Ask Slashdot: Good Low Cost Free Software For Protecting Kids Online?

An anonymous reader writes "I have two kids, 7 and 8. I would love to allow them internet access on a regular basis. The problem is what's out there: I really don't want them to deal with porn ads and such, but making either a blacklist or a whitelist myself would take months. So I figured I would ask you: what free software would you use with preferably prebuilt lists to protect your kids online? What is out there with fairly easy configuration ability (to allow for game servers — they love Minecraft), but secure enough they can't just bypass it using a Google search?"

Comments

Net Nanny

[l810c]

I've used it for the past 2 years. My boy just turned 9.

1 computer $40/year.

Are you really so worried about FREE or are you worried about YOUR CHILDREN?!?!?

Re:Net Nanny

[RandomUsername99]

Maybe they're running linux. Adding the cost of windows on to that would make it significantly more expensive. Maybe they're being rational enough about it to not be scared into immediately whipping out their wallet to have someone else protect their children. Maybe there are FOSS alternatives that are actually better. Did you actually do any research on it? If so, it'd be nice to hear what your results were.

Re:Net Nanny

[l810c]

I'm sorry if that sounded too harsh, this place that we all love has bias towards FREE software. I just saw "FREE" instead of "Low Cost Free". Maybe it should be "Low Cost/Free" in the headline. Net Nanny has worked well for us the past couple of years.

At $40/year I think this is definitely Low Cost.

Definitely check it out and see if it meets your needs.

Re:Net Nanny

[Lisias]

You are assuming the guy is not a "free software" enthusiast. Net Nanny does not have any version running on any Linux distribution.

Guess what? We run Linux here at home. Only the professional machine have (by force of my job) a Windows 7 installation.

On the other hand, my kid is getting an Android phone, and Net Nanny can be a good solution in this case. Have you access to the block list and white list for inspection? You know, my kid is *MY* kid - I want some control about what he is allowed and don't allowed to see.

Re:Net Nanny

[mwvdlee]

You're right. Obviously the first thing that comes to your head, no matter what the question was, is always correct.

Re:Net Nanny

[arkane1234]

Maybe they're running linux.

They're obviously running BeOS, gahhh!

Re:Net Nanny

[RJFerret]

Ad blocking hosts file, I use it as an adult ;-) http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Don't censor anything else IMO, gaining knowledge is good, ignorance is bad.

Re:Net Nanny

[MagusSlurpy]

You probably aren't a parent. Most people here hold your view (as I did) until they have little ones to protect, then decide that the educational opportunity offered by /b/tards and Goatse is pretty much zero, and decide to restrict educational opportunity to the books available at home and in the library.

Re:Net Nanny

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Your boy's not old enough to have hormones going wild and informing him that boobies are the greatest invention ever, so that software makes sense to avoid inadvertent stumbling upon. For the parents of kids just a bit older though, it's use is likely both useless and a symptom of bad parenting. As soon as they're physically able to reproduce, they need to be able to make decisions about it as a responsible adult; they will be in situations where they have the final say on the matter.

Me, I'd say both he and society are better off if he's wanking to a porn tube site and not knocking up the thirteen year old girl down the block. So, drop the net filter subscription and invest in either a damned good anti-virus or teach him to use Linux. Before it becomes an issue, because you've no idea when he's going to talk his way into his first set of panties.

Re:Net Nanny

[RJFerret]

*snickers

First porn I saw? Elementary school (black and white photos)

Second naked pics? Library (color, woohoo!)

Third naked pics? Home

First information about hardcore sexual practices? Psychology section of school library.

It works best to guide our children, we instill values in them a far earlier age than most realize, then they make their own decisions. But if you decide to make them work around your efforts to thwart their curiosity, such sites can easily be included in the Hosts file provided above.

Re:Net Nanny

[fredgiblet]

It's too bad my points expired today, I'd +1 you.

Re:Net Nanny

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like somebody who doesn't have children.

It is not unreasonable to want to prevent your children from being exposed to hardcore pornography at the age of 7. It is not unreasonable to want them to learn about sex and sexuality from a source that won't teach your daughters that slutty is what men like, and that their bodies are all wrong, and need silicone, and botox, and collagen, and liposuction and thousands of dollars of other cosmetic surgery to be attractive to men; or from a source that will teach your sons that women are sluts, bitches, and whores to be used as nothing more than a willing hole, and that "real" women have bodies like porn stars.

They are not old enough to understand the nuances of sexuality at that age. Their minds are still developing, and it is not unreasonable to want to make sure that their minds are not being filled with garbage. Looking at a black and white pair of tits is a LOT different than a 30 minute high-def, full color video showing everything in brutally clinical detail. It's natural that they will be curious about sexuality as they begin to mature - and that's why a responsible parent will make sure they HAVE resources to satisfy their curiosity - but if you think that the hardcore porn being produced today has educational value in teaching children about their sexuality, you are way, way, way off base.

Re:Net Nanny

[stanlyb]

Reminds me of how in ancient Greece used to cure the sex predators: They just let them spend one night in the Venera's temple. After that they did not deviate, to much of course :D

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Spoken like somebody who doesn't have children.

And speaking as someone with an almost irrational fear of everything for the sake of their children is better? But all of this is irrelevant, because whether or not you have children, your conclusions could be correct.

It is not unreasonable to want to prevent your children from being exposed to hardcore pornography at the age of 7.

Why? Not only will they likely discover it anyway, but it is highly unlikely they'll be hurt by it. In fact, I've seen no evidence to reach such a conclusion.

It is not unreasonable to want them to learn about sex and sexuality from a source that won't teach your daughters that slutty is what men like

You can guide them without censoring them. If your children are truly that foolish, of course. I know I, at least, was able to differentiate between fantasy and reality (or in this case, not take everything seen on television or in pornography at face value).

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Spoken like somebody who doesn't have children.

Not all children are the same, anyway. What works for one may not work for another. You know, like with human beings...

Re:Net Nanny

[azalin]

I think installing filters of some kind is actually a good thing. It prevents them from just stumbling upon things and once they are actively starting to look for pron it will require them to learn more about computers and networks. It might be interesting to see how much you could make them learn by simply raising the bar once a year.
Just make sure they know that internet pron and real world intimacy or relationships don't have much in common.

Re:Net Nanny

[xaxa]

It is not unreasonable to want to prevent your children from being exposed to hardcore pornography at the age of 7.

Why? Not only will they likely discover it anyway, but it is highly unlikely they'll be hurt by it. In fact, I've seen no evidence to reach such a conclusion.

At the age of 7, perhaps, but at 13+ hardcore porn can have an effect on what teenagers see as "normal".

Here's one bad example: http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-18282560 and here ""Certain behaviours that I only used to have bored 40-year-olds asking me about goes now right down to the under-16s asking me about it."".

This report might include some research, I don't have time to read it right now.

Re:Net Nanny

[MagusSlurpy]

Why? Not only will they likely discover it anyway, but it is highly unlikely they'll be hurt by it. In fact, I've seen no evidence to reach such a conclusion.

I've seen no evidence to support your conclusion that it's unlikely they'll be hurt by it. So we're even there.

I have no intention of exposing my children to Goatse. Sure, they might not be hurt by it, but I would hypothesize it's even more unlikely that they will be hurt by the lack of hardcore pornography. So I'll play it safe (well, as safe as I can), and not have big gaping assholes as my screen saver just to show that I'm somehow more "enlightened" than the people that filter what their children are exposed to.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

Aaah yes, because fetishism is a sign of mental illness...
No, it's not, the fact that some shrinks haven't caught up to the times is not my problem.
The vast majority of people have fetishest fantasies, many are comfortable expressing it and live happier lives because of that.

The fact that more and more people reach that level of comfort at an earlier age is not a bad thing, it's a GOOD thing.

Let me put it this way - me and my wife are planning to have children, we already decided that our habit of being naked around the house will not change. We will not suddenly start hiding the handcuffs and spanking paddles lying about the house, we will not suddenly put a lock on the play-room door and order them never to enter it - we'll just tell them "when the door is closed, you cannot come in."

Many people think that raises HEALTHIER children. In many cultures, that is how ALL children are raised (most of Europe).

In Dutch culture for example it's common for teenagers to have a sit-down with their parents when they feel ready to have sex and discuss it with them - the young couple asking for advice (not just practical but on the whole thing) before going ahead.
It's also normal practice to get consent, along with good advice.

The Netherlands boasts one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the world. And get this bit: 70% of American's regret the timing or person with whom they had their first sexual experience according to studies. In the Netherlands, only 15% would like to change anything.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

At the age of 7, perhaps, but at 13+ hardcore porn can have an effect on what teenagers see as "normal".

So basically... you've linked me to a few examples. Kind of like blaming Doom for Columbine. What idiotic 13 year olds are these? And assuming they take everything at face-value, why aren't the parents there educating them? It's not porn's fault.

I looked at porn when I was a kid and when I was a teenager. I suspect most people do. Now, how many go out and rape others because of it?

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

>I've seen no evidence to support your conclusion that it's unlikely they'll be hurt by it. So we're even there.

No, you're not. See you're the one who is making a prediction. In scientific terms - that makes you the one who has to provide proof. He is denying that there is any grounds for your prediction.

Of course, the real truth is, most parents define "their children will become sexual beings who are ultimately sexually active with their own natural kinks and pleasures" as "harm".

Here's my advice dude - go stand in the mirror and say to yourself: "One day my little angel will have a great time being somebody else's dirty, dirty girl... or possibly his/her mean dominatrix"

Then say it until you make peace with the fact and stop being scared of it. You'll be a much better parent afterward.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

I've seen no evidence to support your conclusion that it's unlikely they'll be hurt by it.

That's kind of like asking me to prove that Santa doesn't exist. You're the one making the assertion, and if you're going to assert that something hurts people with no evidence, you might as well lock your kid in a basement. Or not. That might hurt them (and I'm sure research shows it would). Better off not having any! If you're going to restrict other people's actions, shouldn't you at least find to evidence to back up your nonsense? I'd rather not have everything be banned by default, thank you.

but I would hypothesize it's even more unlikely that they will be hurt by the lack of hardcore pornography.

They'll probably get around any meaningless filters, and then, assuming they're idiots (as some people like to believe), the lack of guidance they received from their parents could damage them.

Re:Net Nanny

[jawtheshark]

I'm not familiar with this... I never heard about ancient greek sex predators being sent to the temple of Venus (Venera's temple) and what happened to them (getting raped, I presume you imply that... ). Could you explain and prehaps provide a link or two?

Re:Net Nanny

[xaxa]

My links weren't very good, but I don't think you read them anyway. Notice that they end with ".UK", I'm in Europe too.

I have no problem with fetishism. (Also, the quote isn't from a "shrink", it's from the editor of the letters page for a crap newspaper.) What is a problem is when outside influences (pornography, media, etc) normalise certain behaviours, which pressures teenagers into doing things they don't want to do.

Here's a quote from a report by the NSPCC (British charity, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for Children)

Our research into young people’s experiences of violence in their intimate relationships
clearly demonstrates the very high levels of violence that some girls experience from their
male partners. A third of girls reported some form of sexual violence and a quarter
experienced physical violence, with many reporting controlling behaviours from their
partners. The very detrimental impact of such violence on the welfare of girls is clear. In
contrast although boys did report experiencing violence from a partner, only a minority
reported any detrimental impact.
Some boys in the interviews showed very negative attitudes to girls, often objectifying them.
This was especially prevalent in their attitudes towards pressuring girls into sexual contact
and their lack of awareness regarding the impact of this on their female partners. For example,
in one group interview with three boys, when they discussed their sexually coercive ‘tactics’
the other boys in the group responded with admiration. It was clear that some boys
predominantly viewed girls as primarily sexual objects, and that sexual coercion was seen as
normal and acceptable. Little regard was held for the girls’ feelings. In other interviews boys
were either unsure or unaware if their behaviour constituted sexual pressure. The pressure on
boys from peers and the media to portray a dominating sexual persona is also an issue.
In contrast, for girls a disembodied and passive sexuality predominated where sexual pleasure
was mostly absent in their discussions. Many girls stated that the sexual aspects of their
relationships primarily consisted of attempting to resist the pressure they experienced from
male partners. They found this aspect of their relationships hard to negotiate and worried that
their partners would finish the relationship if they confronted them about their behaviour.
These girls derived a great deal of peer status from having a boyfriend – a key protective
factor would be to ensure girls were able to gain self-esteem from other aspects of their lives.

Is that acceptable? I doubt many of them discussed their relationship with their parents, and I doubt their parents had that kind of relationship.

Re:Net Nanny

[gox]

I'm a parent of two and I don't agree with you. They are pretty much able to comprehend what's going on with goatse or porn or whatever. Traumas are problems with the simulation environment you create. I don't argue against the simulation (of real life environment you create to prepare them for the future), it's what we parents do, but if it's easily breached by a picture on a computer, there's probably something wrong about your own doctrines.

Also, it's not like someone's pushing porn or pictures of dead bodies on the kids. If motivated, they will seek out and find it anyway. Why not be able to discuss it with them instead of becoming an alien? If your kid wants to watch porn, sit and watch together. Discuss it. If it's mere curiosity, they will move on very fast. If it's bodily desire, then you either won't be able to do shit by censoring, or your kids will become people who welcome such restrictions.

Re:Net Nanny

[xaxa]

My reply to the other comment has a better quote and a link, I was rushing when I finished my original comment.

I looked at porn when I was a kid and when I was a teenager. I suspect most people do. Now, how many go out and rape others because of it?

Did you have as much porn as you wanted (and more), of all kinds, freely available 24/7 on a personal device you carried with you? No.

Now, how many people who do have this will have unreasonable expectations about a sexual relationship?

There is room for debate here, but yet again the rest of Slashdot sees this as an all-or-nothing issue.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

> Notice that they end with ".UK", I'm in Europe too.

UK is really not representative of European culture in general. I don't live in either but I've visited both many times for extended periods.

> What is a problem is when outside influences (pornography, media, etc) normalise certain behaviours, which pressures teenagers into doing things they don't want to do.

So teach your kids about body-ownership. Teach them that conformity is evil and it's important to be true to yourself. Then if your daughter WANTS her ass spanked then she will do so without spending years feeling guilty about it - and if she doesn't want it (or maybe wants to DO the spanking) she'll have the courage and confidence to look her puppy love in the eyes and say so.
That's what I want to give my daughters, I want to raise little Tiffany Achings.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

>Is that acceptable? I doubt many of them discussed their relationship with their parents, and I doubt their parents had that kind of relationship

No it's not, but the kind of things you blame I think have nothing to do with the issue, the same existed when I was a teenager and the internet didn't exist then.
So teach your boys to respect woman, teach your girls to be confident and self assured - and you yourself should buy her her first vibrator.

Re:Net Nanny

[xaxa]

> Notice that they end with ".UK", I'm in Europe too.

UK is really not representative of European culture in general.

No single country is.

So teach your kids about body-ownership. Teach them that conformity is evil and it's important to be true to yourself.

That's fine, but remember they get influenced by more than just their parents. From the main PDF here (which I linked to before):

43. Opinions are divided about the robustness of existing academic evidence that exposure of children to pornography directly causes harm, although Papadopoulos is strongly of the view that it is detrimental to young people’s development (Papadopoulos, 2010; see also Flood, 2009). However, many contributors to the Review, including child protection organisations, schools, local authorities, child psychologists, youth workers, agony aunts, women’s organisations and internet safety organisations amongst others, provided compelling examples to illustrate their concern that pornography has a negative impact on children and young people. For example, children became convinced that they had to behave and look like the on-screen participants in order to have ‘proper’ sex; which generally meant sex without any basis in love or display of affection or equality; and to conform physically to some very narrow gender stereotypes.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Did you have as much porn as you wanted (and more), of all kinds, freely available 24/7 on a personal device you carried with you?

No, but many people do today (teenagers even!). Now, tell me, how many people go out and rape others?

Now, how many people who do have this will have unreasonable expectations about a sexual relationship?

I have absolutely no idea, and I suspect neither does anyone else. But for me, that's not even the issue; the issue is pointless censorship. Rather than hiding everything, I think people should be educated by their parents instead (if they truly need to be). If they do indeed have these "unreasonable expectations," I'd wager that they'd quickly find out that they were mistaken, not turn into rapists. Until I see some evidence, of course.

It's kind of like saying video games cause people to be violent. Crime statistics simply do not back this up. I need some real-world evidence here, and I need quite a bit of it before I will acknowledge any such problem (although I will never accept censorship as an answer). It would also need to prove that it's directly because of pornography. I noticed that the text in your other comment uses words like "some" and other such things. There is always the chance that such studies will be biased, bogus, or that the problem is mainly caused by a sexually suppressed society.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Then there are things such as this...

Finally, it is difficult to provide any conclusive analysis about the impact of broader social
changes and sexualisation on levels and likelihood of sexual abuse. CEOP remainscautious
about this link given the scarcity of research in this area and what we known about the
determined nature of offender behaviour. However, it is the case that some online
environments provide particular opportunities for offenders to target and access vulnerable
children and young people.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

Counter-claim: "You kids have it lucky in one sense. The virus gave you one good thing and it is this. Our parents hid things from us. They told us only as little as possible about sex and let us figure our own way forward. Dealing with guilt because I happened to be gay on top of all the other big mysteries. We spent our entire lives wondering if we ever really learned to do it right. Scared of it. Guilty about it. The virus changed that- you have to know everything, it's the only way we can protect and save you now - by telling you all, letting you see all, by not hiding anything. It's the only way to save you now that one of the STDs is lethal, it's the only way to beat the virus - and the bonus, the one good thing about it is - you won't be like us. You won't be afraid of sex, you won't be nervous that you're doing it wrong, you won't be nervous that you're attracted to the wrong sex - you'll realize that whatever you're attracted to is what is right to be attracted to. You'll have better lives than we did because of that."

Pieter Dirk Uys - South African HIV/AIDS activist - from a speech he regularly gives at schools. During the same talk he demonstrates the use of a condom - by putting on one a very realistic penis-shaped dildo, because too many kids got infected after thinking if you roll a condom over a banana and put it beside the bed you're having safe sex...

Here's the thing - the guy I'm citing, and the people your study cites are all talking about the SAME damn change - but I agree with him, it's a change which can and must be managed for the positive. It's positive potential far outweighs it's negative risk.
Either way, managed it must be- because it's not possible to go back. Too many innocent lives are at stake.

Re:Net Nanny

[Lumpy]

Yet I am sure you are ok with them seeing violence.

I dont understand why people think that a chold seeing a boobie will scar them for life, but watching Elmer fudd unload a shotgun in donald ducks face is perfectly fine.

Nudity is not bad or evil. Stop obsessing over it.

And yes I have raised 3 children.

Re:Net Nanny

[Sique]

I am a parent. Twice in fact. And I don't restrict the internet access for my children either except for the said host file.
I know that all programming art of the world will not hold out for long against the will and the hormones of a teenager in puberty.

Re:Net Nanny

[misexistentialist]

Yeah, from the female perspective male sexuality appears alien, hostile, evil. The reverse is also true, but those ovaries are so valuable what they say tends to have more weight. Actually embedded in that girl-talk are the challenges boys face that no one gives a shit about: girls being cock teases, de-sexualizing and dehumanizing boys, using boys for status, and even the outrageous claim that girls' violence against boys is not detrimental!

Re:Net Nanny

[progician]

This has nothing to do with putting on restrictions on the available internet sites. Teaching the children about how to handle information is always a better choice of dealing with these things...

Re:Net Nanny

[AdrianKemp]

Every parent needs to do this. It would make both the world, and the teenage years of childhood much, much better.

Re:Net Nanny

[jandersen]

I can sympathise with your sentiment, but I think you base your views on the wrong things.

First of all, I don't think pornograpy is the reason why children learn some sick ideas about how sex, relationships and the world in general works - we are all immersed in rubbish culture from our TVs, advertising etc etc.

Secondly, pornography is only superficially related to sex. It has always struck me how unsexy porn is; with it's focus on unnaturally perfect, hairless bodies, and the complete lack of intellectual or emotional appeal, this is perhaps not all that surprising. You can say, in a way, that pornography is actually quite prudish.

I have never tried to stop my children from accessing pornography. What I have done, though, is to discuss the mater openly and without trying to impose my views - after all, I might be wrong - and instead talked about things. Funny enough, their reaction to pornography has always been one of revulsion. I think this is related to what is called the Uncanny Valley (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley) - porn looks almost, but not quite, like the real thing, and therefore feels creepy.

Re:Net Nanny

[tehcyder]

First information about hardcore sexual practices? Psychology section of school library.

Yes, because there is no difference between an academic discussion of sexual practices and videos of fisting schoolgirls, double anal donkeys, granny scat, or whatever.

You really don't need to have that stuff seared into your brain when you're eight years old.

Re:Net Nanny

[lxs]

and to conform physically to some very narrow gender stereotypes.

All this proves is that the world needs more tranny porn.

Re:Net Nanny

[incalito]

You don't have to teach them what is and what isn't attractive. They will learn it themselves, discover that sex on the porn level gives you way better orgasms, that there is a reason for hypersexuality and whoredom, and vanilla sexuality is... just vanilla garbage.

Re:Net Nanny

[Hatta]

Most people here hold your view (as I did) until they have little ones to protect

Yep, people go crazy when they have kids and no longer listen to reason. This is why "think of the children" is the root password to the constitution. Honestly, it's so disruptive that we really shouldn't even let parents vote. Overreactive parents are responsible for a great many evils in our country, from censorship to the war on drug users.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Dude, not every situation is going to have conclusive scientific research behind it.

If my kid finds some goo on the ground, it probably won't hurt him. I still won't let him eat it.

As for a seven year old. Seven! I won't let my seven-year-old out of the house alone - why the hell would I let her surf the internet alone and unrestricted?

Think about it for a moment: is it acceptable to let a seven-year-old browse an adult video store? If you say "yes", I suspect you'd be on the fringes of society. Yet the same content in the video store is easily accessible via the internet. Should a seven-year-old be brought to a movie that is R-rated for violence? Quentin Tarantino? Saving Private Ryan? Again, most would say "no" but I can find worse on YouTube.

I agree that kids need to be exposed to real life, but the internet is not "real life". It is an amazing repository of knowledge, but it has also filled a role as a niche entertainment medium for people with "deviant" tastes. In other words, it's full of fucked-up shit that you wouldn't be able to find in "real life" unless you were exceptionally lucky (or unlucky). You may very well be right that my kid won't be affected by this stuff, but I won't let my kids be the subjects of this uncontrolled experiment. I'll let your kids "take one for the team".

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

They'll probably get around any meaningless filters, and then, assuming they're idiots (as some people like to believe), the lack of guidance they received from their parents could damage them.

You overestimate the capability of a 7-year-old.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Depends on the 7 year old. It might work for a few years, but they'll probably get past it eventually. Or just see something at a friend's house. Either way, I don't think pretending the material doesn't exist is a worthwhile endeavor.

Re:Net Nanny

[matthewrdamon]

Don't know why it hasn't been mentioned in all of the comments so far, but Open DNS http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/parental-controls/ will handle exactly what you need, and its harder to bypass than some other software out there.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

That website looks highly trustworthy! Kind of like linking to a religious website when you're trying to prove the existence of a god. It's nice to see they have conclusive real-world evid... wait.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

A few years is all you can ask. By 10 their brains can handle more adult concepts.

Re:Net Nanny

[stanlyb]

The opposite, they were not raped, but just had a lot of sex, A LOT. So, at end of the session, after fulfilling all of their desires, they seem to start to behave more or less like the common people.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

>As for a seven year old. Seven! I won't let my seven-year-old out of the house alone - why the hell would I let her surf the internet alone and unrestricted?

In the year I turned 7, I went to school for the first time. On the first day, my mom drove me. On the second day my older cousin showed me the route to ride on my bike. From the third day, I went and came back every day - by myself for the next 12 years.
In the afternoons I played cricket in the streets with the kids from the neighbourhood. My sister who was 5 at the time, played with us, and travelled to school the same way after she turned 6 as well (and we rarely travelled together because we couldn't stand each other). This was in 1987 - and my country was, for all intensive purposes, in the middle of a civil WAR at the time - and it was still okay.

When I was 9 I took the textbook my dad had used when he learned BASIC as part of his engineering studies and wrote my first hello world. I came running up to my dad and said "Daddy, daddy, I wrote a program that can write my name over and over and over ! "
He looked at me, he smiled, and he said: "Nice going ! Now go write one that can do it exactly 5 times and then stop."
I said: "I don't know how to do that."
He said: "You figured it out this far, go find out how to do it."
I did.
That was, to my mind the single best parenting experience I ever had. My parents encouraged me to explore and learn and discover.
They figured even if there are risks (and there were some, at the age of 11 I managed to blow the whole computer up because I was trying to build a robot I could control with programs and I wasn't very good at soldering) it's better that I learn and discover and grow. Indeed in the worst case scenario (as unlikely as it is) it would be better for me to have lived a short life filled with discovery than a long one lived in fear.

>Think about it for a moment: is it acceptable to let a seven-year-old browse an adult video store? If you say "yes", I suspect you'd be on the fringes of society.
I do say yes, and while I may indeed be on the fringes of society, has it ever occurred to you that perhaps it's the fringe at the FRONT ? Progress always looks like insanity by those who fear to question the status quo.

> Yet the same content in the video store is easily accessible via the internet.

Which is convenient because unlike the video store, the government cannot interfere with my belief that letting my kids see it is not only NOT harmful, but actually GOOD for them.

>Should a seven-year-old be brought to a movie that is R-rated for violence?

You think violence and sex are the same thing ? I know a LOT of parents who don't agree. My dad when I was about 12 took a tape of the then most erotic mainstream movie ever made (Basic Instinct) and carefully taped static over the violent scenes, then let us watch it because he didn't think the sex would harm us.
He was PISSED when I watched "The Terminator" at age 14 because of the violence, he didn't care about sex though. Personally - I'm not concerned about violence either - again, violence is a real problem in life. I would rather raise my children to be aware and wary off violence than to pretend it doesn't exist.

I turned out pretty okay and I earn double his salary at half his age.

>but it has also filled a role as a niche entertainment medium for people with "deviant" tastes.

There is no such thing as "deviant", nor is there such a thing as normal. As long as you believe in the existence of either you are a bad parent by default - because the BEST thing a parent can do is help their children discover their own, true, identities and be proud of whatever that turns out to be. The WORST thing a parent can do - is anything else.

