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Rethinking IM Privacy For Kids
mackles writes, "Now that the world has read the despicable instant messages from Rep. Foley, should parents take a second look at monitoring their kids' IMs? After all, it was IM logging that exposed the scandal; would we have found out otherwise? Cost is not an issue, there are free monitoring tools. Should parents tell their kids before they monitor? Parents and their tech-savvy kids are at odds on the topic. From the article: 'As many as 94 percent of parents polled this summer by the research firm Harris Interactive said they've turned to Web content filters, monitoring software, or advice from an adult friend to keep electronic tabs on their children.' The article quotes one 18-year-old as saying, 'A lot of kids are smarter than adults think.'"
If you can install tcpdump on that thing, I'm sure you could use that. You'd need somewhere to store the logs though..
If you have to tell your 16 year old boy that it's legally and morally wrong to exchange graphic sexual emails and IM's with a middle aged politician no amount of monitoring will help because you've already failed as a parent.
If you have to tell your middle aged politician that it's legally and morally wrong to exchange graphic sexual emails and IM's with a 16 year old boy, you've already failed as a voter.