sandbox, they'll let you know.
Here are my suggested rules of the road for kids on the internet, basically a 21st century version of "don't take candy from strangers." What do I have wrong, or what did I forget?
For parents:
* Put the family computer in a family room.
* Be prepared for freaky questions about things seen online -- and let kids know they can ask about anything they see.
* Be prepared in case you learn they are looking at things they shouldn't. Not that this will necessarily happen. But if it does, your gut reaction may not be appropriate -- consider what you'll say.
* Along with that annoying "what'd you do in school today?", try the equally annoying "what'd you find on the internet today?"
* If you use spyware to keep track of what your kids are viewing, let them know. If you don't, let them know you trust them! This is a trust step like the first time they ride a bike past the driveway, or spend overnight at a friend's house. It's your judgement when they're ready.
For kids:
* When you chat online, you don't know who's on the other end. Even if you've talked with them for a year, you still don't know!
* A rule: never type your last name or your city. (First name and state are OK.) Or, make up a fake name, that can be "who you are" online!
* A very important safety rule: meeting online strangers may be allowed (but mom or dad will be coming along). If kids promise to ask, parents promise to talk it over.
* When you're looking for something, use the Google search engine. (Among its other benefits, it's the most kid-friendly.) Always start your search with at least three words. Any fewer, and you're probably just wasting your time. Parents can help you learn how to pick three good words.
She'll get more out of spending time with you than she will from the net anyway.
Martin
Writing Resources
If I allowed my kid to take heroin, the authorities would quite rightly lock me up and take my child away. Likewise if I allowed my kid to play around with my semi-automatic rifles the same thing would happen. It should be the same for the Internet.
The Internet is primarily a source of porn for maladjusted socially inept males. It has a secondary use as an information resource, but let us not forget, over 74% of downloads and over 80% of net traffic is porn related.
Now I am not going to argue that porn is wrong. (Although I do believe that only warped and sick individuals would seek to degrade God's gift to mankind by commercializing it). I am just going to say that to a developing mind, seeing pictures like those often found on this website cannot be a force for good.
A famous rabbi once described TV as like having an open sewage pipe pouring into your living room.
The Internet is like having the whole sewage works. I mean why would a child be looking at depraved debased unamerican and unChristian sites such as this one or this or most sickeningly of all this?
The answer is to make it a federal offense for a parent to allow a minor in his/her care to access the Internet. Its the only way we can continue the war on porn, and save our children from images such as this.
Normally I would not advocate such extreme measures, but if just one child is saved from viewing pornography such as above, it will be worth whatever minor freedoms we would have to give up.
Children don't really need the Internet. Learning the Bible is usually a better way for children to spend their time. For example, almost every community has churches sponsoring something along the lines of Vacation Bible Camp. These are day-camps where children can go during the summer and learn about the Bible and participate in fun activities which might include crafts, softball, or swimming. I enroll my children each year and they enjoy it very much. I would rather that they spend their Summer vacations in wholesome activity than worrying about them ``surfing the net''.
Hehe, when I was a kid I had all my porn on floppies anyway. I had my own computer in my room, ran a board, got raided. My mom said something like "Computers? What are you talking about!?" My advice would be to just ignore it.. the more you know the more likely you will be to lose your house when they say she has a $500,000 phone bill racked up through a General Motors PBX. Hehe. :)
If you've done your job parenting, your child won't be very interested in the things you want to protect them from. By attempting to shelter them, you will make them curious, a dangerous element that would not have existed if you had not tried to hide it from them. Ask yourself: What happens when they get out in the real world, and they don't have their safety net anymore? You think that because they havn't been exposed to "bad things" that they will avoid "bad things"? Touchy subject. --ac
First off, there's a good chance that your twelve year old daughter is more computer litterate than you are. Try and log her, proxy her, view the history, and it wont take very long for her to get around it. Simply going through another proxy like anonimizer.com would completely throw off anything but a keystroke register. Kids no this kind of thing too... Secondly, there's no way you can monitor her net access from other computers at friends, school, libraries, heck even the airport, so really are you accomplishing anything? Is your 12 year old really going to be all that into pr0n? maybe for the first week or so, but it grow old quick. 1000 pop ups will do that too her. Keep the computer is a reasonable family room, if you have instilled good values in her already, they will hold true on the net. I know that any kid would be really ticked if they found out there parents were spying on them... say she has a boy friend - 'crush' that she is shy about, is it really fair for you to know about it... would you read her diary too? - maybe if something is wrong, but until she forces you to lose trust in her, how can do something like that?
Isn't she worth an hour or two (or three, or four) of your time to watch her? It isn't like you have to hang over her sholder to see exactly what she's doing. I often can tell children are surfing something they shouldn't by how quick the windows close when I walk in... That might be the time to open a discussion on exactly what's going on.
There will be times she is surfing the stuff you find questionable that she doesn't know is questionable. That's what spot checking over her sholder is for. Like: "Hey, light of my life, that looks interesting. What is it?".
Might also help you make that "connection" with her.
Life is too short not to know your kids. Love 'em.
I have a dauther myself and get he impression that you're missing the issue.
The most interesting answer I read here was SPEND MORE TIME WITH HER.
That somehow hits the point. If your her father and she feels like your dauter you both should have a trusty relationship. She shouldn't need to lie to you about where she surfs to if you wan't to know.
In fact: Since your are probably MUCH more expierienced with computers than she, it should be natural for her to ask YOU where the interessting stuff on the internet is.
I know my child will gladly have her dad around when she wants to fiddle with his/the computer. You should aim for that too.
What's wrong if you have to monitor her? And if you only sse on another every two weeks (sad enough) - you both shouldn't be wasting that time in front of a box. There should be more interesting stuff to do with an eleven year old than that.
I really don't see a reason to block children from anything. Sooner or later they will find out about it, cruel world as it is. If your child is knowledgable about computers you basically have no hope to control them. The /best/ you can do is guilt them. If they do look at something at a young age they don't understand I'm sure they'll find out at a later age what it meant, oh well. If they look at porn, oh well. Is that really something to be ashamed of? You were all born naked. What's wrong with "naked"? What is wrong with sex? Most humans have sex. It's how we reproduce. Some humans even enjoy watching the act of humans reproducing. bla bla bla. Big deal. What ever floats their boat (even if it may be disturbing. I'm sure they won't be the only on alt.). If it happens to be a matter which would pertain to making weapons, bombs, other weapons-to-kill. They blow off their hand with a firecracker, and learn the hardway to not do that again. Although some people are slow learners... What you should do is confront your child with what you feel is approperiate for them. Remember the more you say not to do this the more they will want to do it. Curiosity is always a factor here. If your child wants to find out about something they will reguardless if you want them to or not. If they can't do it at home they will at a friends house or some other location. They may or may not agree with you. If you think they will obey you 100% you are sadly mistaken. Unless they live in fear of you which is no way to raise a child in my eyes. You have to learn how to establish a trust foundation with your children. Some things they may have seen and don't want to talk about it because they have a fear of getting bitched at/grounded/whatever, or they just found it disgusting and don't want to see it again. You should ask your child what they have seen. This will feel best in an enviroment where there is trust. Either way you parents have lost.
--ShadeS
on irc.2600.net
Hurray for you having the cojones to post that. I'm too gutless to post this as anything but an AC, an apt description certainly in context.
I was first exposed to porn at 14, and used it pretty consistently for 30+ years. My marriage suffered for it, although at the time I could not see that. Guys, this is real - porn does really, really hurt your partners, hard. And that is where a lot of the grief comes from. That causes friction, and the resultant heat is not of the form that is useful to relationships.
For many years I firmly believed in the "victimless" view of porn, that it was just a way to get off when my wife was unavailable. But I was fooling myself, and if you think this has no effect on you outside your wanking off time, you also are fooling yourself.
Please consider doing one thing - stop the porn completely for a couple of months. Observe what happens in relationships that matter to you. A couple of months without wanking material won't cause you any damage - right? But it might show you just how much damage the porn has been doing to you. I know, it's a scarey thought to give up the porn even for that long. But prove you're man enough - Just Do It.
The most important lesson you can teach a new Net user, regardless of their age, is that the Net is real. Things you do on the Net have real consequences. The people you talk to on the Net may be lying about themselves, but they are real people. It is not a toy or a role-playing game, although just like any other part of the real world, the Net *includes* toys and role-playing games.
"Safety" tips like "never reveal your real last name!" encourage the belief that the Net is somehow separate from and less real than the rest of the world. In the long run, this is an extremely dangerous attitude to teach to Net users. The Net is unsafe partly because people think that's a good safety idea. Do not do it. Anonymity has its place but should not be the automatic default.
Fully conscious of the irony of posting this as an AC - actually, my real name is Matthew Skala, I'm located in Victoria, British Columbia, and I'm posting as an AC only because I object to being forced to create an account. I fully expect that it'll never be modded high enough for anyone to read, but that's part of the price of my own safety policy.
... and make sure you do it with this really threatening 1984 look when you say it... "we KNOW where you're going."
:)
My step-daughter is almost 11 and, though she's only with her mother and me every other weekend
By my standards this would qualify as a total wreck of a family, and accessibility of the Internet would be the least problem for the daughter.
Then again, I am not American.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Put your computer in the living room, or within eye/earshot of it. That way everyone who is in the living room will be potentially looking over her shoulder, a great incentive to not visit anything that would draw attention to her.
Would you let an 11 year old run around in the worlds biggest porn shop with people who regularly abduct children and plenty of other nasty things? Of course not... the internet is the same thing.
you are missing an absolutely critical distinction: nobody can abduct, or even touch, your child via the network. A second distinction to be made is that not all of the net is pr0n. Comparing the net to a giant pr0n shop is like saying that the entire world is one because you could always walk from the public library to the red light district and buy yourself a dildo. Just as in meatspace, you have to go there of your own volition. It's just easier to get there, that's all.
To end the cascading torrent of self-referential popups-with-popups that can never be closed, switch to a browser that will let you disable "Window.Popup()" in javascript. I know Konqueror lets me do this, dunno about others. It may not stop the first dirty picture, but it'll stop the porn sites from bombarding your kids with crap if they click the wrong thing.
/. ID is lower than the real Bruce Perens'.
The real Threed's
--Threed
Did you tell your parents these things? Would you really expect your children to tell you these things? Do you really think you know everything that's going on? Of course not. But you seem bothered by it -- even though most of us grew up that way and turned out fine.
There's a feeling in the country that every moment of a child's life should be structured, that some adult should be responsible, that it shouldn't be possible for anything to ever go wrong. Well that's fucked up.
It used to be that kids had free time, time to go explore things, time to make mistakes, time to learn about who they are. This American Life had a good little segment about The Geography of Childhood, about how children in the early 70's spent their time.
There are dangers in the world. But one of the big ones is the danger of being too safe -- it makes children too naive, unable to assert their will in the world (which they must learn to do), unable to think independently.
So I say once again: let go! The chance of your child getting kidnapped and murdered is extremely small. The chance of them doing drugs is pretty high. The chance of whether they will deal with that experience in a mature, thoughtful, and ultimately positive way is up to you, the parent. You can't keep it from happening -- so help your child become the person who can deal with it well. Help your child live their own life, because it's not your life to live. Even at 11.
Especially because she's only with them for a couple days they need to let go a little. It's all too easy to think, well, we only have her two days every other week -- then for those two days she's ALL OURS. But that's a messed up way to think about it -- she isn't anyone's, she's herself, she needs some control over her life... like having some input as to what she does from moment to moment, and who she does it with.
This reminds me of the free speech notion -- that by being too restrictive of unprotected speech you can have a chilling effect on protected free speech. Similarly, by being to intrusive about inappropriate material, you can have a chilling effect on a child's curiosity about appropriate but -- to the child -- mysterious material.
Did you actually try a google search of Little Women? Everything on the first two pages looked clean to me, and most were references to the book.
--
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Many divorce parents don't get along, and all it takes is the custodial parent to find a judge that who agrees with them, and the non-custodial parent can lose all visitation rights. If you don't take all "reasonable and prudent measures" to "protect" your child, you are taking a big risk.
--
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
If you see something you don't recognize (I mean other than http://nsyncgroupies.com) just visit it with a web browser and see what kind of site it is.
This plan isn't foolproof, no form of net monitoring is, b/c if she wants to get around this, she could always go to somewhere like alt.binaries.pictures.teen-idols in a newsgroup reader and you would never know. But its a start.
Of course no amount of net monitoring can take the place of responsible parenting, and I'm glad to see that you are taking a mature attitude towards this.
> > > My step-daughter is almost 11 and, though she's only with her mother and
> > > me every other weekend
> > By my standards this would qualify as a total wreck of a family, and
> > accessibility of the Internet would be the least problem for the daughter.
> > Then again, I am not American.
> What an interesting, ignorant thing to say, you Non-American, you.
I can only assume the guy with three ">"s didn't notice the "step-" in
"step-daughter". Divorce is pretty common in most western countries now.
What's more worrying is that the mother and stepfather don't seem to trust
the father (who I assume to be the guardian most of the time) to take charge
of supervising the child's internet usage.
--
The difference is that it isn't the government that is doing the censoring. It's perfectly legal for private citizens to say, "I will not play that filth in my movie theater," or for stores to say, "I will not sell violent video games."
Believe it or not most people (the customers) think that NC-17 rated films shouldn't be shown in "decent" movie theaters. Disney and the rest of the movie producers know this, and so they throw their weight around to guarantee that the truly adult movies stay where only adults are likely to go. The government is not involved at all. They don't rate the shows, and they don't enforce the ratings. The fact of the matter is that the MPAA has just as much freedom to say "this movie is indecent" as you have to make (and watch) movies that are indecent. However, since you don't own any movie theaters (I imagine) you can't force the theater owner to show the kind of movies you would like to see. It's his theater, and he will do as he pleases. This undoubtedly means that he will kowtow the MPAA line (because this is the most lucrative path), but that doesn't make it a free speech issue.
Remember children, it doesn't have anything to do with "freedom of speech" unless the government is involved. On my property I make the rules as to what is "proper" speech, and if you don't like it you can leave.
Exactly, censorship is dangerous in the same way that prohibition was. You can't make people do the "right" thing. Trying to force people to make intelligent choices only makes things worse.
However, this does not mean that alcohol isn't the root of a great deal of the more serious problems in the U.S., and it also doesn't mean that pornography is harmless. Some people can handle it, but many people only think that they can handle it.
In other words, I don't want the government to try and save me and my children, but I don't believe the media either when they try to tell me that pornography isn't harmful. It certainly is harmful, but the only thing that I can do about it is stay away from it myself, and try and keep its influence from my family. When we try and force others (even if we are right) we only make things worse.
My guess is that the reason your parents trust you is that you are trustworthy. I would also bet that either your parents are extremely naive (and lucky), or that you had already shown them from your actions that you could be trusted. My parents never followed me around making sure that I didn't do drugs, or what have you, because I showed them that I was trustworthy. I followed the rules they set, I tried to stay out of trouble, and I was respectful (for the most part).
Most kids that complain about parental controls do so because they are not trustworthy. The real reason that they complain is that their parents are cramping their style. They want their parents to "trust" them, but only because it would give them an opportunity to do something they have been forbidden to do.
So yes, how you react most definitely depends on the child. And sometimes there literally is nothing you can do. Some children turn out great no matter how stupid the parents are, and some children screw up no matter how much you love them and care for them. That's why having the government get involved with raising children is such a bad idea. Children are individuals, and need individual care.
No, the original poster has hit the nail square on the head. Keeping a record of where the child surfed is far better than simply signing up with some CyberPatrol. First of all you get to decide what is appropriate or not for your own children (instead of relying on someone else). Besides, squid at leats gives the child the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't block web sites (unless you tell it to) it merely logs where you have been without blocking off potentially useful parts of the web. It allows you and your child to decide together what is appropriate and what is not.
Parents should know where there children are surfing. The Internet is a fabulous tool, but it is far from benign. If you think that everything out there on the Internet is suitable for 11 year olds, then I pray you never have children.
Kids are going to see and hear scary things, confusing things, dangerous things, whether they use the Internet or not. The important thing is (a) that they feel that they can talk to you, and (b) that you feel that you can talk to them.
You can probably make kids feel like they can talk to you by listening to them, even when they want to talk about boring or ridiculous things. Probably telling them that "You can talk to me." doesn't really work. In fact, if you have to say that it probably isn't true. See also part (b).
b: You have to be willing to talk to your kids honestly. This means being willing to talk about stuff that you would normally avoid talking about to anyone, because it disgusts you or scares you, or because you feel guilty about it or whatever. That's hard, but very important.
Just to re-iterate: trying to prevent your kids from seeing and hearing objectionable or problematic things is a lose. First of all, it won't work, even if you throw all of the computers out of your house. But more importantly, trying to do that is a crutch to lean on instead of doing something that you need to do anyway: talk, and listen, to your children.
Regards,
Zooko
It would be far easier to firewall all outgoing 31337 +r8f1c and generate log entries from them.
For extra effect, I suggest following:
Now, when the kid uses some l33t skR1pt, the alarms go off. Loud. "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Computer System Security Compromised!" If possible, automatically lock doors with this system if it's remote-controlledly possible. Flashing lights. Police siren. Ringing bells.
Let's see if the kid will then develop more signs of l33tness. =)
You could easily monitor what she's looking at. Going thru the logs, or by some other mechanism. There are plenty of solutions.
But would you really want to ? You realize that the this is indifferent to monitoring (and recording) her phone calls, or placing a microphone on her and following her daily conversations with friends.
You would effectively be spying on your kid.
As a responsible parent (easy for me to say as I don't - to the best of my knowledge - have kids), of course you're interested in what goes on in her life. But don't cross the line.
Having the computer in a "family room" is probably a good idea if you're seriously worried that she will use it for something that would pose a problem if she could use it in full privacy.
Handle this, as you handle the other worries. What if she makes some poor friends that tries to get her into something you wouldn't approve of ? Do you seriously bug her and listen to her conversations ? No, I didn't think so either.
Try something: have conversations. Eat together, the family dinner is a great time for talking about what goes on in the lives of the family members. Move the TV out of the kitchen and spend a little time together.
Do you keep her from watching TV ? Or going to a theater ? There are few things you will find on the net that you won't see every day in TV. goatse.cx is no exception.
I suspect you don't have any young children. Parents and children have better uses for their time together than this.
Reviewing your own surfing with your child is a bad idea. Is a young child going to understand what you're doing on Slashdot, or what makes The Onion funny? No.
Also, it's not obvious what a child has been viewing just by looking at the URL in a log file. Checking out every URL this way would be very time consuming.
-- Brian
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
I think most of the stuff that's not appropriate for kids is not very entertaining for them either, and they probably won't find nasty stuff unless they are trying to.
:). (e.g. There's a big difference between two people having sex and two people sleeping in the same bed because there was a limited number of beds. However, saying "they slept together" means they had sex, so you have to waste a lot of words explaining that they slept in the same bed without having sex. English is dumb because people in the past (and wimps in the present) like to pretend they aren't talking about things even when they are.) Anyway, now you might have some idea why I think it's more or less ok for kids to look at web sites once they've reached a certain level of maturity,
I'm having a hard time thinking of things that a kid could see on the 'net that you couldn't talk with them about.
I'll admit that I haven't had to be in the position of supervising kids browsing the 'net, so I'm probably thinking in too abstract terms. I've taught Sunday school for a few years now, so I have some experience with kids around age 10, though. Maybe I'm overly optimistic in my idea that kids can understand the fact that some of the stuff on the 'net is _not_ good wisdom or words to live by (e.g. racist material). I do think that knowing something about what's out there won't hurt anyone over age 10. I would guess that the Internet helps introduce difficult topics for conversation.
One thing I just thought of is that this only works if you have quite tolerant views, like I do, and don't think it's a problem for kids to know what sex is about, even before they're old enough to want to do it. The English language is so full of phrases with double entendres because it has a long history of being spoken by prudes and other wimpy people who would die if they said penis (insert Monty Python song here
and can take it. Obviously a 5 year old isn't going to understand some of the stuff you'd need to explain after they tripped across certain web sites, so actually being there _while_ they browse is important, because they will be highly unlikely to read some stuff with you right there. This is the same reason teenagers hide their porn from their parents. (OTOH, 5 year olds probably don't read well enough to get too far on the web, but a 7 or 8 year old who reads well could give parents something to worry about.)