> You may very well be right that my kid won't be affected by this stuff, but I won't let my kids be the subjects of this uncontrolled experiment

I didn't say your kid won't be affected, I said he will be HARMED by being kept

Re:Net Nanny

[Fnord666]

Don't know why it hasn't been mentioned in all of the comments so far, but Open DNS http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/parental-controls/ will handle exactly what you need, and its harder to bypass than some other software out there.

The issue with this is that it is that it filters the whole house and would interfere with his access to internet pr0n.

Re:Net Nanny

[jawtheshark]

Damnit, I want a punishment like that.... Any sources for these claims?

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Even if they stumble across pornography at 7, and they don't know what it is (happened to me), they'll probably simply think it's gross.

Re:Net Nanny

[SuricouRaven]

Their capabilities may be limited, but do not underestimate their persistence. How many hours are they willing to spend going through pages of results looking for a site not blocked?

Re:Net Nanny

[SuricouRaven]

"Also, it's not like someone's pushing porn or pictures of dead bodies on the kids." On the internet? There are no obvious cues of age. People do not realise kids are kids, and so they do not receive the effect of the Great Taboo from the real world that causes all explicit or sexual subjects to be dropped upon their arrival. There are plenty of places on the internet where porn is exchanged quite casually.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Yes, but I'm not terribly concerned with porn - unlike the other poster. I'm more concerned with things like videos of shark attacks on YouTube.

Re:Net Nanny

[Jiro]

Modern airings of those old cartoons are edited for exactly that reason. You can bet that Elmer Fudd shooting Donald Duck's face is one of the first things taken out.

The argument "we only care about sex, why do we allow violence" doesn't hold water when talking about media for young children. We don't allow violence in that.

Whether the acts can affect the child's attitude and behavior in real life is also a big factor. The child will later in life interact with real people who have real boobies. The child might get ahold of a real gun. But the child probably won't be getting a laser, which is why kids' shows use lots of lasers.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Again, most of your comments apply to older children - and I tend to agree. A 7-year-old shouldn't watch Jaws unless you want them to refuse to get in the water when you hit the beach.

Thanks for insulting everybody who enjoys anything you don't understand.

Look, if you get off on people shitting on one another, I'm not going to get all PC and call that normal. You might like to watch people get eaten by wild animals, but don't ask me to pretend that is normal. You might be a perfectly nice guy, but that's some fucked up shit that my kid doesn't need to see until their brain has grown a little bit. It's certainly not reflective of the "real world" in any way that is important.

  It's hard to imagine what I would gain by letting my 1st grader cruise the internet unrestricted. A ten-year-old is another matter.

I also reject your claim that my kid will be harmed by a filtered internet. The internet, in the form we are discussing, is only about 20 years old and the rich media part is younger than that. Almost anyone over 30 grew up with no internet at all, and most people over 40 grew up with no computers at all. Were they all "harmed"? Real life is still the best way to get exposure to real life. The internet is not a basic human need by any stretch.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

I have a whitelist, and the allowed sites are the homepage. Google search is not even accessible. Kids are pretty smart, but unless you have a prodigy on your hands configuring a whitelist is a bit beyond their capacity.

It's really only there for when I'm showering, cooking dinner, doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, or other times when I can't be with the kids at the computer. When they are a bit older they will obviously need to Google and stuff, and then the whitelist will be tossed.

Re:Net Nanny

[gox]

Obviously we mean different things by "pushing", but so what anyway? I would be causing them more harm by teaching them it is a good thing to put limits to what you may confront. And then if they are brave enough, have them break the rules to get what they want and hide their guilt from the society. They will conform one way or the other, either by acting as they are supposed to or by pretending that they are. I don't want that.

Re:Net Nanny

[The Mighty Buzzard]

And that is exactly why you hear the anything goes crowd saying puritanical sexual hangups have harmed our nation. They may be wackos like any other extremist group but they're dead on regarding this issue. You can tell by how you don't want to teach your children something they absolutely need to learn.

If you want your kids to learn something, teach them. Acceptable values of any kind aren't just going to spontaneously spring into their minds. It doesn't matter if it makes you uncomfortable, it's your responsibility and no one else's. With any luck, you'll teach them well enough that they won't have the same hang-ups with teaching their own kids.

Seriously, it's just sex. Your sweet little white-haired grandmother did it. Thousands of times. And hopefully enjoyed most of them.

Re:Net Nanny

[hsqueak]

Most people looking for internet filters for their children *are* concerned with violence as well as boobies. Nudity is one thing, but explicit porn ads are quite something different. It's like the difference between your toddler following you into the bathroom and you inviting your toddler into the bedroom to watch you have sex 6 times. Equally, there's a difference between watching Elmer Fudd and Nightmare on Elm Street. Or many cop/crime shows, for that matter. It's all about reasonable limits. I don't want my 7-year old watching R-rated video clips on You Tube; some things, if seen at all, should be viewed with an adult to answer questions or to put things in context.

Re:Net Nanny

[Americano]

One can have unhealthy views of sex and sexuality, and not be a rapist or a pedophile.

When I hear all the people here talking about how they had "tons of porn as a kid" and it didn't harm them at all, I have to check the URL bar to make sure I'm still at the site where:
1) any mention of "low numbers of Women in IT" is met with shouts of "It's because they're dumb at math, so they should stick to baking cookies / disinterested in math and more interested in needlepoint / it's not my fault they can't put up with dick jokes;"
2) any mention of marriage/divorce is met with a rousing cry of, "Marriage is for idiots - the laws are stacked against men, women have all the power and they use it to emasculate us - because they're evil!"
3) any talk of relationships and dating invariably turns to "women are evil bitches who just want to manipulate us, and they never see the GREAT GUY LIKE ME because they want bad boys and guys who treat them like jerks. They walk all over us while we love them from afar, so FUCK them."

Clearly, ready access to porn doesn't contribute to unhealthy views of sexuality. It's a good thing all of us with easy access to porn as kids developed healthy attitudes towards sex as adults! Otherwise, lots of guys here would probably have the view that women have one use: willing, nubile blow-up-doll replacements who are absolutely delighted by the idea that they can serve you and give you pleasure.

No, it's good that we had Anal Jizz Sluts (vols. 1-7 - production values really went south in vol. 8 and later, I think we can all agree) to teach us a healthy perspective on sex. Thank god for that educational porn!

(To underscore one more time: one need not be a rapist or a pedophile to have unhealthy views of sex.)

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

The problem is that a young person might misinterpret what they are seeing.

How often does this happen? What are the consequences? Can you provide conclusive real-world evidence that it's a common problem and that it's harmful?

does a 13 year old understand that this is roleplaying?

Are we speaking of an idiot, or what I believe a normal 13 year old is? If the former, the parents can educate them if need be. Censorship isn't necessary.

Re:Net Nanny

[Ironhandx]

This actually needs to be modded up.

Putting women on a pedestal has stunted the emotional and personal growth of more than one man I know. Men pretty much NEED to think of every woman but mom as sluts in order to have the confidence to approach them successfully at all. Otherwise they think of every woman as Mom, and no woman wants that. I have a boarder right now who is stuck in that loop. Completely denied sex education through home schooling, doesn't watch porn etc for religious reasons. Has never had a girlfriend, but definitely isn't gay, or at least if he is he's the best closeted gay I've ever seen. He claims to be asexual but I've seen the way he treats my fiance and other women. He treats them all like his mother except he feels safer around my fiance because she's taken. The rest he looks at and appreciates but treats them like they're his mother whenever he actually talks to them.

Re:Net Nanny

[Ironhandx]

Note: Sluts may be too strong a word... but its the best one I have to get the point across.

The women have to be viewed as horny potential mates.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

One can have unhealthy views of sex and sexuality, and not be a rapist or a pedophile.

How harmful is it? How often does it happen? Is there conclusive real-world evidence that links such behavior to pornography?

I have to check the URL bar to make sure I'm still at the site where:

I hope you're not assuming everyone on this website is like those people you mentioned that supposedly exist. I also hope you're not assuming any of those are caused by pornography.

Thank god for that educational porn!

I never said anything about educational porn. I said that I think that parents need to guide their children, not keep them in bubbles.

Re:Net Nanny

[mcgrew]

Yet I am sure you are ok with them seeing violence.

I wouldn't let my kids watch The Teminator when they were little for the same reason I wouldn't let them watch Deep Throat. It would be a sick individual who would subject a child to either of them.

OTOH their favorite TV show was Pee Wee's Playhouse (I enjoyed it, too, and watched it with them) so I let them see the scene in that Cheech and Chong movie where Pee Wee gets arrested, and the other one where he snorts coke and goes crazy.

Nudity isn't pornography. I, too, wonder why when they show Terminator on TV they cut the sex scene and language, but leave in all the blood, gore, and violence.

watching Elmer fudd unload a shotgun in donald ducks face is perfectly fine.

Dude... it's a CARTOON. Even a two year old knows it isn't real.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Dude, not every situation is going to have conclusive scientific research behind it.

Okay. Then I think it's time to stop trying to ban things/censor them if people aren't sure they're harmful. If they have no evidence, what's the point?

As for a seven year old. Seven! I won't let my seven-year-old out of the house alone - why the hell would I let her surf the internet alone and unrestricted?

Why not? Letting them out of the house is quite different, anyway. If he's educated about proper use, what's the problem?

If you say "yes", I suspect you'd be on the fringes of society.

Then I'm on the fringes of society. But that demonstrates nothing.

Again, most would say "no" but I can find worse on YouTube.

Why does it matter what most think?

Re:Net Nanny

[Americano]

http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/NNBCKV.pdf

You can start there. The summary of findings at the end are particularly helpful if you want a tl;dr. One takeaway is that yes, repeated exposure to pornography can "breed discontent with the physical appearance and sexual performance of intimate partners." In other words, it gives people unrealistic views of body types and sexual activity which are actually harmful to your ability to form healthy intimate relationships with real people.

I hope you're not assuming everyone on this website is like those people you mentioned that supposedly exist. I also hope you're not assuming any of those are caused by pornography.

I'm saying that many of the names I'm reading spouting opinions about how "porn is fine for kids, I had tons of access to porn and it didn't harm me at all!" are also names I see participating quite vocally in the types of discussions I stated.

Interestingly, from the NIH link above:

Prolonged exposure to nonviolent and violent pornography promotes insensitivity towards victims of sexual violence.

From your recent comment in another article:

It's not as if she'll get raped each time someone decides to watch the film. She was already raped, and no amount of slippery-slope-style censorship will change that.

This, said in the context of a discussion of whether or not somebody should be allowed to post a video of someone being raped on a billboard, with you taking the "of course it should be allowed, to disallow it is evil censorship!" position. Connecting these two quotes is left as an exercise for the reader.

I never said anything about educational porn. I said that I think that parents need to guide their children, not keep them in bubbles.

And one way of guiding your child is by limiting what they can see on the internet - guiding them to "acceptable" web sites, as it were. So I'm glad you've come around and agree that limiting childrens' exposure to porn is a good thing! I look forward to your retractions.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

In other words, it gives people unrealistic views of body types and sexual activity which are actually harmful to your ability to form healthy intimate relationships with real people.

How accurate is the study? Does it provide actual, real-world evidence that conclusively shows that it's a problem for many people, and then links this to pornography?

This, said in the context of a discussion of whether or not somebody should be allowed to post a video of someone being raped on a billboard, with you taking the "of course it should be allowed, to disallow it is evil censorship!" position. Connecting these two quotes is left as an exercise for the reader.

That likely has nothing to do with pornography. Unless you assume that everyone should simply take one position on the matter and anyone who takes a contrary position must have been brainwashed by porn. To me, anything else is simply emotional and irrational nonsense.

The issue doesn't have anything to do with women, pornography, or even rape, but censorship.

So I'm glad you've come around and agree that limiting childrens' exposure to porn is a good thing!

I didn't agree. Educate them on the matter, not block sites or force them to stay off certain sites.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Prolonged exposure to nonviolent and violent pornography promotes insensitivity towards victims of sexual violence.

By the way, you have no idea whether or not I'm "insensitive" or simply reject censorship to such a degree that it doesn't matter. This entire point is meaningless, however, since it doesn't affect the validity of my position.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Why not? Letting them out of the house is quite different, anyway. If he's educated about proper use, what's the problem?

Because you can't educate a 7-year-old to properly use a medium like the internet. A 7-year-old has a completely different, very self-centered worldview. Their brain is simply not done developing to even a basic level. Studies show that on average a kid has to be 10 before they will stop chasing a ball into a street without looking for oncoming traffic... this isn't something that is simply "taught" - it has to be learned, of course, but the brain also has to be ready for it.

So I know my kids, right? And I know that if my 1st grader accidentally gets one of the animals-devouring-a-person videos on YouTube, not only will I have to deal with nightmares, but depending on the animal I might not be able to get her to go into the water (shark attacks). I can't teach her to un-watch a video, so instead I have to wait until her brain is mature enough to handle this kind of imagery. I don't have a 9 or 10 year-old yet, but I'm assuming that is about the age where they won't be running into my room at 2AM anymore because a tiger is chasing them.

Until then, she gets a whitelist.

Why does it matter what most think?

Because you have to live in this society. Social norms are a pretty important thing to learn, even if you chose to ignore them.

Re:Net Nanny

[Americano]

How accurate is the study? Does it provide actual, real-world evidence that conclusively shows that it's a problem for many people, and then links this to pornography?

Translation: I can't be assed to read it, or any of the references, because it might challenge my preconceptions, or I might be forced to offer counter-evidence. Since they disagree with me, I will simply hand-wave away the only concrete facts that have been presented to me.

That likely has nothing to do with pornography.

Actually, given the finding that prolonged exposure to pornography promotes insensitivity to victims of sexual assault, and given the fundamentally shocking insensitivity of the claim that someone SHOULD be allowed to display a video in which someone is being sexually assaulted, I'd say your arguments about how you're "totally fine!" after prolonged and early exposure to porn lack a certain credibility. I've provided a study conducted by the NIH that says long exposure to porn promotes these attitudes - do you have a piece of evidence that can counter that study? Or are you just trying to backpedal furiously, hoping I'll get distracted?

I didn't agree. Educate them on the matter, not block sites or force them to stay off certain sites.

Why not do both? Explain why you're blocking the sites, AND block the sites? Nobody's arguing that "the only thing you should do is set up Net Nanny." You're creating a straw man in an attempt to distract from the issue at hand, so one more time:

Do you have evidence you can offer that counters the conclusions of the NIH study I linked? If not, then I'm glad I could educate you. No doubt your attitudes towards exposing children to pornography have been changed by exposure to hard facts and scientific data showing that there are harmful effects!

Re:Net Nanny

[Americano]

By the way, you have no idea whether or not I'm "insensitive" or simply reject censorship to such a degree that it doesn't matter.

That you would argue un-ironically that someone should be able to publicly display a video they recorded of someone's sexual assault pretty much answers the question of whether or not you're "insensitive."

Your bullshit about "rejecting censorship" sounds very nice, but any claim of rejecting censorship that says "It's fine to harm other people with my actions and speech," displays a lack of sensitivity so fundamental that you should probably be screened for autism-spectrum disorders, if you don't already have a diagnosis.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Translation: I can't be assed to read it, or any of the references, because it might challenge my preconceptions, or I might be forced to offer counter-evidence. Since they disagree with me, I will simply hand-wave away the only concrete facts that have been presented to me.

That sounds like a straw man since I only asked a few questions. I'm sure anyone could fire off links to exceedingly long studies for either side, but where is the commonly-accepted, real-world evidence?

Actually, given the finding that prolonged exposure to pornography promotes insensitivity to victims of sexual assault, and given the fundamentally shocking insensitivity of the claim that someone SHOULD be allowed to display a video in which someone is being sexually assaulted, I'd say your arguments about how you're "totally fine!" after prolonged and early exposure to porn lack a certain credibility.

Wait... lack credibility? Are you attempting to use an ad hominem attack to discredit my previous arguments? Even if I was affected by pornography, that does not alter the validity of any of my arguments (especially since they're mere opinions). You seem to be saying that anyone with certain views has been brainwashed by pornography, and their opinions on the matters are therefore invalid. I think that's illogical nonsense.

Or are you just trying to backpedal furiously, hoping I'll get distracted?

You're the one who brought the issue up.

No doubt your attitudes towards exposing children to pornography have been changed by exposure to hard facts and scientific data showing that there are harmful effects!

It's great to see that you agree with my opinion that pornography isn't harmful in most cases.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Because you can't educate a 7-year-old to properly use a medium like the internet.

That depends on the 7 year old. How did anyone ever survive without censorship or keeping children in a bubble?

Because you have to live in this society. Social norms are a pretty important thing to learn, even if you chose to ignore them.

We're talking about holding an opinion here. It's unlikely that it'll even be noticed or affect anything.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

In my opinion, you sound quite determined to link any of my opinions to pornography. Your opinion must therefore stem from anti-pornography bias and is therefore invalid and illogical. Take that!

Your bullshit about "rejecting censorship" sounds very nice, but any claim of rejecting censorship that says "It's fine to harm other people with my actions and speech," displays a lack of sensitivity so fundamental that you should probably be screened for autism-spectrum disorders, if you don't already have a diagnosis.

I don't mind if you think it lacks sensitivity. Not only will what you believe I think not change what I actually think, but it's completely irrelevant as to whether or not what I said was correct.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

That depends on the 7 year old. How did anyone ever survive without censorship or keeping children in a bubble?

What bubble? Were children in a bubble when there was no internet? I could just unplug the computer for the next 5 years and my child would not suffer at all. Oh, sure, they'd need to catch up on their mousing and game playing skills... I don't see the problem.

Kids growing up with unfettered access to the internet is the grand experiment here. We have 150,000 pre-internet years of mankind as the baseline. I don't need scientific proof to default to the traditional exposure of kids to the internet.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Were children in a bubble when there was no internet?

Depends on the child.

I could just unplug the computer for the next 5 years and my child would not suffer at all.

I never said that the internet was a necessity. Just that the attitudes of certain people seem foolish to me.

I don't need scientific proof to default to the traditional exposure of kids to the internet.

Well, I'd rather not have things be banned by default, and I'll argue against anyone that thinks they should be (even if it's simply a parent and child involved).

And the fact that something is old doesn't necessarily mean that it's good. I don't see why so many people are afraid when there is no scientific proof.

Re:Net Nanny

[Americano]

First, we're not talking about "children growing up to be rapists" as a result of porn. Do you even bother to read the bullshit you're linking? your own link concludes:

I think it is better to expend our energies in two directions. 1) Make better pornography so that preferred role models are portrayed and more segments of society can come to appreciate or at least understand and tolerate its value; and 2) turn our research to other directions to eliminate or reduce the social ills of rape and other sex crimes. The best place to look is probably in the home during the first decade of life. But it is only by research that we can continue to understand how to most effectively meet this social challenge. Governments as well as the pornography industry itself would do well to finance and encourage such research.

Why would we need to show preferred role models and "better pornography," if porn is fine and not harmful at all as it is? There is a difference between *criminal behavior as a result of porn,* and long-term exposure to porn influencing children with unhealthy attitudes towards sex that will actually decrease their ability to have functional intimate relationships with others. Again: you need not be a rapist or a pedophile to have an unhealthy attitude towards sex.

Wait... lack credibility?

Yes, lack credibility. I didn't stutter. It's not an ad hominem attack to point out:
1) The study I linked concludes that prolonged exposure to porn reduces sensitivity to victims of sexual assault;
2) Your argument that preventing someone from displaying a video of someone being raped constitutes intolerable censorship shows a profound lack of sensitivity to victims of sexual assault;
3) You are claiming there are no negative consequences of prolonged (and early) exposure to porn, while exhibiting signs of one of the negative influences found in the NIH's study;

Given 1, 2 and 3 above - it's not an ad hominem attack to suggest that your unverified claims that "porn is fine for kids, trying to limit their unfettered access to it is intolerable!" lacks credibility. It is entirely consistent with the facts in evidence. To help you, an "ad hominem" attack would be to say, "cheekyjohnson is kind of a mouthy douchebag who shits up Slashdot. Therefore his views on porn are wrong." It is not an ad hominem attack to say, "Cheekyjohnson shows at least one of the negative signs found to be a result of long term exposure to porn. Therefore his unsubstantiated claims that 'porn is fine and never harmful,' are suspect, and lack credibility."

It's great to see that you agree with my opinion that pornography isn't harmful in most cases.

Sure, it's mostly in children and the mentally impaired that it can be harmful - because they lack the mental function to distinguish between "fantasy" and "reality," and that critical lack can lead to sexual and intimacy problems as adults. So we're agreed - it's perfectly reasonable to block your children's access to porn until they're mentally and emotionally capable of being exposed to it.

To be clear: I have no problem with porn. I enjoy it on occasion, and have even enjoyed it with girlfriends. That does not mean I believe it is appropriate, beneficial, or just "no big deal," to show porn to my children. There are influences that I'd prefer they not be subjected to until they're older - and if the technological means exists to help me prevent that influence, I will certainly use it, and it is entirely reasonable to do so. I don't want my daughter growing up thinking she needs implants to be sexy, or that bending over for every guy she meets will make her popular. I also don't want my son growing up believing that girls are nothing more than dick holsters who should be used and discarded at every opportunity. When they're older and do get exposed to porn, as they inevitably will, it will be wi

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Why would we need to show preferred role models and "better pornography," if porn is fine and not harmful at all as it is?

1) The study I linked concludes that prolonged exposure to porn reduces sensitivity to victims of sexual assault;

The problem is, I believe, the lack of real-world evidence showing that this is a major problem that many, many people are facing. I asked you to clarify this with those questions. Mainly that it was pointed out that real-world evidence isn't always used (which was said near the beginning).

2) Your argument that preventing someone from displaying a video of someone being raped constitutes intolerable censorship shows a profound lack of sensitivity to victims of sexual assault;

Not necessarily true.

3) You are claiming there are no negative consequences of prolonged (and early) exposure to porn, while exhibiting signs of one of the negative influences found in the NIH's study;

That's not the only way to exhibit such a sign, and you do not know if I do exhibit such a sign. You merely lack the imagination to fathom how a person can be opposed to censorship enough that their sensitivity towards victims can still remain after rejecting such censorship.

Given 1, 2 and 3 above - it's not an ad hominem attack to suggest that your unverified claims that "porn is fine for kids, trying to limit their unfettered access to it is intolerable!" lacks credibility.

I thought you were talking about my position on child pornography.

"cheekyjohnson is kind of a mouthy douchebag who shits up Slashdot. Therefore his views on porn are wrong."

It could also be: "cheekyjohnson looks and pornography and I believe he is negatively affected by it. Therefore, his position on child pornography is invalid because it was caused by pornography." Note that that's what it appeared to me you were saying when I made that comment.

Cheekyjohnson shows at least one of the negative signs found to be a result of long term exposure to porn.

It hasn't and very likely can't be proven to be due to pornography, though.

Therefore his unsubstantiated claims that 'porn is fine and never harmful,'

I don't recall saying that it's never harmful.

it's perfectly reasonable to block your children's access to porn until they're mentally and emotionally capable of being exposed to it.

Why are you concluding that I agree with that? Even if you were to prove it to me completely that it's harmful for them (which I don't believe was done), I would not agree to censorship-like policies.

These distinctions are not one that a 7 year old is prepared to make.

So they can't tell that video games are fantasy? For one thing, it depends on the 7 year old, and I very much doubt that. If they can tell that video games are fantasy, then chances are they can at least be informed by the parents that pornography doesn't reflect reality.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

You may or may not be right that it gives some people "unrealistic expectations," but I think the problem is a lack of education rather than a lack of censorship.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Well, I'd rather not have things be banned by default,

Right, but you have to admit that is the more conservative approach.

And the fact that something is old doesn't necessarily mean that it's good. I don't see why so many people are afraid when there is no scientific proof.

There is no proof one way or another just yet. I'm just not willing to make my kid into a test case. If other people want to expose their elementary kids to the full-blown internet, I won't stand in their way. Let me know when the study comes out, and I'll thank them for donating their kids to science.

Re:Net Nanny

[norminator]

My mother-in-law has a fridge magnet that says something along the lines of: "Before I had kids, I had 6 theories about how to raise them. Now I have 6 kids and no theories".

It's very easy to look forward and say "When I have kids, this is what I'll do. I won't be like those stupid shitty parents who do this or that or the other, because I know better. I'll be a good one." Then you have kids, and you realize what it's like to live with them, to be responsible for them, to know how their little minds work.

I'm not saying you'll definitely change your mind, but having kids changes you, and not just in perspective. Suddenly you really have to be responsible. Suddenly you have a little buddy who pretty much worships the ground you walk on. You have an insatiable urge to impress them, to teach them, to make them laugh, and to keep them safe. Also, the more kids you have, the more you bend your life around them. Not everything's about doing what you want to do, or doing it how you want to.

Also, if you're still leaving "toys" out when your kids are teenagers, they'll start to hate you when they want to have their friends over. Even when they're younger, if they want to have friends over for play dates, you'd best be cleaning up and getting dressed before their friends' moms come over to drop them off.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

I'm just not willing to make my kid into a test case.

Then become a Luddite, and assume new things are bad by default.

Re:Net Nanny

[norminator]

What idiotic 13 year olds are these?

Seriously? Do you know any 13 year olds? Remember being one? How many times as a kid/teenager did you do something horrible and later think "I was just a dumb kid, I didn't know any better"?

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Remember being one?

I don't remember being quite so dense. From my perspective, it's the almost anti-pornography people that don't remember being a teenager.

Re:Net Nanny

[norminator]

What I have done, though, is to discuss the mater openly

I think everyone should have a serious, open discussion about 'Mater before they let their kids watch Cars.

Re:Net Nanny

[Americano]

Way to dodge the question. I'll put it in here again, so you can answer it:

Why would we need to show preferred role models and "better pornography," if porn is fine and not harmful at all as it is?

So they can't tell that video games are fantasy?

In many ways, NO, they cannot. They are still learning cause and effect; They are still learning what's "real" and what's "imaginary" - If you've ever spent time around a child, you'd know that they frequently mimic behaviors, speech, and activities they've seen on television. Because that is one important way children learn: by watching the adults around them, and mimicking the behaviors, speech patterns, and activities of adults. A child who is sexually immature is not ready physically to learn about sex in graphic and clinical terms such as you'll see in porn, and they are not ready for it emotionally, either.

