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Ask Slashdot: Keeping Your Media Library Safe From Kids?

Posted by timothy on from the sound-of-eyes-getting-really-big dept.

Serenissima writes "I've spent many hours building my Media Library in XBMC and scraping all the DVD Covers and Fanart. And I love it, I can pull up movies on any computer or device in the house. I played a movie for my son the other day so I could get some cleaning done without him being underfoot. I noticed shortly after that the sound coming from the other room was from a different movie than I played for him. I snuck up and watched for a few minutes and saw him use a trackpad to navigate to the stop and play buttons of different movies in his folder. I know it's only a matter of time before he realizes he can see all of the movies. I don't want him to have nightmares because he saw the T-1000 stab someone in the face. The quickest solution I can think is a screen saver with a password. It's mildly inconvenient to me, but would stop him from accessing anything. However, I remember how much more I knew about computers than my parents when I was a kid, and I have a feeling he's going to surprise me one day. There's a lot of ways out there to stop it, the way we do it now is to not let him watch anything unless we're there (but there are only so many times I can watch the same kid's movie). How do YOU guys find yourself dealing with the convenience of running your own server while keeping your media safe from prying eyes?"

75 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. Re:two choices by epyT-R · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In trad slashdot style, I didn't read. Best way to do this is to keep R-rated stuff off the family tv's media playback device. Share them on a different share etc.

  2. Permissions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How about just using Linux file permissions? Keep daddy's movies in his home folder, and have the XBMC under an unprivileged user.

  3. Knowing more than parents... by gnasher719 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't worry. You knew more about computers than your parents. You'll also know more about computers than your children.

    1. Re:Knowing more than parents... by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Funny

      You called?

    2. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Some will disagree with you but I'm not one of them. So I want to expand on what you're saying. There is a certain age range that had to understand how a computer worked to run anything. Older generations were past the age of quick learning when this happened with only a few exceptions. On the other end, younger generations have no need to know any of that stuff. The file system is more and more hidden. Younger generations know how something works by clicking and touching on different things, but beyond that not much. That middle generation however can figure out any UI and fix problems as they arise because they understand what's going on underneath. There are exceptions to all of these generalities, but in general they're true :)

    3. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Garridan · · Score: 2

      It's (mostly) true! The current generation of kids are consumers, not tinkerers. Chances are, you're a consumer too, and your skills are a result of a childhood well spent. Unless you keep tinkering and raise your kids to do the same, you're safe.

    4. Re:Knowing more than parents... by shakezula · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree, my kids know a lot about computers because I work on them for a living. They are NOT typical of their friends. Most of their friends know their way about an iDevice or how to check their Gmail or Facebook, but that's the extent of it. My 10 year old could help you mount a heatsink to your Core2Duo and re-install Windows, but that's because he's helped dad do just that on countless computers in his short existence.

      This disposable computing age we're entering has its ups and downs...

      --
      I know what you're thinking. Did I forward 65,535 packets or 65,536 packets?
    5. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'd agree with you on the premise that today's youth is dumber and less capable period, lack critical thinking, never been in a fight, etc...

      But that's where it ends: assembly programmers probably know more about how a computer works than either one of us, in fact I always raise an eyebrow when I hear older techs talking about motherboard processes in the form of IO & voltage rather than clock speeds & bridges. I know voltages only for the purpose of OC (and fixing buggy asus motherboards), but that's not my #1 thought process when it comes to analyzing mobos. The point being we do our stuff just find without knowing assembly, a select few still have to know it to write translation / engine tools for frameworks, but a time ago that was everybody.

      It goes something like this: jscript > jquery > ajax / jquery, and remember how hard ajax was at first? Ya most of that has been automated, no reason this pattern won't continue.

    6. Re:Knowing more than parents... by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      It was a C64.

      Just to run a game you had to do far more "tinkering" then a modern kid may ever do. It just came with the territory becuase the user interfaces were embryonic.

      You had to understand the machine just to use it.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    7. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Andrewkov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So true.. Kids today are very well versed in the Internet (Facebook, Twitter, email, etc), but have no idea of anything technical like setting up a network or troubleshooting hardware. There are exceptions, of course, the nerds who have the interest and might go into IT. But generally, kids are strictly users like most of our parents were.