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
logging URLs with stuff after '?' stripped off (to clean off GET form submission data, to avoid being to invasive) is way different from logging chat sessions. I don't know how a 10 year old would feel about having their every move online logged, but I know I don't like the idea. Parents don't need to read everything their kids type.
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
good point about not letting Weird Shit take too much time away from the good stuff. Keeping the computer in a family room should be enough to stop kids from actively seeking porn or blood & gore, or any stuff they think will make them look bad in their parents eyes. It would be embarrasing to look at most Bad Stuff in front of your parents, or even for them to know that you had been looking at it. Using censorware to block stuff is not necessary, since I think fear of embarrasment will do the trick.
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
{
Censorware usually just pisses kids off and makes them become much better with circumvention than they otherwise would have been.
}
What a great idea! This one sentence has completely changed me from a censorware-hater to someone who will install all kinds of "parental controls" as soon as I have kids.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
When I was 11 (17 years ago), I watched & read everything I wanted -- including (and not limited to) porn. And my parents did'nt know about it. And so did all my friends.
Many kids if not most kids do lots of stuff their parent will never know.
Some people makes you wonder if they've ever been kids
--
I'd let them know the computer stays in a public area, and I'm liable to watch everything they do.
And then sit down and watch them.
-----------------------------
Information is not harmful. Nudie pics are not harmful. If they start asking wierd questions, answer rationally and accurately. Treat grossness as dull and puerile, and beneath their dignity.
Explain that the internet is as open as a public street, and the general rule about not trusting strangers applies. Drill them in not being caught up by pedophiles. And keep communications channels open, not blocked by fear of consequences or embarrasment, so that you can chat about what wierdos they've met this time.
If you're American, teach your kids the second amendment, and train them to shoot straight. And home-school them if you can.
--
That is, agree with what is considered ethical hacking in your own house since that's what you'll be doing. Many people here have stated the obvious: central location, proxy servers, web logs, firewalls and the like. If you put a broadband connection in someone's bedroom and let them have at it w/o restraint then all your agreements will probably go out the window. OTOH hand if you agree what is permissible behavior and demonstrate that you're willing to follow through then you're more than halfway there. The last thing I'd mention is that there is some threshold for tolerance as well. That is, you should allow for a passing grade not a binary pass/fail. There are always a few places that neither of you really know about and someone is going to stumble on accidently or with no particular intent - sometimes you have to give a pass. If not then you're doomed to failure because your standard will be impossible to meet. Unplug the net and give them restricted AOL instead.
whatever man. At that age, I really didn't want to spend time w/my parents. I wanted to hang out w/my friends or be by myself and do my own thing. My parents (my father especially) was always willing to spend time w/me and do things w/me, but I was the one that didn't want to do it.
.02
My parents checked through the HD everyday looking for jpg, gif, etc. I just made sure to rename all the files something that they wouldn't look for.
Honestly, if they want to do something, they are going to do it. It's like smoking pot. If they want to get high and they don't want to get caught, they are going to be smart enough about it to make sure you never find out.
I say let them surf the web w/o hindering them. Most kids aren't going to just "stumble" across offensive material and I have yet to have someone just hop on IM and message me dirty stuff (although I suggest having her check "male" as her sex -- you are less likely to have teenage boys messaging her)
That's my worthless
I gave the subject some thought after you pointed the subject out, and I'm convinced that it was more a reference to J.S. Mill's views Re: Free Will. IIRC, he didn't believe in it, which would make this a non-issue.
That's why the line in the Bruces' Philosophers Song is so amusing:
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
My main thought is that her computer is already in her room, and I feel that if I were to move it for 'net access, she would probably take it poorly. In her shoes, I would too.
So, I think we're going to go with a slight fiction - that I know all and see all. This isn't to terrify my step-daughter in some Big Brother sense, but to let her know that she can always talk to me about anything she sees, beacause I will already know about it (that goes for Mom, too). And if she figures out my secret and starts dumping her history files, well - I guess squid is the next step, along with any extra-curricular computing courses she wants to take.
My step-mother was convinced I was up to Bad Things(TM) on those nasty ol' BBS's and did her best to interrupt my access - that just made me learn a lot more on the tech end.
QA implies some kind of quality to begin with.
The masses aren't stupid, they are on average of average intelligence.
Most people in the world see the world differently to you.
For most people in the world, most other people in the world see the world differently from them.
Transparency of access AND monitoring is the only ethical and effective answer here. And those are the things you're really after:
- effective transparent access
- ethical transparent monitoring
RalfThe trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
-Bertrand Russel
As for monitoring them I run a squid Proxy server that I proxy all my machines in the house through so that I have the ability to do some greps looking for keywords.
All in all I think that the best way to montior your kids is to have a great relationship with them so that you don't have to worry about them getting into things that might be offending. Build a trust with them and let them know that you won't get them into trouble for being courious. That your there to help them and to explain (to the best of your ability) questions that they might have..
Just my 2 cents worth
That is the equivilent to saying "When they're smart enough to hot-wire a car, they're ready to drive." I'm all for open censorship by parents. If they're being open about the fact that some things are off limits, then how they enforce that (with monitoring, blocking proxies, or trust in your child to do as you ask) will depend on the situation, and I don't have a problem with that.
My problem with most censorware is that it allows (almost forces) parents to abdicate that role/responibility. It's no longer an issue of parents deciding what's appropriate for their child, it's an outside group (school board, morales brigade, corporate lawyer, etc) deciding what's right for all the children (and most of the adults as well.) The fact that exactly what gets blocked is secret (under the guise of protecting IP) that makes it downright dangerous for a free society.
Starting when I was about 11 years old, my dad told me that if I wanted beer or wine, all I had to do was ask., but it had to be at home, and it had to be with his permission. The few times I asked, I was allowed to drink, but it was relatively rare, and I never drank outside the home. I never had a problem, and it's at least partially because I didn't want to abuse the trust he had put in me. Most kids will respect resonable boundries if they're treated with respect (which is different than treating them like little adults.)
-- Mitch
P.S. it also helped that he drank coors... ick
If you feel like using filtering software, AOL probably has the best and most sophisticated filtering available. Check out the recent Slashdot article on it or find some articles that talk about it.
As a parent, I fought over the moral dilemma surrounding censorware. In the end the only choice really was to introduce the kids to the net one on one. This is why:
As a child I did not have a lot of parental supervision, so my morals and ethics came from others in the community. For a lot of kids this does not work well, for me it turned out ok. All depends on who you start relating to early on in life.
So basically what I am saying is that kids will get their core set of social norms and values from some source somewhere. They basically need these things to grow mentally, and at some low level know that and seek out what they need.
Parents who do not try to provide these things are basically saying "go forth! find your way in the world, let me know what you found out!"
Looking back over my life, it is easy to see how easily things could have been much different. (for the worse...)
The problem with the Internet today is the body of knowledge and culture required to make sane judgements about the content. Getting facts is one thing, culture shock is another. Think about it a little. Some of the simplest humor on the internet is quite beyond the cultural experience of your typical 8-12 year old. Some well presented totally useless information can easily be taken as truth simply because it looks true!
Spending time on the net with your kids is vital! No software is going to be able to give kids what they need to understand the net for what it is. They need to look at it through your experience after all who better to learn with than with someone that saw the whole thing happen and got to grow with it.
So, as a parent you really have three basic choices.
1. Censor the net and send the message to your childeren that you are ignoring the basic issues, and they can figure things out later at their expense when they are older. They just might hate you for this later when they do understand things better and wonder why you never helped them.
2. Leave the net wide open and unattended and send the message that it is ok for them to look outside the family for their social norms. This one also has a lot to do with trust and could be ok for some kids, but probably not for a lot of them. Do you really trust your kids? Are their core values secure enough that you know they are going to ask you things and make good decisions? Do your kids have any sort of common sense? If you say no to any of these, better not let them use the net without help.
3. Use the net with them. This one sends the message that you want them to explore, but don't want them getting hurt in some way. You the parent are in control and this is important!
Your perspective as a parent on the net is very important espcially for this crowd! With all the companies fighting for your kids attention, what makes you think that they are going to learn what you want them to learn? Nothing! They are going to learn what others want them to learn, unless the parents are there to filter through the noise and explain what is going on.
No software will ever do this.
I want my kids to be able to make their place on the net and be comfortable with that; otherwise, their place will be chosen for them.
Blogging because I can...
Any other parents who have found a good solution for this?
The following solutions are good security practices, regardless of whether you have children to snoop on -- you can protect your internal MIS environment (yes, I know it's a household, but it still has MIS needs) from everything from script kiddies to ill-behaved Windows shares -- especially if you connect via broadband (Cable, DSL, etc.).
Every machine in your house should be sitting on a private network, with a box functioning as a firewall sitting between them and the 'net. Block all web traffic (there's only a half-dozen or so ports) from masquerading directly, and force them through a caching proxy. Then, you can simply inspect the proxy caches/logs to handle this issue; your surfing performance in general will improve as a result of doing the caching regardless of your interest in the logs.
You should also have your firewall log all the masqueraded connections -- again, this is a security measure regardless of whether you want to see if your kid is spending too much time playing EverQuest; it also will protect you from any trojaned apps that may be trying to "phone home" (you see a strange connection in the logs, and block the port).
Good security practices aren't hard, but they do take work. And there's no reason to think that you shouldn't be as/more careful at home (with stuff that's actually yours) as/than you are around the office.
MOO;IANAL.
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
From the age of about 7, I was paranoid about
privacy. So I never kept a diary, I had hiding
places for many things and I watched my parents
very carefully to make sure they weren't
trying to keep tabs on me. If your kids trust
you, they will be very shocked and disappointed
when they find out that you betrayed their trust.
Oh, and I'd appreciate if you kept it ciilized,
leave flaming to the real retards out here.
IMHO, there is NO ethical way to monitor
another human being. Privacy in my world
comes ahead of security or well-being.
Would you read you child's mail, or
diary? Of course not, that would be a
gross violation of their privacy. Why then
do you feel in the right to read their other
communications with the world?
Now, if they come to you asking for money to
meet that nice guy they met in a chat room,
THEN it is your responsibility to step in and
explain right from wrong. And incidentally, aside
from them actually wanting to meet someone from
the net in person, there ain't much wrong they
can do on the net (assuming they don't know your
credit card number).
I'm 26. I am grateful to my parents for
not ever snooping on what I was doing when I was
growing up.
Provide everyone with access to your computer with a separate login id and route all their http accesses through a proxy server (squid/ apache). That way you get logs of what is accessed without blocking anything...
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
This way parents can give the child very free reign when they can be around to answer questions and deal with issues that may arise. If the parent can't pay close attention to what's going on for a while they can throw it to the more restrictive mode. Initally the filter may be really constricting but over time it would be very usable. Or maybe you start with a whitelist to bootstrap the filter.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
It's popular with me. My kids know that our firewall keeps logs of everything. They also know that the browsers often keep an embarassing amount of history of what's been visited. Between keeping the computers in a family area (vital!!) and them knowing it is a privilege, not a right to use them, we are getting along quite well.
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
In other words, if you want your kids to grow up with a healthy attitude to sex and their fellow human beings, monitor their activites and restrict their access to anything having to do with sex. Pfft, indeed.
wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
If you're going to violate your kid's privacy, maybe you should make is symmetric and set up some software to automatically mail her the URL's that you visit.
Well, I'm 33. I'd have to say that your response is spoken like a sophmore who does not understand and consequentely misapplies common saying like "with freedom comes responsibility." In this case, the peeping parent is not giving his child freedom (to look at freely available information privately) or responsibility.
What does age prove?
You said "spoken like a child", and if that does not prove it at least evinces the wrongness of your intuition.
An example of the adage "with freedom comes responsibility" is that with, say, the freedom to drive a car, which could potentially endanger others, comes the responsonsibility to follow the local traffic conventions like driving on the correct side of the street in a given country, so that, in this case, you don't actually endanger others.
Having privacy to read freely available information does not endanger others. (What someone does with that information, whether they had privacy to read it or not, is their responsibility, but having privacy does not change that responsibility.)
Besides, if your argument had any merit, there would be no problem with the test of symmetry. If "dad" has the freedom to read the internet and the "responsibility" that you think comes with that freedom is having the reader's monitored the other family member, he should have no problem with my suggestion that he arrange for his web browsing activity to be logged and sent to his daughter.
Huh? Why should he mind if she reads this?
He'll most certainly explain to her exactly what
he's expressed here: that he wants her to be able
to benefit from the internet, but he's concerned
about what sort of content and/or people she
could be exposed to.
Parents/step-parents shouldn't have to make a
secret of the fact that they're concerned about
what children are exposed to. That is what
parenting is about.
Let them do what they want online; in time, the smarter kids will still survive, having not met online pedophiles; and the stronger kids will have survived their meetings with the pedophiles. Natural selection will assure that in the future only quality kids will exist, since the weaker ones will die off know. ;)
Oh wait, ETHICALLY monitoring them?
Nevermind
-Leo
How about: ./ | xargs file | egrep -i 'image|map'
find
Reminds me of a story - (Not so OT.)
When Ghandi was alive, a mother came to see him, child in tow.
"Please tell my child not to eat sugar" the woman said.
Ghandi told the woman to come back in two weeks. Two weeks later, the woman brought her child again. Ghandi looks at the kid and says: "Don't eat sugar."
The woman is stunned. "That's it? I had to go for two weeks just for that?"
"You see," says Ghandi, "Two weeks ago, *I* ate sugar."
Sure, it's just a story and the attribution is probably wrong, but I think it says something worth considering.
I think that kids in general would be more effective at monitoring their parents' surfing habits than the opposite. Are you prepared to have your kids see everything that *you* look at on the web?
And all this talk about having your kids talk openly about what they look at on the web; Are you prepared to talk openly with them about every site or newsgroup you browse? If not, the kid will know that you are being one-sided and insincere. (Kids can *smell* insincerity, just as well as you can...)
IANAP -
Cheers,
Jim
MMDC.NET
-- My Weblog.
Now I am not going to argue that porn is wrong. (Although I do believe that only warped and sick individuals would seek to degrade God's gift to mankind by commercializing it).
What is our Great Nation coming to when even pr0n has become commercialized?? I prefer free pr0n by amateurs.
cpeterso
well, if she reads the posts, then she will be introduced to such powers as goatse.cx.
cpeterso
It seems to me that phrases like "protecting our children" or "shielding them" are misleading.
One thing children are constantly doing is learning. When they are at school, they are (hopefully) learning. When they are playing in the park, they are learning. When they are with their friends, they are learning. And when they are browsing the Internet, they are learning. What do you, as parents, want them to learn? It is the duty of the parents to guide them in their education.
To not allow children to view certain objectionable sites (or read objectionable magazines, or watch objectionable TV) is a good way to help them to not be distracted learning garbage instead of something valuable.
Joe Mainusch http://www.weber-amps.com
Why don't you let her have free access until you find that there is a problem.
Here in Denmark there were a study which showed that children
use free net access much more mature than the adults.
Children simply isn't that interested in sex and porn thats more an adult thing.
Knud
I work at an elementary school. There are 11-year-olds here. I tell them about the log. I print out a sample of the log and show it to them. I tell them the consequences outlined in the school's Internet policy if I log them going to an 'inappropriate' web site.
;) And lastly, if the kid has any clue he may want to use a transparent proxy configuration there so she can't get around it.
I haven't had a single incident in four years with a student trying to view a site that is deemed 'inappropriate' by the school. The result is a weird sort of trust relationship, and that I don't have to go around trying to filter the whole Internet or watching over their shoulders while they're on the 'net. The kids have access to real information and I don't go against my own values by having to filter the Internet.
So... I could be wrong but I'm guessing the whole logging business could have had something to do with that considering the track record for other schools in the area that don't handle the Internet in the same fashion. The sad truth is that many of them have Internet access but don't even let the kids use it in fear of 'something happening'.
I think this guy could have some success with logging if 1) he tells her he's doing it (must, it's only fair) and shows her what the logs look like, 2) he tells her (on paper? depends on the kid) what kinds of sites he doesn't think is acceptable, 3) he tells her the consequences that will result if she visits the 'inappropriate' sites (again, maybe on paper), and 4) he follows through when something happens that isn't supposed to. The fourth one is usually the hardest one.
Just my two cents...
--SONET
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
When I was 5, my parents got an Apple IIe and several hundred floppy disks in boxes from Goodwill. By age 6, I had learned what cracked software was, and they'd upgraded me to an Apple IIgs - Remote Access but no modem, and a built-in disassembler! I learned assembly language and BASIC that year.
:)
:)
When I was 8, my grandfather gave me an 8088 with a modem in it.
Age 8, BBS path.
That year I called the only BBS in the phone book. 7 years later, I went to work for the sysop of that BBS, who still runs a successful ISP.
That BBS had a directory of nearly 40 BBSes in my local area.
Within the year, my active BBS list (logged in to the account more than three days a week) was at 200 phone numbers. Another 100 were frequented no less than once a week. Oh, and there were probably 20 out of that which required pay access that I did not use.
By the time I was 10, I had read thousands of adult, hacking, and conspiracy text files, as were popular at that time. I'd also interacted with several people through online games and message boards, gaining full access by befriending the sysop of each board I logged onto. Throughout my years on BBSes, I believe I contributed $5 once to the BBS - one I also worked for from age 13 through 17.
By age 14, the BBS scene had died. There were effectively two BBSes that remained up, active, and public; both were large, multi-line systems that eventually went Internet, and later died. I was the co-sysop and hardware/network tech for one of them.
Age 8, Internet path.
Age 8, I found my first Internet provider. It was a local freenet, dedicated to providing Internet access to those who were low-income. As a side effect of doing this all by electrons, they had no records or voice conversations that would lead them to believe I was 8.
By age 9, they had invited me to join their "Ask-A-Nerd" mailing list. I became a tech support volunteer, offering help when I needed to, and getting guidance privately and publicly when my words or behaviour seemed childish to them.
As it turned out, they were unconciously teaching me how to interact with people on the Internet without aggression. Incredibly useful.
Around age 11, I started exploring IRC. Four thousand users on EFNet/IRCNet, one thousand channels. Those were the days. I never did realize there was a split around 1996, either.
Ten years later, I'm still using IRC. Last year, I migrated to a new network, and I've not been back to EFNet since.
Around age 13, I went in to their office to pick up my copy (paid for by my parents) of the first edition of Programming Perl. After they got over their initial shock about my age, they got me the book and I went back home with my father.
Within three days I read that book cover to cover, and then took the weekend to read the function reference again. Those were the days.
Merge time paths.
Ten years after I hit IRC, I realize I've never been in any dangerous situation. I never let on that I was a kid except to people who were good confidants - the sysops of a BBS would watch over me when I logged on, and over time they introduced me to the dark sides of the world and offered guidance in such forms that I wouldn't realize they had involved themselves until I could appreciate their help.
They succeeded tremendously, and I wish I could thank them for their guidance in my life.
As a side note, my parents never did take an active hand in what I did. They watched my development and almost instant attachment to any computer, but somehow I never remember them saying no.
Oh, I do remember once my grandmother asked me not to play Wolfenstein on our new 486 because it was very violent and based on a bad plot premise; I agreed with her until such time as we could discuss why she was concerned. As it turns out, I'm glad she did - I understand what made her unhappy, and still don't enjoy playing Wolfenstein - if they hadn't been Nazi Germans (iirc), it would have been different. Oh well.
Well, six months until twenty one. I'm happy, crazy, stable, and Internet-friendly. I talked with my parents yesterday before I got a wisdom tooth pulled - they offered to come up if I needed the company.
One thing I realize - I never did see that it could be possible to "give away your real name" on IRC - why would you do that? I never told them my address - why would you do that? IRC just wasn't the place for it.
When I have a child someday, I hope she reaches a result that she is satisfied with after twenty years. But all I can do is guide her down the river, and maybe she'll never know that those sandbars are actually dangerous, because she'll find a way to deal with them that I can't foresee.
