Metered HTTP Proxy?

Jon asks: "My brother-in-law has three teenage daughters. The only thing that he has to hold over their head is being online. I am trying to find him an HTTP proxy server that has metering built in. I started with Squid which has the authentication stuff in it but we would like something where we could allocate minutes, like some of the WiFi stuff you encounter at a hot spot."

Comments

Occam's Razor

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

My brother-in-law has three teenage daughters. The only thing that he has to hold over their head is being online.

I don't think so. There are a lot simpler carrots and sticks available, in order of decreasing importance to the average teenage girl:

1) Telephone privs - no cell phone for you
2) Grounding - no hanging out at the mall for you
3) Allowance - no buying the latest MTV-hyped fad product for you
4) Television privs - no watching MTV-hyped commercials-as-content for you
5) Driving privs - no freedom to move about for you
6) Food - no bulemia practice for you

Re:Occam's Razor

[captnitro]

Unless, of course, they're nerd children, in which case all of the above examples make the assumption they have friends to talk to, hang out with, purchase identical sweaters with, be popular with by having seen TRL, drive to, or finally, throw up on.

Why?

[miyako]

I realize that parents don't want their kid on the internet all the time, and like to encourage other acitivities, but why resort to something like this? It seems to me that the better idea would be to actually talk to the kids when it seems like they've been spending too much time online. Arbitrary rules like this only make kids see parents as a rival, and rules like this as something to try to get around, intstead of a reasonable guideline from people with more life experience.

Re:Why?

[miyako]

I guess it depends a lot on the kid, there is no one size fits all style of parenting. I have to admit I have no experience with having kids, having quite recently been one myself, however I have the following experience to share:
My parents divorced when I was very young, and shareed equal custody. They both had very different parenting styles. My father was very strict, trying to micro-manage every aspect of my and my step-siblings lives. We were allowed 20 minutes a day on the computer, not one second left. We were allowed exactly 3 phone calls a night, each one up to 10 minutes in length, not one second over. We were not allowed to talk to anyone on the phone, visit and internet sites, or read any books without his review and approval. The list goes on.
My mother, on the other hand, took a much more "live and let live" style of parenting. If I wanted to do something, then I did it, and if I made a bad decision then I had to deal with the consequences, she was there to help guide me and to grow up and find my own sence of what was right and wrong, and to learn the difference between good and bad decisions, but she left it up to me in the end. If I wanted to watch some violent or sex filled movie, or play some violent video game, or read some edgy book, then I could- of course she was also there to talk to me about it and provide a context for what I was seeing.
Of course, when I was with my father I never cared about his rules, other than as something to get around. When I was with my mom on the other hand, I genuinely tried to make decisions that would not dissapoint her. Sure if I were talking on the phone for a minute longer than I was supposed to at my fathers I would be grounded for a month, and I think I could have gotten arrested and my mother wouldn't have done anything other than have a talk with me, but I cared that my mother was dissapointed in me, and that's what made the difference.
Sure I might have developed a few bad habbits because my mom would let me do what I wanted, but in the end I think that I am much better off for her style of parenting.

"The only thing..."

[eric.t.f.bat]

Dude - has your brother-in-law considered a non-technological alternative? He could try (drum-roll please) treating his daughters like human beings. Because if he's concentrating his efforts on how to control and punish them, maybe he should leave home and get a dog.

Re:"The only thing..."

[stienman]

He could try (drum-roll please) treating his daughters like human beings.

I'm glad we have such an expert on how to treat people like human beings.

So please enlighten us. How is limiting access to the internet to a reasonable amount of time (depending on the PARENT's standards/values/beliefs) not treating them like human beings?

If your child sat in front of the TV every waking moment they weren't forced to do something else, you would, I hope, limit their access. It's the same situation with computers in many cases. It's interactive, and possible to do many different things with the computer where the TV may be more limited, but if they're on the computer 8 hours a day and you don't consider it a problem then it will become a huge problem for them later in life.