In light of this, it is entirely reasonable - and well within a parents' prerogative - to block access to porn (and any other "harmful" influence they wish). You've spent dozens of posts here telling a bunch of parents how wrong they are to want to raise their children in a manner they feel appropriate, and yet you can offer no evidence or argument as to why what they wish to do is harmful to the children. Numerous parents, on the flip side, have pointed out studies where prolonged exposure to porn has negative effects on a person's view of sexuality and ability to form intimate bonds with real people.

In summation: Your agreement is not required , and your sanction was not requested . If you have nothing to offer a parent looking for software that will help him block his children from accessing objectionable content, why bother crapping up the entire comment thread with your untested, unproven, and unsupported theories of child rearing?

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Why would we need to show preferred role models and "better pornography," if porn is fine and not harmful at all as it is?

The reason I linked to that was not for its overall conclusion, but more for the text at the very top talking about real-world examples.

As for the question, one explanation could be that there are some (even if not many) people are themselves "negatively" impacted by pornography, so having better role models may be a positive thing for them. For them.

If you've ever spent time around a child

I know I was a child, and I know I knew the difference. Well, I suppose that doesn't mean that all or even most children do, but the differences here are even more clear than with porn, and painstakingly clear if a parent explains the difference instead of trying to trap every child in a bubble.

A child who is sexually immature is not ready physically to learn about sex in graphic and clinical terms such as you'll see in porn, and they are not ready for it emotionally, either.

I wonder how numerous such children are. I wonder how many of them will truly be affected by it. If they are affected, I wonder how much harm it actually does.

You've spent dozens of posts here telling a bunch of parents how wrong they are to want to raise their children in a manner they feel appropriate

I told them that I believe they're wrong, not that they are.

and yet you can offer no evidence or argument as to why what they wish to do is harmful to the children.

I simply believe many learning experiences can be had with unrestricted use and a lack of helicopter parents. And I'm also against censorship in general.

Numerous parents, on the flip side, have pointed out studies where prolonged exposure to porn has negative effects on a person's view of sexuality and ability to form intimate bonds with real people.

For one thing, how do you know they're parents? Why did they even need to be mentioned? Also, I would hardly call a few people "numerous." And I'd say the studies themselves are suspect if you're looking for conclusive real-world evidence, and to be more specific, the effects on actual children of this age.

Your agreement is not required , and your sanction was not requested.

He posted it publicly and was therefore open to criticism.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Or I could use my judgement instead of filing all things into binary categories?

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

I'm not aware of anyone not using their own judgement. That doesn't mean they can't be criticized for their decisions, though.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Isn't that what this whole discussion is about? Someone wants a block so their 7-year-old can't get to the broader internet. Some people (yourself included) make it seem like a big deal, when in fact this is how you and everyone else (except the very young) grew up. You have a very high user ID, so maybe you are young enough that you can't remember life without the internet - but believe me, it is a very recent development and people got along just fine without it.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

You have a very high user ID, so maybe you are young enough that you can't remember life without the internet

Actually, I remember plenty of life without the internet.

and people got along just fine without it.

I never argued otherwise. I'm just against censorship and the attitudes of the parents behind it. It has nothing to do with the internet being a necessity.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

I'm not against censoring what your children experience. I think it is an important part of parenting. It is no more appropriate to let a 7-year-old browse YouTube than it was 20 years ago to let them browse police crime scene photos (or some other horrible collection of violence). Until we went out to catch lightning bugs, I was sitting here at the computer with the kids surfing YouTube, but the things they want me to click on are totally inappropriate for a 1st grader and a preschooler - so instead I explain that I don't want them to see that and I have them click on something else. When I'm not around, I turn on the whitelist.

Once I sit there and they don't try to click on the inappropriate stuff all the time (and I think they can handle it if they do accidentally without 2am nightmare visits), I'll ditch the filter. But for now, it is a great tool.

Re:Net Nanny

[Americano]

The reason I linked to that was not for its overall conclusion, but more for the text at the very top talking about real-world examples.

Sorry, you can't "selectively" cite the parts of the study that support your argument while ignoring the bits that disagree with your fundamental premise. If you can't address them, you simply undermine your own point.

one explanation could be that there are some (even if not many) people are themselves "negatively" impacted by pornography

In other words, you have no fucking clue, but that won't stop you making shit up in an attempt to "prove" your point is valid. Do you have data to support your hypothetical explanation? No? Objection sustained, hypothesis rejected.

I know I was a child, and I know I knew the difference.

Yeah, and eyewitnesses are pretty much always unreliable. So if you're basing your entire argument on "I don't think I would have had any problems with that as a child, based on what I remember of being a child," then again: your point is irrelevant, and invalid.

I told them that I believe they're wrong, not that they are.

Go back and read what you wrote. You said "it's stupid." "it's wrong." "you're paranoid." Not "I believe that there are more effective ways." You also have yet to offer any credible scientific evidence that your suggestions are any better than blocking access, and you keep on focusing in on trying to "win" the disagreement through semantic sleight of hand. If you have a viable alternative to suggest, then by all means suggest it. But don't pretend that your opinion is any more fact-based than anybody else's opinion, unless you're prepared to back it up with facts. All you've done so far is try to throw question on the facts that HAVE been presented to you by saying, "I wonder how many kids are affected that way. I wonder what percentage of people this is a problem for." If you were really wondering those things, you'd be reading the data presented to you, and researching it. Attempting to cast doubt on the facts you're presented with while offering none of your own that would counter those facts or paint a substantially different picture simply suggests that you're trolling. And given that you account for nearly 10% of the posts in this comment thread, I suspect that's exactly what's happening.

For one thing, how do you know they're parents?

Because they've said so.

Why did they even need to be mentioned?

Because somebody who has *actually* spent time doing the work under discussion has some inherent credibility when speaking to its complexities and difficulties. Somebody whose knowledge of parenting comes strictly from what they've thought about while reading the fucking summary at the top of the page lacks that credibility.

Consider it this way: You're presented with 2 employees who disagree on a product strategy: one is an engineer with 5 years of relevant domain experience, the other is a kid fresh out of college with nothing but a couple years of book learning. Experienced engineer says, "We should do X," and accompanies that advice with facts and persuasive logic. Wet behind the ears kid says, "We should do Y," and accompanies that with a lot of petty semantic quibbling about the validity of experienced engineer's data, and no supporting evidence, data, or logic of his own. You're the manager, you're telling me you're going to overrule your experienced engineer with actual facts, experience & logic, in favor of an inexperienced new hire who doesn't know anything about the problem domain other than what he read in a book once, maybe?

He posted it publicly and was therefore open to criticism.

He posted a public question, not a public Request for Comments. You've proceeded to was

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

Sorry, you can't "selectively" cite the parts of the study that support your argument while ignoring the bits that disagree with your fundamental premise. If you can't address them, you simply undermine your own point.

The point I was attempting to make in the first place is a lack of real-world evidence.

In other words, you have no fucking clue, but that won't stop you making shit up in an attempt to "prove" your point is valid. Do you have data to support your hypothetical explanation? No? Objection sustained, hypothesis rejected.

Stop trying to "prove" that your point is valid by making things up!

Yeah, and eyewitnesses are pretty much always unreliable. So if you're basing your entire argument on "I don't think I would have had any problems with that as a child, based on what I remember of being a child," then again: your point is irrelevant, and invalid.

I don't believe it's unreliable in my specific case, nor did I base my entire argument on it. Also, I told you that I could tell the difference as a child, not that I think I would be able to.

Go back and read what you wrote.

Everything I wrote was meant to be an opinion. Including the fact that they're paranoid.

You also have yet to offer any credible scientific evidence that your suggestions are any better than blocking access

I don't think you understand my position. I simply reject censorship whether or not you think it's a good idea and could prove that it would help a few people. If explaining the issue to them in an attempt to mitigate any strange conclusions they foolishly came to from watching pornography wouldn't help the issue, then they'll beyond hope, in my opinion.

But don't pretend that your opinion is any more fact-based than anybody else's opinion

You needn't tell me that.

All you've done so far is try to throw question on the facts that HAVE been presented to you by saying

Sorry for questioning your "facts."

Because somebody who has *actually* spent time doing the work under discussion has some inherent credibility when speaking to its complexities and difficulties.

But I'll oppose censorship no matter what, so it's irrelevant to my point. It always has been. I just wondered about the answer, and previously, no one was linking to any actual studies.

He posted a public question, not a public Request for Comments.

Sorry, but he posted it in a public place where you can make public comments. He had no reason that I see to expect no criticism whatsoever (especially here).

but you should probably try and understand that nobody with a child to raise will ever take your parenting advice

That's a shame.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

I'm not against censoring what your children experience.

I don't care.

It is no more appropriate to let a 7-year-old browse YouTube than it was 20 years ago to let them browse police crime scene photos (or some other horrible collection of violence).

I don't see a problem with that, either. My main problem is people who censor things without even knowing if it will negatively affect their child or if teaching them about the subject will help them.

Re:Net Nanny

[cheekyjohnson]

The interpretation of the data in the study you linked to has been questioned, and alternate possibilities have been mentioned. There is even a reply towards the bottom. Linking to a single study, article, or what have you, will likely not conclusively prove anything given the amount of bias circulating around on either side (and the bias of the people linking to these studies/articles). It's not such a clear-cut issue (which is the impression I got from you). If we were talking about the theory of gravity, I believe such confidence would not be misplaced, but I believe it's dangerous to give the illusion that it has been proven either way without a doubt here.

I still believe that education, rather than censorship, is a good idea.

Sorry, you can't "selectively" cite the parts of the study that support your argument while ignoring the bits that disagree with your fundamental premise.

Allow me to further explain my original intentions. Imagine that someone comes to two conclusions:
1) 1 + 1 = 2. To me, this conclusion is logical and I believe their explanation makes sense.
2) 1 + 2 = 4. They, to me, did not arrive at this conclusion using valid logic, and their explanation is inconclusive at best.

If the issue of 1 + 1 being 2 were to come up, despite the fact that I don't agree with everything they say, I could cite their first conclusion. I needn't agree with everything they say in order to do that.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

>Again, most of your comments apply to older children - and I tend to agree. A 7-year-old shouldn't watch Jaws unless you want them to refuse to get in the water when you hit the beach.

You think they apply to older children - I'm pointing out that they don't. That at 7 I did most of the things you won't let your kids do, and it did me no harm. The idea that a 7 year old can't walk the streets would seem ludicrous to most parents of just one generation ago, because it is.

>Look, if you get off on people shitting on one another, I'm not going to get all PC and call that normal.
Again, normal doesn't exist. There's no such thing. The only UNNATURAL sexual choice is abstinence, everything else is normal. I don't have any desire for that particular fetish - but I understand why some people do. There are plenty of people who judge me for being bi, same with my fiance, though women who are bi get judged less than men. Quite a lot of people judge us for being polyamorous. I believe children should grow up to know that a family is any group of people who love each other, that's the be-all and the end-all of it. What consenting adults like to is their business - but pretending that they all like the same thing, that's judgemental and wrong, and thinking your child shouldn't know about such people is harmful to your child.

> It's certainly not reflective of the "real world" in any way that is important.
If nothing else, you're shielding them from the reality that there are people who enjoy things you don't get.

> It's hard to imagine what I would gain by letting my 1st grader cruise the internet unrestricted. A ten-year-old is another matter.

A kid who trusts you for guidance, and who won't when they get confronted with these things blame you for hiding them from him and leaving him unprepared.

>I also reject your claim that my kid will be harmed by a filtered internet. The internet, in the form we are discussing, is only about 20 years old and the rich media part is younger than that. Almost anyone over 30 grew up with no internet at all, and most people over 40 grew up with no computers at all. Were they all "harmed"? Real life is still the best way to get exposure to real life. The internet is not a basic human need by any stretch.

Being shielded from anything that exists is harmful. In the 80's when I grew up - that was the parents who pretended to their kids that my country wasn't at war, that their older brothers and fathers and uncles weren't busy dying. A few years later it was the ones who pretended those people died as heroes, who pretended to their kids that it was a just war and we were not on the wrong side of it (it wasn't and we weren't). Then those kids grew up to be able to read newspapers - and learn what really happened... instead of being able to understand their parent's remorse - now they saw their parents are people who had supported evil and still did.

Every experience I have had has taught me one thing: there is never a time when hiding things from a kid is a good idea. Everything you hide will come back to bite you in the ass.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

>Because you have to live in this society. Social norms are a pretty important thing to learn, even if you chose to ignore them.

If you choose to ignore them, how does it make any difference if you learned them or not ? Teach your kids to be tolerant - pull that one off and you've made great kids, anything else good is a bonus, but pretty much EVERYTHING else they can learn from a parent is NOT good.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

>Kids growing up with unfettered access to the internet is the grand experiment here. We have 150,000 pre-internet years of mankind as the baseline. I don't need scientific proof to default to the traditional exposure of kids to the internet.

For the vast majority of that period in the vast majority of places on earth (basically for 99.99% of all the kids who ever lived in that time-frame you cite) kids would see far worse things than what's on the internet by looking out the window. Heads on spikes, bodies rotting on public gallows, and people dying in the street from the black plague.

In fact - the "sheltered" kids idea is the grand experiment - it's really only existed for about 70 years, post world war 2 in wealthy countries. Prior to that it was actually not POSSIBLE to shelter children in any way from the harshest realities of life - not to mention considering the average child-mortality rate, every single kid in the world up to about 1950 had buried at least one sibling by the age of 10. They didn't die from seeing the bad stuff either - they died because disease was rampant and medicine was weak. Our great-grandparents may have had seven to ten kids but only two or maybe three would grow up to have kids themselves.
From the 1950's onwards people started having fewer kids because most of them actually grew up. On average the size of a family is the same.

Or do you think all those parents lied to their kids all those years about where little Timmy and little Sally and little Penny all went off to ?

Life is fucked up shit. It's beautiful things too. But you gotta raise kids to live in a world of both.

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

I'm sure the actual experience will change some of my views, but not as much as you think because I have actually raised kids. They just weren't my own. My brother is 9 years younger than me. Both my parents worked full time. From age 3 to 15 he was in my care for the majority of every day (here school is only in the mornings - so afternoons - I had to look after him).

I had a little sister even younger and I took care of her too. Now granted that wasn't full-on parenting. I didn't have to worry about budgets and such as well, but I was the one who had to put plasters on the ouchies. When they had nightmares, it was my bed they crawled into.

I would like to think I learned some things that way.

>Also, if you're still leaving "toys" out when your kids are teenagers, they'll start to hate you when they want to have their friends over

Like I said, I have no desire to teach my kids that conformity is anything but the most evil thing in the world. When they become teenagers they should believe that any friend who would judge them or laugh at them over such things isn't a friend worth having. They may still hate me for it anyway, too bad if they do, I still want them to grow up with that message. Somewhere along the way they'll have to learn that non-conformity is hard, it's VERY hard, I want them to learn and accept that - and also learn that it's worth the price.
Besides, I think you're wrong, when I was a teenager my friends helped me break into dad's cupboard to borrow his porn collection and stare at their toys. I'll just spare my kids having to learn lockpicking skills to do that (I'm sure they'll pick those up elsewhere soon enough).

> Even when they're younger, if they want to have friends over for play dates, you'd best be cleaning up and getting dressed before their friends' moms come over to drop them off.
When they are younger I imagine most of their friends will be the children of my friends. Well I don't hide the toys when my friends visit, they don't hide it when I visit them. They all agree with my beliefs - many of them were raised that way.

These things seem unimaginable to you Americans' with your conservative culture, but I live in the most liberal city in my country (which is not America). That kind of stuff just doesn't raise an eyebrow here. Most people don't notice the toys and porn lying around until somebody points it out to them.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Life is fucked up shit. It's beautiful things too. But you gotta raise kids to live in a world of both.

While you make good points about the past human condition, the fact is that a typical person today lives in a very different world than a medieval village dweller. And as you point out, that has been the case for at least 70 years. I actually feel you overestimate the amount of trauma experienced by a typical peasant farmer, but I digress...

Of course kids can handle death - my daughter has been to two funerals prior to her 4th birthday. Death is a natural human experience. But death on the internet is a much different affair than death in real life - it's more analogous to movie violence. When someone dies in real life, you have a mourning period and some kind of memorial ceremony. People around you gather for support and you see all of the associated human emotion. When a tiger mauls a man on YouTube, it's over in 2 minutes and you get none of the emotional connection.

I don't know if this is healthy or not, and frankly I don't care. I know it is different, and this kind of stuff gives my kids nightmares, and then I have to deal with 2AM visits in the bedroom. I also have to deal with fears of the ocean if they see shark attacks, etc. We're talking about people who are still afraid of thunder here. When they are 9 or 10 and start to think that a man being devoured by a shark is "awesome" or funny, then we'll discuss letting them see everything - but certainly not at 7 years old.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

If you choose to ignore them, how does it make any difference if you learned them or not ?

Are you advocating ignorance? I thought you were the one advocating exposure?

Teach your kids to be tolerant

It's in the plan. They are mixed-race Obama style, and they have friends with gay parents. I'm sure they will develop biases, but our goal is tolerance.

but pretty much EVERYTHING else they can learn from a parent is NOT good.

Strongly disagree - and I think you do as well. In your other posts, you told me how important it is to expose them to stuff and now you tell me that my exposing them to things is not good... You seem like a smart person, so I don't think this was your intended argument. It is my job as a parent to prepare my kid for the time when they are 18 and have to go off on their own. I contend I could do that without any exposure to the internet at all and they would be perfectly fine (if perhaps faced with a bit of a learning curve when they first have to use it!). I guess there are hidden dangers :)

Re:Net Nanny

[silentcoder]

>>If you choose to ignore them, how does it make any difference if you learned them or not ?

>Are you advocating ignorance? I thought you were the one advocating exposure?

No, I'm asking you - since you say it's important to know them whether you agree with and follow them or not. I'm asking you to justify that position. I cannot see a logical reason why it's important to know something you don't believe in. I don't feel the need to know the intricacies of every religion in the world because I don't believe in them. I respect other people's right to believe in them - but to me if I am interested then I'm reading them as mythology - or as an interesting look into ancient people's thinking, but I don't feel it's important I do that, just interesting.

>It's in the plan. They are mixed-race Obama style, and they have friends with gay parents. I'm sure they will develop biases, but our goal is tolerance.

That's a good starting point - but you're also a person who called every sexual fetish you don't share "not normal". That's not tolerant.

>>but pretty much EVERYTHING else they can learn from a parent is NOT good.

>Strongly disagree - and I think you do as well. In your other posts,
You misunderstood my argument. I am in favor of exposure - I'm not in favour of authoritative parenting. I think parents make horrible teachers - and teachers make horrible parents and neither should try to do the other ones job. Parents should be guides - exposure + guidance = good parenting in my book. But they shouldn't be teachers, they shouldn't set a curiculum of what should be learned and what should not. Life itself must be the curiculum - and parents the guides who help the children to make sense of what they experience.

I think modern parents are so obsessed with protecting children they've come around a vicious circle. They're so concerned with keeping children alive that they have no option left anymore to let children live.

My grandfather told me how - in his childhood - death was different from now. That was before strong pain meds like morphine. Most people died at home, in pain. When they were getting close to it, the entire family - of all ages - gathered around them, holding their hands and seeing them off. Watching somebody die in agony was a normal thing for any child who could walk. It was considered a duty to be there. He also said "back then - everybody was conscious until the last moment they weren't. There was no going to sleep under morphine and never waking up, and while what we've done since is much kinder to the dying, it's made us lose something incredibly valuable for the living."

That same grandfather was, at the age of 14, sent to be a cattleboy. Cattleboy back then meant that on Sunday night great grandma packed him a backpack with dried meat, rusks and 6 bullets - not one to spare, bullets were expensive. He'd ride out on Monday morning and take the cattle out into the fields - a full day by horse from the house and watch over them 24 hours a day for the whole week. To supplement his diet he would shoot an antelope each day (that's what the 6 bullets were for - he couldn't afford a second short) which he'd slaughter and cook over an open fire. Eat what can be eaten in one go, and leave the rest for the jackals - because there were no fridges.
Thus he lived - sleeping under the stars - until Saturday when he returned home in time for Church on Sunday morning, and ready to get new bullets, rusks and dried meats for Monday morning. From the age of 14 - he basically took care of himself - and a big part of his job was keeping things like lions from eating the cattle. He killed a dozen by the time he was 15 (and each time he had to - that meant he had no extra food that day, since he had used the day's bullet for something else).

Sound rough ? His father had been a frontier trekker as a child. A childhood friend of a boy named Paul Kruger who would grow up to be the first president of our little republic. There's a well known tal

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

The idea that a 7 year old can't walk the streets would seem ludicrous to most parents of just one generation ago, because it is.

It rather depends on where you live. Where I live you get visits from child services if your kid starts showing up at school alone - and the school won't release them unless someone picks them up. I'd say it is safe for a 7-year-old to walk around given a couple of conditions: 1. they aren't alone - this can be another 7-year-old, but alone is no good. This rule pretty much extends into adulthood as well, especially for girls. 2. You live somewhere with fairly busy streets. Many suburbs are not acceptable places for a kid to walk around alone - they are easy pickings when no one else is around. I'd actually feel safer having my 1st grader walk around Manhattan than in the suburb that we live in now.

Again, normal doesn't exist. There's no such thing.

Of course it does. That said, being abnormal is not so bad.

I believe children should grow up to know that a family is any group of people who love each other, that's the be-all and the end-all of it.

I agree, but I don't see why my kids need internet access to be taught this.

If nothing else, you're shielding them from the reality that there are people who enjoy things you don't get.

I'm going to make a prediction here: My kids will never encounter people shitting on one another except on the internet. Maybe I'm way off base here, but in my experience people who are into this sort of thing are pretty shy about it and they don't usually bring it up at dinner parties or in conference rooms at work.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that it is in fact very important for my children to learn about the erotic art of shit-eating. OK, fair enough... I'll introduce them to it. But not at 7 or 8. They need to have some concept of sexuality to be taught about "other" forms of sexuality. Right now we're still in the "When mommies and daddies love each other they get married and have babies" phase, with some mommies and mommies and daddies and daddies talk mixed in. Jumping right to scatological fetishes seems... premature.

A kid who trusts you for guidance, and who won't when they get confronted with these things blame you for hiding them from him and leaving him unprepared.

LOL, so your contention is that my kids will develop this complex by age 10? Imagine what will happen when they find out about Santa! Oh the lies! The deceit!

Every experience I have had has taught me one thing: there is never a time when hiding things from a kid is a good idea. Everything you hide will come back to bite you in the ass.

Well, my life experience has taught me not to make sweeping binary statements. Words like "never" rarely apply in reality and run contrary to my pragmatic tendencies. All children are not the same (and that's just in my sample size of two!) and there are stark differences in mental capacity with age. I don't see how I should be expected to teach a kid who is still afraid of thunder to reason about the odds of a shark attack at the beach.

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

I don't feel the need to know the intricacies of every religion in the world because I don't believe in them. I respect other people's right to believe in them - but to me if I am interested then I'm reading them as mythology - or as an interesting look into ancient people's thinking, but I don't feel it's important I do that, just interesting.

That is a perfect example. If you lived in a Buddhist country, but didn't believe in Buddhism - it would still be important to know about Buddhism. Your interactions with other people would be seriously hobbled by not having a understanding about where they were coming from and how they are thinking.

So even though we are not Christian, my kids have some biblical knowledge (and even attended a Jewish day care even though we aren't Jewish). Depending on where you live in the US, it pays to have a working knowledge of the Judea-Christian religions when dealing with people at-large. This analogy can be extended to just about anything - it is important to have a thorough knowledge about the culture you live in - even the parts you don't like or disagree with. As an somewhat silly example, imagine a job interview where you don't apply deodorant because your parents were kind of hippies and didn't believe in it. Now it would be one thing if you were sticking to your belief that you should be able to stink, but it's quite another if you keep getting turned away from jobs because you stink and don't realize it.

That's a good starting point - but you're also a person who called every sexual fetish you don't share "not normal". That's not tolerant.

I think you are getting semantic on me. Anything that deviates from the herd is not "normal". Like I said, I won't bow to political correctness and keep changing perfectly good words just because someone is offended that they are not mainstream... it's really not my fault if someone's self-worth gets tied up in being considered "normal". My own mixed-race relationship is not "normal", but I embrace and relish it for being outside of the mainstream. Blue hair is not "normal", but I've definitely crushed on some girls with blue hair... there is no connection between tolerance and recognizing when something does not fit a typical pattern.

Parents should be guides - exposure + guidance = good parenting in my book.

I mostly agree. But very young kids need guidance almost all the time - not just when a parent is around. In this context - the internet filter - the filter cannot be a guide, but it can be a valuable tool for the guide for those times when the guide is not around. I'm pretty sure NetNanny is worthless, which is why I use a whitelist. We surf together on the computer and I whitelist stuff that interests the kids. That way, when I go to take a shower or mow the lawn or whatever, they can still use the computer without me just turning off the connection altogether. As my kids start to show some discretion and some ability to cope with traumatic images/videos I will lay off the filtering. I keep mentioning the shark attack videos because that is always what they try to view when we are looking at YouTube, and that's the last damn thing I need a week before I take them to the beach.

My grandfather told me how - in his childhood - death was different from now. That was before strong pain meds like morphine. Most people died at home, in pain. When they were getting close to it, the entire family - of all ages - gathered around them, holding their hands and seeing them off. Watching somebody die in agony was a normal thing for any child who could walk. It was considered a duty to be there. He also said "back then - everybody was conscious until the last moment they weren't. There was no going to sleep under morphine and never waking up, and while what we've done since is much kinder to the dying, it's made us lose something incredibly valuable for the living."

I agree with your grandfat

Re:Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Human are never rational and have a terrible grasp of risk.

I understand this, and I also see that anything that my kids see on the internet is a much lower risk than simply driving them around in a car.

That said, I still don't want my kids waking me up at 2am with shark attack dreams, and then refusing to go into the water when we go to the beach. Why is that so "irrational"? It may seem trivial to you, but you aren't on a 6-year sleep deprivation steak.

Watch them

[Anonymous Coward]

Put the computer in the living room and smack 'em in the head when you catch them going where they shouldn't

Re:Watch them

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I do. I find that the kids are not really interested in anything that could accidentally stumble across anything untoward. YouTube is the main problem site, but hey saturday morning pop videos are bloody awful and you can't do much about that.