    8. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Miamicanes · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yep. To load a game, at the *bare* minimum, you had to hop over at least one trivial speedbump that somehow managed to stump lots of supposedly "normal" kids:

      load "*",8,1

      God knows, it took my brother almost TWO YEARS to finally get the hang of it. He now owns a Mac. Surprise, surprise... ;-)

      Fast forward ~10 years to 1993... and try explaining the concept of an IRQ, a cascaded IRQ, and reconciling conflicts between a piece of shit internal modem that only supported IRQ 2, 3, and 4 & a malfunctioning soundcard camped out on IRQ 9... to that same tech-challenged brother (hint, for anyone who didn't instantly get the punchline... the modem was set to IRQ 2)

      Today's kids are no dumber than the kids we went to school with. The difference is, 25 years ago, today's clueless kids wouldn't have owned a computer at all, and if WE were 13 again, we'd spend summer vacation building Arduino LED cubes (or if we were in college, we'd be building circuits with FPGAs).

      Kids who are like we were still exist, they're just lost amidst the background noise of stupid kids with toys they think work by magic.

    9. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I first got onto the "Internet" (gopher, email, FTP and BBSes) in 1991 when I was 9 years old. I bought my first domain name (wakeup-people.com) when I was 14 in 1996; it cost me about $150, iirc ($220 in 2012 dollars). My sister's boyfriend introduced me to BASIC at age 8 in 1990 and gave me Visual Basic 3.0 16-bit when I was 11 in 1993.

      For my 7th grade science experiment the next year, I created an automatic calculator that would do complex equations a million times (took forever in 1994!) and compiled it in 16bit and 32 bit and then extrapolated how much more efficient integer and float math would be on 64-bit machines, and extrapolated when we were likely to see them (I had said by 2000, iirc, and AMD released the specs for X86_64 in 1999).

      My point is that from the age of about 8 until this very day, every single person in my family relies almost exclusively on either myself or my girlfriend (another techie ^^) for almost all of their above-simple technical needs.

      And this includes my kids, aged 8, 10 and 11!!

      It drives me up the wall that my 11 yro is as thick as rocks when it comes to computers, despite being enmeshed in the technology to a degree unfathomable to me, quite frankly, as he has a combined 40+ year technical experience w/ his parents (she a DBA and myself a sr. software architect). He seems so uninterested and lacks the drive I had/have to be a self-solver. He threw hissy fits every time I just told him to plug in a USB disk and follow the windows install prompt, to set up a new box I built for the family. My partner was like, "JUST INSTALL IT FOR HIM ALREADY!!" but i was like, um, if he can't follow printed directions and install windows, then the family just doesn't deserve a common PC.

      Fortunately, my 2 younger kids were very excited with the opportunity. They even put together the hardware components, and we went to the store, too. Then they started viciously harranging the 11 yro, calling him retarded and stuff, cuz he wouldn't figure it out, but he's tested for a 130+ IQ and is in the GT program, so it isn't that. Afterwards, I paid them both 1/2 of what Best Buy would have charged me, and oh boy, the 11 yro took that *so* hard. He literally went crying to mommy about how he would have worked if he knew there was such a lofty reward.

      "It's too bad you didn't get in on the offer when you were given exclusive rights to it", I told him. "Your payout would have been double." When his tantrum escalated after that little bit, I said, "Look. The payout was a selection pressure designed to promote self-initiative and help you become a little more skilled in a craft. You're already a geek, no denying that, but if you have all of the likes of a geek but few of the positive technical skills, where will that leave you?" ::sigh::

      Before I had children, I honestly looked forward to them teaching me cool stuff and expanding my horizons, like I did so often and so much with my parents. Now, all of my kids are very adept at *tweaking* technology. My 11 yro can modify my android phone in ways I never even thought possible. But is there any technical aptitude in being skilled at finding and punching checkboxes in preference windows? I don't think so. I think he just has more time and less pressing things to do than me and chooses to explore the UI of the phone.

      I'm of the opinion now that people born between 1975 and, from what I can tell, 1991 are a special segment of self-initiatied technically-midned people. At least, a sizable minority of us. I simply do not see the same characteristics in people born after.