For those who wish to know in more detail, you're welcome to ask me via email about my life. I'll share happily
coral (c+slashdot -at- crystalflame.net).
Thanks for that. It brightened my afternoon. People will be wondering what I'm sitting here snickering at. I don't fancy trying to explain....
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
It is a parent's responsibility to protect their kids from potentially harmful material and influences. If your children have their own computers, these computers should have NO 'net access at all.
Forget censorware, proxies, etc; software solutions are unreliable. Have one central, easily monitored family computer with 'net access, and only let them use it when you can sit there with them to monitor, guide, and teach.
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Have a read of her answer at:
http://sonata.durdin.net/essays/chnsbks.html.
Good reply. Here on /. and the 'net in general, Americans (USians. Can't say I've noticed with Canadians) we get a lot of shit when it comes to not recognizing other cultural norms and standards. Yet when it is turned the other way, it's all right for Europeans, Africans, Asians, etc. to slag on us because we are different.
Same thing I experienced in college with women's (or in some cases wymyn's) groups, African American groups, Asian American groups, etc. It was okay to slag the white protestant male for his barbaric, stereotypical views, but Gaya forbid it worked the other way around.
IOW, all American, white, Protestant males were/are racist, elitist, misogynist scum. But everyone in our group is an individual.
As to the original question: you are the warden, not the child's best friend. I like playing with my son, but that's not the duty I undertook (I think that was five minutes of rollicking good fun;)
FWIW, did anyone consider that asking how to monitor computer use in June, as school is letting out a bit stupid? What kind of kids are you raising who would rather veg in front of the TV/computer than go outside and go swimming, ride bikes, etc, etc, etc.?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Paranoia? Since when does asking parents to parent equate to paranoia? Why does the government have to raise our kids for us? Why can't parent's be responsible and come up with their own moral guidelines to raise their children on?
this is so obvious i find it sad that it needs mention here.
your kids need only one gift from you, although that's one they can't live without: your time.
jeez!
n.
I mean there are way worse things to worry about than whether or not you are censoring stuff off of the internet. I mean...why not just allow your daughter to go to an X-rated movie at the age of 11...I mean if you didn't allow it you would be censoring her right? Right?!
very well. you are beginning to understand.
seriously, i think people in this country - and it seems especially bad in this country, don't take offense - are way too focused on do's and don't's rather than on important matters like teaching your child to think.
in addition, they seem to be completely unable to deal with sex in any reasonable manner. it's like they are scared to death of... what exactly i don't know. their own emotions? having emotions in general? sweaty pictures? what exactly is so scary about sex movies? i find them a lot less damaging than, say, your average action movie where people get shot left and right and the important concept of revenge is taught.
back on topic: kids before puberty really don't have any relationship to sex as we know it. they just don't have the hormones. that doesn't mean they are going to turn into raging psychos after seeing a porn flick too early.
i also don't want to defend porn in general. mostly, it's a pretty bad quality story mixed with pretty standard-fare, lame-o, humpa humpa sex.
i think kids wouldn't even be very interested in sex movies if they were not "forbidden". same as with alcohol and tobacco - normal kids don't like the stuff and will not touch it.
for all parents: ask yourselves this: if you kid had to choose between a) a porn movie, b) a pack of cigarettes, c) a bottle of whiskey and d) play games with you, what would they choose? if the answer is not d, i would suppose something has already gone horribly wrong with the kid.
personally, i had all that stuff when i was a kid. i was never encouraged to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, but there was no ban on it, either. i also was pretty uninterested in my large collection of sex-educational books (which were so explicit they would be outlawed in probably more than half of the states here). i had other things in mind. the sex books were interesting - i read at least half of one before i got bored. alcohol tasted gross, same with cigarettes.
back to the 11 year old daughter and the x-rated movie: if you went with her, it would be a mixture of not understanding and being bored. it would be weirder for you than for her. it wouldn't be very helpful for her, but it wouldn't harm her. you could do much worse things, like sitting her down in front of the TV instead of spending time with her.
While this is one form of 'Security through Obscurity' that I would support as a parent, I feel that in general, encouraging anonymity while at the same time warning against it smells of hypocracy. And I'm just a 29 yr old future parent..kids will pick up on it right away.
It's unfortunate that you have to protect your identity online, but what good is a global community of total strangers?
--
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
A mental disease? Aren't you jumping to conclusions here? Maybe he's just been thinking with his arse? If so, he probably just has a "headache" from "thinking" too hard.
All I can remember was thinking about how Bob Dylan passed that song along to Hendrix after hearing him play it. Oh and scoring on college freshman was beginning to look like cradle robbing after that but that's another story.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Ride that troll baby!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
We all HOPE its a photo touch up.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Hmmm, squid runs on my FreeBSD machines. I bet it'll work on OSX machines as well.
dave
If you have more than one computer in the house, then it's probably a good idea to have one internet connection which is shared by all computers. This way, you can have a proxy server on your gateway machine which logs all outgoing activity.
/., you know she's just gone "Eeeeuuuuuuwwwww!" and gone back to what she was reading. If, on the other hand, she's spent hours at kkk.org or some other extremist site, then you need to talk with her.
This is more reliable than looking through a browser cache, which will not cache some pages. If your kid has somehow gotten into a secure website, those pages won't be cached.
This way is somewhat like the telephone, in that she can use it all she wants, but when lots of long distance stuff turns up on the bill, you'll know about it.
The good thing about squid logfiles over browser caches is that you know if she's spent a lot of time at a particular site. If you logs show two seconds and goatse.cx and then back to
Personally, I wouldn't be worried too much about pr0n if it's not too extreme, but hate stuff, well, that would worry me.
dave
"although I suggest having her check "male" as her sex -- you are less likely to have teenage boys messaging her"
;)
It's not the teenage boys that you have to worry about, it's the 40 year old guys who say they are teenage boys.
I'm not against (legal) porn at all. I don't think that if a kid runs across porn on the Internet that it will somehow scar them for life. I also don't think that viewing porn will turn them into some sex-crazed pervert.
I believe those that are scarred or turned into perverts where either predisposed to this in the first place and that if it weren't the Internet it would be some other stimuli that triggered it, or come from an environment so violent and horrible that they where doomed from the start. The same thing holds true with video games not turning kids into homicidal axe wielding maniacs.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that such online activities should be encouraged, in fact they should be strictly forbidden.
However, I see the biggest threat on the Internet is chat rooms and REAL people. The problem there is that it would be very hard to prevent the kids from finding somewhere to chat. With the proliferation of IRC, web based chat, java based chat, not to mention all of the proprietary formats out there, it is almost impossible to either filter or quickly monitor their activities via a log of some sort.
Supervision is the only true answer, and in the real world in a lot of cases this just isn't an option. Unfortunate but true.
The bottom line is that your 11 year old daughter is MUCH safer doing anything she wants on the Internet than going to a mall or the movies by herself or even with friends.
If kids want porn, they'll get it, Internet or not. Trust me, I know!
load "linux",8,1
It's actually very simple. Don't worry about it. Kids only search on things that they care about after a bit. This doesn't mean they might not experiment, but the truth is at that age moral ambiguity is pretty darn boring. If you are concerned about nudity and such then just make the rules clear and tell her without a doubt that you can look at what she has looked at. Embarassment is a wonderful deterent.
Typically eleven year olds look up what eleven year olds are interested in. If you're concerned about Nazi's, bigotry, homosexuality, nudity, democracy, liberalism, conservatism, and all other sorts of wrongs reaching out and grabbing your daughter, then don't worry about it. They don't reach out and grab and kids find that kind of stuff, stupid, boring, insipid, noxcious, insulting, dumb, and gross.
Beware the wood elf!!!
there is no evidence that porn is harmful or that censorship is helpful.
Well, there is at least this much harm: as a parent, I want to be in charge of teaching my children what sex is all about, not some sleazeball porn auteur. Once the kids are adults, they're welcome to all the on-line porn they want.
I don't get bent out of shape over porn, because in the grand scheme of things it is only a tiny part of the problem, hardly worth worrying at all when compared to its big brothers: popular entertainment and advertising.
Before you write me off as a prude, it is not nudity or sex acts that I object to, its the context in which they are displayed. Entertainment depicts a world in which sex has no consequences or which conflates violence and sex -- OK as fantasy fare for adults who know better, but lousy sex-ed. Advertising is particularly pernicious: in order to sell they try to create discontent, and then they plant the idea that there are simple solutions to insecurity that can be bought.
I'm not worried that my kids will grow up worldly -- that would be a good thing. It's a false sophistication based on unrealistic or tainted sources.
We have a simple rule in my house: the children's media consumption is not private. As parents we feel sit in on it and engage the children in discussion about what they see or read. We take particular care to inculcate cynicism about commercials, although it's an uphill battle -- the advertisers have got it down to a science.
The same rules applies to Internet use as to any other media.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If I had to pick someone who would be an authority figure on whether women are hurt or offended by porn, who would it be? Why, a prominent leader in the Women's Civil Rights movement, of course. How about Betty Friedan, author of The Feminist Mystique and co-founder of the National Organization for Women? Surely nobody can take an AP American History course in high school and not recognize the name; we studied her pretty prominently in my course. And she was not only not against pornography, she actually supported it.
These women are only devalued if they allow themselves to be. In the past, they were certainly undervalued, but that's why the Women's Suffrage and Women's Liberation movements came about. Were the situation as severe as people claim, this wouldn't be a few women who claim to be feminists fighting against porn -- it would be a genuine uprising, led by women's leaders. But it's not. Porn does not make women worthless.
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
For the unaware, Cliff was refering to John Stuart Mill, an 18th-century British philosopher who wrote of "the tyranny of the masses," or "the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling." Mill was noting that logic and reason were being subverted by emotional arguments that appealed to the masses. It's a elitist perspective, but IMHO it's a very valid observation.
This is exactly what's happening here -- as the Salon piece very elegantly expresses, there is no evidence that porn is harmful or that censorship is helpful. In fact, it seems to me only reasonable to think the opposite. I may be biased -- but I'm a 17-year-old who's seen plenty of porn (please don't take that the wrong way), but I'm not some psychotic, violent madman or a pedophiliac. In fact, I'm first in my high school class (finishing my Junior year within the week), I'm looking at top-teir colleges, and I spent my Tuesday night last week being a productive member of my community by lobbying against an issue before the local township council (I won't get into the details of that, but as long as I'm bragging, I think I'll note that I've also finally hit the karma cap =). To see people claim that I should have all kinds of mental problems is, to be, downright offensive. This categorization is wrong, but the majority of people believe it, and that is reflected by our society.
But I think that a lot of the Slashdot crowd sees the argument put forth in the Salon article -- that censorship does not protect children, but instead leaves them unable to cope with the realities of the outside world. (There's a very enlightened judge who ruled recently that children "cannot be raised in a bubble" -- see the ruling for more.) That's why I'm such a fan of peacefire's advocacy.
But I digress. The point is, Mill's quote is the perfect embodiment of the phenomenon we're seeing here -- that is, the popular view that children must be "protected." Unfortunately, as long as the masses remain uneducated, we're fighting a losing battle. I don't know what can be done to counteract this, but I sure it hope somebody else can come up with something, and soon -- before people like me are no longer able to access these things, and are no longer able to realize this common fallacy.
Once again, Kudos to Cliff for showing once again that occasionally the slashdot editors do make very insightful commentaries in and of themselves (especially Jamie, who's written many great anti-censorship articles). Hopefully we've enlightened another person or two today.
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
He can find the best pR0n faster than I can.
as a parent of two, let me fill you in on a little secret: the only way you're going to know what your kids are up to is to spend time with them. in other words, get off your lazy ass and spend time with them. especially if you only have her 2 days a week. sheesh.
Ah yes, the easy route: flaming. How about instead of just shooting from the hip you come up with something workable? This guy is obviously concerned about his kid, and the only suggetion you can give is "spend more time with them"? Christ, man, that's a given considering the tone of the orginal message.
Oh yeah, and I'm a parent.
Here's my suggestion to the original question: Don't worry about censorware. Just occasionally scan her history, cache, etc., & talk to her in a non-confrontational way about anything you that gives you pause. Censorware usually just pisses kids off and makes them become much better with circumvention than they otherwise would have been.
- Rev.and while your opinions won't be absolutely followed all the time like it was when she was 5
:-)
Heh. In my dreams. I'd be speechless if my 3 year old listened to my opinion
Instead of trying to shield the kids from real life, you should take out two birds with one stone and teach them something about it in the process.
If I ever have kids, I'm going to set up a packet snooping / TA system to figure out exactly what they are doing online, and teach them about the lack of privacy on the Internet from the begining. And when they are smart enough to circumvent my spying with encryption, anonymizers, and mixnets, then they have proved they are smart enough to handle whatever they may see...
&& oskar
So I went to my parents. They're cheating a bit. My kid sister is only 4 years older than my own daughter, so they're forced to deal with some of the same current issues. Their solution? "AOL Parent Controls".
There are some areas where traditional support models just don't work. Seeking advice of one's peers is certainly appropriate here.
That I was born when I was born, and had my computer when I did...
I mean, my parents didn't know anything about it. My dad tried to learn programming with me - but I eventually outpaced him in a few weeks (I do remember playing video games with him - oh the days of going one on one with pops)...
Anyhow, when I was 13 I got my first modem, and started making connections with other people - full on strangers, most of them adults! Also connections with other machines as well...
As I grew older, I learned to download various images - which were - ahem - not exactly the cleanest of material. I remember gaining access to various hacker and bomb making texts, and reading them - even to the point of taking them with me to school to read over more. I remember coding as soon as I got home from school, and doing so until I fell asleep at night...
On the weekend, more time on the computer. My parents were nearly oblivious, though they encouraged me to go outside more, they never physically barred me access to my machine, unless I got bad grades (talk about withdrawal!). If I wasn't on the computer, I was reading, or doing something equally "geeky".
Oh, I almost forgot - the people and machines? BBS's... Images - Mac PICT files and Atari ST images, among others... Programming in BASIC, playin' Asteroids and Missle Command on my Atari 2600 with dad... Hacker and Bomb texts courtesy of MetalShop BBS (among others)... My computer - a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with 64K and a 300 baud modem - ah, the 80's...
The question in my mind is - where would I be today if my parents were as worried about me then (about "online" activity) as parents are worried today. I am not saying it is the same, but I wonder how this is affecting kids...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Packet sniffers would probably work great for spot checking if you have a kid developing early signs of 7337n335. The appropriatly filtered log of a packet sniff of junior's workstation might make him rethink his so-called leetness. Kiddies do get caught now and again and I would rather it be me than a pissed off sysadmin or FBI agent who teaches that lesson.
Of course, the technically apt kids of technically apt parents should be taught better in the first place. Right?
$file /home/mykid/* | grep jpeg
/home/mykid/dadwillneverfigurethisout.imsoleet:
JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01, aspect ratio, 1 x 1, "Check out the tits on her!!!!"
muhahahaha!
Like another poster said, when my kid can circumvent my surveilence then he is probably ready to handle what he finds.
I started reading some of the responses, and was somewhat troubled. Fortunatly the moderation system seems to be working, and more intelligent people were percolating to the top, but some of the idiocy that pervails here and elsewhere is scary.
First the recomended article is not revelant to the discussion at hand. Most would agree that regulating the internet from a FEDERAL AGENCY is a violation of the first amendment, and not practical either. That was the entire 5 page rant in the referenced article. What brought about the rant? Someone not wanting to show a kid things that might be inappropiate in HIS OWN HOUSE. That is the crucial difference.
Freedom of speech means that I can say or publish pretty much what ever I want in a public fashon. There are limits to this, but for most cases I can say what I want. It does not mean that someone can't prevent me from saying things in his house or on his property. Public places such as stores or schools (even private ones) can be somewhat different, but private residences have no obligation to allow for total freedom of speech. The owner of the property can say what is or is not permissible.
However in the mind of the author of the salon article, censoring what is in your own house seems to be exactly the same as a governmental regulation. It is not.
Then there are the comments about the ratings system. Movies cutting stuff down to get the R rating, They also add gratutious violence and sex to the story just to get an R rating, because R rated movies make more money. Rather than eliminating it as suggested in the article, expanding it would be better. It lets me know what is in the movie, and if I want to see it for myself.
On that, I have seen no ratings system that is adequate. Most have one type of sex, one type of violence, one setting for foul language. I would submit that there is a difference in the violence protrayed in "Saving Private Ryan", or "Shindler's List", and that protrayed in "The Matrix". Any ratings system should refelct the difference.
The reactions here also distressed me:
IMHO, there is NO ethical way to monitor another human being. Privacy in my world comes ahead of security or well-being.
This person is obviously never dealt with any children. Should infants not be monitored on what they put in their mouths? Should older children not be monitored as to where they go and what they do? To fail to do so often results in the death of the child. Is this individual saying that needless death is more desirable than simple parental supervision?
Then there is the other side, someone recomenging that logging every keystroke website, image and whatever else be monitored. This is usually completely inappropiate (unless as a completely last resort before cutting off all internet access).
The advice in the bottom of the article was pretty good. I would venture that the best method to monitor internet access would be that internet access is only available when you are present, (not too hard in the instance of the question), and to keep the machine in a 'public' area of the house. If you are wandering through the room from time to time going about your business, it is unlikely in the extreme that any normal kid would surf to sites that they think you might find questionable.
Spot monitoring would not be a bad idea either. I would start by checking the cached pages, and history files. Most browsers to this for your convinence, and shouldn't be difficult to check. If the history or chache disappears, simple questions as to what might have happened would be appropiate.
Monitoring of whatever chat analog is a bit more important. Although the number of pedofiles using chat to get at kids is overstated, the danger is sitll there and very real. Checking into her chat sessions is really no different than getting to know her friends. It isn't really analogous to monitoring phone calls, because phone calls are not random individuals who call into some pool that lets them talk with others. You have to know the phone number and how to get in touch.
I would also like some program that would set off an audible alert if someone opens an email attachment, or tries to run some cutsey program from an attachment. Doing the latter should not run the program. It should shut off internet access deliver an aversion shock to the person who tried to run it, deliver an aversion shock to the person who sent it, and then delete the offending program. This would not only be available for kids but to install on the machine of any luser.
Lastly, I would suggest a stern talk about giving out any personal information. No phone numbers, street addresses, cities, or even real names. Email addresses should even be watched closely, for obvious reasons.
Respect for privacy is important, but there are things that eleven year olds aren't equiped to handle yet, and very real dangers. A balence between the two is important. As long as a kid is responsible, the monitoring would be kept to simply having the computer where the screen can be seen. Some other simple precautions protect the kids from other problems, and actually protect their privacy (monitoring them for giving out personal information for instance), or even their lives.
As kids get older they can be trusted a bit more. Some of the monitoring can go away.
There are ethical ways to 'monitor' what kids do on the internet, most don't require much work or technical expertise. Just a little bit of time spent with the kids. Done right, the monitoring can be kept to a minimum, mostly to assure the safety of the kids, their privacy from strangers (more important than privacy from parents), and to prevent more spreading of useless email viruses and trojans.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns
You are right, but I gathered he mainly wanted an ethical technical approach to his situation. Where better than /. to get ethical technical approaches? Microsoft?
--
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
And there also is squidblock for those who want a canned set of "bad" sites to block right off the bat. They build the list from user input. And if you want to, there are any number of proxy log reporting tools out there, too, to generate reports of sites visited.
--
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
because then children would grow up to be adults with too much diversity in their values and morals. and that leads to disruptive dissagreements within the society...such as people thinking they should be able to sample music for free before they decide to buy it....or feeling that they should be able to grow and smoke any ole plant they want.
(yes, i'm being sarcastic)
Have another computer act as a proxy/firewall/masquerading gateway. :)
The firewall will protect a bit the workstation, and the proxy will log every request, so that you can know what your children downloaded. And you will save bandwidth
{{.sig}}
Dude, it's a MAC! squid is for *nix!
> i bet you don't like being monitored by feds
> guess who the equivalent is to her
Given that by the time she's 18, the feds will be monitoring everything she does anyways, perhaps it's a good idea to get her used to the idea of Big Brother Watching Her now, before she has to. Better she learn how to "act normal" in front of the folks than in front of the Fed.