With our oldest I set up a non-network account (iptable block rule based on userid (on linux)) so that when he was left at home alone there was no internet access, but he could still play local games, use open office etc.

Re:Watch them

[c0lo]

Put the computer in the living room and smack 'em in the head when you catch them going where they shouldn't

About to say the same, but under the form of: use same software that protects them offline - it is called parenting.

If you think not only real-life but also Internet is dangerous (a justified concern, I agree), I can't see why what's good for protecting your kids in real-life won't be also good for online one.

Re:Watch them

[Lisias]

It worked for you? :-)

Re:Watch them

[mwvdlee]

Also, don't forget to give up your full-time job, dump your friends and drop any sports or hobbies you do.
Your new life is monitoring every waking second of your child's.

Also something about "preventing rather than punishing for something they couldn't prevent".

Re:Watch them

[Billly Gates]

How can a child get any homework done, learn programming, or research things if the system is in the living room? If it is in the room such software is nice away from the TV and distractions. Obviously you can't know what they are up too in their rooms so something like Windows Live Family Safety can keep tabs on the hours on the computer, which sites they used, and other features besides censorship which is adjustable too depending on age level.

I do not mind teenagers knowing about sex, drinking , or weapons but I would not want a 7 year old looking at that etc.

Re:Watch them

[lightknight]

I know, seriously. Kids have a lot more energy, and creativity, when it comes to acquiring a taboo item. Thinking of my own childhood, you're better off trying to explain, using proper (adult) reasoning, why your social values need to be respected by them rather than trying to put up magic walls to block the offending material. Remember, the first time a kid catches you lying to them, all bets are off; they'll question everything from that day forward, and test things when you aren't around.

I'd be more worried if they didn't find a way around that filter.

Re:Watch them

[Torp]

Yes. The kids' gaming computer goes in the living room. And not only for monitoring what they do, but because at that age you don't want them up all night playing Minecraft either. Which is guaranteed to happen if they have a computer in their room.
From personal experience, i didn't have trouble with my kid with naughty sites, but i did have to password protect a laptop because i caught her playing age appropriate games at 2 am in her bed on a school-tomorrow night.

Re:Watch them

[nedlohs]

Do you also suggest I remove all the "child safe" lids on the various poisonous things in the house? And store them in places the kids can access? Just use my parenting skills to watch their every waking moment, rather than having backup devices for the times my parenting skills might fail me?

Re:Watch them

[c0lo]

Do you also suggest I remove all the "child safe" lids on the various poisonous things in the house?

Do you think a 7-8 years old is still stopped by a "child safe" lid? 'Cause if s/he not, I do hope that you taught her about the dangers but that age - or else store them where they cannot be accessed.

rather than having backup devices for the times my parenting skills might fail me?

I'm yet to see a "Parental control" software that does not fail. Have you ever seen one?

Re:Watch them

[cheekyjohnson]

I'm yet to see a parenting skills that don't fail.

Really? I think the point is that the software gives you a false sense of security. Not to mention that it's rather pointless. I'd say education is a far better solution than treating the internet like a bogeyman.

Re:Watch them

[dissy]

Put the computer in the living room and smack 'em in the head when you catch them going where they shouldn't

Wow you got the same tripe in first yet again!

How does your solution prevent porn ads from regular non-porn websites?
How does your solution prevent popup/under ads?
How does your solution prevent drive-by downloads of malware?

A parent watching (or hell, a parent at the fucking keyboard) can't stop these things.

A good web filter is wise even for your own usage, let alone children. It has NOTHING to do with blocking them from seeking out porn. The Internet has a way of forcing these things on you if you want them or not.

If you would have used the Internet for more than a few days you would know this.

Re:Watch them

[h3llfish]

Good point. Drinking poison and exposure to human sexuality are very similar experiences, and have exactly the same type of consequences. To make sure that your children avoid all "inappropriate" materials, be sure to freak the fuck out if anything sexual should should come to their attention. This will help them to achieve a healthy sense of disgust and shame, so that they can be normal and happy.

Re:Watch them

[Lehk228]

A little porno won't send the kid to the hospital, the psychological harm from raising the kid to be a good little boot licker would be far more of a risk than a Tit on the internet.

Re:Watch them

[silentcoder]

>Do you also suggest I remove all the "child safe" lids on the various poisonous things in the house?

Are you suggesting that seeing the goatse guy is comparable to drinking poison ? You mean your kid will actually die if he gets his first goatse too soon ?
Sorry dude, we all had to live through our first goatse, so will your kids, nobody has died from it yet.
That makes this a very bad analogy.

Re:Watch them

[Fallus Shempus]

I haven't seen any of these things myself for years, it's called paying attention to what you are doing (clicking) and funnily enough my 2 eldest have not had any problems and the youngest isn't on line by himself.

You don't physically have to sit on top of the kids to stop them going on dodgy sites, you just have to educate and set levels of expectation, including the fact that Dad is just gonna walk in at any moment and look at what they're doing, or even scare the crap out of them with my 'mystical knowledge' of what web sites they've been on.

Re:Watch them

[silentcoder]

So really what you're saying is that adblock-plus will protect your kid against everything you're actually concerned about ?

There you go then, asker - you have your answer. Censor the ads, what they find themselves by going there deliberately you're better off explaining than trying to lie about.

Re:Watch them

[L4t3r4lu5]

So the appropriate response is to be there with your kid when it happens and go "These things can happen; It's not your fault. It wasn't pleasant, but there's no need to freak out. All you need to do is click the red cross and it will go away. You can always come and talk to me if you get uncomfortable about something, and you won't get told off."

Re:Watch them

[jawtheshark]

Let me think?....

Our computer (back in the nineties) was in the living room. There was only one computer and we had to share it amongst us: we kept a log who was how many hours on the machine. You did two hours? Sucks to be you: brother could kick you off... Yet, I managed to learn programming (by myself) on it, do my homework (which wasn't common back then... Reports were handwritten, not printed as I did... always got extra marks for that though), etc... Research was using encyclopedias and books.

Also, our home machine didn't have an Internet connection until 1998. The biggest distraction from doing the homework, programming, etc, these days, is not TV or anything you find in the living room. It's the Internet itself.

As for porn? From what I see, kids aren't interested in it until puberty... After that, anything is fair game. It's not as back then we didn't know where our dads porn collection was.... Sure, there is more disturbing stuff on the Internet, but kids tend to simply say "Eeeew, that's gross" and that's pretty much it. Makes me think, when I first saw a blowjob picture, it's exactly what I thought.... (Porn Magazine found on the street near our school, and given the school, I'm pretty sure I was between 7 and 10) Go figure, I like blowjobs now... Well, on the receiving end. Too bad my wife still finds them gross ;-)

Re:Watch them

[montyzooooma]

Good point. Drinking poison and exposure to human sexuality are very similar experiences

They can both cause a gag reflex.

Re:Watch them

[Lumpy]

Says the rich guy that has spare rooms around the house. Normal people don't have spare rooms for learnin' So the PC is in the living room. Maybe if you had a sense of reality as to how the 99% live...

Re:Watch them

[RivenAleem]

Isn't that what passwords are for? Now they cannot go on the computer without permission and supervision. When they are mature enough, you can give them their own account and you teach them to be responsible for what they look at. Children don't need 8 hours of computer use a day. I'm sure you can find a way to be interested in what your child is looking at online, a tablet computer is great for sitting on the couch and browsing the net together with child on knee.

Re:Watch them

[jawtheshark]

They are.... Boy had we fun cracking dads password back in the day (BIOS password, this was in the DOS days). Guess what: we did succeed. Taught him to use more secure passwords ;-)

Re:Watch them

[jawtheshark]

i did have to password protect a laptop because i caught her playing age appropriate games at 2 am in her bed on a school-tomorrow night.

My parents caught me from time to time doing stuff at 2am on a school-tomorrow night... Thing is, it was with a flash-light and a book. You can turn off flash-lights quickly. I loved reading and an when the story was absorbing me, there was no way I would stop reading. Of course, the days in school after such nights were quite... exhausting.

Just to point out: your kids will do stuff at night when they're not supposed to.

Re:Watch them

[mwvdlee]

Don't your kids go to school?

Not for 8 hours + 2 hours commute 5 days in a week.

Dump your friends and drop sports or hobbies? Oh noes! Their lives take priority over yours.

Children learn by observing as well. What are you teaching them by not having a social live of your own?

Re:Watch them

[Idbar]

He was probably just trying to make a car analogy that came out wrong into a poison example. ;-)

But seriously, geez I wonder what parents did before internet and children proof lids... look all those dead kids they turn into.

Re:Watch them

[tepples]

I don't understand how people possibly come by this type of malware.

One way happens when criminals learn of defects in popular web applications used by hobbyists to run a blog, forum, or wiki, and use these defects to modify the site to serve malware.

Re:Watch them

[RivenAleem]

Yeah, but your dad clearly never had to worry about you being interested in girls.

Re:Watch them

[thesandtiger]

It isn't just human sexuality, and in fact, I will say that human sexuality is the least offensive of the things people try to keep kids safe from online.

There's a video floating around of a couple of Russian teens literally murdering a man on camera. There are numerous videos showing extreme violence to people and animals. CNN had a video of a man having his head sawed off readily available, and another news site showed one being hanged while a crowd cheered.

While I wouldn't want my children exposed to a gangbang video or something, that's so far down on the list of "awful shit children shouldn't see" as to not bear mentioning except in reply to your post.

I don't think a kid catching a glimpse of goatse is going to be scarred for life, but I can assure you, as an adult, I've been unintentionally exposed, with no warning (or by being told a video was something else) to videos and pictures that by the time I realized what I was seeing, it was staying with me for awhile and I can only imagine what some of those would do to a kid.

Further, people use the real-life equivalent of net nanny software all the time: agencies testing food products and medicines to make sure they're safe, regulations about toys and clothing to make them safe, building codes and structural inspections to make sure the home is safe, the list goes on and on.

Adding some software to a machine to reduce the risk that your kids will be exposed to videos of people being mutilated or killed isn't the be-all-end-all of good parenting, but it's certainly not a bad component to add to the picture.

Re:Watch them

[c0lo]

I knew some fool with no kids who thinks a parent can spend his entire life monitoring his children would post a lamebrained response like this . . . then more fools would do the same . . . I knew it going into reading this thread, but I started reading it anyway. You'd think I'd learn.

If for you parenting is limited to supervision, you worth your faith of monitoring your children all your life. But... maybe trying to teach them how to think for themselves, having open discussions with them (without fear of being punished), showing that nothing in this world is without consequences and what responsibility means... it's not like you can't start doing these with a kid aged 7.

Re:Watch them

[Pigeon451]

What about grotesque images? Most 7-8 year olds are scared of things under their bed or in their closet -- they would be scared shitless of seeing mutilated bodies on the internet. For example, do a search for Porsche girl, a fairly benign phrase, you'll see whats been plastered all over the internet. Then theres images of pets being tortured, something that will likely scar any little child ...

And for sexuality -- seeing a boob is natural no big deal (as a youngin I was exited to come across a Playboy!). Seeing a girl bound and gagged while being gang-banged is not really appropriate for a young child and is easily accessible on the internet.

There's extremes for everything -- don't lump all sexuality into the same group. Some exposure is good, and natural to avoid being a freak later on in time, but no need to scar them at this point.

Re:Watch them

[jawtheshark]

True.... Given your presence here on slashdot, neither did your dad....

Re:Watch them

[thisisfutile]

So the advice only applies to 7-8 year old? That seems rather pointlessly specific.

You are on slashdot. The people he are so geek intelligent that they're plagued with social challenges (dare I say stupid), not the least of which is interpreting between the lines.

Re:Watch them

[DaveV1.0]

Would you let your child run free in the worst part of town? Then, why would you let your child run free on the internet?

And, to answer you stupid question, no, you don't do that. What you do is supervise them when they are using poison or dangerous things, just like you should supervise them when they are on the internet.

Seriously, you suck at being a parent.

Re:Watch them

[SuricouRaven]

"If you had kids WITHOUT understanding that the next 20-25 years of your life were going to be about them, and not you, you're an idiot."

But a lot of people *are* idiots. Plenty of unwanted children around ("I didn't know you had to take the pill every day!"), as well as plenty of people who just got caught up in the romantic dream of a happy family life to the point they didn't realise it wouldn't always be a joy.

Re:Watch them

[SuricouRaven]

My parents kept catching me too, so they started taking away the light-bulb. Then I got a lamp, and they took that. I got a torch under the covers, and they found it. Eventually I learned to read by the faint glow of the sodium streetlight - with eyes fully dark-adjusted, just about bright enough to make out words.

Today, I wear -5.00-strength glasses.

Re:Watch them

[cptdondo]

Do you have kids? They go to friends' houses and surf the net there. Libraries, schools. You can't bubble wrap your kids.

Best to teach them how to react when they do find something offensive, and give them the confidence to say "turn that off" to a friend that might bring that up.

Re:Watch them

[nedlohs]

Sure if you assume an analogy is restricted to exactly the situation in TFS and not just a common example that hopefully everyone knows the details of already.

Re:Watch them

[nedlohs]

I didn't say any of that.

  Do you know what an analogy is? You've heard they break down right? And that they aren't supposed to be *exactly* equivalent? The idea is to take something that shows the parts that are important to the point you are trying to make and discards the unimporant parts.

In this case the pros and cons of internet access and whether it should be restricted or given free reign is not what I was commenting on.

What I was commenting on was the implication that using access controls and "being a parent" are mutually exclusive.

You can both be a parent and place actual barriers to whataver the actions you are trying to avoid are.

You can both explain and teach why they shouldn't play with the pesticide and also lock the door to the shed it is stored in. Those are not mutually exclusive actions. Doing one does not mean you don't do the other. If you put a lock on the shed door is does not imply you are not also going to "parent".

You can both teach and explain and supervise their internet access and also have software that restricts that access. Asking about said software does not imply you are going to not "parent".

Whether I agree on the choices of what is good and bad for a child doesn't seem very relevant to the more general point.

Re:Watch them

[jawtheshark]

Today, I wear -5.00-strength glasses.

Me too.... Go figure, eh?

Re:Watch them

[adonoman]

As a current parent, I can tell you that with all probability, your parents knew you had the flashlight and were reading at night, and put up just enough of a fight that you'd get the thrill of getting away with something. If my kid is up at night reading, I'm going to have to put up some argument, since they are supposed to be sleeping, but I'm not going to really try and stop them from reading.

Re:Watch them

[RivenAleem]

This is about home use, unless you intend to have net nanny installed at all the Library computers, schools and at their friends' houses. You can only supervise them at home, so that's what my post was about. Show interest so you are not just snooping, surf together, spend time with them until they learn from you what is good and bad on the net, then give them their own user account on the PC and let them loose.

It's no different to teaching them to use a knife or scissors. You do just give them the tools and say go play? No, you sit with them and show how it's done, do it with them until you think they can safely do it alone. The net is no more or less dangerous.

Re:Watch them

[kheldan]

This. Until they demonstrate that they not only know and understand your wishes in the matter, you must personally monitor what they're doing and seeing on the internet, and that means limiting the hours they can access the internet to when you're around to be monitoring them. If you use some software product to do your parenting for you, then you're surrendering your right to raise your children with your values to some group of strangers who will decide for you what is and is not appropriate for children to access on the internet -- and that includes the fallout from their mistakes, as well as their intentional distortions of that. If you can't deal with either option then don't let them use the internet until they're 18 and you're not responsible for them anymore.

Re:Watch them

[jawtheshark]

Possible... I wouldn't bet on it though. I guess I could ask them,

Re:Watch them

[h3llfish]

There is no software that can protect a you from another person who thinks it's amusing to find something disgusting on his device, and then tricking you into looking at it, just so he can laugh at your horrified expression. Many people are simply jerks. I wish it was possible to protect kids from the awful stuff that is out there. It's not.

I don't blame you for trying to do what you can. I just know that I never sought out violent and gross content, but I definitely saw it. When I was in elementary school, no one had access to the internet, but kids were finding ways to get their hands on "Faces of Death" on VHS. There's no software to prevent that. I wonder if you wouldn't be better off exposing your kids to violence in a controlled setting and then talking to them about what they saw than you are keeping them totally innocent, and then leaving them to deal with their initial exposure to horror on their own.

Furthermore, I know that when I was a lad, as soon as I was aware that I was being "restricted" in some way, getting past that restriction became my new mission in life. I'm sure your children are clever. They will probably defeat the software in some novel way that you didn't imagine.

What the software does get you is the ability to say "ah well, I tried". And that does have some value, I suppose.

Re:Watch them

[serialband]

It's simplest to watch over them. Also, between 7-12 years of age, I also restricted their computer time, otherwise, they'll be on it every waking moment. I've never left them alone with the computer.

Now that they're older, they understand that I can remotely monitor their activities if I choose to, but I rely on trust. They do know how to clear their browser caches, but they also know that I have access to router logs.

If you teach them to be responsible, they generally will be. I really don't care if they see a little bit of porn by accident. Before they reach puberty, they don't even see it as sexual.

Re:Watch them

[Sigma 7]

Seriously, what regular non-porn websites are you finding that serve porn ads?

Schlock Mercenary, a non-porn site where an advertiser went rogue and started with obviously bad ads (complete with porn, flashing, and making noise.)

It just takes one rogue advertiser, and your site now distributes porn.

When was the last time you saw a popup/under ad?

Before or after installing adblock?

In any case, http://www.merriam-webster.com/ produced a popup window..

I don't understand how people possibly come by this type of malware.

It just takes one browser-side exploit. Usually they appear in Java, Flash, or other plugins.

And that's not counting dialog box loops that had a habit of locking up Firefox until you did what the site wanted. It just takes one email from a friend, where you click on a link to watch a video.

Re:Watch them

[thesandtiger]

Most parents do the intentional exposure thing as a rite of passage. My brother was taken hunting and had to dress a kill, I was taken to my grandparents ranch and shown where meat came from after I gave cutesy names to all the cattle they had and tried to make them into pets.

It really isn't about eliminating risk, but trying to reduce it with reasonable precautions. I don't, for example, refuse to drive anywhere (to reduce the risk of a traffic accident) but I do make sure my car is safe, kids are in car seats, I'm not intoxicated, I'm driving appropriately, I avoid obviously risky drivers, etc. that won't be perfect, there's always something, but it's better than doing nothing.

You are right that kids will test limits and will do what they can to get around any barriers. The way I handle this is to never punish if they come tell me, only if they lie about it or I find it before they tell me. I want them to feel safe to come to me, I want to encourage them to come to me. And, if I am watching them try to cirumvent a protective measure, I will actually watch them try and only step in if it looks like they're going to get hurt as a result. But the moment they start trying is the moment I start watching like a hawk. So far it works.

Re:Watch them

[mattack2]

Children don't need 8 hours of computer use a day.

Isn't that kind of use of a computer what 'got you into' computers? Programming for hours? (Even if just typing in samples from magazines and tweaking them.)

Re:Watch them

[c0lo]

Get real. No amount of parenting is going to curb a young boy's interest in sexuality. He's going to search for porn.

Huh... like parenting="curbing your kids interest in sexuality"!

Re:Watch them

[oamasood]

What's wrong with exposing your kids to videos of teens murdering people or extreme violence done to people and animals? Why are we tolerant to videos of sex/porn and not violence? Why not go full-on, what's with this 50/50 nonsense?

Re:Watch them

[thesandtiger]

If you really can't understand the difference without someone on Slashdot explaining it to you, I would suggest never, ever, having or being around kids or, for that matter, other human beings.

Let me ask a roughly equivalent question that might give you some insight:

Why do we lock up rapists, kidnappers and murderers but not people engaging in sex acts where all parties are deemed capable of, and have given, their consent?

Protip:

[Squiddie]

If you're looking for software to take care of your children for you, you've already failed as a parent.

Re:Protip:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're looking for software to take care of your children for you, you've already failed as a parent.

... because all of our kids are just like yours.

Until you've spent a month living with someone else's kids, don't assume they can be parented the same way yours can.

Re:Protip:

[DurendalMac]

Spoken like someone who does not have any kids. Newsflash: Even the best kids don't always listen to what mommy and/or daddy tell them. Furthermore, I'd say this is also to prevent unintentional access to nasty stuff. You can't sit there watching over their shoulder ever second they're online. Put the computer in the living room, sure, but it's not just deliberate access to the more visceral parts of the internet that you'd need to be worried about. At that age, it's probably more about the kids not realizing where they're clicking until they're watching 2 girls, 1 cup.

Re:Protip:

[Lisias]

If you are trying to do everything by yourself to you children, you will fail even more as a parent.

You know, you have to WORK in order to be able to FEED your kids. Will you lock the little bastards (man, my childhood memories... X-P) in a safe room in the working hours?

You really think that peeping over their shoulders all the time is a good way to raise them?

Kids *needs* some controlled "freedom" in order to acquire the needed abilities to raise the self control mechanism every adult must have. You need to leave them "alone" (please note the quotes) for some time everyday. You need to give them some room to give them the chance test what can and what cannot be done.

(And so, you need to step back and see what happens)

On the other hand, you should not expose them to things they are not ready (or are incapable) to deal.

When you drive the kids to the local park, you stays in their side every second, of you give the kids space in order to allow them to play with other kids - but stays reasonably near in order to interfere if somethings appears to go wrong?

If you are not a Luddite, you must give the kids some time on a computer. And since you probably have some other things to do in your life (as keep the house clean, cook the dinner, help the other kid on the homework, drive the dog to the vet, etc), and stating again that no kid raises mentally healthy being watched all the time (you are aware that the kids must live on their own after your death, aren't you?), so the FA have a valid question: some kind of parental software is needed.

Relying only on this software would be a failure, granted.

Re:Protip:

[Ryanrule]

At that age, would they even understand?

I remember watching rockos modern life. Watch that again at my current age...HOLY SHIT.

Re:Protip:

[Billly Gates]

There is nothing wrong with having something keep track of what they are doing. If a pedi acting like a kid is sending inappropriate stuff it is nice to know and sadly is quite common if you ask law enforcement agencies.

Also this enables kids to use computers in their room. No technology shouldn't replace the job of a parent but the parent owns the equipment and I see nothing wrong with this.

Re:Protip:

[cheekyjohnson]

No technology shouldn't replace the job of a parent but the parent owns the equipment and I see nothing wrong with this.

Really? If I found out my parents were spying on my actions, my respect for them would dwindle to zero. Guidance, not spying.

Re:Protip:

[lightknight]

It's called a 'fetish,' and most people have them, and they may not be sexual in nature.

Re:Protip:

[cheekyjohnson]

It is normal to:

Perhaps normal, but paranoid. Those aren't even equivalent to accessing the internet, anyway.

So why do you fail as a parent when you lock the bad sites for your children?

Because there's no point to it. Unless you're one of the people who thinks that video games and porn turn children into rapists and murderers, what's the point? Education will go much further.

Locking it down also potentially takes away any educational purposes that it has. Instead of learning that such things exist, or being able to stumble upon things that they don't know, they're simply trapped in a bubble.

Re:Protip:

[TheRaven64]

If a pedi acting like a kid is sending inappropriate stuff it is nice to know and sadly is quite common if you ask law enforcement agencies

I was a teenager when home Internet access became possible, so I missed out on most of this, but I do remember when I was quite young (5ish) being taught basic safety in that regard: don't go off with people you don't know, if someone claims to be there on behalf of my parents then ask them for a password, and so on. When I got Internet access, I was given similar advice: don't give out your home address to anyone, don't agree to meet anyone in person that you met online, remember that the person you're talking to online might not be the person you think they are, and so on. No need for spyware, just some education.

Re:Protip:

[TheRaven64]

It is normal to:
Lock the booze so your kids cannot drink it

Really? My parents left theirs unlocked. I knew where it was, and was allowed to drink small amounts from a fairly early age (in the UK, you can drink alcohol in your own home from the age of 5). I was also taught what would happen if I drank a lot.

Lock the gate, so your kids do not run across the street

There was no gate between my house and the street on the front, and the front door had a yale lock so you just turn the handle to open it. I could do this by about the time I was old enough to run across the street. My parents taught me to always look before running into the street and what would happen if I didn't (i.e. potentially getting hit by a car, not a threat of punishment).

Lock the chemicals (like chlorine) so they do not drink it

Nope, stored in the cupboard under the sink. Easy for me to get to. My parents taught me what the poison and corrosive substance symbols meant by the time I was about 4 or 5.

Lock the medicines

Nope, stored in a bathroom cabinet. Again, I was told what happened if you take medicine for something that you're not suffering from (well, with some exaggerations of the unpleasant effects, but close enough).

I suspect that a lot of the problems in modern society come from children not being taught early on to make informed choices about risk. If I'd wanted to drink a load of booze, bleach, or eat random pills, I was perfectly able to from about the age of 6 or so, but I was taught that the outcome would probably be going to hospital and having my stomach pumped if I was lucky and death if I wasn't. On the Internet, the potential for harm is much lower. No one is actually harmed by seeing some porn (although getting malware installed is a problem for random surfing). The only real danger is if the child agrees to meet random people in person, and that's fairly easy to avoid if you're a moderately attentive parent even if you fail to teach the child that it's a bad idea.

I should add that nothing in the list was particularly unusual for people I knew growing up. Locking up things that might be harmful to children just didn't happen.

Re:Protip:

[silentcoder]

> Newsflash: Even the best kids don't always listen to what mommy and/or daddy tell them.

That's the point. You cannot deal with that issue by trying to stop the kids from having the CAPACITY to disobey. Not unless you want to raise a few agoraphobics anyway...

Re:Protip:

[xaxa]

I should add that nothing in the list was particularly unusual for people I knew growing up. Locking up things that might be harmful to children just didn't happen.

Did you have younger siblings?

I remember my parents installed some kind of safety catch on the cupboard under the sink. I'm sure I could open it when I was about 4 (got to help mummy with the cleaning!) but my sister, who would have been 2 or 3, couldn't. The catches were removed by the time she was old enough to bypass them, and to understand the danger.

That was only on the cupboard with the cleaning chemicals though, beer was easily accessible (just ask daddy, he'd let me sip, but *yuk*! Put me off beer for decades...).

Re:Protip:

[cheekyjohnson]

It's not spying . . . it's related to setting boundaries.

