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A Parent's Guide To Linux Web Filtering
Roblimo writes "Not all parents want their children exposed to everything on the Internet, especially porn. So far, virtually all home-level Net filtering software has been for Windows. This tutorial on NewsForge, by Joe Bolin, shows Linux-using parents how to set up Web filtering for *their* children -- and shows them how to customize filters to fit their own tastes and beliefs instead of relying on a commercial software company's ideas of 'good' and 'bad,' too."
A nice how-to. This could be fun in the hands of kids to filter their parents Internet to only include toys and cartoons and... uhm... slashdot...
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
So there are what, 4 people using linux at home that also have intimate enough relationships to actually produce offspring
Make sure you add /. to that filter if you ever want your kids to grow up to be productive human beings. Otherwise they'll be just like the rest of us, lurking around until the next item is posted. I've got some work to go not do now ...
Steal This Sig
Granted all the software is released under GPL and source code included, all it would take is for the kid to either A) Learn a little C++ (or whatever language this software is coded in) to make the software worthless or B) Start hunting for a patch that someone else was nice enough to build. Though if your kid can learn C++ I presume he's probably mature enough to view anything he wants and parents should stay back. However full censorship in Linux,IMHO because of the nature of open source is just next to impossible. As it should be though :-)
...in bed
1. if my kids pictures of naked people find, fine. I did as child.
2. I run linux...
Q.E.D.
I have been developing an algorithm that scans images and can detect whether there is a nipple in the image. If this were incorporated into an http filter, you could get rid of porn and possibly notify parents when nipple-laden images were being downloaded.
The only technical problem at present is that I can not discern between human nipples and animal nipples, so some images of cow udders and the like register false positives. Nevertheless, I think this is a very important algorithm.
I have considered selling this to the Justice Department, as Atty General Ashcroft has expressed an interest in this kind of software. However, I feel this is too important to be closed. I am happy to say the project will be listed at Sourceforge soon, and released under the GPL!!!
I don't have any kids, but if I did, I wouldn't filter a thing. I would install squid, write a perl script to parse out the domain names and report to me a count of each domainname reached.
I would tell the child that I had records of every site they visit, and step on them if they kept "making mistakes".
Can you have multipe settings? So my child can view everything but porn, and I can set it so all I get is JUST porn? Isn't that what the internet is for?
Just wondering...
I only own single pair. Have been carried twice since bought them, when drunken at Oktoberfest in München in 2000 and 2001.
Read journal when you are not understand
Heck yeah, but it's getting much harder. Knoppix screwed my ability to filter at the computer. My neighbors' open wireless access points are in the process of screwing my ability to filter at the pipe. It looks like the only sure fire way left to filter is at the kid.
TW
Does this mean parents will actually have to talk to their children? Does that mean they will actually have to teach them values and standards of their own?
You don't say. What a shocker!
Only use dialup. with a 14.4 modem.
Porn will take too long to transmit. They will be browsing without images in no time!
This whole article is a complete waste since we all know that people who use Linux cannot attract the opposite sex which therefore means that they won't ever be able to have children. Its in the GPL too, somewhere around the 30th line...
"If you can comprehend the aforementioned statements and use this software, you will not get laid. Ever. I know this because I'm RMS and chicks dig bearded guys. I haven't been laid yet so you won't either."
Still, we all know that chicks dig BSD instead.
...I drank well before I was 21. I smoked before I was 18 and I never wore a helmet on my bike.
;-)
And look where you ended up! Posting comments to your imaginary friends on the Internet in the middle of the day.
Isn't that bad enough?!
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
Well, for SpamAssassin, one is encouraged to gather at least one hundred spam messages to feed to the Bayesian filter so that it is adequately trained. In the complex world of pornography, one would have to collect, gosh, thousands of sites. What a great task!
Well, I'm prepared to make the sacrifice and do the difficult work of visiting these highly erotic sites for information-gathering purposes. Does any parent group wish to provide funding for my brave endeavour?
And to add some more fun the article says:
> If yours doesn't, you will need to compile a new kernel and enable iptables,
> which is beyond the scope of this article (and probably beyond the abilities of most parents).
Has Linux reached a whole new "target audience" or did my brain melt when I became a parent?
Oh yeah, here
hell no, i would *ask* my children for drugs!
"ok, daddy, the first one is free..."
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
My kids browse the web by telnetting to port 80 from my model 33 teletype. What am I supposed to be filtering out?
You let your daughter go the Barbie site? Shudder Yeurgh. The poor girl, she'll grow up all twisted.
I'm not blocking religious websites (except for one lunatic conspiracy theorist nut job foil-in-the-hat cult site).
You're not letting her read slashdot?!?!?
TIAEAE!