(And on the flip side - if she's bound and determined to work her way around the logger, and finds an effective way to do so... more power to her.)
My choice of logging tool: Ethernet sniffer, hooked up to OpenBSD box. OpenBSD box is hooked up to an old dot-matrix printer. Every 15 minutes, a URL is printed in hardcopy, at random. The complete log is stored on the hard drive. The sniffer also logs GROUP and ARTICLE commands on port 119, SMTP headers, etc. but to save on diskspace, drops inbound data on the floor. Basically, your own private Carnivore.
<MODE=BOFH>
...and the logfile is encrypted with Dad's public key. Dad doesn't have to read the log entries to know if the OpenBSD box has been compromised and the logs have been tampered with. All Dad has to do is fail to be able to decrypt the logs with his private key.
</MODE>
If they want access to a site with adult content, then you have your chance to discuss it and you can approve it if you feel they're ready for it.
:-/
Speaking as a former teenager, you're dreaming. If you wait for your kids to come to you with questions about sex you'll be waiting a looooong time. Their friends and peers will tell them way before you get a chance to. And they'll be fed false information - unless they're lucky enough to be friends with Sakura, whose parents are wise enough to have taught her the truth about sex at an early age.
I learned about sex from my friend's stepdad's pr0n video collection. My folks never talked to me about that stuff...oh except when I started my period, my mom talked to me about cramps.
"Smear'd with gumms of glutenous heat, I touch..." - Comus, John Milton
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
you said only an awareness of what she surfs.
as a parent of two, let me fill you in on a little secret: the only way you're going to know what your kids are up to is to spend time with them. in other words, get off your lazy ass and spend time with them. especially if you only have her 2 days a week. sheesh.
This may sound leftwing but parents today are afraid to talk to their kids. They are often afraid of devestating them, of hurting them, or of loving them too much. When it comes to the internet, parents have a lot of responsibility. Kids have ability to controll themselves, but not if they are easily tempted. The internet is a huge temptation. It will not work to have the computer in a family room, the kids will come down at night and look at porn then if they are determined to do so. In our current society there is no way to truely controll access to anything. If a kid wants to use the Internet for somthing "immoral" they are going to do it. The way to prevent them from hurting themselves, love them. Talking to kids about how you are going to monitor them. Even not monitering them works. Offering them to get off and do somthing useful works. Your example is the most important to the kids. When they see you using the internet for only buisness and useful things, and they see a lifestyle example they will follow it. Believe it or not, books like this suck.
"If a man watches 3 football games in a row he should be declared leagaly dead" - A
Especially if the computer is in a place you can see, which is a good suggestion of Jamie's. Those times that she gets to a porno site, whether deliberately or accidentally, it is horribly embarassing to a kid not to be able to get back out of it. So instead of leaving her locked into those insane sites that won't let you leave, disable JavaScript and give her the option of exiting gracefully.
>Way back a while ago (...), ancient prosperous
>cultures' peoples got married at age 13 and had
>babies.
and they lived all the way into their 30's too!
I keep a tail-f of squids log running in a window of the house router system. That helps a little bit. Having the main kid computers in the living room is also good - 2 systems side by side help the kids watch each other - as well as help each other.
I do recall mention of an interesting hack on Slasdot. I believe it was running at networld/Interop or perhaps a linux world conference. Basically, it grabbed jpegs and gifs off the ethernet which were floating by as part of other peoples surfing and displayed them on a large display. I would love to run this at home, it would be very obvious if kids got into certain types of sites of concern. Does anyone recall this tidbit and have refrences ???
enough is too much
My step-daughter's now 16, and a bit more "worldly" than I'd like to admit. But she's had net access for the last 5 years, pretty much freely, and virtually unfettered access for the last 3.5 years.
... and we nailed him, too.
I do networking for a living. I've periodically dropped a sniffer on her stream and captured content to see what's going on. My wife and I have discreetly used the garnered info, when we've felt we had to, to forestall some potentially hairy problems.
I *don't* want to admit that she's going to have sex as a teenager. But, you know, overall she's a pretty sharp kid, and we do NOT monitor her activity on the Web tightly. We have not had the need to do so for some time: her judgement and her decisions to come to me with 'Net-related questions and problems have indicated she is pretty safe on the Web all by herself.
We had the "It's a mean Net out there" talk back when she was first starting, and again about 18 months ago. She knows she can always come to me with stuff regarding the Net and the Web. And she has, even coming for advice when a friend of hers started having someone spoof her mail to friends in a particularly offensive way
I tend to agree: Trust and time are the keys. And while I've monitored, I've also trusted... Consider the monitoring a form of verification, and realize that we take our role in shaping her life pretty seriously.
g.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by tenure.
What does the word ethical and kids have to do with each other? As we've seen by the courts and school system, kids are our slaves.
--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
But at the same time, the capability to make major decisions comes in large part from experience. It also comes with non-experiential learning; I've never felt household AC current run through my body, but I'm still pretty damn cautious when working around the stuff (of course, I usually just unplug whatever I happen to be afraid of shocking myself with). Both of these things take time, and both of these are reasons that we [as a society] try to slowly increase rights and responsibilities.
Unfortunately, as the Salon article points out, the legal world seems to view anyone under 18 as "without these rights and responsibilities" and anyone over 18 "with these rights and responsibilities". As the article recognizes, and as the real world usually recognizes, it's not a binary situation. Most states even recognize this in driving laws, whether just by allowing minors of a certain age to drive, or even by graduated restrictions on driving.
Bottom line: even if children aren't stupid, they don't have the innate ability to make good decisions. Hopefully, they develop that ability over time and grow to be productive, good-decision-making adults. Sometimes they don't; sometimes they get teh opportunity to make a bad decision before they understand that decision and that's it; sometimes they make a bad decision even though they know the consequences; sometimes shit just happens. And, then, sometimes, things just don't work out that way and they end up serving in the US Congress.
One way is to have her browse via a proxy server (eg squid). This would allow you to keep aware of where she surfs. This only tracks web sites though.
Thanks for sharing.
It sounds like you had a bad experience with porn. It also sounds like you did the responsible thing by shutting off your access to porn.
It's like anything else. Lots of people drink socially. Some people touch any quantity of alcohol and wind up binging. Lots of people spend a few bucks gambling for fun. Some people won't leave the slots until their all their credit cards are redlined and their car is in hock.
We tried Prohibition here. The result was Alfonse Capone. We tried outlawing gambling. The result was the numbers' rackets. Everyone has their own weakness, and they need to learn to wrestle with it.
I'm genuinely happy that you're doing the right thing. Just don't assume that your weakness is everybody else's weakness. As individuals, we all have different things that get under our skin.
j.
(If I don't get my chocolate soon, so help me God I'm gonna strangle someone!!!!!)
Of Course! It's really simple. Tell the kid that caches will only be cleaned out by YOU. Empty cache: no web access! That way, she knows that anything she sees can be seen by you as well. Still, it is critical that you talk to her beforehand so she knows what the deal is and that she should talk to you when she comes across pr0n, neo-nazis, snuff and Slahdot!
I like this paragraph from Salon's article so much I'm going to repeat it. I'd like you all to read it again, too...
Listen, I know the libertarian spirit is at the heart of so much that is dear to the OpenSource community in general and the Slashdot set in particular. But come on. This is an intellectual community as well as a zealously independent one. Without digressing into discussions about censorships, without exploding into self-righteous rage about Columbine, videogames, Marilyn Manson, and the whole bloody first amendment, does anyone here accept the statement above as being absolutely, inarguably honest and true?
The article is written by a FILM CRITIC, employed by one of the most left-leaning publications currently in existence on the Internet.
People interested in studies that correlate attitudes towards sex and violence to exposure will find that there are countless studies on the subject ("oh, here is one of them!), written by social scientists, media theorists, and other sorts who've a little more going for them than the sheer force of their own bias. I have yet to see a credible study that concludes as Mr. Taylor concludes.
That Slashdot would reference the Salon article in the laudatory manner that it does is an embarrassment.
For the record kids (and those of you who are intellectually immature), the problem isn't simply one of children seeing sex & violence on television. The problem is the context in which the behaviors they witness are portrayed. The problem is exacerbated by parents who set their children down in front of the tube for hours on end and relinquish their own parental responsibility to love their children, teach their children, discipline their children and foster their children's intellectual development.
You want a study, Mr. Taylor, from someone other than a religious whacko? Get your ass to Amazon, pick up a copy of Neil Postman's "The End of Childhood". See what an agnostic social theorist, one of the greatest cultural critics alive, has to say about the matter. You'll learn, among other things, that childhood as we all know it didn't exist 300 years ago, it is a social construct, created in America, as a by-product of our education system. Our country committed itself to the education of children for the express purpose of producing an intellectually sophisticated citizenry. The schooling system that was created was in part created to allow for a "progressive revelation", exposing children to information which built upon an increasingly complex set of rules (which assumed a prior set of rules had already been taught). As much as anything, information restriction served to protect much of the social construct of childhood. They were protected from, yes PROTECTED FROM information. It was revealed to them in stages such that they were prepared to receive it. All the while, they received not only information but knowledge (from parents and authorities) and also wisdom. As terrifying as it sounds, they were taught to distinguish right from wrong. STOP THE PRESSES! HOW BLOODY PURITANICAL! LITERALLY! TAUGHT RIGHT FROM WRONG! BUT WHO IS TO DETERMINE WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG! WHY, NO ONE CAN DO THAT!
Actually, some one can (and should) do that. Parents are supposed to do that. And if parents did a better job of it these days, we wouldn't be in the societal mess we're in.
I'm not here to advocate censorship. If anyone starts babbling about that, I pity you. I'm advocating parental responsibility. Teach your children how to contextualize what they see. Teach them how to process the information they are exposed to. If you abdicate the education of your children to the media, for pete's sake, DON'T COMPLAIN WHEN YOUR KID WATCHES JACKASS AND SETS HIMSELF ON FIRE. And please, teach them how to reject laughably biased nonsense like the Salon.com paragraph above, so they don't end up thinking its genius and including it in SLASHDOT post as if God himself had etched it in the stone on Mt. Sinai.
TANGENTIAL RANT
What is also truly sad, what is also truly pitiable, is to see the injustice that our own education system perpetuates through continually lowered standards and so-called progressive learning techniques. Does the fact that our education system is pumping out illiterate boneheads by the thousands, teaching them that there aren't really right-or-wrong-answers to questions ("what is important is how-you-feel!") bother anyone? That self-declared film critics can write paragraphs like the one above, and be LAUDED by others instead of derided? Well, if these things don't bother you now, wait until your seventy, and you're sitting there asking yourself how come your grandchildren are drooling idiots who can't wipe their own arses. See if you're laughing when you find it out it was because they didn't get a Ph.D in Anal Hygienics, and no-one else in the country knows how to do it anymore.
almost 11 is just a child. NOT A SMALL ADULT. Some people get the two confused.
You wont need to moniter her if you have both a strong relationship and rules. If the relationship is not there forget the rules, the relationship MUST be there first.
Sensorware is only there to keep honest people honest. I use squid/squidguard with a php interface for banned sites. My son can add a site or remove a site from the blacklist. But he knows that I will be emailed a copy of the transaction.
Get a free ipod.
The real question is how did your wife *not* get custody of your step-daughter? That, in and of itself, is a bigger mystery than preventing her from surfing porn or ESR gun propaganda.
(Of course, it could be your step daughter from a previous marriage, but % are probably against her visiting that frequently...)
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
How exactly would you explain www.goatse.cx to your eleven year old daughter? I don't have kids, but the thought of having to try and explain that phenomena to another *adult* scares me.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Okay, but that doesn't solve everything. Granted, I grew up with BBS's instead of the big bad internet, but file swapping was not unheard of.
The computer was (wisely) kept in the family dining room, and not my bedroom or other "private" place. But I'm sure that... eh... had I wanted to swap some pr0n, I probably could've waited until after my parents went to bed and done all the bad stuff I wanted. Hypothetically, I mean.
So, um, what was that thing about squid again?
---
Every week I post the squid logs with prostat and some self generated perl scripts which post up all the users sites and hostnames (not the actual urls)
It seems to help, sometime during that period that I started posting the logs the britney spears porn sites stopped being in the top 10 and the more common ebay is closer to the top every week.
My step-daughter is almost 11 and, though she's only with her mother and me every other weekend By my standards this would qualify as a total wreck of a family, and accessibility of the Internet would be the least problem for the daughter. Then again, I am not American. What an interesting, ignorant thing to say, you Non-American, you. Being a Canadian and the son of divorced parents, I know that divorces are quite common in North America. When a couple gets divorced (and this has been going on for quite a while) usually one parent gets custody of the kids and the other parent gets visitation rights. All of that is decided in family court. It sounds to me as though the guy asking the /. question gets to see his step-daughter every two weeks (which is also typical). There is also joint custody where the child bounces back and forth, spending equal time with both parents - which I can imagine is probably not very good for the child.
So now is the time to take your Non-American foot out of your Non-American mouth and WAKE UP. Divorces are bound to be more common in the future wherever you are too!
----- rL
A software solution on the PC or Mac the kid is using isn't really ideal, because even with password protection, the kid could still defeat your ability to see where she's been.
:-)
Perhaps some kind of proxy server that logs the websites she's been to might be the way to go.
Ask someone else for links
~J
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
I can't disagree strongly enough. Kids should be able to EARN some privacy by displaying responsible behavior, but what they are ENTITLED to is adult supervision.
A responsible sixteen year old should have a fair bit of privacy. The question was about an eleven year old, who should have virtually none. (outside the obvious, showering, dressing, etc.)
Don't forget we are talking about the Internet here. The Internet at its best is a useful research tool, a place to build communities, and a powerful way for people to understand each other better. At its worse, it is a red-light district minus cops and a reasonable ability to guess how old patrons are.
Bottom line, what kids ARE entitled to is parents to supervise them, and don't give them enough freedom to make major mistakes until they are old enough to handle that freedom.
When a thirteen year old becomes pregnant it is the parent who has failed. Unfortunately it is the child who lives with the consequences. It is also the child who is MOST in need of being molded who is now treated as an adult, because she has a child of her own.
What's ethical about that?
-Peter
You know, it takes 15 seconds to make a girl pregnant.
;-)
Hey, speak for yourself on that one!
[I]f a thirteen year old becomes pregnant it is the parent who has failed. But in my opinion, it is more likely that the parent has failed to grant privacy when s/he should have.
Hmm, I think there is a phenomenon that you are describing here that you don't really understand. It is when a child is too SHELTERED that this happens, not too supervised.
It is VERY important that a child be exposed to things as he grows up. Keeping a child in a bubble until 18 then letting him loose on the world is just as unfair as letting him loose on the world at seven. You see, it is the SAME problem, he doesn't have the EXPERIENCE to make good decisions.
Where we seem to disagree is that I think that it is parents' job to see to it that this experience happens in a controlled way, stepping in before something that isn't easily undone happens.
You seem to think that kids will just know how to do the right thing if you don't bug them too much. I think you are dead wrong.
-Peter
I hate to chime in so late but . . .
I take issue with the premise of the question.
It is your ethical duty TO monitor your kids. That is what parents are there to do, monitor, guide, and mold their children. If you AREN'T monitoring them your are failing them.
Now, it is obviously good to build trust with your kids, but it is better for your kids to think your too nosy than to end up dead in a ditch.
I don't know why, but people seem to think that 1. kids are small adults and 2. that parents are supposed to be a built in best friend.
Your kids should respect you. If you treat them like miniature adults that are your best buddy they won't. And you are setting them up for problems.
Today's unsupervised eleven year old is tomorrow's "out of control teen" on daytime TV.
-Peter
Monitor all the traffic with a proxy server- including your own surfing, and go over the logs together. The best way you can teach is to set a good example.
Many kids will accidentally go to someplace like whitehouse.com and get the suprise of their life- as long as they understand that is something they should not be looking at- that should be fine, lesson learned, and they know not to go there again. Eventually the kid will see something you find morally troubling- and so will you. Take the time to explain what you think is wrong about things like that. The child needs to know why she shouldn't be browsing something, more than just "bad place- stay away!"
Why would "birth control information sites" be inappropriate?
Have you ever been at http://www.durex.com/? What exactly is inappropriate with that site?
Here in New Zealand, they're currently debating the shortage of people that may sterilise women (because there's currently a lot of low-income women getting a lot of kids). I haven't heard the word "condom" being mentioned once in the debate. Condoms even protect against AIDS; it's the only thing that does (apart from not having sex).
Wait! I'm from Sweden and I'm in an old British colony, why should I be surprised?!
Never mind, some people never learn.
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
If I or my partner installed loggers and other kinds of baby-sitter software on the computers at home and my kids didn't detect and disable them, I wouldn't let them use the computers at all.
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
AussiePenguin
Melbourne, Australia
ICQ 19255837
Jeremy
Melbourne, Australia
Jabber Australia
(oh filter, please do not mark my comment at 0 because of the short length --)
there is no thing
what else could you want?
I'm not interested in blocking her access, only an awareness of what she surfs so that if I find it to be a morally touchy issue, we can discuss it.
You are, without doubt, the biggest pussy ever. Gosh, don't "inhibit" your 11 yr old step daughter. Nice parenting skills. No wonder your wife only has every-other-weekend access to the kid. Here's a clue, it's your job to protect the kid from herself. Search her room, find out everything she does and if it's wrong, STOP HER. It's your job, fuckhead.
"Oh my god, dad! That man and that woman... they were... kissing each other! And fucking! And they enjoyed it! That's so horrible!"
God forbid you expose a child to sex instead of rotting their brain with Teletubbies or feeding that ultraviolence the media says is lurking within this generation by letting them watch Die Hard 7.
Granted, if you do opt to let your kid watch an X-rated movie, please, PLEASE don't make it a Max Hardcore flick.
Kids (as all of us) have a natural curiosity. What does a more effective job keeping them away from drugs? An hour of you telling them how bad they are or an hour watching a (heroin/alcohol/etc.) addict going through withdrawls? Give them an hour of the most horrifying porn and other detritus you can find on the internet and you'll never have to worry about censoring your kids.
You'll just have to worry about the alimony and therapy bills.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Use a squid proxy or some toher mean to log the address and title of only sites that contain certain keywords. Then a quick scan of the logfiles at your leisure can see if she's been abusing her privlidges, without maintaining a privacy-endagering log of every site she visits.
I have to say that as a George Carlin fan, I am shocked that you first attribute this to Blink 182, Carlin has been saying that list of words since the 70's. I hope it is just because you didn't know of him in the first place.....
I'm a 21 year old male that has in the past seen a lot of porn and I would have to disagree with your idea that porn is not harmful. I first started looking at porn when I was ~17. My views of women started changing in an unhealthy way. I started looking at women as sex ojects instead of human beings with emotions just like us (well probably more fragile emotions in some ways). Most women don't want this in a man but might settle on it because men (actually anyone) with morals are becoming much harder to find nowadays. I luckily realized that my view was changing along with the way I treated women but I had a very hard time stopping my viewing of porn. What I finally had to do is install a program called WeBlocker with a password that I don't know. I'm sure the same kind of thing can happen to women and thus it is better to block porn before it can do any harm. I do also suggest though that the parent should explain why porn (or any other site deemed harmful) is not appropriate.
Linux Dashes, NT Crashes...
What was the site? Was it so bad that you couldn't just sit down and show it to her, with you around? Why was she so curious to see it?
Seems to me that punishing her for being curious, even about something that's off limits to her, is only going to make her more curious and possibly even more deceitful. In my experience, grounding only serves to make kids cleverer at finding ways to sneak around and do the forbidden thing.
I think the better response would have been to talk to her about why she wanted to see the site, what she thought was in there, and then actually show her some of it (even if it's really perverted or "adult" - like Salon says, kids can handle a lot more than we give them credit for).
Your response was a bit too harsh.
Was that out loud?
Ctrl-H. It's even pretty cross-browser and cross-platform :)
Unless the little bugger figures out how to clear the history. Then you plop the puter in the living room.
Another possible solution is to install a TV-out device and set it to whatever channel you don't use for your VCR and flip to "The KidSnoop Channel" whenever you want.
--- It's THAN, not THEN, moron! Fnord.