How is it not spying?

If you're underage and living with your parents it's something you'll need to learn to deal with.

Not if your parents aren't imbeciles. As I said, if the child is at least somewhat intelligent, say goodbye to any respect they had for you thanks to your meaningless paranoia.

Re:Protip:

[jeff4747]

Really? If I found out my parents were spying on my actions, my respect for them would dwindle to zero

We're aware of that. And we're also aware that you'll understand why when you're older and will respect us even more for it.

Re:Protip:

[jeff4747]

In all of your examples, you were old enough to be taught the dangers.

Before then, there were either locks on the cabinets or you were being watched carefully. The fact that you don't remember that doesn't mean it did not happen. Just that you were too young to remember.

Re:Protip:

[TheRaven64]

Someone who is able to use the Internet is, by definition, old enough to be taught the dangers...

Re:Protip:

[jeff4747]

My 9-month-old can use the Sesame Street web site, if I load it for her.

So no, it's quite possible to "use the Internet" before understanding the dangers.

Re:Protip:

[eimsand]

How does this comment only rate a "4"? It's probably the single most insightful comment I've ever read on slashdot.

Re:Protip:

[Zadaz]

Here's another protip:
No software will ever me as ingenious as a motivated kid. And nothing motivates a kit like a stupid obstacle. Like one that tells the they can't visit [some web site that sounds like a lot of fun] Why can't I go? What am I missing? Why are web pages that mention chicken breasts and breast cancer and Dick Clark, pussy willows, and photos of ancient Greek statues blocked?

Kids don't do what their parents say largely because they don't respect the parents. Putting up an arbitrary filter isn't going to increase respect.

Re:Protip:

[spamking]

How is it not spying?

Hate to break it to you but a parents job involves knowing what their kids are up to. Any good parent will tell you that. If you think however a parent accomplishes this is spying then I guess it sucks for you . . . don't do something you'd be ashamed your parents of finding out about.

I'll "spy" on my kids until their of age to take care of themselves . . . .

Not if your parents aren't imbeciles. As I said, if the child is at least somewhat intelligent, say goodbye to any respect they had for you thanks to your meaningless paranoia.

Please explain how anything that was posted implies a parent is an imbecile for being concerned about, and filtering what their kids can and cannot see online, on the TV or in any situation you can think of? Meaningless paranoia? Really? At what age should a child be able to decide for themselves what they are capable of handling?

Re:Protip:

[spamking]

now that i'm older, employed, and independent, i respect parents who spy even less...it often means they haven't been able to effectively influence their kids (i.e., dont trust their own parenting) and are overcompensating to remedy that reality by spying.

So setting a limit or filter on something your child might have access to makes you a bad parent?

I'm beginning to wonder if any of you saying crap like this have ever been around kids . . .

It doesn't have anything to do with not being able to influence them at all . . . . we were kids once too. We know how things go. Boundaries are explained to kids, but they'll sometimes still bump up against them or completely step over them. If a parent can implement something to prevent them being stepped over and doesn't do it I think many will eventually wish that they would have.

Re:Protip:

[cheekyjohnson]

Hate to break it to you but a parents job involves knowing what their kids are up to.

That does not necessarily involve being overly paranoid and outright spying on all of their communications.

Any good parent will tell you that.

Now you've excluded anyone who doesn't do so as a "good parent." No True Good Parent would tell you otherwise.

Please explain how anything that was posted implies a parent is an imbecile for being concerned about, and filtering what their kids can and cannot see online, on the TV or in any situation you can think of?

Because many people seem to be, in my opinion, going overboard. They're paranoid of everything and desperate to block anything they don't want their precious children seeing based on what appears to be nothing. For the children, of course.

At what age should a child be able to decide for themselves what they are capable of handling?

Since I find it highly unlikely that they'll actually be affected in a negative way by the content, any age. Unless the parent has determined themselves that this specific child is negatively affected by the content. It seems to be assumed most of the time.

Re:Protip:

[T Murphy]

If you're looking to use training wheels to help your kid learn to ride a bike, you've already failed as a parent?

Re:Protip:

[spamking]

That does not necessarily involve being overly paranoid and outright spying on all of their communications.

Are you saying a parent has no right to "spy" on anything their kids are doing? That's very naive . . .

Now you've excluded anyone who doesn't do so as a "good parent." No True Good Parent would tell you otherwise.

Unfortunately there are also bad parents in this world to go along with the good ones . . .

What metric are you using to determine what a true good parent is? One that sees things the way you do? Which is obviously to allow the kid to do what they want and hope they make the right choice on their own?

Because many people seem to be, in my opinion, going overboard. They're paranoid of everything and desperate to block anything they don't want their precious children seeing based on what appears to be nothing. For the children, of course.

If going overboard = me poking my nose into my daughters' lives then I'll gladly go overboard. If being paranoid = me attempting to keep them innocent and sheltered from what I deem to be inappropriate material for their age then I'll gladly be paranoid. Kids grow up fast enough today. No need to make it happen any faster.

Since I find it highly unlikely that they'll actually be affected in a negative way by the content, any age. Unless the parent has determined themselves that this specific child is negatively affected by the content. It seems to be assumed most of the time.

What if I find it very likely that my child is affected in a negative way by this content? Based on what you've been posting most parents aren't smart enough to make that determination . . .

Re:Protip:

[Billly Gates]

Since when do you have rights to use a computer and internet someone else paid for when you are not a responsible working adult yet?

A parent is liable when a kid does something and is a bad parent otherwise. Trust or not if you do not like it then get a GED, a nice paying job, and then move out? When you have kids someday your opinion will change and the problem I see with my stepkids is not them looking at porn, but them goofing off so I have limits imposed by the computer. Do not like it? Then be responsible next time and get A's and finish your homework and I will reconsider.

You claim you think it is so horrible and insulting for parents to tell you waht to do, but you tell us what to do in your replies.

Re:Protip:

[hoyle]

> Nope, stored in the cupboard under the sink. Easy for me to get to. My parents taught me what the poison and corrosive substance symbols meant by the time I was about 4 or 5.

This is what we refer to as "sampling bias."

Of course you survived this. If you didn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

This doesn't negate the fact that poisonings happen and it is irresponsible to leave poisons lying around where someone who has not developed the full use of reason or proper impulse control can find them.

Re:Protip:

[jeff4747]

And when you have kids, you'll realize you were clueless.

Part of being a kid is finding out what the rules are, and what happens when you break the rules. Every single kid disobeys their parents at some point.

If it's sneaking a Twinkie out of the pantry, that's not a big deal. So any sane parent isn't going to spy on the pantry.

If it's chatting with that really nice guy on the Internet who's gonna pick 'em up after school, it is a big deal. So any sane parent is going to spy on the kid's Internet until they're old enough to handle it. Either something like putting the computer in the living room, or by using software.

What age can they handle it? Depends on the kid. Some can handle it at 8, some can't handle it at 16.

Re:Protip:

[cheekyjohnson]

Since when do you have rights to use a computer and internet someone else paid for when you are not a responsible working adult yet?

Since when did I say they had such rights? I just said I thought taking it away is a bad idea. In other words, my opinion.

When you have kids someday your opinion will change

What ridiculous logic. For one thing, since you cannot see into the future, you have no idea whether I will ever have kids or that if I do, my opinion will change. Not only that, but the fact that I may or may not change my opinion in the future is irrelevant to whether or not I'm correct at this current point in time.

You claim you think it is so horrible and insulting for parents to tell you waht to do

No, I just say that I think education is a better answer in this case.

Re:Protip:

[cheekyjohnson]

Are you saying a parent has no right to "spy" on anything their kids are doing?

I never mentioned anything about not having the rights. I believe they do as long as it's their computer. I'm just not sure I think it's a good idea.

One that sees things the way you do?

Basically. I think most people dislike murderers because the murderers do something they heavily disagree with.

Which is obviously to allow the kid to do what they want and hope they make the right choice on their own?

That's not quite what I suggest doing.

Kids grow up fast enough today. No need to make it happen any faster.

I wasn't aware that you could accelerate the process of aging. Or did you just mean that you will try to prevent disagreeable changes from occurring?

What if I find it very likely that my child is affected in a negative way by this content?

Well, it is your computer, right? It's not as if this is government censorship that affects everyone.

Communication

[gehrehmee]

The internet is all about communication, be it with other individuals, corporations, etc.

Would you let a 7 or 8 year old talk to random people from around the world without supervision? No?

Then you may want to consider just making sure that there's a human with your children while they're using the thing, until they're at an age where you choose to trust them on their own for a bit. You'll be there to explain the odd random thing that happens.

Re:Communication

[cheekyjohnson]

Would you let a 7 or 8 year old talk to random people from around the world without supervision?

Why not? Unless you think most people are rapists or terrorists who will magically molest them over the internet, what is the problem? Just make sure they know what they're doing.

Re:Communication

[tftp]

a 7 or 8 year old [...] Just make sure they know what they're doing.

I don't know about others, but when I was 7 or 8 years old I certainly didn't know what I was doing - even when I thought I do. From my today's position I think I got some reasonable awareness of adult world when I was about 16 years old, and continued learning further.

Unless you think most people are rapists or terrorists who will magically molest them over the internet

The worst thing that can happen to a kid on Internet is another kid on Internet. Pretty much like IRL.

Re:Communication

[MagusSlurpy]

And he definitely won't want it!

Re:Communication

[bug1]

More on that point, its good to have supervision so that kids can be *taught* to recognise things that are bad for them, and/or how to respond to those things.

Education is the best solution to many situations, the reason to have supervision is facilitate that education.

Re:Communication

[RearNakedChoke]

Indeed. I don't even know why this is even a debate. Your family's internet policy is not a national policy. If people want to let their kids have open, unfettered access to the world, then that's their business...or if they want to control that access, that is also their business. As for me, I will lock my guns and other things they are not ready for, out of my kids reach or limited reach, until such time that they arrive at a level of responsibility. This includes the internet, as well as any other tool that is capable to do good or harm. To those who believe their 8 year olds can self regulate their internet usage...can your 8 year old regulate his XBox usage?

Re:Communication

[lightknight]

"More on that point, its good to have supervision so that kids can be *taught* to recognise things that are bad for them, and/or how to respond to those things." -> Why yes, teach them to conform to your values. Don't give them a choice in the matter! Why should anyone question the social mores of those around them?

Conformity is the future. 'Merica!

Re:Communication

[cheekyjohnson]

As for me, I will lock my guns and other things they are not ready for

Guns are quite a bit different than the internet, and a kid is unlikely to harm themselves just by using the internet. Especially with actual guidance from their parent (as opposed to constantly watching them, or censorship).

To those who believe their 8 year olds can self regulate their internet usage...can your 8 year old regulate his XBox usage?

What if they can? What if it's not necessary?

Re:Communication

[bug1]

Why yes, teach them to conform to your values. Don't give them a choice in the matter! Why should anyone question the social mores of those around them?

So your suggesting we stop teaching 8 year olds, we let them work it out themseve, so they can become non-conformant.

whatcouldpossiblygowrong.

Adults sure, eight year olds, no.

Re:Communication

[cheekyjohnson]

Why are you so emotionally invested in it?

I wasn't aware that posting a few comments meant you're emotionally invested in it.

If you can't answer the original question, shouldn't you just move on?

No. He publicly posted the question, so I publicly answered in a way I saw fit.

Re:Communication

[jeff4747]

To those who believe their 8 year olds can self regulate their internet usage...can your 8 year old regulate his XBox usage?

What if they can? What if it's not necessary?

And we now know CheekyJohnson doesn't have an 8-year-old or older kid.

Re:Communication

[cheekyjohnson]

And we now know CheekyJohnson doesn't have an 8-year-old or older kid.

Based on... what, exactly? Your notion that all children are the same? I would think a parent would know that isn't the case.

Re:Communication

[jeff4747]

Based on his belief that an 8-year-old gamer would voluntarily quit playing at bedtime every night.

Kid might be an angel, but there will be some night when she really, really wants to finish that boss.

Re:Communication

[cheekyjohnson]

Based on his belief that an 8-year-old gamer would voluntarily quit playing at bedtime every night.

I didn't say "every night." And that doesn't prove I'm not a parent, either. It could simply mean that I am a parent and don't check up on them often, or that they really do regulate their use.

Kid might be an angel, but there will be some night when she really, really wants to finish that boss.

I thought we were talking in general. This is not a problem with 7-8 year olds specifically, but people. I think most people do this kind of thing from time to time.

Re:Communication

[jeff4747]

I didn't say "every night."

You claimed an 8-year-old can self-regulate their XBox usage. That would require said 8-year-old to obey their bedtime. Every night. Unless the parent is doing a bad job setting bedtime.

This is not a problem with 7-8 year olds specifically, but people. I think most people do this kind of thing from time to time.

As with all things, adults are supposed to able to assess if the trade-off is worth it. Yet kids usually do not really consider the consequences.

Adult: I'll stay up another hour, because I don't have any early meetings tomorrow, vs. That sales meeting is at 8, I better get to bed.

Kid: Kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it. What do you mean I have a test tomorrow?

Find me an 8-year-old gamer who never, ever, ever does that, and you'll have a point. I'll also ask you to take a picture of them with the Tooth Fairy and Bigfoot, since they're gonna be standing together.

Re:Communication

[cheekyjohnson]

You claimed an 8-year-old can self-regulate their XBox usage.

And they very well might be able to. But it's possible to be responsible in general without being responsible 100% of the time.

As with all things, adults are supposed to able to assess if the trade-off is worth it. Yet kids usually do not really consider the consequences.

Adults, like children, are human beings. They usually fail many times, make many mistakes, and so on. I've seen many full-grown adults who don't "consider the consequences."

Find me an 8-year-old gamer who never, ever, ever does that, and you'll have a point.

There is nothing impossible about it. But I doubt you believe I'd have any way to prove it to you, just like you couldn't prove it to me if I were to ask you to prove such a person doesn't exist.

Re:Communication

[spamking]

You claimed an 8-year-old can self-regulate their XBox usage.

And they very well might be able to. But it's possible to be responsible in general without being responsible 100% of the time.

And that's the point . . . I would hope a parent would be able to better determine if their 8 year-old was behaving responsibly and know better than the 8 year-old would.

Re:Communication

[RearNakedChoke]

An 8 year old that can self regulate his Xbox is a rare case. Just like an 8 year old who can speak 10 languages fluently.

There are also people who have survived gunshots to the head. Just because some people can, doesn't mean I'm going to take my chances.

I don't base my everyday policies on the extreme unlikely cases.

And finally, while an 8 year old having a lapse in self control and playing XBox until midnight isn't the end of the world, that same 8 year old watching a 10 way gang-bang or bestiality until midnight is a complete disaster. And porn is far more appealing to an 8 year old than any xbox game. And once he stumbles on it, he's going to go back looking for it, you can bet on it. Even your magical, iron will 8 year old will go back looking for it.

Nothing on the internet is SO important to an 8 year old that might get filtered by net nanny (or equivalent) that I'm willing to take the chance they stumble on something that could have profound negative effects.

But by all means, YOU let your rare, fully self regulating, responsible 8 year old have full access to the internet.

Re:Communication

[cheekyjohnson]

An 8 year old that can self regulate his Xbox is a rare case.

I never said otherwise. I just said that it was possible.

Just because some people can, doesn't mean I'm going to take my chances.

It's not much of a risk, to be honest.

that same 8 year old watching a 10 way gang-bang or bestiality until midnight is a complete disaster.

Somehow I doubt that it would be a "complete disaster."

And porn is far more appealing to an 8 year old than any xbox game. And once he stumbles on it, he's going to go back looking for it, you can bet on it.

Pornography is far more appealing? For which 8 year olds? I wasn't even interested in it at around age 10 when I discovered it.

Free or free

[afidel]

I'm not aware of any Free software in this space, for free software you've got MS Live Family Safety (works with most browsers on Windows and some applications) and OpenDNS content filtering. I use the Live family safety on their laptops and OpenDNS on their tablets.

Re:Free or free

[Anonymous Coward]

Squid with Dansguardian (http://dansguardian.org/) has worked well for me. It has a free "subscription based" white/blacklist and also a heuristic "score" mode.

Could be a good balance between watching them all the time and letting them have some freedom. You tell them not to visit certain sights, and unless you're running it
on your router as a transparent proxy, can be bypassed with a modicum of effort, so some of the onus is on them.

Re:Free or free

[sensationull]

Was just going to suggest this, works really well limiting apps, quotaing time and limiting content. It is actually a really well thought out tool: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29231

Needs a modern OS though so Vista or 7.

Re:Free or free

[lipanitech]

http://www1.k9webprotection.com/ I have used this on several customers computers works really well its a free local content filter.

Re:Free or free

[mroracle]

I was going to do exactly this when my son started getting old enough. In the local school system as low as first grade they have assignments that are online. I would like to have a controlled environment for my son to be able to learn boundaries and what is or is not appropriate.

My plan was to build my own proxy server, I may still do that but services like this seem to be a better solution.

I will see what is available in the next 2 - 3 years, a lot can change in that time!

hosts file.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ad blocker hosts file is a good free start.. doesn't stop them browsing porn though...

OpenDNS

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenDNS has it's limitations, but overall it's really good.

Re:OpenDNS

[afidel]

Yep, I love OpenDNS for content filtering on non-PC devices where there's not really any built in facility for it.

Re:OpenDNS

[lightknight]

Right, because a 5 second search on Google of 'How to disable [Net Nanny]' won't turn up a few dozen pages on the topic, complete with YouTube videos?

What do you think the kid is going to search for the first time this over-protective filter blocks something the kid really wants to read / watch?

Re:OpenDNS

[scsirob]

I tried to use OpenDNS and it works well as long as the kids know nothing about computers. If your kids become ever so much computer-savvy, they will find out how to set the DNS to something else real soon.

In my case (I have two boys, 12 and 14) I had my DHCP server set so the MAC hardware for their PC would get a fixed IP address with OpenDNS and also set my firewall to restrict certain traffic (games, chat) during night hours. Not for long they found out how to change their MAC address. Next step will be to use VLAN switches and block any non-registered MAC address on the ports to their computer. Wonder how long it will be before they start using tethering phone connections, NAT, whatever..

Technology will help for a while. Next to that, make sure you guide and educate your kids. They'll see stuff soon enough. If it isn't at home, it will be at some friend's place, an internet cafe, you name it. Prepare them and they will be fine.

Re:OpenDNS

[Simulant]

OpenDNS. Also, you can enable Google Safe Search: http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2521806&rd=1 and YouTube safety mode: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57709

Re:OpenDNS

[rrossman2]

Just give them a limited access user account (even if you have to knock their access down a little bit yourself) so they cant change that stuff....

Re:OpenDNS

[Hatta]

This is a great idea, completely ineffective if the kid has even the slightest motivation or curiosity. Reward tinkering with sexual material, that's the way it should be.

Re:OpenDNS

[meta-monkey]

Yeah, but it's more a "locks keep honest people honest" kind of solution I think the OP is looking for.

"Well I put a padlock on the medicine cabinet, and that worked for awhile but then the wiry little buggers discovered bolt cutters! They just love that Robitussin!"

Kids have nothing but time and an overwhelming compulsion to check out shit they're not supposed to, so if they're actively looking for it, they're going to find it. OpenDNS is a good way to help prevent them from stumbling on stuff you'd rather not have to explain to an 8 year old. They might be able to understand "well, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much..." but it's much harder to explain "well, when a japanese schoolgirl, three shaved boys, a circus clown, two donkeys and a human toilet love each other very much..."

Re:OpenDNS

[P-niiice]

My daughter and I play this game, and I encourage it. She's learned a lot in a short time.

Re:OpenDNS

[bmomjian]

Agreed on using DNS as a filter solution because it covers all Internet devices in the house (assuming they all use the same public IP address). OpenDNS is a great choice because it has a single filter console and is free for homes. Details of my setup are here: http://momjian.us/main/blogs/blog/2012.html#February_21_2012_2

OpenDNS

[mcgoohan]

Try OpenDNS. It's got good granularity for filtering criteria and you can either filter at your router, or on a per-computer basis.

Plus, their founder has a /. UID of 17.

Porn!?

[cheekyjohnson]

You'd better do something! If they see that, they'll turn into evil rapists!

Re:Porn!?

[R3d M3rcury]

I gotta admit, that's the first thing that crossed my mind. Not so much the "They'll turn into rapists!" as the automatic, "Oh, there's no way I can let my kids have access to the Internet without filtering software because they'll see goatse.cx or tubgirl and be permanently scarred for life."

You might want to consider just giving them access to the Internet and see if it becomes a problem. I mean, they're 7 and 8 year-olds. What will be their reaction if, while looking for Minecraft cheats or something, they run across a porn site? I'm guessing that they might go "Gross!" and go back to looking for Minecraft cheats. They might go "Gross!" and look at more--because there's nothing 7 or 8 year-olds like more than gross stuff. But they'll eventually get bored with it and go back to looking for whatever they were looking for. And they'll probably learn that there are some sites they don't want to visit because there's gross stuff on it.

If it becomes a problem, sit down and have a talk with your kids about why this is a problem. If they still can't get it through their tiny little minds, then consider the filtering software.

OpenDNS

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless your kids are computer savvy (then nothing can stop them), that should block most everything that's of questionable content.

Bsecure Online

[spiffydudex]

My father uses this software, BSecure Whole Home Filtering. Its great, you can customize the filters to your hearts content. Plus you can cover all the computers in your network by changing DNS servers on your router.

Link: http://www.bsecure.com/

Re:Bsecure Online

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, here you are.

Norton Family

[bellwould]

I installed Symantec Norton antivirus and use Norton Family (no extra cost). I've used it very successfully for my two daughters' computers for everything except YouTube for the past 3 years. Because I don't want to block youtube entirely, they can only watch it while being supervised. Also, their computers are in the family room, not their bedrooms. As they get older, I gradually lighten the restrictions. Many activities can be monitored when not restriced and regular reports are emailed of questionable website visits, etc.

/etc/hosts

[technosaurus]

127.0.0.1 block.this.com (there are tons of blacklists, pick one or several and add an entry for each,... You should only need wget, sed and other basics) Puppy linux has an example, but could use a better selection of lists.

Re:/etc/hosts

[Dracos]

This. Almost no software a parent can install is immune to kids. Plus, contrary to current browser vendor "wisdom", the most important security tools are (or should be) already on the screen: the location bar and the status bar. Teach your kids to pay attention to where they are and where they're going.

Although I find mapping hosts to 0.0.0.0 is faster, because it's not a valid IP address, so the DNS subsystem of your OS will ignore it without trying to connect.

There are several hostfile collections out there. I merged three of them several years ago just for my own freedom from ads and other junk. I currently have 131572 host names zero'd out.

Re:/etc/hosts

[TraumaHound]

Homer: Hey, what gives? I thought you had a Internet access.

Ned: Sure doodily-do. Over 131,572 sites locked out!

Re:I could bypass this crap by the time I was 9

[antifoidulus]

And back in the dinosaur days(read early 80s) when I grew up the kids STILL figured out how to access the stuff, and we created a secret community stash in the woods. You contributed what you could, you took when you needed. Amazing system :P(and of course by the time I was a teen I was the one that was smart enough to dial up BBSes and d/l porn from there, and distribute it to friends in exchange for floppy disks)

K9 Web Protection

[Slacker3000]

I've used K9 Web Protection for years. http://www1.k9webprotection.com/ It's free and does a pretty good job. I also setup my wireless router to use OpenDNS as an added layer of protection for any of my kids friends who may bring something over and connect to our wireless network. It's not foolproof, but you can setup a filter level and it does a decent job of stopping "accidental" clicks.

Re:K9 Web Protection

[symes]

I've also used K9 - works well. It means that when they have friends over and are giggling madly at something they've found on the PC in their room it is probably just silly pictures of cats. I hope. There is nothing worse than interrupting pre-teens mid-sleepover.

Re:K9 Web Protection

[bigtallmofo]

One more bump for K9... Has worked very well for a couple years now in our family. My oldest (of 3) is turning 8 in a couple months. All these thought experiments by teenagers in their parents basement about how you don't need filtering or that it's ineffective are ignoring how easy it is to stumble on porn or gore on the Internet and how unready a 7 year old is to see it.

Re:K9 Web Protection

[thisisfutile]

I've not used it but my best friend swears by it. He showed me how it works and it seemed simple enough.

What OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need to give us more details.
What OS are you using?
If you have a Mac you can use the Parental Controls tab in the System Tools to lock them down, restrict apps, restrict access to adult sites and even the time of day and length of time they can use the computer.
Works great and is included for free.

"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

But I think you meant censor them, didn't you?.

Just because they are kids doesn't mean they aren't human, and it doesn't mean they don't have the same rights as everyone else. I never understood this censor the kids bullshit. Putting a veil on "the things that are out there" won't make them go away, and your kids will still have to deal with all of that real soon. Think hiding it from them for a few years will help them when they find "what is out there" in a dark alley? Or are you going to keep them forever in their little pink rooms?

Censoring access to information to kids is the worst kind of parenting you can do. Guide them, that's quite different. Be there for them as they discover the world, don't try to hide it from them because it won't work.

If you find them watching porn, tell them they'll have plenty of time to do that when they are older. When I was a kid the internet wasn't around yet, but that didn't prevent me from checking out the plumbing on my female cousin, and letting her explore mine. It didn't prevent me from checking out some boobs on my moms medical magazines, or from getting up in the middle of the night to watch 9 1/2 weeks. And I was barely your kids age, and I'm sure you did the same things. And that didn't screw us up, or destroyed our minds, or any other crap that the media will have you believe. Would you censor your kids access to your library? Hell no. Then why would you censor their internet access?

Sure, they might find some porn, but they'll also find wikipedia. Just be there to help them sort it out.

Re:"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[Slacker3000]

You sir, are an idiot. Checking out boobs in a Good Housekeeping bra add is a bit different than stumbling upon an Anal-Fisting web site when they were trying to search for something innocent. It's not necessarily a question of them actively seeking out this type of material, but more what can be stumbled upon when searching for something completely different. Porn sites do a very good job of making sure they popup in as many places as possible. Try searching for cheat codes from some video game and see what pops up when you click along the results (something my kids do when playing games).

Re:"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[cheekyjohnson]

Checking out boobs in a Good Housekeeping bra add is a bit different than stumbling upon an Anal-Fisting web site when they were trying to search for something innocent.