Guaranteed.

As far as using the internet as a 'carrot', what about that do you really object to? Do you believe that children always make good choices with no parental influence? Do you believe choices children make don't affect their entire life? I certianly believe in letting them make their own decisions, but I'm going to curb them if they start going down a path I disagree strongly with, and I'll especially block them as much as possible if they start making decisions which will change their lives in a bad way.

Some decisions, made as children, have major lifelong consequences. It's better, in my opinion (and far easier!), to have lots of little nudges in the right direction constantly than to try to force several huge changes occasionally.

Personnally I prefer the carrot approach, rather than the stick, in helping my children make good choices.

Lastly, are you suggesting that animal mistreatment is acceptable? Why would you suggest that instead of parenting classes, if you honestly thought there was a problem?

-Adam

The only thing that he has to hold over their head

[FFFish]

...is being online.

Wow. That's quite the predicament. The only thing he can do as reward/punishment is control their net access. The. Only. Thing.

Makes one yearn for the good old days, when a parent was able to say "no" to borrowing the car, going on a date, purchasing the latest trendy thing, watching television, or assigning extra chores.

Why metering?

[Ropati]

I too, use access to the internet as a carrot (or stick) over my kids head. It works well. They want to be on line 14 hrs a day, which I feel is unreasonable.

However, metering them x hours per day of usage or x GBs of IO doesn't seem practical. It could lead to many arguments and hair splitting about how much they were really on.

I mean, how do you measure it? Do I measure the time a socket is connected? If they open the NYtimes and walk away from their desk, they will eat up their meter. Do I measure bandwidth usage. Say they download 2 movies one day, poof metering over. All this would lead to mush complaining and gnashing of teeth. It would also lead to them using the internet when I don't want them to.

Instead, I set my router to disconnect them by script during the hours I don't want them on the internet.

My kids loose the internet 1 hour before bed, and during weekend days. During the summer, I limit them to different hours.

If they give me grief, I take an hour off at night . Surprisingly, even an hour is plenty of stick to get my kids to behave.

If you don't have a router, make a cheap one out of an old PC with Linux. Easy to setup and script. (I'm actually using W2K Ad. Server as a router and scripting their access using netsh.)

I have no qualms about using the internet to keep my kids in line, and I sleep better at night knowing they can't get up and start surfing instead of getting a good nights sleep.

What if they are not just wasting time?

[priceb]

What if they are not just waisting time using IM, Chat, etc.? What if they are working on a project. When I was in high school I had many projects that required me to pull late nites on the computer using the internet for research. It is not fair to set a static limit for internet access. Just be a parent. How hard is it to say turn off the computer? If that is too hard just unplug it. Just because they don't have internet access doesn't mean they are going to abandon the computer, games are a great distraction.

in that case...

[1eyedhive]

Static time restrictions make sense. If they REALLY need access after hours for a school project: Demand documentation: i.e. a project outline from a teacher (including a due date, so extended hours will cease on that date, if they go overtime, tough). If sufficient documentation isn't available, tell them "tough luck, better off researching rather than IM'ing"

who's fault is that?

[Suppafly]

The only thing that he has to hold over their head is being online.

How about plain old fashioned parenting?

[Pig Hogger]

That is, parenting where you actually CHECK what the kids do, and keep track within your head how long they've been sitting on their boxen???

Same need here, too...

[nick_danger]

Except it isn't teenage girls. It's my father in law.

I work from home semi-regularly, and my broadband connection is my lifeblood at those times. For a variety of reasons, the in-laws visit fairly regularly. My father-in-law doesn't travel anywhere without his laptop, and since he's without broadband where he lives, he takes every opportunity to suck my connection dry by downloading every latest Linux ISO image he can find -- which really blows when I'm trying to get serious work done. I'd really love to be able to throttle his bandwidth down to sub dial-up speeds during my normal working hours.

(Ok, before everyone starts pinging me for not to him about it: I DID. HE DIDN'T GET IT.)