Simple just put a entery in you hosts file or DNS server ,if you run one, that points you to google or some where else. Or you you run a proxy server setup a redirector. Here is web site with directions on how to set it up
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Now that I have your attention let me explain.
My three children ages 3,8,and 10 enjoy using the internet for recreation, communication, and education (my 3 year old doesn't quite get the internet although she does enjoy a Blues Clues game). I know both the advantages and disadvantages of "unfettered" internet access.
As a father I teach my children the values, morals, and virtues that I know. But I recognize also that over the years I have disagreed with some of the things I was taught as a child, and have since formed my own opinions.
So I leave room in the things I teach my children so that they may enjoy the rewards (and disappointments) they may reap from forming their own opinions should they disagree with what I have taught them and raised them around.
But to extrapolate the generally negative stigma associated with censorship to responsible parenting without giving consideration for a childs natural mental or emotional development and maturity is really out of context with what censorship is at the parent/child level!
But understand this, in my opinion, parenting is not a democracy. My children have rights it is true, but as their father I decided they do NOT get "unfettered" access to the internet. As my wife and I grow with our children, and their maturity level increases as they grow toward their teen years, their mother and I learn to "open up" more information available to them. This includes material they view in the traditional media as well as via the internet.
Because we communicate with our kids and set very defined boundries on internet usage and time, our kids have enjoyed their experiences with the internet.
Because I was once a kid and understand those boundries will be tested, I do monitor where they are clicking and what they are viewing. I do not infringe on their curiosities. But I do recognize at these ages they are not able or ready to handle a lot of material available on the internet. As a parent it is not only my responsibility to help teach my children is also my responsibility to guide them in learning. Sometimes censoring what they view on the internet is part of being a responsible parent.
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
To say that a child at the age of 11 has a right to view everything on the internet as a statement against censorship is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I mean there are way worse things to worry about than whether or not you are censoring stuff off of the internet. I mean...why not just allow your daughter to go to an X-rated movie at the age of 11...I mean if you didn't allow it you would be censoring her right? Right?!
I'm still working on a clever footer.
i.e. don't make the net her babysitter. If she's going to surf the net, surf it with her.
> You just have to be honest about how things
:)
> are: some people like to be whipped, f*ck
> animals, etc... Just always tell that most
> people are *not* like that.
Why do you have to tell them most people are not like that? Can't you just say that "sex is a very complex topic, and lots of people like lots of different things" - I think thats much more truthful myself.
Or use the analogy that sex is like cartoons. Not everyone likes every cartoon, and most people think that most cartoons arn't all that good. However, for every cartoon, theres a bunch of people that do like it alot
> The biggest problem with kids being online
> is the eventual freaks on chat/forums.
Hmmm theres alot of people, both online and in real life, who would be considered freaks and are completely harmless. Its the ones who apear normal that are the danger.
Much like in the real world, this is blown way out of proportion. Its really quite a rare occurance.
> And if they search for evil-things,
> well...then they knew it existed in the first
> place and you really should start to worry.
Nah, many kids are naturally curious or just like learning about "evil-things". It doesn't mean anything. Its often just more ammo for "grossing out" friends.
Kind of like the time I gave a friend of mine a floppy full of porn and purposfully made sure that one (just one) of the pictures on the disk was one of a woman sucking off a horse.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
As silly as I think the goatse stuff is...
is the picture there REALLY so bad that you feel thge need to sheild yourself from it?
Hell I knew about it long before the slashdot crowd found it. Heh I thought it was funny myself.
Really people, its not that bad. Its just a picture. Stop complaining about it and maybe the trolls will stop posting links to it.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
hmmm interesting...
why is the picture titled motorcycle I have to wonder. Ive seen that pic before, and it was described as a picture of someone who had something explode in his mouth.
Having fallen off a motorcycle at speed (not fun) I can tell you that alot of sliding and tumbling is involved. The wound doesn't look at all like it was caused by either of those. (the wound doesn't look "directional")
Oh well... its way off topic. Thats a good pic for kids to see. "This is why you don't put fireworks in your mouth".
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I disagree - strongly!
First of all, I think the amount of material on the net which one could argue is unsuitable for is over estimated. I will not claim that the data on network traffic is wrong, but after having used the net actively for eight years, I don't think I have ever downloaded such material unintentionally (although I think quite a bit of it may have arrived in my mail box).
Second, the net can be an exellent tool for gathering information for your work (or studies or hobby) and at some point kids have to learn to use this tool (along with libraries, newspapers and other information sources).
So no, I find parents who don't teach their kids how to collect and evaluate information, whether through the net or through more traditional means, irresponsible (and probably unfit to be parents).
Jacob
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.
History! You know, that icon that can show where you went and when you went. Just beef up the history-log to 30 days or something, and manually check the sites your daughter has visited the past week. Disallow clearing the history-log. It doesn't need to be harder than that.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Actually I have never seen an article from Salon as a must read ... they really beat the same dead horse over and over again. See: "Bushed" (I read it cause it just makes me mad while I take a crap - ty AvantGo)
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
We (Swell Technology and a few brave volunteers) are starting a community generated and edited block list project called Penguin Feet which will be located at www.penguinfeet.org. The system will be free, easy to use, and based on GPLed tools, and the list will be publicly accessible at all times--and more importantly the project will be entirely accountable to the community that develops it. No more blocking Time magazine for running an anti-censorship article, no more blocking PeaceFire, no more blocking Amnesty International, or NOW. It will be about blocking those sites that are judged by a number of volunteer and paid editors to be inappropriate for young children. The goal is to provide a free content control system that is as effective as any proprietary system.
Anyone wanting to help out by being a contributor (search for porn and hate sites and submit them), and editor (look at the found porn and hate speech), a coder (database and perl knowledge needed), an integrator (SquidGuard+Squid is first, if you've got ideas for doing this on any other proxy contact me), or a skeptic (complain about sites that are blocked that shouldn't be) should contact us at penguinfeet@swelltech.com.
Anyway...We're about a month or two away from first launch (gotta get the database box colocated on a fat pipe for running the porn sniffin' robot, among other things). I hope folks find it to be a nice alternative to the fascist tendencies of the proprietary blocking systems.
I guess I didn't make it clear...The list will be entirely human edited. No bot generated entries will go into the list unchecked. That's what I get for posting about it before the "Philosophy" page goes up.
All I know is I have a cousin who turned 18 a couple of months ago. She dropped out of high school and moved to California to live with some guy she met on the internet as her parents put it. I don't mean that her parents should have watched everything and used filters. But her parents did nothing and then didn't understand why she took off. (I could tell them, but that wouldn't help at this point.) All I can say is communication. Not you talking to them, you listening to them.
I don't have children; but when I was around 12 a parent took me into a porn shop and showed me around. It was an "educational field trip". We discussed sex, love, marriage, respect, gender differences, children, sexually transmitted desieses, condoms, toys, and even fingered through a few of the mags on the shelves. I could ask any questions I wanted -- indeed it was very easy to talk about the subject with just about every "no no" right there in plain view! I must say, after that I wasn't about o fall for any of the stupid games my friends were playing. Overall, since my parent had introduced it _on their terms_ they were not caught off guard, were very prepared and had the ability to "frame" the entire experience. This is important. I would do a field trip like this *before* your child hits puberty -- sex is a very natural and powerful activity and deserves respect; not talking about it breads fear and ignorance
We in the industry have this thing we like to call "a chair." When two are placed side by side in front of a computer, you generally have all the hardware you need to monitor computer usage.
sig fault
First things first -- I ran a BBS starting at the age of twelve. It had many, many thousands of adult pictures on it. I had my first 'net access when I was thirteen; this was before the web, but there was still plenty of pr0n to be found.
Now, I saw a whole bunch of stuff that probably should have warped my fragile little mind, and I was way too young for most of it. But despite that I've developed into a reasonably normal adult; I'm happily married, I have a healthy attitude towards women and sex -- I'm unscarred by the early porn exposure.
I've thought about this issue, of what to do when I have kids and need to worry about this sort of thing. I'm leaning towards the side of (once they reach twelve or so) giving them unrestricted net access and trusting them to be every bit as immature as I was, but learn a lot about life in the process.
Sounds weird, I know -- allowing my kids to be exposed to the evils of the net!! Well, everybody I know who didn't see pr0n on the net saw their older sibling's porno tapes (or whatever) at aoubt the same age I was, and I'm not convinced that shielding them from pornography really protects them in any way.
The basic question I asked myself is: how many people do I know that weren't exposed to pr0n and other evils at a young age? Well, nobody that I've asked. I first saw hardcore porn at about the age of ten, my wife was eleven or twelve, and all of my friends were similarly young.
And of those people, how many turned out the worse for it? Tough to tell, I know, because we all saw it, but I certainly don't feel screwed up by the experience. Maybe it's just part of growing up.
I know, I know, there are pedophiles and all sorts of other nasties out there -- true enough, but they're not all on the net. Casual conversation with a child will easily reveal any suspicious online "friendships", and I'm not convinced they're in any more danger online than off.
I'm certainly not saying what you should or should not do with your stepdaughter, but give some serious thought to how many people you know who had unfiltered net access at that age who grew up the worse for it.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
I missed your point, yes. I think I read a bunch of comments and just decided to reply to yours for all of them.
It takes dilligence, like you say. I have my first child on the way and am thinking about it non-stop.
sig is
Giving a child "freedom" to harm themselves isn't enlightened behaviour, but is itself childish.
/.'ers who can't claim the same.
Becoming a responsible person means that you actively influence others in a positive direction; those you are responsible for.
Shirking that responsibility doesn't mean that they weren't influenced, it just means that something else influenced them.
It is all about time. There is only so much time in the day. What you choose (or what is chosen) to become part of your day influences you in time. If you spend enough time practicing piano, you eventually become excellent. If you spend enough time reading great books, you eventually become well read. Most of us spent a great deal of our youth to attain some degree of fluency with programming or system administration. To allow pornography to be part of a child's day is depriving them of the good things that would instead nurture and form their minds.
If you think that web-pornography is an essential part of an 11 year old's daily information intake, then state that plainly. It is at least a tangible position, however equivalent it is to allowing anything they can get their hands on to be "fair game" for injesting.
If an 11 year old mind already has a subtle enough pallete to distinguish worthy and unworthy ideas, images and friends, then they should be responsible for the formation of some
Most need their parents, and (unfortunately) most parents subscribe to some degree of hands-off-ology, as if someone else won't gladly chime in the minute you fall silent.
To the people who claim that you will stifle your child or come across as overbearing by being so active a parent, that depends on what you give and show to them. Good things don't stifle, they enrich. I whole heartedly agree that space-fillers meant to replace more lurid (and usually more interesting) information will drive a kid crazy. This includes Christian "Rock", most Disney movies, etc. Adolescents generally will not be harmed by violent images (not gore, though), sexual images (not porn, though), rough language (not gratuitous, though).
In short, art and not shit. Those that can't tell the difference have already demonstrated that they lack qualifications to be responsible for another's (inevitable) formation.
sig is
Surf together.
Don't make the situation that she's wandering the web while you occasionally peek. Make the situation that the two of you are wandering the web together. She's driving, but every so often you can point out something interesting on the screen. Be interested, don't just pretend. The stuff your kid wants to look at is stuff that matters to your kid; you should care about what that is. Of course you'll have different tastes, but you may find that you've got more in common than you realized.
Don't spy. Share.
ok. so i emphasized a misspelled word.
one more thing: IANAP (I am not a parent) and I abstained from the related poll.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
there are some amongst us (myself not usually included) that believe that. your argument is that the statement 'everybody is educated and active in politics and community' will never happen (and doesn't currently exist). i partially agree.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
oh, sure. use a scare tactic. that's definately NOT the approach I would use.
instead, since you raise your children with good morals and ethics (right?), show your children a site that is completely wrong/unjust/evil/vile/etc. teach them why. educate them on why certain things are not right.
I work under the philosophy that children shouldn't be shielded from these atrocities (though I'm not saying the opposite). they should be taught about them and why they're wrong so that they can _voluntarily_ choose not to witness or seek these things.
parents CAN'T always be there to shield their childrens' eyes. at some point, children will bear witness to something disgusting, to vile materials of some nature. why not coach them and make sure that they handle the situation appropriately, with or without a parent to hold their hands?
a society like our own (representative democracy) cannot function unless everybody is educated and active in politics and community.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I hereby waive my next set of moderation points to give to Jamie for his intelligent checklists. It's honestly a pity that you can't moderate the articles themselves, because this bit was great.
Sorry for the OT stuff folks, but we rag on the editors/writers so much when they suck that they deserve to know when they're doing a good job.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Point One: I'm not entirely bothered by the progressive learning techniques, because in all the educational systems I've been exposed too the top-level of learning (Honors/Gifted level classes in 9'th and 10'th grades, AP in 11'th and 12'th) performs remarkably competently as a mass-educator. Those in lower rungs may be lead to beleive that they're competent when they're not, but it's not such a big deal - the world will teach them that within a year or two of HS graduation.
Point Two:
a) While your point about the writer being a film critic is somewhat valid as a questioning of his credintals, he is not making any new claim in and of itself - he is merely questioning the validity of studies published to date on the matter, and you don't need a PhD. in psychology to do that. Again, he's not pushing his own 'study.'
b) I carefully read your tirade twice, and I notice nothing that actually stands in contradiction to what he said (unless, I realize, you are operating with the premise that pornography is inherently evil. But that should be stated outright.). The film critic is not advocating unfettered access, especially in the quote you gave, he is questioning the assumption that pornography is inherently harmful. Any information presented to a child when he/she is unprepared to deal with it, or as you put it "contextualize what they see," stands a chance of harming him/her emotionally.
I quote from the article "Just because I think extreme protectionism is misguided doesn't mean that I think children should be exposed to anything and everything. Parents have to make those decisions for their own kids."
This man is arguing that it is not doing a child a favor to protect him/her completely from "inappropriate" material until the day he/she is 18 -- he argues that, if anything, the protectionism is doing him/her a disservice by both discouraging open discussion and decreasing preparation for the uncensored wonder of adult life. He says nothing about parental teachings of value (so long as they're not contradictory). He says nothing about parental guidance in general. And he is certainly not promoting or enocouraging the media as the primary source of values.
Your tirade was informed and insightful, but unfortunately you unleashed it upon someone who apparantly doesn't disagree with you.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
Spoken like a true spammer.
Free speech includes the idea that people can freely explain to others what they think about someone else's speech (or media). If someone decides to say (in their opinion) something is "vulgar", "offensive", "inappropriate for minors", "spam" or any other pejoritave thing, they have the right to do so, even (or especially) when others will use that opinion to organize a boycott.
Your right to free speech does not include any special right to use other people's property to promulgate it, as spammers learn every day.
The ratings system is nothing more than a boycott by the MPAA of any theater that does not follow its rules. The rules are a boycott of showing certain films to minors. No police are involved, except when minors criminally trasspass. Next question?
As a parent of an almost 11 year old, I also read The Morality Police, and while it did say some things I agreed with, the author had some very wierd views of the law.
Specifically, the MPAA ratings system is not an "unconstitutional restriction of free speech", it is free speech - in the form of an economically enforced blacklist. X-rated theaters aren't illegal, it's just that Walt Disney and all other MPAA members won't license their films to be shown at one. This is nearly identical to the approach of anti-spam lists, including the RTBL.
So far as raising your daughter is concerned, repeat after me: the net is no different than any other medium.
You need to stay involved in your daughters life no matter what her interests are, and while your opinions won't be absolutely followed all the time like it was when she was 5, they are still the extremely important. Try not to be judgemental, but also be clear to point out the consequences that can occur from bad choices on her part.
Despite media hype about the internet, the #1 killer of teenagers - that just about dwarfs all others - is drunk driving. Telling her not to get in a car with a drunk boy is more likely to keep her out of harms way than any other advice I could give you.
Fantastic. Now for all eternity (or as long as Slashdot archives remain on the 'net) there will be a direct link to your daughter's page in the midst of a goatse.cx discussion. Imagine the pride she will have when her friends point out that her father linked her site with the Goatse.cx man.
I think I'm tired of the Internet now.
--
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Try surfing *with* your kid. Try being obtrusive. Try being a parent or hire a babysitter to do it for you, preferrably a human with a good set of values. Maybe ask Grandma to come over and watch her. Or filter her content against the Dirty 7: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. That should do it, huh? Rich
My wife would like to just have the computer in a public area, but I can see reasons for our daughter to have her own computer (and for me to have my own as well) and I don't think it's likely that we will have a family room that big.
The way I figure it, I don't have a problem IF she figures out how to get around any monitoring or filters I may set up, in fact I want to encourage her to learn, but I will certainly want to know WHY.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
-
Now that eighteen-year-olds have the right to vote, it is obvious that
they must be allowed the freedom to form their
political views on the basis of uncensored speech
before they turn eighteen, so that their minds
are not a blank when they first exercise the
franchise. And since an eighteen-year-old's right
to vote is a right personal to him rather than a
right to be exercised on his behalf by his
parents, the right of parents to enlist the aid
of the state to shield their children from ideas
of which the parents disapprove cannot be plenary
either. People are unlikely to become well-
functioning, independent-minded adults and
responsible citizens if they are raised in an
intellectual bubble.
and a truly precious lineThat's a good, realistic argument from a sitting judge.
Great idea, except that children aren't adults. An almost 11 year old in no way shape or form has the mental development to handle the things she could get into.
Of course she would resent constant over-the-shoulder badgering, but whether they like/know it or not, children that age still need significant parental supervision and guidance.
Show that message to your daughter and her friends when she turns 15. Please.
She's how old? Four months or something? Somehow I doubt she knows or cares what's on the TV at this point. I get this strange feeling that Sakura will grow up to be some sort of Anime heroine and you'll be her perverted father, always trying to sneak panty shots of her sailor-suit-wearing friends.
For me, the "whitelist" sounds like an attractive offer. Doesn't take too long to expand the list to everything they want, and you'll always be up to date on what they're doing online. If they want access to a site with adult content, then you have your chance to discuss it and you can approve it if you feel they're ready for it.
--
Yes, I am saying it actualy might be more healthfull to allow children to see the more bizzare porn than to filter it. And while there are no scientific studies I know to support my point, there are also no scientific studies I know of to refute it. Yes, in spite of all the media hoopla, I have been unable to find a single study saying any form of porn damages kids...
We may vary well be protecting our children from what they need to be healthy...
If you can find any of the studies I cannot, please email me, bluenail@sailormoon.com or bluenail@hushmail.com (the latter offers free, 1028bit encryption, try it out)
Oh and while I'm at it, don't bother emailing me and asking what form of kinky sex I am into, I ain't telling.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
When you're looking for something, use the Google search engine. (Among its other benefits, it's the most kid-friendly.) Always start your search with at least three words. Any fewer, and you're probably just wasting your time. Parents can help you learn how to pick three good words.
And when using the Google search engine if you are looking for information about the book "Little Women" you should also include the author's name with your search.
To further your analogy, I should stand over my children with a large stick, keep them from wandering off the grass, and shave them occasionally.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Spoken like a child who is not ready to accept the fact that with freedom comes responsibility.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I've just recently breached this subject with my eight-year-old son. I set him up with an @mac email address. I explained to him that I would read all of his email first and that spam constituted messages mostly about naked ladies. Eight-year-olds are not even remotely interested in naked ladies. You might call that sensorship, but I'm his Dad. When in doubt, be pure, be vigilant, behave.
Actually, I have had unmonitored, unlimited 'net access since i was about 10 (I'm 16 now) and my parents never had a problem. Hell, I stayed away from the porn untill I was at least 13, and by then they trusted me.
--
-- Napalm sticks to kids.
Since I've never been buggered, nor have I ever pumped iron, I don't know which wastes more time, but they are two activities which aren't really productive in the material sense. There are some people who enjoy looking at such things, and there are people who hate them. But, largely, one may assume that both activities are done because the people who perform them enjoy doing so.
In the end, the objective reason why goatse.cx is worse than Schwarzenegger is because social convention says it's so. What i would tell my own daughter would be something like "it's a man with some kind of mental disease, and the people who put that picture online did it because they thought it would be a good joke. You know what 14 year old boys are like..." (she probably does know)
Like what?