I don't see the problem. Are they so weak that they'll be permanently scarred for life? I very highly doubt that. I think his advice that they should instead be guided is much better advice. Perhaps they won't grow up to be oversensitive and afraid, then.

Re:"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[Tamran]

Checking out boobs in a Good Housekeeping bra add is a bit different than stumbling upon an Anal-Fisting web site when they were trying to search for something innocent.

This sounds incredibly unlikely. Maybe not impossible, but definitely unlikely. I'd wager your chances are better at winning the lottery ... not that what you're proposing isn't almost as good.

Re:"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

See, you are projecting. Probably you get turned on by "Anal-Fisting", but you where raised a good god fearing christian, and you know sex is a sin because jesus said so, therefore that must be terrible. of course, you have no problem with the media talking about the dead penalty. We, as a society, murdering people in revenge? Perfectly fine. People experimenting with their bodies and having fun? Terrible! Sin! Sin!.

Kids don't have those prerogatives until you get them into their heads.

Also, explain to me how you accidentally click your way into anal fisting? Is that the excuse you gave to your wife when she found you looking at videos of midget transvestites cock-fingering each other?

Re:"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[c0lo]

Perhaps they won't grow up to be oversensitive and afraid, then.

But then... how will they trust their government when it will try to scare them out of their rights?

Re:"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[LordLimecat]

Sir, I just wanted to congratulate you. Your post is such an excellent example of a "strawman post" that it is being archived by the internet elders for educational purposes.

Thank you for your example, it truly is a service to the online community.

Re:"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

There's no need to cover electrical outlets because evolution rocks.

Re:"Protect" them. That's a nice word ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Agreed. Executions are awful, even for adults. Does that justify censorship? No.

My point is that censorship is binary. There's no such thing as "We are not censoring, just taking care of the kids". Sorry, no "buts" allowed. You are either censoring them or you are not.

subject

[Legion303]

Firefox, AdBlockPro, Noscript, and the computer in the living room.

Re:subject

[strikethree]

I used Firefox, Noscript, and education. I have a 19 (almost 20) year old daughter and a 15 year old son. Both have done fine without any close monitoring of what they are doing. Yes, I have checked from time to time in the past but for the most part, my kids were turned off by porn and knew enough to speak to strangers safely. Yes, my kids had unfiltered net access from the time they knew how to use a computer. Yes, they have turned out, or are turning out, just fine.

Seriously, give up the control freakery, educate your kids about the basics of life, and then let them go. Check their history every now and then and monitor their behaviors so you can head off anything nasty before it starts... and everything will likely be okay. Nothing will protect them 100% but if you educate them, they really do try to protect themselves.

Re:subject

[Splab]

Riiight.... A 15 year old son who doesn't do porn.

If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

Re:subject

[Legion303]

"Seriously, give up the control freakery"

My kid is 8, as are the kids of OP. It's not 'control freakery' to keep the computer in the living room so that I can keep an eye on where he's browsing (I'm not concerned about tits, I'm concerned about things like rotten.com). I would hope you're not closely monitoring your 19-year-old daughter, since she's an adult and can do what she wants.

Re:subject

[rizole]

Add moderate safesearch to google and that's my set up right there. Use strict if you've a mind.

Re:subject

[thereitis]

Why do so many people equate "protecting kids online" with "preventing access to pornographic material"?

That is ignoring the volumes of hate speech, malware, scams, predators, etc. Kids don't always know better to not click on that type of stuff, and once you do it's too late (you're infected or have some disturbing image in your mind that you can never "unsee"). Advertisers are really tricky, too, making their ads look like download links.

Good parenting is important, but if an Internet filter can help keep the worst content out of the way then it's a useful tool. Just like anti-virus software and common-sense go hand in hand: either one is good, but having both is better.

Re:subject

[strikethree]

Spot-checking says your guess is wrong. He is allowed to look at porn if he wants, he chooses not to. I am unsure why. His behavior does not indicate there is anything wrong with him. Perhaps it is because he could get laid any time he wanted to. There is not a shortage of females interested in him. In fact, there are so many that it annoys him. I wish I would have had that problem when I was his age. :/

Re:subject

[strikethree]

it is a shame you posted anonymously, we could have had a nice discussion clearing up any misconceptions you may have due to my imperfect communication skills. *sigh* Maybe next lifetime.

Re:subject

[strikethree]

That is ignoring the volumes of hate speech, malware, scams, predators, etc.

Why should my kids be protected from seeing hate speech as an observer (as opposed to a victim)? Of what value is there in hiding it from them?

Malware? Despite Firefox and Noscript, both kids have had their computers infected. It is not a major problem. Wipe and reinstall. Did they lose some data that they wanted? You bet. Did they learn to be more careful (and make backups!)? You bet. I fail to see any problem.

Scams and predators... yeah. I have to admit that when my daughter asked me if she could have a MySpace account, I kind of shuddered inside. Eventually, she was going to be out on her own (as she is right now!) and she would need experience dealing with people who want to do things to her, with or without her permission. We had a long talk and her head was in the right place, so I agreed. I am sure she was exposed to some pretty nasty stuff as a young female on the internet. She is perfectly happy and healthy now and she is very VERY well armed as an adult now. Scary for me, but again, I fail to see the problem.

... or have some disturbing image in your mind that you can never "unsee"

I guess lemonparty, tubgirl, goat.cx, 2girls1cup, etc are pretty jarring. As a kid, before the internet, I got to watch some folks in Viet Nam prepare to get executed every time the evening news was starting. On Sundays, I got to watch an Olympic skier die everytime the sports show was being aired. I got to watch kids get napalmed and in other parts of the world, people getting hacked up by machetes. The world is a fucking nasty, evil, hardcore place. I am unsure what pretending the world is all butterflies and rainbows will do for a kid. They can see that the world can be a wonderful and loving place with some really cool people in it while they are with me. If they choose to look out of the window and see the rest of the world, I see no benefit in pulling the shades down. *shrug*

I am not here saying that all kids should be given thorough freedom to do as they please. I am saying that if kids are brought up reasonably, they need to be allowed to see the nastier things in life while I am still around to help them understand WTF is going on. Could something terrible have happened? You bet. I would be crying over their graves and wondering if I had done the right thing.

Life is risky and nothing is a sure bet. I played my cards to the best of my abilities and I am extremely happy with the outcome. One kid fully grown, happy and healthy, and taking on life's responsibilities as only a fully realized human can. The other is almost there. He is still young but it is clear that he is heading in the right direction and needs almost no handholding at all anymore.

Free your kids now. They are the ones who have to live their lives. They are the ones who are making decisions. Help them.

Re:It is called PARENTING

[DurendalMac]

Do you really think a parent hovers around their kid 24/7?

Re:FREE

[tonywestonuk]

You know what parenting is all about? Its about getting your kids prepared for the real world, and not have it hit them like a brick at 18, or whenever you choose to let them off the leash. Its about teaching them respect. allowing them to make their own decisions, but being their to support them when (because of lack of experience), they make make the wrong ones.

If you ban them from the internet unless you're there watching their every move and making sure they're not looking at bad stuff, then they're gonna end up hating you with a passion. Using the internet in secret around their mates house, loosing any kind of respect for you.

Free as in "Free Speech" or ...

[Lisias]

... free as in "free lunch"?

You know, there's a difference...

Dan's Guardian

[capedgirardeau]

One possibility is http://dansguardian.org/

It is filtering based and there are community maintained blacklists and whitelists for it for different audiences.

Good luck and as much involvement as you can have in their internet use to teach sensible web use will be beneficial as well.

start with the basics

[wickerprints]

That is, do the things you would normally do to secure your own machine from malware, intrusive advertising, and vulnerabilities.

Use the hosts file to block certain domains from being accessible.
Install ad-blocking extensions for your web browser.
Install NoScript or some other JavaScript blocking extension.
Don't give the kids account administrative privileges.
If possible, run an operating system that doesn't permit them to install their own software.
Turn on whatever parental controls are available in the OS.
Keep it patched and up-to-date.

Beyond that, the question is really a matter of sitting down and having an honest discussion with your kids. You can supervise them if you want to come across as overbearing, but really, the single best thing you can do is to be someone they feel they can trust and share whatever questions they may have. The reality is that the world is full of weird and disturbing and dangerous shit. It's not possible, or even desirable, to try to protect them from being exposed to such things forever. Rather, teach them how to judge for themselves, and encourage them to come to you for advice. If you cannot build trust and respect, you have already lost. They will simply learn to hide things from you.

Finally, there's something to be said for simply not giving them unsupervised network access. When I was that age, I didn't play online video games. I didn't have the luxury of playing Minecraft or whatnot. And I was happy to have what I did. The more quality time you spend with your kids, the less they will feel a need for things like television, mobile phones, iPads, and the internet. It means bringing them up to read paper books. Going outside and getting exercise. Getting them interested in crafts or other creative pursuits that build fine motor control and dexterity. Teaching them how to use their imaginations and developing their critical thinking skills. Could you do these things with computers and modern technology? Sure. Is it easier? Not necessarily.

Untangle

[Gumbercules!!]

It's free (mostly) and it's really good. Easy to administer and they will find it very, very hard to work around.

Blocks protocols, porn, bittorrent, msn, etc and you can chose what to block by protocol, by type, filter email, view logs of what people are doing, the works.

OpenDNS

[chrysalis]

You can use OpenDNS "Family Shield" for free: http://blog.opendns.com/2010/06/23/introducing-familyshield-parental-controls/

All you need is to change your DNS settings.

Doesn't take that long.

[m0gely]

A few years ago when my kids were that age, Club Penguin, Webkins, Disney Channel and just a few others were all the rage. I fail to see how it takes months to come up with a white list. Dozens if sites would take all of a few minutes to type up. I also created email addresses for them on a domain I registered for our family and whitelisted all inbound email in an "OK List" for their accounts. Any email that was sent to them who's sender wasn't in that list got a bounce that stated "I'm sorry, I don't know you yet. Tell $childs_name to give your email address to her dad so she can get your mail". Otherwise, K9 Web Protection is free and works well for the www stuff. It's at least a good starting point.

Yoursphere (internet-safety.yoursphere.com)

[intel_chris]

I discuss internet safety on twitter for a living and family related internet safety because one can't help but get involved. I don't have any specific recommendation for blocking software as I don't use such myself. My child just uses the internet under our supervision and hasn't run into any porn yet. However, what I think you really want for your child is a place where they can safely go and will learn to be a responsible net citizen. For that I recommend checking out Yoursphere. It is a social site designed to be safe for childern. The link in the subject is their intro for parents. I'd also check out "ilookbothways.com" as a place to start educating yourself.

Re:It is called PARENTING

[c0lo]

Do you really think a parent hovers around their kid 24/7?

Do you really think a kid should surf the net 24/7?

Re:It is called PARENTING

[jamesh]

Helicopter parenting FTW!

Or not... i've seen kids who's parents watch carefully over their shoulders all their childhood. They don't make good adults.

Re:FREE

[Mashiki]

Good that you know this. Too bad there's an entire generation out there that's been raised by government, and are now happily bricking out at the age of 18. Enjoy!

Old PC running Linux with Squid and filtering...

[Anonymous Coward]

...price: free. You need also to tell your router/firewall not to accept http/https/ftp from other sources than the squid server.
However... you can't protect your kids from free content of the net, you don't know what they do outside your home.
They will have more use of guidance than blocking.

Teaching kids the ability to discern

[Taco Cowboy]

I have kids of my own

I love them

I like to think of ways to protect them

But I also know that I simply can't protect them 24/7

Instead, I teach them ways to protect themselves

I teach them how to discern the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, and why something are "Right", and others are "Wrong"

Services like "Net Nanny" (and others) can only give an illusion of "protection" - and parents all over, always like the feeling of instant gratification, that "My Kids Are Protected"

Sure, I am worry about the safety of my kids, but I prefer to let them learn, from the real world, rather than creating an artificial green-house so that my kids are insulated from the real world out there

Perhaps my approach is wrong

Perhaps I am a bad dad

But that's what I did, and that's what I do, and what I will do, for my children, whom I adore !!
 

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[Spritzer]

You mean you actively parent and don't expect to be able to shelter your children from the real world? Go back to the 50s. You obviously don't belong in this time.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[l810c]

What is the "Real World"?

My kid knows right vs. wrong.

He just turned 9 and my wife and I (and our many friends and their children) all fully agree that he has Never lied in his life. We are not worried about Him, we are worried about the INTERNET shoving completely inappropriate things down to him.

It doesn't take a very creative Google search to come up with some fully inappropriate content.

And it's getting Worse!

By the day!!

FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!, AMEN!!, but not to my 9 Year Old.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[Anonymous Coward]

all fully agree that he has Never lied in his life

just .... lol

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[ubergeek65536]

This. No bubblewrapped kids for me either.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[silentcoder]

>FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!, AMEN!!, but not to my 9 Year Old.

And thanks to generations of parents like you, democracy doesn't really exist in the USA anymore. If you raise them that way at any point in their life, you pretty much rule out the possibility that they will suddenly become mavericks who change an industry or leaders who change a society - or even just actively participate in such movements.

Think you can teach them to be good, free people later in life ? The Soviets had one thing right: "Give me a kid until age 7 and he'll be a communist for life."
Well give you a kid until age 7 and he'll apparently be a scared consumer the rest of his life.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[Joce640k]

Cool. At what age were they ready to see Goatse, watch gonzo porn, etc...?

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[progician]

Maaaan... don't distort things, it wasn't the Soviets, and it was mostly likely said by Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Never the less the communists weren't around when this quote was known. Unnecessary commie bashing is counter-productive.

Other than that, I agree. I summon George Carlin on this.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[History's Coming To]

Absolutely agree. Expecting software to do the job is the equivalent of only allowing the children out of the house with a chaperone. There's bad stuff on the internet, they WILL find it at some point, the trick is to make sure they're prepared when they do. By all means use program X to filter stuff, but you need to be aware that this will not, with 100% certainty, protect them entirely, it's just a backup to what you, as a parent, teach them.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[silentcoder]

I first heard the quote as a child attributed to Lenin. But I don't think the truth of it's meaning is much altered by the miss-attribution.
Still, thanks for the information, I know better now.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[progician]

I'm sorry, this one I really meant.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[MightyYar]

That's great but there are things a 7-year-old shouldn't have to see, even accidentally. Even YouTube has things like people getting attacked by sharks - nothing a 7-year-old needs to have nightmares over.

I have a whitelist. Sometimes it's a pain (like adding Khan Academy), but I know exactly what they are doing when unattended. It also saves on the amount of malware removal I have to do - wish I could get my wife to use a whitelist :)

I agree with your post when referring to slightly older kids. By 10, I think a kid can handle more violent images without developing a life-long complex. I don't think it is fair to expect a 7-year-old to have mature defense mechanisms and coping skills yet.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[MightyYar]

I don't know what you are talking about - I was glued to the TV for my entire childhood, and I turned out just...

OH! Look! A new Apple product announcement!

Can't talk now.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[MightyYar]

Agreed, but they also have to have the brain development to handle what is thrown at them. A certain percentage of 7-year-olds are going to react very poorly to visual images of violence, which are very common on YouTube (e.g. shark attacks). Maybe you like the idea of recurring nightmares and a fear of the beach, but that doesn't appeal to me. I think by 10 most kids can even handle a slasher movie, but again you have to use some judgement with your own child.

To use your analogy, there is nothing wrong with only allowing a 7-year-old out of the house with a chaperone. That might be more creepy with a 17-year-old. Your job as a parent is to manage that transition.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[frostfreek]

That reminds me of a story my buddy told me... His son needed some pictures of big cats for a school project.
Here, go to google images.

- Lion
- Tiger
- Cougar ... NO, WAIT!!!

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[SuricouRaven]

He'll last about a day in the real world then. Lying is an essential life skill.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[SuricouRaven]

Just wait until they do the project on birds.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[maggern]

He just turned 9 and my wife and I (and our many friends and their children) all fully agree that he has Never lied in his life.

Lieing is a usefull skill. I lied for the first time when I was 5 years.
When will you teach him to lie to women? ;)

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[Anonymous Coward]

If your 9 year old has never lied he is very unusual, most kids learn to lie by the time they are 3 or 4.

To block most inappropriate content, use an ad blocker and log into Google and turn "safe search" on. It's easy to circumvent if your child wants to, but it'll be effective protection against accidental exposure.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[couchslug]

Put the PC where you can watch him.

If you can't do that, then disconnect him or have a minimal whitelist of sites he can visit.

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[Taco Cowboy]

I lied for the first time when I was 5 years

It sure took you a loooonnnnnnggggggggg time to lie

The first time I lied?

I lied even before I could talk !! :)
 

Re:Teaching kids the ability to discern

[desdinova 216]

usually when the choice is sarcastic or ___ I usually pick sarcastic

Windows Live Family Safety

[dougthug]

It's been mentioned before on here, but I had to chime in. Windows Live Family Safety is an exceptional product; free, and very complete. I have three kids (15, 14, and 7) and it allows me to setup each kids access individually. You are limited to Windows, but my kids are probably in a similar situation to most where they're using Windows at school already, so it wasn't a teaching experience to tell my 7-year old she has to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del before she puts in her username and password :). Good luck, and good for you trying to protect your kids. There are too many parents that are either ignorant (the literal definition, not an insult), naive (that is a small insult), or too lazy (blatant insult) to protect their kids.

Re:Windows Live Family Safety

[Billly Gates]

Second that.

What is great about it is it actually works with non IE browsers too and any child can request to view a website blocked just like what the parent requested in case it blocks something they want to view.

Much of the security software blocks Bing and Google to protect the kids and I feel that is terrible as the internet is a great resource if they want to do a search or use Wikipedia for something.

Apple has a similar program but I have never used it. This is when Linux is not the best OS for families but it is something to take a look at and perhaps a Mac Slashdoter could give his or her take on the MacOSX family controls?

hosts file

[ieatcookies]

There is probably a decent list of domains out there that you can put in your hosts file so that lookups for these fail. I assume you're more concerned about accidental adverts and such, which is a fair concern considering how many sites have em.

Re:BlueCoat K9

[Anonymous Coward]

I run a community free tech-support organization and K9 is one of the worst software packages we've ever had to deal with. On a lot of hardware, it causes frequent (4x daily in some cases) BSoDs. On all computers, it slows down the entire machine. It also blocks certain cloud backup software, for no apparent reason.BlueCoat support is clueless and they've admitted that they don't really care about the many bugs in the software.

In short, if having your computer in working condition means anything to you, stay FAR AWAY from BlueCoat K9.

Re:I could bypass this crap by the time I was 9

[rev0lt]

STILL figured out how to access the stuff

What stuff? Sex with animals? Young girls selling their body?People eating feces? Orifices stretched to untold levels? Because you have all that equally accessible in the internet. The 80's magazines are mostly "adult girls with lots of hair showing their boobs", not the dick-filled asshole shaved barbies you'll find on many, many sites.

I was the one that was smart enough to dial up BBSes and d/l porn from there, and distribute it to friends in exchange for floppy disks

Most of the available d/l porn was scanned pictures from magazines, so nothing shocking there. Maybe in your time boobies were kept out of the tv, but nowadays they aren't. Go ahead, try to look for some "tasteful"/vintage porn on the internet without stumbling in incredible filth.

Bluecoat

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluecoat has a free (for home use) product that uses the same filters as their enterprise products. I've installed it on my own home computers and those of friends and family. Might be what you are looking for. http://www1.k9webprotection.com/get-k9-web-protection-free

Privoxy *and* surpervision

[Anonymous Coward]

I highly recommend using the Privoxy content filtering proxy server. Since using it I can't recall ever "accidentally" having come across a porn site and the ad-free experience makes browsing the internet much more tolerable. You can also add your own filters based on host names, partial URIs and even funky things like image dimensions (to block out banner ads from specific providers) and it has the ability to strip GIF animations down to their first frame (no annoying blinky/flashy adverts). You can also define exceptions so that ad-supported web sites you approve of can still display their non-invasive ads and/or certain banking sites aren't fucked-up by having their Javascript blocked (why aren't they on SSL anyway?).

All of my desktop computers and mobile devices use it - it's particularly amusing to see how insistent some mobile apps are trying to get their advertising - especially Angry Birds, which tries about 8 different FQDNs and IP addresses before giving up and letting you play anyway.

Even with Privoxy, though, you cannot replace supervising your children's online time. I also recommend *not* allowing computers and connected mobile devices to wander off into bedrooms, etc. - make sure your kids are in the lounge/kitchen area where you can keep an eye on them.

Education / Communication

[slippyblade]

I've two kids of my own and, amazingly enough, I was a kid once as well.

Monitoring and Filtering software is rubbish. All it does is create an artificial wall that your kids will see as a "forbidden" area. You are a /. user which means, most likely, you are a smart guy. That means your kids are probably smart too. Putting up a program like this - your kids will see a challenge and go out of their way to break/circumvent it. It's what I would have done as a kid...

Communicate with your kids. Educate them. Explain to them about the internet and life in general. There are things and places that are not good for them now and it's best if they don't go there. But do it in a way that doesn't insult their intelligence. Amazingly enough, education and communication work. Will they maybe end up with a nasty pop-up on screen? Maybe. But that might happen even with NetNanny installed.

Treat your kids like people, tell them of the dangers, explain WHY those things are dangers, and give them alternatives.

PS: No - I am not some, "Think of the children", bleeding heart freak. My kids have been spanked on occasion, they've been grounded, and done plenty wrong. They are kids. Shit happens. But by treating them like people and not pets, the shit that has happened has been minor and far less than most of my "Time-out" peers.

Re:Education / Communication

[colin_young]

I don't disagree with your points, but what filtering software will do is decrease the risk of accidentally seeing something you don't want to have to explain to your children just right now. Not zero-risk, but lower. My 9-year old knows what sites she can visit, knows which ones she has to ask about, but doesn't type very well and sometimes screws up a URL, whether or not I'm sitting right beside her. Even my wife could do with some help with mistyped URLs sometimes...

Re:Education / Communication

[undeadbill]

Agreed. I also think that having filtering software creates a false sense of security wherein anything is going to be "ok" to do or view on the Web. Keeping the kids on their judgmental toes, asking themselves "is this ok for me to watch", means that they will do a better job of policing their own behavior rather than trusting in some filter list to determine whatever they are viewing is ok.

I recently had an issue like this come up with my daughter, because my wife puts the kid on PBSkids.org and kind of lets her do her own thing. Mom never thought that there might be content on a mainstream kids site that might be problematic, or need explaining to an 8 year old. One day, I am watching my kid watching videos, and there is a whole section priming kids to accept illegal search and seizure as ok. I then started watching other videos with my daughter, and found that there was a whole slough of behaviors that this "kids" website was preloading our kid with- accepting illegal search, stealing because the end justifies the means, and some really awful judgmental behaviors. I had been wondering where it was coming from, and it had been coming from something that was listed as "trustworthy". Now PBSkids.org is limited to viewing when parents are nearby and capable of lending an ear to the conversation- and generally, she doesn't want to view it as much now that she has to think about what she is watching. Then again, this has opened up my daughter's viewing habits to wander the internet more often, because it is now an exercise in judgment for her to be on the Internet, instead of just accepting whatever she clicks as being ok. I think why I had such a problem with this situation is that we are not raising her in a walled garden otherwise- she rides public transit (there is a lot there that needs explaining), listens to radio, goes to shows and experiences other things based upon her comfort level, not on some rigid set of unrealistic rules. Basically, giving her a pass on critical thinking while on the Internet was a mistake, and one that I corrected quickly.

There are no trustworthy sites on the internet. That is the whole point of raising the kid without a walled garden, because it will be more of a disservice to them later on if they run into a situation that requires critical thinking rather than blind adherence to accepting status quo.

Re:Education / Communication

[Fred IV]

Putting up a program like this - your kids will see a challenge and go out of their way to break/circumvent it. It's what I would have done as a kid...

Where's the downside here? I'm teaching my toddler to effectively reason in an arguement by playfully arguing with her when she wants something that I would probably say "yes" to anyway until she persuades me to agree with her by making her case. I'll do the same sort of thing with network access when she gets a little older (in addition to teaching her about good online practices) and start teaching her the basics of how our network works. I'd love it if the thrill of unrestricted access was enough of a motivator for her to learn how to circumvent our security.

Try OpenDNS

[aklinux]

I have been using it for a while. It is generally fairly easy to set most home routers to get their DNS from OpenDNS. Once it's set up, all you computers on your home network get their DNS from there. It's fairly easy to choose from some pre-built blacklists. If the pre-built lists don't work quite right for you, it's pretty easy to whitelist and blacklist individual sites as needed.

K9

[oasab]

Have you looked at K9 web protection? I find it very useful.

Grilled as the anti christ for this

[Billly Gates]

But if you do run Windows try the parental controls? If you update to Windows Live 2011 if your system has an older version it has additional settings. It works fairly well and if your kid needs to view a website he or she can email you to grant permission for custom white lists.

If I really want to be modded down I would suggest to go to IE add-ons for white lists for flash to get rid of porn ads and protect yourself. They may exist for Firefox too or Chrome with some add ons refering to the same lists but I have not tried it on those browsers. IE 9 if it is the only one that can do that is a good browser in this day and age as it is not 6 and integrates well with Parental control and Windows Live family Safety.

I believe Apple has a similar program but I have never tried it out.

Good Parenting!

[arthur5005]

I love how everyone on here is acting as if they never looked at porn when they were young. We're all nerds here, I'm sure we can all agree that getting any in real life was difficult enough.

Re:Agreed (& an automator for creating one)

[Anonymous Coward]

APK, can you recommend a way to filter out everything APK has ever written? Links welcome.

Single parent here...

[3Cats]

..and IT guy and linux guy. Kids ( 13 & 11 ) run windows ( WoW and Minecraft.. and ipods and itunes giftcards from the grandparents.. sue me. ) So while yes, I could whip up a linux solution with one of the copious free bits of kit I have hanging around and yes, I'd enjoy fiddling with it for hours on end, I opted for K9 Web Protection. Free, 5 minutes to set up on each pc and damn if it doesn't really work great.

What I like is the levels of granularity- block entire categories but add exceptions as the kids come across a page that I deem acceptable- they have to come to me and make the case for allowing a particular website. Plus the time restrictions work as expected- it severs their connection at bedtime. Bonus - it blocks web ads.

I recommend it to my clients all the time when asked the same question.

Forget NetNanny

[jkister]

SafeSquid is an excellent place to start: Complete web filtering, super control panel, very fine grain adjustments available.

I contacted them for my 7 kids and they gave me a complimentary license for home use.

Web of Trust

[MindCrusher]

A simple browsing protection could be implemented using the web of trust.

Re:Automator for creating custom hosts files

[Dr Herbert West]

I thought the same way you did-- concern over my kids, hands wringing, brow sweating...

Then I had a revelation-- I could just install MY CLEAN PC! and it was truly the answer to all my

-- aaah, f**k it. Nevermind.

pragmatic approach

[jwijnands]

We've got the computer in the living room. The occasional porn add or google spam did pop up. We didn't mind since it was obviously accidental on the kids'part but it bothered the kids so they approached me for a solution. Firefox, addblock and foxfiltre help a lot. Registering with google and youtube (dummy account!) and setting the preferences to safe did the rest. They can surf the net without supervision, they know I do random checks of the browser's history and everyone's happy.

Kaspersky

[stanlyb]

Kaspersky Antivirus. Cheap, safe, no dirty tricks (like saying that you have malware when you don't have, just to make you subscribe for one more year), and has parental control.

Why?

[Bert64]

The fact is, none of this parental control software is foolproof... It will always let the odd thing through, and if its purely software based rather than running on a separate network device then it's not exactly hard for someone with physical access to the machine to bypass it.
Kids have a natural desire to do new things, especially things which are forbidden.

Instead you want to educate the kids.
If it's not a forbidden subject then younger kids will have no interest in things like porn...
They will encounter questionable content themselves sooner or later, better that they be prepared for it under an environment controlled by their parents than stumble into it unprepared and on their own.

That kids will see things like porn and violence isn't the biggest concern, it generally won't interest them and they will just move on unless you make a big deal about it... The biggest concern is grooming pedophiles, and these won't be found on the porn sites targeted by software filters, they will be found on the online forums and chat services which are actually aimed at kids.

How About "Parenting"? Instead?

[BlueStrat]

There IS NO SOFTWARE SOLUTION that will keep your kids safe on the 'net.

Period.

You'll simply have a *very* false sense of security, a hole in your time/budget, and kids that learn first that you're not very smart, and second, that the game to play is "find ways around limitations my parents set for me". That, and they'll also quickly learn all about "two girls, one cup", "lemonparty", and probably "goatse" as well.

Either be around when they're using the 'net, or turn the damn thing *off*, and tell them to do something else. It's really not that hard.

Sure, you won't be "cool". You might not be your kid's "friend" any more, at least for a while. They might even tell you "I HATE you!!".

Suck it up. YOU are the adult here. YOU set rules & limits. You're supposed to be a parent, not their buddy. Your job isn't being "cool". Your job is doing "parent" things, like make unpopular decisions that they may not understand for years yet, if ever.

Try setting rules that they're not to go online without a parent around. Take a crucial cable with you, or lock it up, when you're not there. Put the computer in the family/living room.

You have to decide whether the time you spend doing things other than supervise your children's 'net use is more important than they are. Software can't do it. It's just there to salve your conscience with illusion, and make money from your guilt.

This isn't rocket surgery.

Strat

Re:How About "Parenting"? Instead?

[Foxblood]

Exactly right, software simply can't cut it. When my son was four, he enjoyed Noddy videos. Some bright spark uploaded a Noddy video with an innocuous title. One or two minutes into the vid, Noddy was scary with red eyes and big pointy teeth. Yeah, someone had decided it would be funny to scare a child. Point being that software would not have prevented that from occurring.

Re:It is called PARENTING

[lightknight]

Indeed. You end up with people like me.

Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood, blood, blood...

^_^

Re:FREE

[mark-t]

My own observations with kids hating their parents is that unless the hatred is bordering on homicidal, then they generally eventually learn to get over it. And, in fact, after some time has passed (by my observations, typically between ages 20 to 25 or so) they can often see that their parents were actually just looking out for them, and can even be genuinely grateful for just knowing they had a parent that cared enough about them to seriously stop them from doing stuff that they could not have possibly realized how bad it was at the time, and it is only in full hindsight that they can often see their parents for what they truly were... somebody who has always and will always love them.

The clue is right there in the name, "Net Nanny".

[Gordonjcp]

It's right there, "Nanny". If you're going to pay someone else to raise your children for you, why bother having them at all?

Children aren't some kind of exotic pet that you can stick into kennels when you don't feel like looking after them.

MS Family Safety

[the_nightwulf]

I bought my niece (12) and nephew (11) laptops for Christmas, and I had the same problem. If you're running Windows as well, I found the answer in MS Windows Family Safety. As others have mentioned, a filter isn't really a replacement for parenting. I fully expect that when the boy's hormones start running wild he'll find a way to see boobs, and I'm not losing sleep over that. This (and MSE, and no admin access) keeps them reasonably safe from accidental malware installs.

It's also nice for time limits. Set a time to keep them from getting stupid on YouTube all night. They're told they'll be logged off 15 minutes prior, and they're logged off at the appropriate time. Their login is basically not functional, but you can still log in with your account. The filters are nice too -- you can manually white/blacklist sites (and occasionally some strange things are blocked for no reason -- Google searches will sometimes be blocked even though safesearch is forced on) or use their categories. The girl is currently banned from social networking as she went batshit crazy on Facebook. This wipes out FB, Myspace, etc. It also kills all webmail, though they have Google accounts (on my domain) and Google is whitelisted for that.

You can configure and monitor everything from anywhere with an internet connection. It's not perfect, and again not a replacement for parenting, but it's "free" (with a valid Windows license) and definitely "good enough."

Re:I wouldn't let them..

[cheekyjohnson]

My kids don't have a computer.

I didn't have a computer when I was a kid, unfortunately, but it's a very nice learning experience no matter your age.

I look at it the same way I look at real life.

Assuming that "real life" is that dangerous, the internet would be far less so since they're not even there.

I wouldn't let them walk the streets (even in my nice neighborhood) alone, why would I let them wander the internet alone?

I think a bit of paranoia plays into this. Most people aren't rapists, pedophiles, or murderers, and in fact, children did used to walk around alone. As long as they know how to properly cross the street and know the area, I don't see the problem.

Its just common sense.

Applying the label "common sense" to something doesn't make it common, obvious, or correct. What you believe is "common sense" may not be any of those things.

Little kids should be running around, playing with legos, learning how to socialize, etc.

Or perhaps that's just your opinion of what they should be doing. Each person has their own interests.

Squid + SquidGuard

[minus9]

Not wishing to interrupt the bickering about whether children watching people fisting each other is a good or bad idea but you could try:
Squid + SquidGuard + Whatever lists you want from http://dsi.ut-capitole.fr/blacklists/
Not the easiest to set up but the lists are just plain text (with some regexs if you really want) so you can block/unblock what you want.

Or maybe Smoothwall: http://www.smoothwall.org/ might be easier, it will do this and much more besides.

You can all carry on now.

Re:Squid + SquidGuard

[leuk_he]

Blacklists will always be behind, YOu want to whilelist, with some software to easy add some whitelist sites.

In the Netherlands we have mybee. Internet explorer in a wrapping, with a whitelist that is customized for each age, At low ages the front page contains icons instead of text. It is better than letting them click, but the "leave the computer in the living room" that is said 100 times here still applies. Even on good sites there can be chat windows, where there are people with less good intentions (bulllies, or worse)

Dans Guardiand + Squid + extras

[PhilipJLewis]

I've just been doing this using dansguardian and squid with some extra blacklists+voodoo for a primary school (ages 5-11) these last two weeks. See http://linuxcentre.net/wiki/index.php/Web_Content_Filtering . Personally I find this kind of filtering not completely effective - even the best commercial filters out there are no better in 'protecting' the kids. This was a lot of effort for 100+ children. You probably wouldn't want to go to so much trouble for a home setup. However, the above link does represent a real-life setup and not just a theoretical setup.

DansGuardian and Squid proxy

[Mick R]

I installed both (on Ubuntu server) and added an inline virus scanner (ClamAV) module to DansGuardian as well. DG also has pre-made blacklists available to save you a TON of time setting them up. It did take a little while to configure but it's been stable and effective (sometimes a little TOO effective for the older kids).

Best systems for kids...

[DECTerm]

EVERYTHING that is OFFLINE : Commodore/Amiga/BBC/ZX ...

No television then?

[Kupfernigk]

The worst stuff is in fact on television and is cleared for viewing by children. Fast food, gratuitous violence, conspicuous consumption. While I have concerns about things like objectification - whether of women or men - the worst objectification isn't a few pictures of naked women on the Internet; it is the ruthless objectification promoted by "reality" shows, "dating" shows and so on.

I simply don't think that 9 year olds should be using the Internet unsupervised. But I definitely think that children should not have TV sets in their rooms. (In fact, the majority view of my children is not to have TV in the house).

Re:No television then?

[MightyYar]

A white list consisting of things like PBS kids and Khan Academy is not "unsupervised".

TV is bad, but school is worse. Most of the really atrocious stuff my daughter has picked up comes from her classmates. We mostly restrict TV to things like PBS (because I'm too cheap to buy Nickelodeon and Disney). We also get movies for the kids, especially on car rides or rainy/hot days.

That said, yesterday was the first day that TV advertising got the better of me at the grocery store: Daddy! Daddy! Krave! Get Krave! It's new! (it's a cereal).

Re:No television then?

[camelrider]

And...the sitcom model exemplified by the "I Love Lucy" model consists mostly of people lying to close friends and relatives.

Re:No television then?

[maggern]

When I was a kid: What I couldn't get accces to at home, I could always get at some friend's house...

Re:No television then?

[couchslug]

Mod up!

TV has always been a toxic push-content stupidity pump.

Education, education, education

[zyzko]

Probably said a thousand times but here comes again:

Using a filtering software has a very limited use - sure, it can block porn ads (but so does adblock) on torrent sites and you can easily block chat sites you don't want your kids hanging in. But - this works for a very limited time. I would say a few years max just in the 7--10 age - if at that. Then they find out that hey, they can access the blocked sites at their friends house or at library, and while it has been previously forbidden it must me exciting and they want to find out what it is.

So put the computer in the living room. Give them privacy over time (room to write personal messages without observation on Facebook etc. when they demonstrate that they can act responsibly) as they mature. If they screw up educate, and encourage them to report online bullying or inappropriate behavior without the feat that *they* are disciplined. Sure, they will see a few porn images if they are interested - you can't watch them every second. But kids did see those back in the day from porn mags in the garage of someone who's dad had a stash piled up there. It will not destroy their mental health or anything. Just educate them on the real threats - do not meet strangers from chat rooms without adult present, as you would not meet a stranger from the street in private, this stuff is easy and easily taught when you do not over-mystify it.

Blue Coat WebFilter - K9

[neverbeeninariot]

Side-stepping the 'be a better parent' comments... (yes, I have kids, no I can't supervise them all the time...)

http://www1.k9webprotection.com/blue-coat-webfilter - It's not oss, but it's free for personal use

Password protected filtering, easily configured categories... The kids occasionally see a puppy on the screen with a friendly message, and anything you want to remove from the filter can be whitelisted.

NBIAR

Reverse psychology

[jimshatt]

When my kids (now 7 and 4, and perfectly fine without censoring) become rebellious, I'll just use reverse psychology and tell them they should look up more porn sites ;)

IPCOP

[Muros]

IPCOP. If you have an old computer lying about, you can set it up as a firewall, with a transparent proxy using Dan's Guardian as a web filter.

Two Options...

[mallydobb]

Safe Eyes (now owned by McAffee) and OpenDNS, along with a good firewall/rules on the computer. Safe Eyes only runs I think on OSX and Windows, so if you're a Linux man, you're out of luck here.

I've been happy with Safe Eyes as I've used it at the orphanage I volunteer at to reduce bandwidth (by blocking heavy video/music sites as well as to help monitor computers used by our older residents). They're pretty family friendly and they've donated the last couple years of subscription for us.

All in all, personally teaching and investing time in parenting and supervising what is done on the computer is a must. Placing computers in a high traffic area in the house and giving restrictions on when to use it aren't bad ideas either.

you don't need any software

[chentiangemalc]

1) Kids will figure out ways to get around software 2) Simple solution: only allow computer/tablet/laptop use in living room or other public area of house. We have our computer / wi-fi access point only accessible from this room = no need for software, and the family can stay together even when surfing net 3) Better than software is to teach your kids what is right and wrong

Re:Automator for creating custom hosts files

[DarwinSurvivor]

All I ask is that you later post the IP logs of the people that were actually dumb enough to download a zipped exe file from a link in a slashdot comment.

Better solution

[ledow]

Apart from the obvious "don't let software parent your kids", with all the associated problems that brings, why not just do something simple?

Install VNC on the machine (use the modes where the icon is not visible and you may not quit the client). Tell them you can see their screen from anywhere, even on your phone. Demonstrate it by putting their computer screen onto the living room TV. Tell them you're watching everything they do and if they break your established rules (no chatrooms, no contact with strangers, NO GOOGLE for a start - it is NOT kid-safe, even with SafeSearch, etc.) you'll punish them.

Hell, tell them you are recording it onto your computer so you can play it back later and anything they do on the machine can be used in evidence against them.

It doesn't mean you actually HAVE to do all that (but it might not be a bad idea to just flick over or review history occasionally at least), just put the fear of it into them so that the only infractions are going to be accidental and unavoidable anyway.

I work IT in schools, there is no perfect filter, and certainly not a free one, and they will see worse things on your authorised sites than they will anywhere else, and they shouldn't be going on Google at all (we force safe-search in this school, and have OpenDNS filtering, and have internal filters too, and still we get 6-year-olds hitting on perfectly innocent searches that return undesirable results).

Don't rely on software to do your job. Either accept that it won't (and thus is pretty useless, and you might as well just let them loose and rely on their common sense and ingrained discipline - you DO instil discipline in your children, yes?), or do the job yourself.

Install a second monitor in the living room, next to the TV, and have it mirroring their display (wherever they happened to be - VNC or a HDMI over standard network cable is hardly difficult) all the time, and enforce logon restrictions so they CAN'T use it when you're not around or in the middle of the night.

But, to be honest, what I'd really do is just tell them the PC can only be used while I'm there, and in sight of me. And only after a big, long "family meeting"-type talk to draw their attention to the problems I would have with them breaching my laid-down rules on what they can do on it. I probably *don't* need to look at the screen at all. But I would, just to show them I do check up.

Why are we obsessed with advising others?

[Anonymous Coward]

The man asked a speciffic question asking for particular information. I've just read tens of comments lecturing him on how to parent his children and I can tell most of the respondants are not even parents.
The thing that was not found was a useful answer to his question. Why do we always want to tell others how to live THEIR lives.

Re:Why are we obsessed with advising others?

[Tastecicles]

I *am* a parent. My kids do not get to use the Internet unless under constant supervision.

Re:Why are we obsessed with advising others?

[cheekyjohnson]

I've just read tens of comments lecturing him on how to parent his children

That's what happens when you post something publicly: you get various kinds of responses.

I can tell most of the respondants are not even parents.

Interesting. Are you psychic? You know this based on what... a comment on the internet? Are you saying that No True Parent would have whatever opinions the people you're talking about posted?

Why do we always want to tell others how to live THEIR lives.

If you make something public, you've opened yourself up to criticism. If I believe you're doing something wrong, I will tell you. It's as simple as that. As for "why," there are various reasons for that. One is that perhaps you believe you're helping the person. Another is that you believe what they're doing is harmful.

People have opinions, and they will tell them to others. If you don't wish to hear them, shut yourself off to the world, because that's the only thing that will make the criticism go away.

OpenDNS

[bgarcia]

I've found a fairly simple solution.

I set up an extra router for the kids. This router forwards OpenDNS as the DNS server. I've setup OpenDNS to only allow the sites that I allow them to access without supervision. OpenDNS also provides reports of what sites were attempted to be resolved.

When the kids want to play an online game (or do some other activity that we believe should be supervised), they have to bring their laptops downstairs to the family room where we can watch them and connect an ethernet cable to our main router.

oh, for fuck's sake...

[Tastecicles]

...Eyeball Mk. I. You should supervise children that young on the internet at ALL TIMES.Reliance on software or any other technology to babysit for you is an invitation for FAILURE.

Not doable

[gweihir]

This is not a problem that can be solved by technology. At least not until we have strong AI.

This young, try to get them to do only (at least loosely) supervised browsing. Talk to them about what they may find and how it relates to reality. The rationale is that very soon they will managed to get unsupervised access. You cannot protect them by shielding them, only by putting the stuff they may find into perspective and a context. Don't try to forbid them access, they will find a way.

As to how to do that at that age, e.g. porn is basically visual fairy-tale-style material. Tell them it is not real, but all acted. But don't worry about simple nudity, it is not a danger to kids. Violence is possible less of a problem, with what can be found on TV. Religion is dangerous to kids, but the fairy-tale explanation could work well. Politics they will not understand, hopefully.

And make sure they trust you enough to talk to you is something troubles them.

Re:FREE

[silentcoder]

You raise a point, still the massive left-over anger from completely clashing with my dad over how one should live your life was so huge by 21 that when I felt he was making a mistake in a decision about a much younger sibbling - we had a fall-out so big I didn't even visit my parents again for 6 years.

What if one of them, or me, had died in that time ?

Now 14 years after I left school - we get along fine, I live my life exactly the way I said I wanted to when I was 14, the difference - now my dad cannot tell me not to.
I knew he had good intentions, boys who die their hair pink on one side and blue on the other have a harder time getting jobs in his world-view (but I don't have that problem because I have a sufficiently impressive resume that employers really don't give a damn what I look like - especially since my work isn't customer-facing).

Over the years, he even came to adopt some of my ideas - especially in terms of artistic expression and the need for that to be uncensored even by yourself.

We got along great until I hit puberty, then we didn't actually get along at all again until I was so old and successfull that he stopped trying to tell me how to live. Now I can happily ask his advice about many things - things where he has experience I lack (I bought my first house a few months ago, he's had a few - of course I had him help me go over the contracts and check that the deal was above board and the house was really what it appeared to be).

I also grew up enough that when a while ago he said to me "maybe you should stop with the tattoos now, it's getting a bit much" I didn't get angry - I just smiled and ignored it. But I didn't have that capacity at 18 - I had a sense of who I was, but I didn't have a decade's worth of proof that it can work, I had nothing to back me up then - just stubbornness to drive me forward.

So sure, kids hating parents mostly work out after a few years... I would rather not have such a few years with my kids - because I don't know that I, or they, will be around long enough to see it end.

Re:It is called PARENTING

[Inda]

True. True.

I want to pick up on this article statement though: secure enough they can't just bypass it using a google search?

I set my daughter up with a Gmail account when she was 7-8 years old; about 5 years ago. I constantly remind her that I know the password, and all her mail is forwarded to me. The whole family knows that if I really wanted to, I could capture all the internet traffic on my network.

"When you can work out how to change the password and cancel the forwarding, you can do so."

She hasn't, although I know Google has reset her password many, many times. She doesn't need to. She trusts her Dad and why he read all her boring email?

There's no searching Google for workarounds. There's very little searching at all. She likes Facebook, Disney games, online games she's seen at school, Beiber, JLS, and did I already say Facebook?

Compaired to some of the messages I've seen her exchange with her peers, I know more gets seen and said in the playground.

I've been to the deeper parts of the internet. I do not run into porn unless I want to. There's more chance of her forgettting to knock, and catching me and her mother at it.

Re:BlueCoat K9

[greg1104]

I'm using K9 to do filtering on one PC right now. I haven't had any complaints about it yet. The hardware is vastly overpowered relative to the child using it, so whatever overhead K9 adds is irrelevant.

I am curious about where you're seeing BSoDs at. I'd understand that would be maddening if K9 were the official software of something like a classroom. Luckily with a single home install, I just tried it out, and haven't seen any issues so far.

Re:I wouldn't let them..

[xaxa]

They are absolutely not allowed on Facebook. Period. This has been a major issue for the older one.

I'm not surprised. That's essentially the same as saying "you can't communicate with your friends". In the 1990s, you may as well have banned him from using the telephone. Having had parents who didn't ban me from using the phone, but insisted on sitting next to me while I was using it, I urge you to reconsider your decision. The result was I avoided using the phone, since I'd get criticised if my friend swore (etc), and I felt I couldn't speak freely. I did not turn out all right, and at least part of this is because my parents restricted my privacy and freedom so much.

I look at it the same way I look at real life. I wouldn't let them walk the streets (even in my nice neighborhood) alone

Yeah, my parents did this. They lived in a tiny, safe village. My friends were allowed to walk around alone. Since I wasn't allowed to, I wasn't given any advice on how to walk around (how not to get lost, how to stay safe, etc). When I was about 11 I told my mum I'd joined a couple of after-school clubs. I went a few times (so the teacher knew me), but most weeks I'd walk round the city for an hour (the school was in a big city) and be back just before the club finished.

Another time, I said I was going to a friend's house after school. Most people used the normal public transport to get home, so there was no need for my + friend to get a particular bus. We wandered round the shops for a while. When we got to his house, my mum was there screaming at his parents for being bad parents and imagining rapists. They were shrugging "they're 13, what's the problem? they probably went shopping".

Little kids should be running around, playing with legos, learning how to socialize, etc.

And how will they do that, when there's always either an adult present, or when they can't join in with the other kids' socialising (on Facebook)?

Re:I wouldn't let them..

[silentcoder]

You're not a parent. You're a fucking a prison warden !

>My kids don't have a computer.
I had one at age 7. By age 9 I wrote my first computer program. I'll be damned if I won't give my kids even the OPPORTUNITY to do that.

> I wouldn't let them walk the streets (even in my nice neighborhood) alone, why would I let them wander the internet alone?

I walked to school every day (sometimes I cycled), alone. Sometimes with friends. By the time I was your eldest's age we liked to walk out at night, climb an unbuilt-up mountain to the other side of town and go catch the late night movie, then head back home - all on foot. We'd get home to my place around 4am on Saturday mornining, make coffee and all pass out in a big heap in the living room.
My mom was used to walking in on Saturday mornings and finding 5 or 6 teenagers from around the neighbourhood in her house asleep on the floor.
She was very happy that we chose HER house to fall asleep in.

Re:If my 8 year old develops interest in hardcore

[ledow]

I think pornography is the last of your worries online.

Tumblr is filled with self-harm sites, for example. A couple of nipples or a picture of a naked woman doing just about anything is nothing compared to the sort of things that used to roam around on sites like rotten.com and the ilk.

I know, I work in schools and spend my life trying to stop them getting on that junk (actually, I don't - I spend my life making sure that it's hard to get on that kind of junk and if they do we know about it and punish them for it, because actually STOPPING them is virtually impossible without switching off all the computers).

For my child, my online concerns would be much more focused on things other than pornography (though there is still a boundary with some things in that category - simple intercourse or sexual acts are just the START of your problems there). I wouldn't want them looking up self-harm sites, because that's something that could easily propagate in private with all the good parenting in the world if the kid gets stressed or worried and reads that "cutting makes you feel better". Similarly for anorexia, bulimia, etc. which aren't naturally-occurring conditions but socially-provoked.

I'd be worried about encouragement towards drugs, inappropriate communication online (e.g. someone trying to talk them into stealing from me, sending others pictures of themselves, etc.), and things like just talking to little arseholes of their own age online who I wouldn't let them hang around in real life. If I wouldn't let them hang out with a kid in a playground, why would I give them the opportunity to talk to similar kids online?

The biggest problem, even being as open a parent as you can be, is not what they see necessarily, but what they read and are told by others. I assure you, their online "peers" have more influence over their desires and experimentation than their parents. People, even other children, can be *incredibly* convincing and manipulative online. We're not talking paedophiles talking your kid into meeting them - that's at the extreme end - but even something as simple as someone telling them that if they sniff a magic marker it gets them high or whatever.

The feedback loop of having a "peer" online tell them to do something that they ultimately enjoy, so they seek out more "peers" and more things to do is one of the biggest problems. And only stand-over-everything-they-do parenting can really combat that.

By comparison, them seeing a sexual act that most people perform twice a week on average is nothing. Hell, even those "once-a-year" sexual acts that the wife allows aren't even worth bothering to worry about for your own child. But there are categories of porn beyond that that even I can find distasteful, and that's still MINOR compared to my child being in a game that has a chat facility with "Stevie (15), YourHomeTown" and what they could end up discussing.

Standard porn won't hurt your child. Hell, they will be in their own "porn" at some point in their adult lives anyway, even if that doesn't stretch to filming it. But there's a lot worse out there than what pops up on Google Image Search. Just one depressed teenager on the other side of the world can cause more damage to your kid than the entirety of Playboy's back catalogue.

Open Dns has a solution...

[clarkabrank]

Over at open dns you can setup the family filter. http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/parental-controls/

not free

[argStyopa]

I found Child Control from http://www.salfeld.com/ good (there's German and US sites).

What I found good was that they supposedly had a way to link multiple clients to a single central db of rules, logs, etc. I could never get it to work, so just ended up running it in standalone versions and it did a good job.

Their support was excellent, they constantly answered my stupid questions right away.

Then again, it seems pretty expensive now, it was only $20 for a 5-user license roughly 10-12 yrs ago when I bought it, which was a steal.

And cue the "censorship!" posts

[tehcyder]

From worried teenagers in 3...2...1...

Adblock

[Irishman]

My kids are 10 and 7 so they are in that range where the Internet is more than just pbskids or other sites. All I have and all I will ever have is Adblock which removes most of the annoying ads or things that could come onto the screen by accident. However, this is as much for the parents as it is for the kids.

Our take on this is that we need to teach our kids how to use the Internet safely and effectively. We cannot police them 24/7 and even if we tried, it would only serve as incentive to break through and see what is out there (prohibition makes things taboo and therefore irresistible to a curious mind). As they get older we help them understand the more complex aspects of humanity but just getting a good foundation has let them learn how to discern what they see for themselves. They have seen disturbing items on news sites which they have asked us about and have actively avoided afterwards because they just cannot deal with it right now (try teaching a 7 year old about suicide bombers or why people hate other people and you will see what I mean). We have also taught them to not believe the first thing they see and to try to verify from unrelated sources anything they read or see.

We are raising our kids to be adults; preventing them from being able to access the world and then tossing them into it when they turn 18 (or whatever age in your country) is not helpful for anyone.