Heaven forbid the poor thing grows up open-minded and in touch with the realities of the world...
- Rei
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
Raising a child means being involved in that child's life. There is no ethical or moral problem with parenting your child by monitoring their online use.
I'd suggest you use a proxy that logs all page requests. You can then review the logs and see where the child has been going. You should also correlate the times to dial-up activity (e.g., look at /var/log/messages); if there is a time gap in the web log vs. the dial-up, someone just learned how to bypass your proxy.
Good job. Too bad you don't get her more often.
Show her the logfiles from squid and explain how you can keep track of every single site she visits.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The problem with the arguments of the pro-censor lobby in that we must "protect" children from the harmful elements that exist on the Internet (George W. Bush is famously quoted as saying that the Internet "can turn [children's] hearts black") is that there is no proof either way. Just as there is no conclusive evidence that proves that a direct, cause-and-effect link doesn't exist between usage of the Internet and its effects on your child's/teenager's wellbeing, doesn't mean that it does exist. So both sides here can be accused of churning out biased, emotional and illogical crap in equal measures because there is this lack of proof either way.
The only fair way to decide on issues such as this is on a case-by-case basis after looking at all the facts (such as the maturity of the child and previous experience). If you believe that your 15-year-old can take care of themselves on the Internet (which the vast majority of well-adjusted teenagers with a minor degree of common sense can do anyway), then let them have unrestricted access to the Internet. It's impossible to teach your kids any degree of responsibility and to teach them how to handle themselves in the "real world" if we are continually shielding them from it. There's not much on the Internet that kids/teenagers won't come into contact to through the "real world" and if you don't know this by now then you really have a lot to learn about life.
So if you believe your kids/teenagers aren't ready for the joys (and dangers) that the Internet may hold then by all means install the software but make sure that you've talked it over with your son/daughter before you decide. If they feel that they are being left out of the decision- making process then they will most likely not feel compelled to follow your "rules". What we do need here is discussion, fact-finding and to include the kids/teenagers (ie. the people we are apparently trying to protect) in the process. What we don't need is inflammatory, baseless, "immediate action" rhetoric that only results in "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt" (FUD) and reactionary legislation that in the end does nothing to protect these people anyway (and never mind the JonKatz cracks).
Self Bias Resistor
"If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid." - Murphy's Laws of Combat
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When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
Heh. Not really. He's just another asshole. He's trying too hard to get that sort of recognition.
---
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
We told her the basic mechanics, along with what she was ready for in terms of our moral views on the subject. At her age there was not much drama...just a puzzling detail she couldn't figure out. I expect it to get way more "interesting" as she gets older.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Have any of your kids ever checked YOUR browser cache? Don't forget that for every way you know to rob your kids of their privacy, they know at least two.
Anything you can do, I can do meta.
How about teaching her to make proper judgements, because if she's curious, she will have access to awful things one way or another (friends house, the library, even, gasp, in a book).
Plus sooner or later she will join the real world (TM) as a mature adult (C) and there will be no url log file or father sitting by her chair approving and disapproving of her choices.
How about teaching her something instead of tying a leash and threatening with a url log stick?
And what is even more amazing is the chorus of dittoheads recomending different strength leashes instead of suggesting teaching her the difference between good and bad.
ok this might piss people off but frankly i don't care and it has to be said.
if you want to make sure what your child is looking at sit down with them and monitor what they are looking at and yes 15billion britney spears and backstreet boys sites might such to go through but hey if you want it to be "safe" then surf with her.
i seriously am sick and tired of parents today, most shouldn't even be parents. they plop their kids down in front of the tv and let the tv raise them. and then they wonder why their kids are such mouthy little buggers.
i know that people blame their careers and such, well if you career gets in the way of having kids, dont' have kids instead of spitting out babies and letting the tv raise them and wonder why they won't listen to you and they are juvenille deliquents. it's not marilyn manson that's making your kids out to be bad people, it's you.
anyways if you really want to make sure she does have a good and safe exerience on the net then sit down with the child and browse with her instead of letting her do it yourself. you can probly leave her if she's talking to a friend on icq or what not but still keep an eye on her.
The picture: a friend's son, with a computer in his bedroom, flat-rate Internet access.
He came to his mother, quite ... err, let's say frightened, because he
had wanted to go to some cartoon site, and mistiped the URL, and got to a
pr0n site.
She, later, had a look at the history in the browser, and indeed, there was something more :-)
She trusted his son, and you can see she was right in doing so. Ah, and now her son knows what pr0n is and how embarrassing it is for him. They'll never need any censorware or anything, I bet :-)
You know, I couldn't agree with you more.
There's a realism issue here too as well. There is just NO WAY to provide your kids with uncensored Internet access and not have them see pr0n. It's just not realistic. When I was 11, I was sneaking peeks at Penthouse and the like (and girls were too!), so I think the we should just collectively (speaking for the US mainly, Europe doesn't seem nearly as prudish) just Get Over It.
Sex exists (in fact, it's pretty damn cool). Kids want to know about it. Let them.
what's the best solution for me (as a part-time parent) to keep an eye on her surfing?
The best solution for you to keep an eye on her surfing...is to keep an eye on her surfing.
Try to trust her, don't get too intrusive, but at the same time be aware of where she is going online.
---
DOOR!!
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Hmm... Seems to me that there are no technological solutions to moral/ethical problems.
Kids are smarter than we think, no - smarter than that, are great hackers and share hacking instructions very well. They can find ways around any walls you put up, even if it means just going to a friends house. If they are curious about sex-sites or whatever, they'll see it. Forbidden fruit is the sweetest. If you prohibit it, they will want it even more. Did you read Genesis?
And where do you stop? Do you follow them to the library, their friends houses, monitor their songs on the radio, ease-drop on their gossiping with friends?
A better and simpler tactic would be to spend time with them, talk frankly with them, educate them on the big world out there and then let them go free. Dare them to ask you questions that make you squirm. Who would you rather have them ask? They will actually be less likely to pig out on the fruit of the tree of knowledge if it is allowed. "It'll be there in the future."
Of course, this takes work and trust and you have to acknowledge that they are growing up at their own pace. Most people would rather buy a program and attempt to build a wall around their heads. The real question is, do you want the illusion of safety or a healthy child?
=surfcow
Take a look at this Slashdot article from late last year Neither .Kids nor .Porn for ICANN. Apparently there was a proposal to limit porn sites to their own domain. It sounds like a great idea, but it's open for abuse on both sides (i.e. porn sites operating outside of .xxx domain or censorship advocates enacting zoning laws on the internet). I wonder if anyone is still pursuing this kind of initiative.
--
"You've gotta be a spirit...Don't be no ghost."
Step 1:
The best way to control your step-daughter's web browsing is to talk to her about it. 11-year olds should understand that there are some websites they are not allowed to visit, just as they should understand that there are certain television shows they are not allowed to watch.
Step 2:
Put the computer in living room or some other high-traffic location and actually keep an eye on her. If she knows the rules and knows that you will enforce them, you should be all set.
In short, don't use technology as a substitute for parenting.
--
"You've gotta be a spirit...Don't be no ghost."
Uhmmmmm, just what did your wife do that the judge gave custody to the father? I'd suggest that you have a talk (do some serious ass-kissing) and agreement with her REAL father before you start screwing around with where she can and cannot surf. Remember, she is NOT your daughter and never will be.
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
There should be software that basically monitors what comes through the modem and saves it to the hard drive. The content could be password protected so a child cant delete it. The parent could then enter the password and have the program take the parent on a "walk in the steps (umm surfs) of the child". Basically the program would be like a replay of what the child saw. If such software exists let me know if not then lets program it.
I think many of us have a false assumption: that an 11 year old girl might find interest in unallowed sites. I think that it's generally a false assumption, and the less we try to use it, the better.
As far as I remember myself at the age of 12 (which was only 4 years ago), I've browsed the 'net quite extensively. I've never, even once, felt the urge to look for pr0n. Contrarily, when I did come accross some banners (or whatever), I closed the browser or ignored it alltogether. It was simply a bit disgusting for me.
The 'net-pr0n mania is just a frenzy, and it has little to do with reality. I consider pr0n to be something quite harmless, even if one looks for it deliberately. Instead, it seems to me that the issue is really about parents who can't give their children a talk about [pr0n|sex|drugs|whatever]. And the more adults will talk about the need to block any sites, the more children will be needlessly drawn to watching them.
Keep in mind too that "The Net" is not as powerful as popular culture would have you believe.
In the 50's, comic books were regarded with the same sort of horror as the spectre of "The Internet"
High schools today really scare me. I came in as a speaker for an old teacher who is a friend and noticed the prison-like atmosphere. The degree of paranoia expressed by the administration was real scary. I think this is an outgrowth of the 'protect the children' mindset and is absolutely bizzare and disgusting.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
No offense taken.
Just to clarify, I don't have a problem with parents making rules for their children to follow. Kids are vulnerable to all sorts of lousy influences.
The notion of spying is what bothers me. An environment of paranoia and fear is no place for a child. Basically, if you feel a need to spy on your children, you have done something wrong. In fact, I'd say that a parent who behaves like that IS a poor influence on their child themselves!!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I think that you missed my point. I did not mean to imply that a complete 'hands off' attitude on the part of a parent is ideal. I did say that parents should aim to be 'shepards' to their children, not wardens or bosses.
You need to take the time to RAISE YOUR CHILD and maintain an open, honest relationship with them. Kids with strong identities and confidence are not going to be damaged by whatever crap they see.
I do agree with you wholehartedly about the Disney and born-again shit. Parking your kid in front of some numbing disney movie is not a good thing.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The fact that you need to have such a degree of control over your children is a chilling and horrible thought.
Have you ever considered the consequences of seeking complete control of another humam being? A parent's role should be that of a shepard, not a guard dog. If you teach your child to think for himself (or herself) and use common sense, you'll end up with a free-thinking and mature young man or woman.
A controlling, domineering parent will result in nothing but a angry and rebellious child or someone incapable of dealing with life and society in general.
If you feel that you need to surreptitiously spy on your child, I pity you.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
In windoze, you can browse through the cached files in the "temporary internet files" folder. Just clear the cache before she comes to visit. She probably wont think to delete these files after she logs off. When she leaves you will have a pretty good idea what she was looking at just by looking through the web cache.
Your post is so logical it has made me think of some other major issues we should address. 1. VCR's are bad because they will be the #1 source of piracy soon 2. DVD source is bad because it will be the #1 source of piracy soon 3. The Internet is bad because its selling p0rn that should be free. 4. All useful devices and inventions in the world should promptly be eliminated due the to the fact that they can be used for bad purposes. IE: Flashlights must be recalled because they can produce spots on eyes and scary ghost stories.
Oh and don't even get me started about the fact that Inventions can also be used in p0rn movies and then they advertise on the Internet (because that is all its for anyway, we must rename it to porn-net)
I would still insist good filtering software (as opposed to what exists today) has a function to fulfil, namely to tell apart what kids should be allowed to explore on their own and what you should be around to explain a few things.
I think something is forgotten in all this, kids have a right to privacy too. They need to be left alone every now and then to experience things on their own. They can't become a responsible individual unless they are allowed this right, IMHO.
Other than that, I agree with you, but I don't think you can seed your child's mind with competing memes unless you allow them privacy to explore things on their own, once in a while.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
I have to agree. My when my younger sister was about 14 yrs old, some guy sent her a picture of himself naked in an AOL chat room. I was there when her friends were laughing at "how fat and old he was". No mutilated minds, no one screaming in horror.
That incident helped me decide that if I have kids, I would have nothing to do with censorship. I could not agree more with the above post. My parents for the most part, acted in a shepard capacity (of course they weren't specifically familiar with the net). I like to think that I'm a reasonably well adjusted adult.
I also worked at a video rental store for a while. Occasionally a little kid would accidentally end up wandering into the back room. No kids head exploded as far as I remember!
Oh my god, this is sooo enlightening!
I have learnt that:
1) If you kid surfs the net, you are an unfit parent
2) Doing heroin and using semi-automatic weapons is the same as surfing the net.
3) The Internet is many for maladjusted socially inept males.
4) I am not going to argue that porn is wrong. (Although I do believe that only warped and sick individuals would seek to degrade God's gift to mankind by commercializing it).
5) A famous rabbi once described TV as like having an open sewage pipe pouring into your living room, and he is right since he is famous.
6) It should be a federal offense for a parent to allow a minor in his/her care to access the Internet.
And finally:
7) Normally I would not advocate such extreme measures.
Thank you oh enlightened one, for you have saved our civilization!
The parent post was hillarious!
I dont know how many 11 year olds come to /. but if it's in your bookmarks or something she may well read what you are trying to plan for her!
/. aswell if you wanna stay in the goodbooks...
../
This would annoy the hell outta if i was a kid and my parents wanted to "monitor" my net access, i'd be pretty pissed...
so if you have thought at all about "blocking" certain sites, like goatse, then you better block
Tigris
--
unzip; strip; touch; grep; mount; fsck; yes; more; fsck; unmount; make clean; sleep
Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. -- Homer J. Simpson
Actually I don't think pr0n is a problem. When I was a kid, I had my pr0n diskettes too. It didn't make me more unstable. Actually, even if they find extremely hard pr0n, you can actually explain it. You just have to be honest about how things are: some people like to be whipped, f*ck animals, etc... Just always tell that most people are *not* like that.
The biggest problem with kids being online (and I mean 15--, because after that they should be reponsible enough) is the eventual freaks on chat/forums. They are the only real-life threat to your kid, all the rest is just information. Information can be explained.
The web (neither the rest of the internet) will not brainwash your kid or turn it into a pervert. I never found something on the web that I wasn't looking for (except the occasional misleading goatse.cx links), so explaining your kid how to look for stuff should automagically keep it from bad places. And if they search for evil-things, well...then they knew it existed in the first place and you really should start to worry.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Just to stay on topic: the information available online or anywhere else is not a threat to your child. Information is never a threath on itself, only the interpretation of the information can be potentially dangerous. Just that is the job of the parent: teaching your kids how to make a sane judgment about the received input.
Only real-people can do real harm, and I do not believe in the "scarred for life" thing. It's probably invented to give all those psychiatrists a job. ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
One thing to keep in mind:
They are gonna learn it all someday, no matter how hard to try to hide it. So either you can let them find out and run into it one day on their own (by simply censoring them til they get pissed off and find ways around you) or you can educate them.
I'm not advocating introducing your 6 year old kids to your pron collection, but kids find out about this stuff looooong before "adult" age (what is it, 18?) I'd choose earlier exposure with parental guidance over the alternative myself.
I mean, in many foreign countries, nudity is prevalent on public tv or in some public places, because its accepeted...people, including children have been desensitized. Its not a bad thing.
So don't try to shield your children from the world. They have nothing better, and frankly nothing more they'd rather do with their time, than seek out and explore with youthful curiosity. Be a guiding force, not a cage.
Magius_AR
This is a good question, and I'll see if I can answer to you, and your peers, satisfaction.
Let's see... Well, I linked to Sakura ("that child", my daughter) because I wanted to show that I do indeed have a daughter.
A lot of the time, people who are fearful of sex, "stretched bodily holes", any threat to their authority/concept of decency, children learning the truth about sex, and Harry Potter, suggest that people who are into unrestricted Internet access don't have kids of their own.
I want to show that that is not the case. When Sakura can hold a mouse and click links, she can look at any page she wants to. Oh no! What if she sees porn on the Internet?! Since she's already seen hentai (I'd link to something better, but fear the slashdotting...) on the TV/VCR (she doesn't bat an eye), she shouldn't be all that surprised. I don't think the better resolution will have a huge affect on her.
You may believe and teach your children that sexual material is harmful, evil, and fearful; I, however, will not.
I'm not sure if it's commercial or demo-ware or what, but you might want to check it out at www.icusurf.com.
// Alan Porter
The only effective way is to kill your net access.
Reactivate it when she turns 23.
Paul Anderson
"I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
Just remember, once children hit puberty they become like crack addicts. They can't help themselves. It is a truly unique and extraordinary child that can. If they can get at it through the net, THEY WILL FIND A WAY. You just can't trust them to do what's right - they can't even trust themselves. It's not something they have control over yet, they're still trying to learn how to control the urges.
You can't trust them, you just can't. They might be really good kids, but when they go looking for this stuff, they aren't in their right mind. Kill your net access and maybe you'll be lucky enough to just keep them down to long looks at the cover of MAXIM.
In that situation, they will probably have the brains to be able to control it. But, if they can find a way to get at the stuff without a public act, they will.
Paul Anderson
"I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
People coming to Slashdot for help on how to raise their kids? And I thought it was bad when people told me what software to use...
The VNC installed on every computer where I work is usually enough to keep us on our toes, even though it's used for a legitimate purpose other than checking up on employees. I also don't think that installing a keylogger would be too far fetched; putting the computer in the living room doesn't help when no one else is home.
If you can keep your child busy and see that they always have something productive to do, you shouldn't be too woried about what they find on the internet. The trouble come when they're bored and don't have anything to do. The chat room thing is usually only novel for about a week or so (might be different for a young child,) so if you're sticking by for her first week or so of chat room usage it might help. (But, again, if she's in #linux or #2600, I don't see how she'd see too much descructive.)
Uninterupted internet access is the greatest educator in my life. I commited credit card fraud when I was ten to first get on the internet, and my parents didn't know that I was getting on it, or enough about it to know that I would need protection from it. Years of uncensored hardcore porn, bomb making plans, and liberterian ideas have made me the person that I am, though I could never imagine any adult allowing a child to view the things I have.
After reading that article link, I was disappointed that he totally missed the entire point. We act that way and tell our kids those things in order to show them our disapproval, not because we think that they aren't going to see it or hear it. We want them to know, not only by our words, but by how we react to those things, that they are unacceptable and inappropriate for anyone, not just children. Or that there is a certain amount of privacy to be associated with certain activities.
Any parent that thinks they are actually keeping there kids from hearing f**k or s**t, is just fooling themselves. But you can make sure they know how you feel about it. Kids don't respond well to words. They respond very well, and very deeply, to actions. So if they hear YOU, as the parent, saying that, or see that you have a certain magazine, or that you view certain web sites, etc. they will understand deep inside that those are acceptable, no matter what you say about it.
It's not about censorship, it's about setting a good example. Don't let YOUR personal failings affect your children. Be a better person because of them. Don't try to spy on them or hound them 24/7, instead just set a good example. And if they do something blatant, punish them for it. I can't believe this is a new concept to some people, since it's how good parents have always acted, and how bad parents never act. Don't just say "You shouldn't do that", actions speak more poigniantly than words every could. "Do as I say, not as I do" is a recipe for failure in parenting. As is complete permissiveness.
Set boundaries, stick to them with action, and stick to those boundaries yourself in order to set an example. Are you giving up your freedom by doing that? Of course, but you should have known that having children would restrict your freedom. Grow up.
Well,
1) Kids don't like to talk to parents. You ask "What happened today at school?" and they say "Nothin."
But even assuming you have a fantastic relationship with your child:
2) What are you going to to, hover behind them 24/7? They need privacy, and you need to do other things in life.
No matter how open a relationship you have with your child, you're never going to initiate the conversation explaining how some people like to have sex with animals or shove needles in their testicles. Thats just not something a child is ready to comprehend, and its not something they should have to face.
Spector records Screenshots, ALL POP3 and AOL email, ALL chat conversations in AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo! messengers, and additionally logs all keystrokes, along with a few other features. Furthermore, it is virtually undetectable.
Their older version (2.2) was great. But in some time, they'll be releasing v3.0 which is truly kickass (Take this from someone who is beta-testing it now)
Highly recommend for parents. Note: This doesn't block anything, but rather it LOGS everything.
The parent can then decide what's inappropriate.
Jamie's points are worthwhile. Educate your child as to what's appropriate and what's not. Let them know the internet is a lot like the real world is many ways.
end communication
Make sure she doesn't browse at -1. That alone will keep her clear of much racist humour, incorrect claims to "Frist Prost", and that unfortunate fellow whom we all wish would stop bending over.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Well spoken. Your call for individualized consideration is one of the most cogent arguments I've seen yet in this topic.