Re:It is called PARENTING

[tehcyder]

Do you really think a parent hovers around their kid 24/7?

Do you really think a kid should surf the net 24/7?

We're on slashdot, so the answer is probably "yes, and constant exposure to child rape porn, racism, bestiality and real life beheadings never hurt anyone."

False sense of security

[Roger W Moore]

Do you also suggest I remove all the "child safe" lids on the various poisonous things in the house?

Yes, well before kids are 7 they should know not to drink or eat random things found around the house. If not then a high shelf and child proof lids will not stop them because by that age they can easily get a stool or climb over counters to reach them and defeat a child proof lid. Hence you are living with a false sense of security leaving the child proof lids on....much like the false sense of security given by using child protection software on the web.

Some people just do not get it

[decep]

Some of the twits on /. think this is about restricting freedom or having some software do the job the parent is supposed to do...

At 8 years old, most kids do not want to see porn. On the internet, at any moment, you are one click away from the full spectrum of content. Believe it or not, some links even lie about their intended purpose. Hey kids, free candy. Kids will believe almost anything and have a level of trust that is unrealistic for the Internet.

It's more about filtering the noise than preventing kids from seeing the "bad stuff."

Dans Guardian + Webmin

[SlappyMcgee]

Build a router our of an intel atom machine, set up debian + webmin + dans guardian and let them go (well mostly anyway - you can't totally shirk your responsibilities as a parent). I have two kids (9 and 12) and it keeps them out of the bad stuff and still allows them to browse without me having to worry every second. You can set up filters on your own, but it does come with preconfigured ones as well. Plus you have to love the Debian uptime.

'Parenting (tm)'.

[arthurpaliden]

Put computer in a common area, by the kitchen door for example , facing outward so you can always see the screen. By the way it is called 'Parenting (tm)'.

Re:The clue is right there in the name, "Net Nanny

[MightyYar]

Children aren't some kind of exotic pet that you can stick into kennels when you don't feel like looking after them.

That's not actually true.

Just don't be surprised when they take on the value system of the people who work at the kennel (i.e. the nanny).

Re:I could bypass this crap by the time I was 9

[Pigeon451]

Mod parent up. I also grew up searching for stuff on BBS's. It was very tame, in fact similar to what you'd probably find on late tv tonight.

The filters are great for preventing children from accessing something accidentally. But if they really want something, they'll find it, either by themselves or more likely through their friends.

Father of 2 young sons says

[rjejr]

I've never considered putting on "parenting" software. I'm more concerned the software company is likley to screw up my computer - and hence my kids - then anything they'll come across on the internet. They are on the computer adn the internet alot, have been for years, and I've never been worried. What is it that your afraid of that you need software to protect your kids? Do you view too much porn and pop-ups are crowding you screen? do you view a lot of child porn and you don't want you kids to find your stash? What is it you are proctecting them from? Don't let them sleep over MJ house, shower w/ old men or give out personal info. Nothing they see will actually cause them to go blind.

Squid, squidGuard, and Google Safety Tools

[Figec]

We use Squid proxy with squidGuard. We use the squidGuard blacklists from squidguard.mesd.k12.or.us (which is a combination of two upstream sources).

Additionally, we use Google's safety tools for general searching and YouTube. For a browser, we use Firefox with Adblock Plus (as I've been too lazy to ween them off that in favor of Chrome with similar extensions).

As we use Macs, I have the kids' own mac mini as the proxy server. It's an old mac mini (circa 2007?), but works just fine for the kids' browsing habits. I've had to view the proxy logs as we suspected my 5 year-old hit a questionable site (he didn't), so having the proxy logs is useful.

Also, since they have a dearth of in-the-wild spyware exploits and viruses as compared to Windows, using Macs helps.

my suggestion

[RobertLTux]

if you want to put a few limits on them then

1 what ever software you come up with needs to be on a Gateway System that your kids computers connect to
2 this system of course needs to be in a Secure Room.
3 of course if they manage to Hack In then you need to increase your security as needed.

But the best thing to do is be cool with things since the best defense is to make sure that your son seeing a girl less than fully dressed is NOTHING SPECIAL (and vise versa).

dansguardian

[ComputerKarate]

Even though I am a CENTOS guy normally, get a copy of debian and install dansguardian. I have 8 kids and it works great. My wife and I love it too. Peace of mind is priceless. It is highly configurable.

Net Nanny is not the right answer.

[Medievalist]

I have children, and you're right. But the answer is not to turn the raising of your children over to machines or corporations.

Put the only machines the children can access into the most public room in the house. Do not allow them to have computers in their bedrooms (or in any room with doors) or to have wireless access to the Internet until they are old enough to buy their own computers with money they have earned themselves. Do not use any sort of censoring or blocking software, at all, ever - the lesson that stuff usually teaches is how to deceive and subvert your over-controlling parent.

When your children are using the computers, you need to regularly inspect their activity with the Mark I Eyeball. Be a parent, not a proxy for some church or software corporation.

Because, seriously, blocking them from seeing this stuff at home is a pretty sure-fire way to get the opposite of what you want. What you want is for your children to grow into well-adjusted, sexually confident, healthy adults. You do not want them to be twisted by the circumstances in which they encounter sexual material, so you want to be present when they inevitably stumble across nasty porn. When they look up and say "Daddy, what is that man doing to that other man? Why is there a sheep in his boots?" you want to be there so you can explain the difference between healthy physical relationships that include sexual activity, and exploitive abusive relationships such as your children may find presented as "normal" in Internet porn, Catholic schools, or Senate bathrooms. You do not want them to remain in ignorance until they meet an exploiter, and you do not want them to believe this is something you cannot discuss with them in real time.

If you're uncomfortable with this role, tough luck, it's kind of late now to decide you're not going to be doing any meaningful parenting. You should get in touch with the local Unitarian Universalists or United Church of Christ; they have extremely good sex education resources that they will be happy to let you study if you don't know how to deal with it. If using resources published by religious organizations seems to contradict what I said above, then you didn't understand what I said.

Teach your children age-appropriate things at the earliest age they can comprehend them. If they can play minecraft, they should have already been taught that there's a right way and a wrong way to approach sexuality, and if you aren't going to teach that lesson, somebody else is going to do it while you're not looking. Like their soccer coach, or the priest, or the music teacher, or that nice man next door, or an older child...

Squid and SquidGuard

[zippy40]

One of the best ways is still having the computer in an open area of the home. That being said, I do have an older computer setup running linux to do blacklist filtering using Squid proxy and SquidGuard. No, it's not easy to setup, but rock solid when it is. I subscribe to Dan's Guardian blacklist thats updated once a week automatically. I also use this setup in a school environment and have had kids try to get around it, with no success. The blacklist blocks just about all proxy sites along with most everything imaginable. Again, no, it's not easy to setup, but the benefits are worth it. The Squid proxy server has to be setup between your network and router and must be setup to route all traffic through it. IF your kids are smart and have access to the server, they could defeat it. (Give me physical access and I own it!). There is alot of configuration options, with a lot of help online.

Squid, and check the logs

[Chelloveck]

This is my solution:

1. For the love of all that's holy, set up AdBlock!
2. Run a squid proxy on a linux box.
3. Set the household firewall to block ports 80 and 443 for the kid's computer, but allow other ports for games. (You specifically mentioned games, and games seldom work well through a proxy.)
4. Set up their browser to use the proxy. It doesn't matter if they disable this or switch browsers, because the router is going to block most web sites.
5. Write a script to summarize the squid logs and mail them to you and your kid daily.
6. Write a cron job to automatically change the proxy acls to "deny" after bedtime. Don't write one to automatically change the acls to "allow"; make them ask you for permission. It's a pain in the ass for both of you, but you'll know when they're using it (and it gives you a good time to ask them if they've done their homework/chores for the day).

That's pretty much it. Porn sites stand out pretty clearly on the log summary. Sort by bytes transferred. Actual porn site visits will have a lot of traffic, incidental visits (ie., a banner ad that slipped past AdBlock) will only have a little.

This technique allows you to know when they're browsing. It actually blocks very little, but they know that you'll know where they went. Yeah, some crap will unintentionally slip through. You can't help that, and if you're that allergic to boobies maybe you shouldn't let the kids browse by themselves anyway. If they've gone out of their way to find stuff you can talk to them about it. "Son, what's this gigabyte transferred from 'hentai-babes.com'?" If possible, get their mom to talk to them. There's nothing a teenage boy likes more than explaining his porn tastes to his mom.

There's a side benefit in that it'll help teach your kids networking. Nothing gets them to learn faster than standing between them and their porn! I'm just sad that my kid hasn't figured out how to spoof his MAC address yet. Or if he has, he's also figured out how to keep from showing up as an unknown device in the DHCP logs. And if that's the case, he's earned his dirty pictures.

Re:DansGuardian - Mod parent up

[MrNiceguy_KS]

Unfortunately this post is likely to get lost in the discussion of how kids should and shouldn't be parented, whether porn is or isn't harmful for kids, and lots of other discussion that has nothing to do with actually answering the question. (The fact that you posted AC doesn't help either)

DansGuardian is a good piece of software. A few years ago, I set up an old PC as a router/firewall using IPCop and the Cop+ addon, which adds DansGuardian. It has blacklists, including auto-downloading of blacklist updates, whitelists, and very configurable content filtering. The content filtering is score-based, so rather than just block any site that has the "forbidden words", you can adjust how strictly you want things blocked, and as the kid gets older, set the block threshold higher. There's some very good controls for adjusting the filtering. For example, by default, the word "breast" counts slightly against the page's block score, unless the page also contains the words "cancer" or "medical". I also added "chicken", "turkey", and "recipe" as words that would cancel a ding against the page score. I also had to add "sandal" and "shoe" to negate a ding on the word "thong" when my wife got blocked from a footwear site.

DansGuardian by default is set quite strict - the default settings are probably appropriate for an elementary school - but the score-based blocking allows for a lot of versatility. Pairing it with IPCop, you're protecting the entire house's connection rather than just a single PC, so my daughter's iPod touch is also filtered.

Unfortunately, while IPCop is still under active development, most of the addons aren't. Cop+ was last updated in 2008. I actually started reading this thread hoping someone would recommend something easy to setup that's still active.

No solution is 100%

[Larry_Dillon]

As some posters have mentioned, OpenDNS is probably the best, easy solution.

For relly young kids, a white list of a couple of dozen sites might work for a while.

But as others have pointed out, there is no way to keep kinds 100% safe on the 'net. Letting kids on the internet is like letting them wonder around in New York City.

You need to put the computer in the family room or somewhere that the screen can easily be observed, versus bedrooms.

Also, try putting a mechanical timer on you AP/router that turns it off at bedtime. Some routers can do this internally.

Re:I wouldn't let them..

[BenoitRen]

I'm not surprised. That's essentially the same as saying "you can't communicate with your friends". In the 1990s, you may as well have banned him from using the telephone.

Maybe they could find some other way to communicate. Like, uh, e-mail? There's the telephone still, too.

I urge you to reconsider your decision

Considering the evils of Facebook, I strongly disagree that he should. With Facebook, the only way to win is not to play.

All of this, none of this

[kulervo]

Hey OP: Firefox, Web of Trust, No Script, HttpS everywhere, and a half dozen other random odds and ends as the mood takes me. Then I spot check the history, and talk to them about why I am doing it. But I'm one of the less technical readers of /.

The rest of us: All of this, but with none of the hate. This is mostly a matter of style, and if OP wants to filter, let him filter. If someone else wants to monitor 24/7, let them do it. If naked guy wants to shut the door to his play room, more power to him for being able to afford a play room. We ought not scream about how his choosing to restrict is anti-freedom, 'cause that's silly. In the end I doubt it is going to lead directly to irreparable criminal degeneracy. I am young enough that I had internet porn, and I'm okay.

As to why I filter? I filter the real world for their safety: I put rails on their cribs, tell them the street is off limits till they learn to look both ways, and I filter their Internet. And when they start climbing out of the crib, asking to cross the street, or trying to circumvent my filters, then I know that it is time to move on. Hell, I give my 9 year old lock puzzles with prizes in them just to encourage puzzle breaking. And there are people out there wanting to hurt them, and trolls, and people wanting to scam them. If there weren't my kid wouldn't have spent 10 bucks on Cooking Momma ingredients, not knowing it was real money, before I noticed.

IIRC, one of the reports from the Freakonomics guys said it didn't really seem to matter what kind of parenting books you bought, as long as you were the kind of parent who bought parenting books.

Learning to evade filtering software is valuable

[dbkluck]

When I have kids (our first is due November 28), I plan to use filtering software not because I don't want him to see, but because I'm hoping he'll try to get past the filtering software. Evading online censorship (and covering his tracks) is going to be an important skill when he's older, and I feel it's my responsibility to prepare him with a curriculum of progressively more draconian censorship measures for him to learn to break. Some parents dream of high school graduation; I dream of the day my son gets his porn on virtual machine connected through TOR and remembers to reset the VM to a clean snapshot when he's done.

Tech Savvy Kids these days

[jerick70]

I have dealt with this issue with quite a few of my friends and colleagues. No matter what you do or say in a parenting manner, these kids are going to get on the net and look at what they want. Without a "tool" to enforce the rules, you are pretty much dead in the water. Kids these days are so tech savvy that you have to use a sledge hammer where a ball-peen would have worked a few years ago. You use a program on the computer and they find a way to uninstall it or bypass it. You try a DNS service and they use Tor to bypass it. The only thing that I have found that works "MOST" of the time is a security gateway like Astaro or Untangle. And then you have to lock the modem and gateway in a closet so they can't get to it. These are both free for home use and work very well.

OpenDNS

[wolfguru]

Set up a subscription to OpenDNS. It is not perfect, as nothing really is, but it offers a very simple and powerful set of continually updated filters to allow you to select caegories of sites you do not wish them exposed to, and simple bypass codes that will allow you to override a block either personally or for the occaisional "false positive". The service also includes an active watch on currently infected sites, and helps prevent those types of attacks. You add the OpenDNS servers as forwarders in your router and instead of the "offending" site you get a message page saying OpenDNS has blocked this page, with a bypass code option for you to get around the more restrictive settings you place as default for the kids.

Re:Learning to evade filtering software is valuabl

[Jiro]

That isn't going to be helpful, because there are measures you can take that will completely prevent him from getting access up to and including having everything go through a router located in a place he doesn't have physical access to. You are relying on doing your job as a parent improperly.

PeerBlock

[misosoup7]

If you really need something to block things on the cheap then use PeerBlock (it's free). Then you can use the lists at iBlockList or look for some lists on the internet. There should some appropriate lists for you. Also you can white list servers individually if needed.

Ads.

[meowris]

In terms of avoiding porn ads, the closest thing that I have in mind is Adblock plug-in for either Firefox/Chrome. Still, it might not be a perfect solution.

K9 Web Protection

[jargonburn]

I suggest Blue Coat K9 Web Protection (requires registration, but is free for home use). Not that there aren't ways around it for the enterprising child, but....*shrug*

Good parenting is important but you need software

[engwar]

I trust my 8 year old to be on the internet in the family room with minimal oversight before I get home from work while mom is making dinner. But if he searches for "on-line clock" he's one missing "L" away from porn.

We use the free Norton Online Family. It's not perfect but it's doing the job pretty well for now.

I just wish websites did a better job and allowed users to flag user-generated content as NSFW or a sliding scale. My kid is into science, math and space and loves wikipedia. I wish that website had some parental control settings. He loves it for learning about the elements but he could stumble upon other things I'd rather him not learn about quite yet.

And we try to block user-generated content in general. He liked an on-line puzzle-style game where you could upload your own levels. I noticed that some of the levels people uploaded were in the shape of 4 letter words or 'naughty-bits'.

Dyn

[istvaan]

I like Dyn's Internet Guide.

It works like this:
You set yourself up with one of their dynamic hosts (using a client on your machine/router, $20/year.)
You add Dyn Internet Guide to your account (free.)
In the Dyn Internet Guide, you select what categories of traffic you wish to prohibit (or allow.) They've partnered with Barracuda on this, so the lists are pretty good. You may also add specific hosts to black/white lists.
In the Dyn Internet Guide, you set it to protect your dynamic host (so they know which traffic is coming from you.)
Then you set your machine to use their DNS servers, or your router to hand out their DNS servers to your network (DHCP option 6.)

Any time a host on your network requests DNS for a site that's been blocked, it returns a Dyn IP, and usually displays a little "this page has been disallowed" page. For pages that include mixed content, the error is displayed in the prohibited content's space.

I run my own DNS for my home, but set Bind to use Dyn's DNS servers as forwarders. Any zonefiles I have do resolve locally, but all other requests are forwarded to Dyn. I don't have any children in my house, but I set my Dyn account to block Advertisement and Popups, Conficker Worm, Phishing, Spam, and Spyware categories. It seems pretty robust, and It works well. I like it.

OpenDNS

[someothername]

Hi, I tried K9 and NetNanny and they caused as many problems as they cured with Windoze errors, etc. I currently use OpenDNS and as they get older allow more and more content through. It has a very nice side effect of blocking all of the nasty virus sites and has pretty much ended the drive by PC infections. If (more like when) your kids get smart enough to learn how to change their DNS manually a simple firewall rule in your router can block DNS traffic to anything other than OpenDNS, just make sure you have a very secure password to your router (I initially did not and the my oldest figured out how to unblock things :) ) If you want to really lock things down you could try something like Untangle - it has a free version for your own hardware. It is a bit more work, but will get you very solid network control and security. All the talk about parenting is of course valid, just not the one stop solution some people think it is. Good luck.

OpenDNS FamilyShield does wonders

[Zrako]

As others have metioned you can use the OpenDNS FamilyShield settings (http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/parental-controls/) with your router which will block out the majority of adult content out there. I would also enable safe search on google for each computer (http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2519950&rd=1) which will filter out adult image and web search results and make sure you lock the settings so they can't just go in and remove safe search (http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=144686&rd=3)

FYI this is all FREE

[Zrako]

As others have metioned you can use the OpenDNS FamilyShield settings (http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/parental-controls/) with your router which will block out the majority of adult content out there. I would also enable safe search on google for each computer (http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2519950&rd=1) which will filter out adult image and web search results and make sure you lock the settings so they can't just go in and remove safe search (http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=144686&rd=3)

Forgot to mention that :D

Supervision

[PPH]

Kids that age need supervision. Don't let them go wandering around on line by themselves.

Its better to get them involved in some other activities as well. Jerry Sandusky has an excellent sports program for kids where you can just drop them off without concern. Or there's always church run activities.

On second thought, there's practically nothing you can do with kids that age which just involves dumping them someplace on their own.

OpenDNS

[toomuchtogrok]

Jesus...all the bickering about protection and everyone forgot the actual question here. OpenDNS....I highly suggest you look into that.

Re:I wouldn't let them..

[greywire]

Yep, we run a real gestapo here!

Note: I was mostly talking about the 4 and 6 year olds. I don't think it strange at all that I don't let these two wander the neighborhood unsupervised.

No, they don't have anytime unrestricted access to the computer(s). Neither do they have such unrestricted unsupervised access to the kitchen. No, they don't get to eat whatever they want, use any tool they want, etc. Yes, I do make the rules and decide whats best for them. Go figure! Yep, sometimes I get "I hate you!" and "its not fair!" and that tells me I'm doing my job.

Also note that every child is different. The aformentioned 13 year old has many unique issues and has had many more restrictions than the other two have needed.

More generally, I'm talking about getting the basics down first. A 6 year old isn't ready for calculus, or power tools, or has any need for social networking on the computer. Unless of course you have a prodigy that has already learned the other math and is ready for calculus at 6.

I'm talking about balance and priorities here.

And, just "because all the other kids are doing it" is not a reason to let your kid do it. Really? Come on. I'm supposed to give in and let her have a facebook account because the other kids have them? At 10 years old? Yeah and I should give her a cell phone too, right? And a new car at 16? But the other kids have them! And I should let them eat McDonalds everyday and go to Disneyland every weekend and pay for every dance lesson or european vacation she asks for? Just because some other kid got that?

To summarize my point: automated censorship is bad (and somewhat impossible). Spending time with your kids and monitoring what they do is good. Letting them do whatever they want is bad. Teaching them to do the right thing when faced with a bad choice is good. Protecting them from bad stuff is good.

K9 Web Protection

[bisharkha]

I've never tried it but check this site out for a info and see if there free product works for what you need (it's backed by a company that makes enterprise stuff, it that helps) http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

I use a free solution from MS

[chemosh6969]

They have some Live Family Center that works pretty well. Just for web browsing, I have it set to block everything at first. If they want access to something new, they can ask me to allow it in person or if I'm not there, they have an option to request through email. Programs can be managed in a similar fashion plus you can set the amount of time they can be logged in as well as when they can be logged into windows. Since this is slashdot, I'm sure my solution is the most horrible thing in the world since it's Microsoft.

Norton Safety Minder and Ghostery

[genericx]

Not perfect but they help quite a bit.

Re:FREE

[silentcoder]

Self-expression is by nature superficial and narcissistic, they are also an important component of freedom. If we cannot look the way we want, we cannot be the way we want.

Re:FREE

[silentcoder]

> "damn, the old man was right. I look like a fucking IDIOT with all this shit on my body."

He's made that argument. Thing is, heavy metal is old enough that the first fans are over 50 now, I know a few such people. I don't think they look like idiots. In fact, I look at them and feel proud of the proof they carry that they never sold out.
I would like to look like that one day.

Worried about your kids using the webcam?

[wclck]

If you are worried about your kids using the webcam without your supervision, you could try WebCam Lock (http://www.webcamlock.net), it is a nice tool to control who can access to the webcam (includes parental control).

K9 from BlueCoat

[raptorjb007]

Try using this: http://www1.k9webprotection.com/ Its based on the filtering technology from blue coat but is a local installable web filter, free for home use. I belie it is intended for exactly what you describe.

You get what you pay for

[quirkykirk]

his requires a multi-pronged approach: Put the computer in a public place, especially if it has a webcam. Do yourself and your family a favour and pay for something that will at least prevent the worst of the Internet from entering your living room because when you pay, you have a team of developers who are updating the software as and when it's required and you have a level of accountability if something goes wrong. The maintain the list, the patches, the updates etc. You have a level of control too, you can add additional sites to your block list if need be. Log everything. Review the security logs, history, favourites etc. Do NOT allow them to have administrative access to the local workstation. Have a separate administrative account with a tough to guess password that you keep locked up in a safe area of your house or at work or on your mobile phone (you get the idea). Talk to your children about online safety as you would any other kind of safety. Tell them about online predators, tell them about grooming techniques and how to handle them. There are so many resources out there on how to handle this parenting issue. And Most importantly, ignore the advice of the childless. As teenagers think they know everything until they realise they don't, the childless think in much the same way, that they know how best to raise children. A parent has the advantage of having once been childless and smug, as well as being a parent. There's no lesson as effective as experience.

Psychological warfare

[Vahokif]

Convince them that you can see everything they do online - that should keep them away from stuff they know is taboo, but won't protect them from following something innocuous.

Software for protecting kids

[KidsBuzz]

Check out http://www.commonsensemedia.org/mobile-app-lists/best-action-apps - we love their site. ^.^

possible solution

[mokumegane]

This has been a nice discussion to read but the concerned parent was looking for a parenting tool. As for a solution, the only thing I know off the top of my head (it's free, as well) is the firefox plugin that's a child-safe browser. It may not allow minecraft since that isn't completely child-safe due to no one policing the chat and/or no child-safe chat controls. I know of a perfect solution for an android smartphone so I'm sure there's something out there. You could bite the bullet at $40 a year per computer that one of the first respondants mentioned (they were modded to a 2- insightful, I believe, so only a portion of their message shows on its own)

KidZui

[xplosiv]

I don't understand how no one has mentioned KidZui. While it used to be free (been using it for a long time), it is still very affordable, and is IMO one of the best solutions out there. It's basically a 'shell/wrapper' which runs full screen and allows kids to explore many kid-friendly sites and games. The sites are approved by a group of teachers and other types of people who have a strong interest in educating and protecting children. You can also generate reports of what your kids have been doing etc.

I installed this software on an 8 year old's laptop, and also use OpenDNS's free family filter package to catch anything odd going on. So far it has been a huge success.

Now keep in mind this software doesn't replace the task of having to supervise the kid, but it sure helps catching unexpected but unacceptable popups/images etc., and organize many fun resources in 1 location.

Hope you'll see this comment.

Re:FREE

[smash]

I didn't say ban them from the internet. The fact that a bunch of people seem to think that is what i mean by parenting is sad in itself...

Re:Automator for creating custom hosts files

[DarwinSurvivor]

You do know that every time a digit gets added to the id length, it increases the time number of users with that many digits by 10 right? In fact, my account is nearly 2 and a half years old.

Oh, and if you're going to call someone a troll because of having a 7-digit id, try not doing it as AC...

Hyperbole much?

[Comboman]

I'm curious how limiting 9-year-old's access to pornography somehow triggers the downfall of democracy? I wasn't aware the operation of a free state was dependent on unfettered access to Two Girls One Cup.

Re:Hyperbole much?

[silentcoder]

>I'm curious how limiting 9-year-old's access to pornography somehow triggers the downfall of democracy? I wasn't aware the operation of a free state was dependent on unfettered access to Two Girls One Cup.

Freedom of speech is a vital component of democracy. Freedom of speech is about defending unpopular speech - popular speech don't need to be defended.
If you don't teach your children from a young age that they have a right to express their opinions -even the unpopular ones - and a duty to defend that right for others, then most of them will never really learn that lesson.
More-over the desire to restrict what expression children can see (for the purpose of controlling what they think) is the single most effective bludgeon by which governments and corporations can and have managed to restrict what adults can see, hear, read and think.
From the believe that children cannot handle hearing about sex, comes laws to prevent adults from talking about it. There's a reason "think of the children" is a cliché.

It gets even more insidious than that - it becomes a tool for punishing youth for thinking and saying things that adults don't want them to say and think - so we end up branding 14 year old girls as sex offenders for life because they distributed naked pictures of a minor. The fact that she WAS the minor in the picture and she "distributed" it to her boyfriend via her cellphone doesn't get considered.
She can never live near a school, she'll have issues with the government over her own children... she's punished for life, because she expressed something that adults don't want young people to express - her own sexuality.

That my friend is evil, very extremely evil - and the self-censorship that follows is the perfect destruction to any concept of a free society.