And, as should be evident, I agree. The level of ability to handle the "Real World" does vary with the child (or even the adult).
Virg
A simple solution would be to be with your daughter when she is surfing the Internet.
This allows you to both be with her and see what she is seeing.
I really liked the comment about leaving the computer in the family room, provided parents are there when the kid surfs! It in no intrusive, but will keep the child with in bounds. :)
Be sure to talk with your child about sites you like, or their favortie sites, or good chats they have had! Be a part of their lives in this way!
There are those who will tell you that your child should be set loose and un-fettered. Do not fall for this! Study after study shows that children must be given boundaries with love by adults if they are to grow up well. Your presence in net-surfing will probably be enough, and will hopefully start good habits that will follow your child into their more independant years when you have to let them go.
More personally, I am THRILLED to see a parent looking to raise their child instead of letting society raise them!!! Thanks!!!
Sam
--
"The Son of God became a man to enable man to become sons of God."
Sam
I know you're a trolling dickhead but I just had to bite. Since when did one become magically an adult at age 18?
I agree that a line has to be drawn somewhere but to say that a "child" has no judgement is simply bone-headed and proves that your own judgement is lacking.
Elgon
Teach them to lie. Never tell a web site or anyone you meet on the net your real name, your zip code, your address. We sat together as a family and explained why it is OK to lie to protect yourself and your family. And, just like we rehearsed what to do in case of a fire we rehearsed how to lie on the Internet by creating false identities on Yahoo.
My kids believed me on this and it has worked well so far.
Don't down load programs without asking a parent. That changed to don't down load ANYTHING with out asking a parent. And the related rule that when the anti-virus software wants to be updated, update it. And don't ever disable the anit-virus software.
The kids decided this was a good idea after we found that their computer was a zombie.
Have one computer for the kids and a different one for the grown ups.
If you are going to visit adult web sites don't have the browser set to have the last page you visited be your home page. Also, learn to wipe the history and the cache on the borwser so I don't have to explain to Mom that it is normal for 15 year old boys to look at "stuff like that."
Your children's friends will wind up using your childrens computer. And, if you are not careful they will use your computer too.
While the kids are young keep the computer in a public room. Right next to daddy's computer in a room next to where the grown ups watch TV is a good place.
Keep spare printer ink and paper around. A school project can result in the sudden need to print 20 full color pictures at 10 p.m. on a school night.
If you aren't prepared to explain "what that man is doing to that goat" to a 7 year old don't let a 7 year old use the web when you aren't looking. If you CAN'T explain sex to a 7 year old consider not having kids...
Oh yeah, if you didn't pick it up from all of the above. Have a computer for the kids and one for the adults. You keep your room the way you want it and argue with the kids to keep their room(s) up to your standards. The same goes for computers. If you don't want to boot up and find Punk wall paper don't let the kids use your computer.
If you have more than one kid you will have fights over who gets to use it. Sort of like fights over what program to watch on TV. Though, I found that the better network connection I have the less TV gets watched. Set up a schedule and live with it.
StoneWolf
Download ethereal from www.ethereal.com And if she figures out how to encrypt her traffic so that you can't sniff the packets, then be proud! You have a smart one!
Nice straw man. Really, it's a good one, if not obvious. Show parents who would like to actually parent as brutal, uneducated, discriminating idiots. Better yet, make 'em rednecks. That's an easy straw man to break down.
Then, post about how we should leave them alone. We should all believe you now, since you've shown us how stupid actual interested parents are.
I believe this is called a "logical fallacy." (More specifically, the straw man fallacy.)
Now that that's out of the way, I've got a question for you regarding this comment: Other than that, leave them alone, and let them discover the good and the bad the way the rest of us did.
The rest of us? Who's that? I suppose I'm not in that group, since my parents actually bothered to tell me about that stuff. Heck, they even told me if I held a firecracker in my hands, it would blow up and hurt A LOT. I think I'll let my daughter discover how HOT that stove can get all by herself. She'll never do that again.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Hehehe hold that thought - I'll do a web search on "porn" sometime when I am not at work! :)
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another" - Doctor Who
Web browsers all have a cache somewhere, for storing recently downloaded info in order to not have to download it again. All you need to do is figure out where the browser cache is on your computer and you will be able to see everything that has been downloaded - and when - and where from. Of course, a browser cache can be deleted (and your average 11-year-old is likely to be able to do this), so if you see an empty cache, then this might also be cause for concern.
Jamie's comments are all good too.
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another" - Doctor Who
The fact that you "Spent your childhood downloading porn" illuatrates the danger of it - it is ADDICTIVE and has been shown to cause relationship problems later in life. If you want your kid to grow up with a healthy attitude to sex and their fellow human beings, you need to keep up with what they are reading and looking at.
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another" - Doctor Who
to give a little background to begin with, I'm only 21 years old, I guess this is old compared to an eleven year old, but I have been playing the tech game since I was about 4 years old programming BASIC on a Vic20.
;) I don't monitor what he does, he could start a shell vending service, he could start an FTP server with 0 day warez, he could make hack attempts on federal government computers, he doesn't, and the reason he doesn't isn't because he knows that he's being watched, and it isn't because he knows that he'll feel my wrath if he does, it's because he knows that I trust him not to and he trusts me to provide him with help, not hinderance.
Anyway, from my recent memories of childhood I've gotta tell you, if I wanted to learn about something, the net, or bulletin boards were most definitely a first stop for that, I knew that my parents were both somewhat conservative and I did develop some misguided notions based on the research that I had undertaken using these resources and was unwilling to discuss these notions with my parents precisely because I didn't feel that I could trust them not to judge me.
It seems to me that a lot of people here are acting like it's the responsibility of the child to earn the trust of the parents, however this is not true, a self-sufficient intelligent child will not consider themselves to be the ward or protectorate of their parents any more than your average self-sufficient adult would consider themselves to be loyal subjects of their government, it's demeaning, they will attempt to gain knowledge the best way that they know how and research as far as they feel comfortable researching and not verify it any further than that, if you really want your daughter to get the most out of her experience with the net, I would advise setting an example, demonstrate that she can trust you with things, it will be a gradual process and she will ask you more intimate questions as you gain more of her trust, most important of all, try not to judge her opinions as if they are set in stone, people make choices, people change their minds, but people won't change their minds out of pure human nature when they're being shouted at to do so, They'll just dig their claws into the dirt harder.
Right at this point in time I have provided shell access to my nephew on my linux box in the hope of cultivating his interest in the arcane arts which we weave
I am fortunate enough to work near my home, so I will be at my home office desk most of the time when the kids are likely to be at their little work stations.
I expect to see most of what is going on, and field the same kinds of questions I get when they are involved with other media/communications.
My only question going forward is, when will my son start forwarding erotic matter to me? ;)
I would first like to say that this may come off a bit strong, but i have had sad personal experiences with family members and internet to real life situations that did not end for the best. I Personally think that you should at first run the internet in your house like some sort of prison camp. You Whitelist the sites, if your kid wants to go to it, you see it first. YOu Limit anything Multiuser, Chat, online Gaming, etc, etc. And anything that might be even SLIGHTLY wrong you kill immidiatly. You make damn good sure that you know everything they do. Key Loggers and Higher end Packetsniffer type deals, and maybe even 2 child protection things (Like Cyber Patrol AND NetSitter both on at once). If one misses something the other should pick it up. You from there gain trust in your child and SLOWLY open up. Don't stop for a minute spying on them and knowing their every move, but allow them to do more things without also holding your hand. When they are gone, check your logs/reports/whatever and if even one thing seems wrong you confront immidiatly. I would still even say ban chat and Multiplayer games, less you can add limits to them. I Have seen very disturbing things happen in In-Game chat in FPSes. Char rooms are no better. don't trust your child online for one minute, no matter how well you think of them on it. Eventually, you will know that it is safe for them, and that they understand the rules. It might take a LONG time, but it is worth it. Never stop spying though, they might be doing something wrong and not know it.
(Score:0, Interesting)
Anyway....
The Internet is primarily a source of porn for maladjusted socially inept males. It has a secondary use as an information resource, but let us not forget, over 74% of downloads and over 80% of net traffic is porn related.
After reading this stats for the n-th time I got hold of some proxy data (kindly posted by a netadmin) and checked all the top sites to build some stats myself. Porn sites are at the same level of software download sites, at approx 1/3 traffic. The rest 1/3 is generic stuff like checking mail on hotmail, walt disney, or other.
I had an uncommunitive 12 year old. I was worried so I installed a key capture progam on the Mac and kept it in the family room. This also allowed me to get passwords to Webmail sites like hotmail.com So I could monitor that too. Fortunately I had nothing to worry about. I ended up with a lot of stuff I couldn't talk about. In the long run it wasn't worth it. If I could do it over I would just keep the computer in the family room and keep hammering away at that communication.
Dude, just watch where she goes online. I mean, really watch, like being in the room, or at least popping your head in frequently.
That implies more trust than any other method does. At least you trust her enough to be honest with her this way.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
The article mentions how the MPAA ratings system destroys good movies. But think of Schindler's List. It got an R, but many high schools showed it to their students, most of whom were a year or two below the recommended age. It showed that even today, the desire for progress can outweigh irrational fears.
Just Talk To Your Kid.
Since most sites deposit cookies on your PC (including most any pr0n site) because of ads, a simple method would be to set her up:
1. A "user profile" or account on a `Doze 9X or NT/2000 machine. You can then look in your cookies directory where they are identified by USER. (this directory is usually under \windows\cookies if memory serves)
2. If using a Linux/Unix box, do the same thing. Clear your cookies. Mozilla will show you the cookies accepted under edit>preferences>Privacy and Security>Cookies.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Put the com-pu-ter in the living/family room and run a really low res on a big monitor... the fear of being watched should keep her from going to goatse.
:)
When George Carlin originally ran his "Seven Dirty Words" skit, I believe it was only the first 7. "Fart", "Turd" and "Twat" are all .. Well, not particularly bad words.
Seeka
I don't know where you've been, but most households have Internet Explorer installed. In IE, you can arbitrarily delete history. One record at a time. That's even worse than the "Clear-all"'s of the past generation. Duh.
Seeka
What's wrong with looking at her browsing history? You don't need a 3rd party program to do that...
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
Make sure they are aware of choices, that some do allow and some don't. Make sure they don't violate the choices of their friends parents. Guide them into seeing both points of view.
Parenting isn't easy. Its undoubtably the most difficult job on the planet. Be aware that child minds are incredibly good meme hosts. Seed with lots of interlocking high value memes. Cultivate your child's meme ecology rather than censor it into barreness.
You cannot weed a meme out of a childs mind, and you cannot keep it out forever. Your only hope is to seed it with the competing memes.
Its just what you're looking for, it allows you to view a list of the URLs that have been viewed without blocking access to most of the net.
We-blocker has worked for me, it's very customizable. I can see where my teen has surfed, and what types of blocked sites need to be unblocked. Under no circumstances will I allow any porn in the house, so this keeps any from appearing on my browsers.
People say I'm strange, does it make me a stranger, that my best friend was born in a manger?
Get a program that logs the locations of where the child goes and check the log EVERY DAY!
Worry is like intrest paid on a loan that never comes due.
Face it, unless you want to explain goatse.cx or kitty porn to your daughter, you're going to need a filter. Kids have wacked out feelings about sex, but there's no need to further confuse her by letting her stumble across some of the stuff thats out there. Remember that unfiltered Internet means easy access to ANYTHING. Don't listen to idiotic 17-23(still living in their parents basement) year olds tell you that sex and kids mix well. Bzzzt wrong. Face up to the fact that the Internet is unfortunately greatly populated by some real sick pupies who enjoy ruining it for everyone. Do what ever you can to protect her from it.
Good Luck
Contrary to what others said regarding squid, it can proxy more than just web stuff. And the logs will show everything. Something like calamaris is awesome for this.
Also, as the author of calamaris points out, once you read a few log files you realise that most people (including kids) aren't really doing anything that terrible. I ran reports with it once or twice, and got quite bored.
What?!?! What planet are you from?? People who get HIV may be dumb (condoms are NOT expensive), but how can you say that they are acting immorally?
Newsflash: it only takes one time having unprotected sex with someone who's infected for you to become infected yourself. People who get HIV aren't necessarily promiscuous. They might not even be having sex out of wedlock.
Teach your kid not to have sex, if they do it anyway and get pregnant, and get an STD, its no ones fault but their own[...]
This makes no sense! Why take the moral high-ground here? We're talking about the life and well-being of your child!
Why not just tell them that there are dangers to having sex (period... not 'before marriage' or anything) and that they can avoid these dangers by either not having said sex or by wearing a condom when they do? That makes sense. It's the truth.
What's with all this withholding information that could lead to a decision you yourself might not find desirable? Guess what: abstinence-only "education" doesn't work. Give the kids ALL the facts, then let them make their decision on their own, fully informed.
--
Rot-13 my address to e-mail me.
"So I hurry back to little earth / For another life another birth"
Rot-13 my address to e-mail me.
"So I hurry back to little earth / For another life another birth"
Can anyone please explain how this works? I visit a web site: My browser sends an HTTP request to their web server. Their web server sends HTML (or whatever) back to me. The monitor logs this. Now, if I spend five seconds or five hours reading the web page, how will the monitor know? What if I visit www.whitehouse.com then open another browser window and go see www.whitehouse.gov? Will the monitor software say I spent five seconds at www.whitehouse.com because five seconds after I went there I went somewhere else? But the whitehouse.com site is still up in the first browser and I can read that page all day while continuing to surf in the other browser. How does the monitor know? Or rather, what's their claim for how they know?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
The Majority of you have no clue about raising kids.
I can prove it, Read this poll
71% of you have admitted you you have no interest in children.
---------------
Rufus T. Firefly: I got a good mind to join a club
---------------
Rufus T. Firefly: I got a good mind to join a club
and beat you over the head with it.
it is ADDICTIVE and has been shown to cause relationship problems later in life
Could you perhaps be so kind as to point us to the studies showing that porn causes relationship problems later in life? (scientific ones .. a link to an article on "www.cc.org" (christian coalition) doesn't count)
".. the worlds biggest porn shop with people who regularly abduct children and plenty of other nasty things?" ... "Of course not... the internet is the same thing"
Oh! For a moment I thought you were talking about the Internet
bravo
some good advice.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
i just wasted all that time under the misunderstanding that you were replying to the original story... my bad... i will try to read more carefullly.
that being said, that tool sounds not too different from sending traffic through a proxy and logging there... which really doesn't bother me as much as it does you.
again, remember that there are some pretty f*cked up people out there. just like anywhere else. and you should tell your kids not to take candy from strangers on- or offline.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
i occasionally view porn. i also went to a top-tier school. and i was an eagle scout... blah, blah, blah.
she's 11.
there's a philosophical 'paradox' involving imprecise definitions and induction... it's the 'heap problem.' in a nutshell, you have a few scattered pieces of corn on the ground. that's obviously not a heap. you also know that adding one more piece of corn won't make a difference in the 'heapness' of a pile of corn. so you add one more piece of corn, and it's not a heap. lather, rinse, repeat infinitely - and there's the 'paradox'.
(i don't want people missing the point and discussing possible solutions to this)
my point is that at some point, a kid is too young to look at porn. if a 5 year old looking at porn doesn't disturb you... then i'd wonder a little.
so when does someone cease to be too young? i'd definitely say that it depends on the person in question, but that it would be older than 11 and younger than 17.
maybe the kid will find some other way of accessing it (buying playboys at flea markets when you're 13-14 is a thrill, i assure you). but i think the parent has the responsibility of trying to prevent their kids from seeing porn until they've reached a point where they're mature enough.
you don't let young kids play with gun unsupervised, and you don't let them play with bleach and ammonia... so don't think that this is a black or white censorship issue. there is a line that needs to be drawn somewhere. and the freedom of where to draw that line should belong to the parents.
PS. 3 things:
the masses aren't uneducated, they are stupid.
you miss the point of 'things js mill never had to worry about'... the point as i understand it is this: if jsm had to worry about kids looking at triple-penetrations or getting abducted by 45 year old perverts they met in chat rooms, he might have rethought the whole tyranny of the masses stuff. just like the founding fathers may or may not have been more careful with the wording of the 2nd amendment if they had foreseen AK47s and teflon coated bullets...
don't brag about reaching the karma cap. you can do that by just post nonsense very frequently. just don't brag about karma, period.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
when did the government enter the discussion!?
this is a parent raising his kid in his own way... this isn't a censorship issue.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
your post is kind of nonsensical. really, you should be fine just as long as you keep them at this camp all year long, the camp doesn't have an internet connection, the camp doesn't have an age limit on attendees, your child never grows up and moves out, and the other children at the camp are never exposed to porn and tell your child about it.
really though, you're not doing your kid(s) any favors by not talking about sex or letting them online. they can get pregnant (impregnate others) whether or not you talk to them about sex, and they can still contract STDs that can rob you of any hope of grandchildren.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
save your pity
this parent has a legitimate concern. and while your point has some validity, you are grossly simplifying a complex situation.
first of all: there are parents out there that are domineering and controlling, and sometimes their kids suffer for it - but sometimes they turn out just fine, too. just as often as i've seen less than stellar parenting result in 'angry and rebellious' people, i've seen it result in wonderful and decent people who have no trouble dealing with life or society. that broad generalization is flat out wrong, and i'm sure you realize that.
back to the point, the person submitting this story is trying to figure out how to give his step-daughter as much freedom online as possible. you, as a (presumably) mature person, would almostly certainly be able to realize not to give an anonymous chatter your address and full name. or not to give out credit card numbers to dubious sites. or not to go to goat.se.cx... however, a kid might not be aware of the dangers in this behaviour. and it's not just a learning experience... chatting with a stranger has gotten more than a couple of people killed or kidnapped. i seem to think that either of those scenarios could be much more detrimental to the normal development and socialization of a child than a domineering parent...
this guy is trying to moniter his step daughters activity, and try to prevent her from seeing things she might not really be ready to see. he's not tying her up in the basement or keeping her under lock and key. contemplating filtering software or monitering someone's traffic is hardly "seeking complete control of another humam being." really, underparenting can be just as bad as overparenting....
save your righteous indignation for M$ attacks on open source or Rambus patent stories.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
Just ask them about it:
:p
Pa: "Hey BOY?!"
John-Boy: "Yeah Pa?"
Pa: "You havn't been going to any of that gay porno on that internet, have ya'?"
John-Boy: "No Pa, I'm only visiting Slashdot."
Pa: "Slashdot? That sounds like gay porno to me"
John-Boy: "No, see pa? Its a place where people have (semi-)intelligent discussions relating to technology, the news, and the law, and how it affects all of us in today's times."
Pa: "Hm...well, I guess that's not so bad. What's that there link that some pussy coward put?"
John-Boy: "Er...that's nothing."
Pa: "Click it!"
John-Boy: "No!"
Pa: "I knew it, this is just another gay porno site!!!"
John-Boy: "No pa! It's not! I swear!"
*Pa takes the mouse and discovers what "goatse" means, and John-boy is whipped for the rest his life*
Er....what was the point of this again? Oh yeah, just ask the freaking kids. Other than that, leave them alone, and let them discover the good and the bad the way the rest of us did. Those of us who held a firecracker in our hands as it blew never did it again, and any boy who ends up in a private chat with "SeXyOlDgUy69" deserves what he's going to get. I guarantee he'll never do it again.
....when in chat rooms, just pretend to be from belgium, or better still - Iceland. Just call me Magnus Magnusson!
how about treating your children like responsible adults so they grow up to become them..
why dont you leave her alone and if she has questions she'll come to you
monitoring harbors resentment
i bet you don't like being monitored by feds
guess who the equivalent is to her
really that's interesting, as i am presently in (nearly 2 years) and only seek out long term relationships
the fact of the matter is that they will emulate your behavior most likely.. my parents have been married for 25 years, my dad has a playboy collection that pre-dates this and covers everything to the present, how bout yours
in fact the only friends i have who have fucked up relationships are the ones who went to catholic schools or had otherwise fucked up home lives (dad cheated on mom, etc.. i find children of divorcees are especially suspectible to this as they fidn it hard to trust anyone)
so your lil morality rant is lost on me
it's called a firewall and logs every outbound request (source address, destination address, protocol, etc. etc.)
:-)
As an added bonus, it protects your network from all the script kiddies out there
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
What can *I* use so that I won't get fooled into following any links to goatse that the trolls like to hide in seemingly innocuous posts? Is there a goat filter?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
"Mill was noting that logic and reason were being subverted by emotional arguments that appealed to the masses"
That was *not* what Mill was writing about when he referred to the tyranny of the majority. Mill was worried about situations in which a majority of the population that shared a particular opinion might have the tendency to use the weight of that majority to enforce that opinion and squelch any dissenting points of view.
Some have suggested that moral issues ought not be resolved by a show of hands for that very reason. It does not matter how many people support a principle, if that principle is wrong.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
I think that the original poster should take some time and review his relationship with his child. If you feel that you need to monitor your childs internet usage then there is clearly a problem that has nothing to do with the internet. This seems to be a trust issue. My suggestion would be to build a trusting relationship with your child. Once you have done that the internet usage monitoring would no longer be an issue. Do you support the vchip (I think that is what it is called..you know that tv thing)?
Fluff
...not the point to it, i'll readily admit that trying to ensure your child doesn't see something that may actually be harmful to them is worthwhile.
But the chances that she finds something out there which can do her actual harm (psychological, emotional, intellectual or otherwise) are very remote.
She may find a lot of stuff which is shocking, or disturbing, but you cannot honestly expect a person to grow up (as the current jargon goes) "well adjusted" if you have insulated them from anything which challenges the bounds of their experience.
At the end of the day, I think that any form of monitoring of your' children's activities online is excessive. By all means discuss with them what they have been looking at, talk over what they may find out there on the 'net, and in the real world far that matter. But if you attempt to insulate them from anything, and I do mean anything out there, then you are effectively stunting whatever emotional, intellectual etc growth they can gain through use of the internet. Yes by all means it would be nicer from a parental viewpoint if one could be sure that ones' darling offspring were safe from the various depravities that the internet has to offer, but it must be remembered that in every possible sense, the internet is a mirror for the "real world", in which they have to live. If you're concerned about what they see on the internet, surely you should be equally concerned about every other aspect of their life?
It is sad that the internet, and more specifically the web, is now regarded as one of the supreme evils against which shildren should be guarded, when the truth is that the only thing that use of the internet can bring is enlightenment (or maybe confusion). Whether this enlightenment is as a result of reading an enriching article on the benefits of cleaner fuels, an in-depth review of some chemical process, or the revolting vision of someone's hairy arse (or any other way) is irrelevant. The point is that all these experiences are ones which your children are going to have to deal with constantly throughout their lives, and trying to hide these experiences from them only delays their discovery.
Why should we assume that just because a person is legally classed as "a Child", they are less able to deal with everyday life than someone who, in an instant, has passed the boundary and is thought of as an "Adult"? The question surely should not be "how can I monitor my kid's access?" (ethically or otherwise), but "how can I better prepare my child to deal with experiences that they will face throughout their life?"
I'm not a parent (although my mum and dad are), but one thing I relished while living at home, with my own computer, was the privacy it gave me, and the opportunity to experience new things without someone looking over my shoulder and judging me. I have for instance come to the conclusion that animal sex is not particularly pleasant, would I have reached that knowledge if the existence of bestophila had been denied to me?
I have not been lessened by my knowledge that some people indulge in practices which I find to be revolting (and I'm not judging those people). I have merely reached the conclusion that their habits are not for me. In that, I have overcome a challenge, learned something in the process, and have not (except for a few moments nausea) been harmed in any way.
For pity's sake, don't attempt to restrict your child's discovery of any aspect of the world around them. Not merely because it only delays the discovery of whatever it is you are trying to "protect" them from, but because life is made up of all the experiences one has. Denying someone knowledge in any form is preventing them from learning, even if all they learn is that some people have foot fetishes, that knowledge will form a part of their life, and will become part of the jigsaw of experience which lets them evaluate and value every subsequent experience.
As for the argument that people are being introduced to sex, violence, profanity or whatever your particular sounding post, at a progressively younger age, would it be possible for you to stop and think about that for a second? Firstly, introducing someone to knowledge can never, ever be wrong (you may have noticed that I quite value knowledge), but secondly, and more tellingly, look back to the past. As was mentioned in an earlier post, Juliet was only 14 when she consummated her marriage to Romeo, and even if they were merely characters in a play, that does not mean their actions do not typify the actions of the time. Alternatively, look at the various "primitive" (i don't mean primitive, but I can't think of a better way to express it, I certainly don't mean to demean them) tribespeoples that are scattered throughout the less developed areas of the globe. Do you think they insulate their children from any aspect of life? I don't. Most tellingly of all, look back to your own youth. When was the first time you learned about sex? I bet it was before your sixteenth (or whatever) birthday. Similarly with your first sexual experience, your first drink, the first time you told someone to go fuck themselves. I'll wager that these all took place at a younger age than many people would deem "suitable" today. Are you a maladjusted person? Are you a knife wielding psychopathic killer? Would you honestly say that your experiences as a child are what defines you? In a way, I envy you, those of you with wider experiences than myself, I wish I could look back and a) know that I had that much texture in my life, and b) realise that my exposure to things that are now decried as inappropriate has better prepared me for life. I'm "only" nineteen, but I've lost my innocence, and I'm the better for it, in fact I lost it years ago, and I think that's one of the things which has allowed me to succeed so dramatically in my life. I wouldn't erase any experiences I've had, or at least, I wouldn't erase the knowledge of those experiences. Like everyone else I have things I wish I hadn't said, things I'd rather I hadn't done, but each of these has taught me, and for that reason, I wouldn't give them up for anything.
To return slightly to the point of this discussion, and to reiterate my point (as I seem to be doing repeatedly), please don't attempt to restrict your children's access to anything (except heavy machinery, broadswords and nerve gas), the restriction will do them more harm than its absence. That's not to say ignore it, just don't restrict it.
btw, before someone flames me, this is not the post of some spotty young kid who got repeatedly caught viewing porn sites and wants other kids to avoid that embarrasment, these are my opinions, and if you don't like them, well you can fuck off and...
...form your own, of course
thanks for your time
----
v = (u+v')/(1+[(uv')(c^-2)])
v = (u+v')/(1+[(uv')(c^-2)])
bloody einstein
noticed you were moderated to "flamebait", nice
similarly to a previous respondent, i have now come to realise what is wrong with my life
now the rebuttal
apart from the obvious "what?!"
i could write a lot more, but what's the point?
im going to sleep, perchance to dream of a day when i can take my place as a well adjusted, socially able male and hold my head up high
----
v = (u+v')/(1+[(uv')(c^-2)])
v = (u+v')/(1+[(uv')(c^-2)])
bloody einstein
Use Surf Snoop...it works by keeping a log of where a child goes on the Internet. I've also encountered software that will log sites visited by whoever logs in to the PC, place the list in an email and send it to an email address set by the installer. Once you've installed it, tell your daughter that you care so much about her that you'll be keeping an eye on where she's going, but that you won't check everything she looks at...only sites that have suspicious addresses or content, and even then you will ask her about them first. "If you treat a child with the same respect as you would an adult, that child will grow into a respectful adult."
"Courage is being afraid to do the Right Thing, and doing it anyway."
The whole thing about trying to do the right thing by your children reminds me of the time my father caught me smoking a cigarette. I was nine years old at the time. He didn't freak out, or even try to stop me; instead, he sat me down at the kitchen table, put a full pack of marlboro in front of me and insisted that if i was going to smoke, i ought to do it properly. He had me smoke every cigarette in the packet - i think i tossed my cookies after about ten cigarettes. That was his way of teaching me to respect myself.
Mind you, i'm on two packs a day now.
Don't let her use the internet.... It's EVIL! The devil (and Al Gore) invented the internet for their evil reasons. Give her guns and knives to play with, they're much safer!
Well I'm not a parent, but I once was a kid, so I have at least half of the experience down. But playing armchair parent is fun when you don't have to live with the kid.
I don't think calling someone a lazy ass is a terribly harsh flame. In these particular circumstances, as was said before, if the kid is only with them on alternate weekends, I would say that they want to try to have as much "quality time" as possible. Putting the computer in a central area makes sense. Of course, that makes it harder for Mom and Dad to look up goatsex in their free time.
I don't know the kid or the parents or the circumstances, neither does anyone else posting.
What's most interesting about this discussion is that it shows that people are now turning to perfect strangers in how to parent, that most intimate of activities. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. The action itself isn't harmful, but it does indicate that traditional channels of support for parents are disappearing.
Anyone ever see that movie Avalon? Remember how TV was shown as displacing the more human elements of family life? The computer and the Internet is now doing the same thing. I don't know if this is causative or symptomatic, but it is remarkable nonetheless.
evanchik.net
OK. point taken. Sometimes the technology understanding gap can cause initial problems. But at the core the issue is pretty clear: how does one protect one's children from "dangerous knowledge".
I would say that it is not so much a change in technology that causes problems, but a change in attitudes. We, as a society have both become more liberal and conservative about certain knowledge. Kids can watch more violent entertainment on TV or in the movies, but are less likely to actually be taught how to fight. Pornography is very prevalent, yet our hypersexualized popular culture has become strangely neuter.
Your grandparents generation may have looked at less pornography, but they also probably went to prostitutes more often.
I remember, in the pre-web days, finding an innocuos book in the school library. It was about 50 years old, in the chemistry section, and basically gave instructions on how to produce nerve gas. Now this book was in the library for decades, and nobody complained, and no students used mustard gas on campus. Nowadays, in our current hysterical climate, if the contents of that book were put online, there would be cries of corrupted youth.
Sin was not invented in the last twenty years, we're just more obsessed with it now. The technology is secondary.
evanchik.net
The fact that you "Spent your childhood downloading porn" illuatrates the danger of it - it is ADDICTIVE and has been shown to cause relationship problems later in life. If you want your kid to grow up with a healthy attitude to sex and their fellow human beings, you need to keep up with what they are reading and looking at. *blink* It has? By whom? I'm 17 years old, and I'll admit straightaway that I look at pr0n from time to time when the "urge" surfaces. I am by no means "addicted" to it, however. It's just a form of entertainment. A friend of mind is a very avid collector of pr0n, in fact he has one of the biggest collections of it I have ever seen, yet he's just a normal guy in all other aspects. Certainly not "addicted" to it.
If he/she asks anyway, I'd tell something like "that picture belongs to the 'sex' department we've discussed before. When kids grow to adults at age of about 16 to 20, they get that need of pleasure wich will be satisfied very various ways. This picture describes just one way."
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Only harm could be done by freaking out parents when they get to know about it. It's not the material wich damages but scolding by parents and other adults without clear reason.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
I know that the software I am suggesting is Windows-based, but a similar solution is more than likely available for Mac. At my girlfriend's house, we use WinGate as our proxy for sharing the cable modem connection. WinGate keeps a log of the URLs (not just IP addresses) for every site that is accessed by every user connected to it. You could let her know that her surfing is being logged. Then, after she is done, you could browse through some of the URLs and see if there is anything "wrong" with them. Just an idea. Quick. Easy to Implement. Easy to maintain. Also, and this is on a different front. You may only see her PART of the time, but you are still a full-time parent. Never underestimate your influence on her even when you are absent. These are words from experience in dealing with my parents and step-parents. ;-)
[move
Are you sure you want to see what she's surfing? What were you planning to do if you find she's been surfing an "inappropriate" site? Are you willing to accept that sex and birth control information sites are likely to be hit in the coming years? I suggest not monitoring her access for precisely this reason - she needs access to the info as she becomes an adult, but fathers can rarely deal with that fact that their daughters will have sex sooner or later.
Master of odors. Using his powerful scent, Stinkor destroys all.
So? The way I see it, this could mean one of four things:
1. Consumption of violence is one of the reasons for violent behavior.
2. Violent behavior is one of the reasons for consumption of violence.
3. There is a third factor which is one of the reasons for both consumption of violence and violent behavior.
4. Something else entirely, like faked studies.
Personally, I think it's either #2 or #3.
Sorry, but I had to say that. When I was young, I read everything in sight and then some. I was only told one time that I couldn't read something (Mission Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard) until I was older, but I read it soon afterwards, anyway. And I was the better for it.
Certainly, there was a lot of violent and sexual material in some of the things I read. Because of reading it, however, I got rid of any insane ideas I had on almost any subject. I can deal rationally with many things that cloud other people's judgment. If aliens started blasting people's heads off, I wouldn't panic. I would be able to rationally run to the nearest gun store and blast some aliens. I wouldn't freeze in fear, I wouldn't run around like a chicken with its head cut off, I wouldn't do anything insane. Many people I know would simply die if something like this happened, because they wouldn't be able to face it rationally.
At the same time, I am not fixated on any of these subjects. I do not think porn is something inherently evil; I do not think it is the greatest thing in the world. I think it is erotic pictures of naked people.
As I said in a previous post, people learn to live by living. The example of the kid scared of a ghost story in that essay is a good example of this. He was sheltered from ghost stories, and other scary stories. Result: he was unable to cope with a ghost story he heard. One of the books I read when I was young was Fear, also by LRH. It's a decently scary book. I read many other scary books, some of which scared me at first, but no longer affect me badly. When I found a book of "scary, not for young kids" ghost stories, I thought they were rather tame and wasn't scared by them in the least.
Basically, I'm saying that experience is good. It's like eating hot foods: someone who has never eaten anything hot will be blown away by tabasco sauce, while someone who regularly eats hot foods will be able to easily cope with tabasco sauce.
If someone doesn't go out and live, they will not be able to cope with life when it comes knocking on their door.
SPOKEN LIKE A HYPOCRITE. (Or maybe just a troll...)
I don't have kids either, but if I did I'm sure I could explain it to them with what all kids understand - a little bit of humor. Just tell them with a smile that there are some sick, sick people in the world. If they don't get it right away, they'll eventually see that "nasty porn" at their friends house, and probably go "Eeeeeeewwww!!"
To put it in perspective - explaining deviant sex is PEANUTS compared to explaining other things - like why people kill, how wars happen, and everything else you see on the nightly news.
By your logic the internet = "the world's biggest porn shop" because it contains a large repository of porn. Assuming this logic is correct, the world in general is an even bigger porn shop because it contains the internet, PPV channels and Playboy et al. By your reasoning, you should therefore not let your children out of the house without special glasses and earmuffs that censor the outside world.
...
string* plamenessFilter =
*plamenessFilter = "Flaming Death!!";
They are your kids, why not monitor them as you see fit.
Until they move out, I say treat them like Nazi slaves (internet wise)
No ?
Why is this website so kickass ?? Find out for yourself --> Danny D
Given that you only have her two days twice a month, I think I'd try to spend a little time with her. Something not computer-related, perhaps, but rather more interactive.
However, if that's the way you want to do things...I'd suggest discussing things with her prior to surfing. It's impossible to cover all the dweebs, dorks, and loons on the net (hell, just look at the collection on Slashdot alone), but you can give it a shot.
For my kids I told them to come get me if they came across anything that disturbed them or they thought was pornographic and/or upsetting, then let 'em loose. Since my kids tend to be overly honest they do so with alarming frequency, and I try my very best to teach them precisely what it is they're looking at or reading and what I think about it.
The porn really doesn't concern me much; it's the hate sites, the lunatic religious sites (e.g., Scientology), and the 40-year-olds pretending to be 13 on #teenchat that get my goat. These people are sick, twisted bastards that I don't want my
kids anywhere near, and I try to explain to them why it is that I despise these kinds of people so much. Seems to work, so far.
And no, I've never said "don't go there!" to a web site. My comments are more along the lines of "well, it's not a place I'd waste my time on" or on occasion "would you want someone else to walk in and see *that* on your screen"?
Set the example: if your kids respect you it'll do more than any kind of filter or log file will ever do. And without the implied (or overt) distrust.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Let your kids know the internet is NOT a game. When you talk about the internet, treat it as seriously as you do the telephone and dont compare it to something fake like TV. The Internet is real, if you wouldnt give your real name and address to some random caller who calls and asks for it on the Phone, you dont do this over the Internet. Teach your kids how people can trace someone over the internet, and tell them to never meet anyone from the internet.
...running the porn sniffin' robot...
Up until that point I was all in favour of what you were doping, but BEWARE THE BOTS! A bot will never be very accurate - use people! Unfortunately human judgements are a high-workload activity...sigh...
That said, I think opened, GPL'ed censorware is a brilliant idea, and I'll be keeping an eye on how it goes.
43rd Law of Computing:
I guess I didn't make it clear...The list will be entirely human edited
In which case, apologies...
43rd Law of Computing:
Dude, chill out. You know what happens when you deprive your children of some of the bad facts of life, until they are adults? They finally get out in the real world, and they lose it. I think that you should, YES keep stuff like goatse.cx, etc away from them (it is not edifying in any manner), but you should also let them know whats out there, so when they see something, such as a porno, they say to themselves "hey, dad told me about these things, they are bad, I better stay away from this" By sheltering you're children, you are only delaying and magnifying the inevitable. By the way. how DO you know of all those sites, might I enquire?
Remember, this girl is in all likelihood not going to have the interest or ability needed to work around a firewall or even the Internet Explorer history tab. Just keep it simple, and let your daughter know that if she visits an inappropriate site - and she is old enough to know what that is, trust me - she will never be allowed unfettered internet access again. Let her see you checking up on her occasionally, but also let it drop that there are other times you check when she isn't there. Statements like, "So, I saw that at 3:00 AM you were looking at slashdot" let her know that you are, so far as she in concerned, omnipotent and omnipresent. You really don't need a dedicated firewall or proxy server with squid, unless your daughter is much better than I give her credit for. In which case, I apoligize for underestimating her.
I'm the stranger...posting to
It is a very big mistake to treat immature children (under age 18) like adults. They do not have the judgement to choose, though they are developing it. Thus there is no issue of ethics in regards to controlling your children's internet access. As an analogy, if you suspect your child is taking drugs, you should throughly search their room. There is not an issue of privacy in this case. Parents should not 'abdicate the throne' as is often encouraged in our liberal society.
Translation: Any parent that allows their children to access information outside of government controlled classrooms and mainstream right wing churches should be shot... if they have the contempt for rightful authority to resist having their children taken, that is.
99 buckets of bits on the wall...
99 buckets of bits on the wall...
take one down and pass it around, 99 buckets of bits on the wall
Actually, on second thought, good job on maintaining the status quo.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
It wasn't a bad site at all. It was neopets.com. It's been a while, but IIRC, I had told her that she couldn't open accounts without my approval, and I didn't like the info they asked for (I don't remember exactly).
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Whoops... My mistake.
The site was in fact neopets.com, and they have a policy that for kids to have a full account, they have to get a snailmail form from a parent (they have a page to print it out).
What happened was that my daughter tried to bypass this without asking me (she tried to email them as me and ask them to activate a full account). I got this surprise email from them saying essentially, "Sorry, we need a hardcopy". Since I had never sent them anything, it was kind of obvious what had gone on.
In all, I applaud neopets for their policy.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
I laid out the ground rules with my 10 year old daughter. The usual, pretty much Jamie's list above.
Then one day I get an email from some site saying that they couldn't comply with *my* request to authorize my daughters account for something or other unless via snailmail.
She'd forged an email from me (not hard... it's a family PC running 'doze) and tried to say "I forgot my password. Please authorize....". Luckily the site required snailmail confirmation in that situation.
Needless to say, there was a discussion about responsibility and lying... I let her know that it would be some time before I could trust her fully online again, and oh, yes... she was grounded from the computer for a week, and after that, she was not allowed online for a month without me or my wife literally looking over her shoulder...
Still better than filtering...
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Since the predicate absolutely cannot be compelled in a society like our own, your statement evaluates to, "a society like our own cannot function."
I'm not disagreeing with anything you say. I'm just pointing that out because I think it's an important point for everyone to recognize.
-- Robert Bunn, gun-toting neo-Nazi anarchist redneck freak
The easiset way to keep your child (or rather your wife's) from viewing dubious websites without censoring her is to teach her how to use it in a way that will not yeild too much of that material
though really your asking for the impossible.