    10. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Informative

      the modem was set to IRQ 2

      For people who still don't get it: http://bucarotechelp.com/computers/anatomy/90032101.asp

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    11. Re:Knowing more than parents... by rubycodez · · Score: 2

      if you started as a computer hobbyist when I did (early 70s), knowing assembly was a requirement. the good news is you can get instruction online for free (dozens of introductory tutorials out there for x86 or x86-64) and the tools are free. no barriers to entry.

    12. Re:Knowing more than parents... by readin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're right about the generation that grew up while computers were growing up likely understand the internals much better (at least those who were at all interested). However kids today don't need to understand the internals to hack anymore. They just need to find the right hacking software.

      I would say a simple password will work against the 4 yr old for at least the next 5 years. After that it's only partly a technical problem. It is also a question of how well your kids listen to you and what kinds of friends they're making.. Possibly in upper elementary school, probably by middle school, and certainly in high school, there will be kids who know how to get the software to crack their parents computers. Complain about your parents restrictions to the right person and they'll likely offer to get you a flash drive that will let them bypass the protections (and perhaps give you some viruses).

      The kids have physical access to the computer. If they're well behaved kids who don't feel a strong need to bypass the rules you've set, then regular passwords should continue to work. But if they're the kind of kids who regularly go behind your back then I doubt there is much you can do.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    13. Re:Knowing more than parents... by rubycodez · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the percentage of "computer people" is very small and always was. your 11 year old would probably be excited and self-motivated by *something*, but maybe it's outside of what dual computer-geek parents would even consider. could be art or music or mechanical things or sports or debate......

    14. Re:Knowing more than parents... by readin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I disagree on the "dumber and less capable" part. They're capabilities are different. I think the schools do a better job of teaching the kids to be organized and to think abstractly. But when you say "never been in a fight" I think you hit on something that worries me.

      These kids are going to vote. If the schools protect them too much from each other, they'll never understand what people are like. Kids today don't get out and play - they stay inside and play video games. The rules are enforced for them (they don't have to argue the rules with each other). They don't have to figure out who the quarterback is. And they don't have to worry about people who break the rules and try to bully others into accepting their rule breaking.

      In short, they'll suck at foreign policy because they'll assume everyone is basically good and willing to follow the rules. Older voters already seem to include a lot of people who don't understand that foreign leaders typically have more in common with Al Capone than with Martin Luther King.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    15. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Ambassador+Kosh · · Score: 2

      To balance it out they will support the creation of killbots to make wars a very clean thing for them. They will just sent out hordes of killbots and very soon the way will be over....

      They won't be worried if a country does not like their rules or plays by the same rules since they will just send in the bots to kill them.

      --
      Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)
    16. Re:Knowing more than parents... by SirSlud · · Score: 2

      "Your payout would have been double." When his tantrum escalated after that little bit, I said, "Look. The payout was a selection pressure designed to promote self-initiative and help you become a little more skilled in a craft. You're already a geek, no denying that, but if you have all of the likes of a geek but few of the positive technical skills, where will that leave you?"

      I'm a dyed in the wool c++ software engineer and even I want to punch myself in the face after reading that. Perhaps he doesn't want to do exactly what already comes very naturally and easily to his parents. But hey, I guess you can always apply selection pressure. Geesh.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
    17. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I disagree on the "dumber and less capable" part. They're capabilities are different. I think the schools do a better job of teaching the kids to be organized and to think abstractly.

      I disagree with every point you make above. They are dumber. They are less capable (unless playing video games with top notch hardware beating out those unfortunate enough to have slightly less capable hardware counts in your statement) The schools do a horrible job of teaching kids anything at this point. I swear we learned more in half the grades than current spoon-fed "graduates". And colleges? Since when is it the job of a college to graduate students versed in some corporations level 1 training program: just about any comp sci school these days only teaches 1 or 2 language syntaxes. Algorithms? What are those? Data structures? You mean like when I lean the 'A' against a 'D' to create a wall? And I'm 99% sure that what you call "abstract thinking" is nothing more than glazed eye day-dreaming. We won't even talk about pattern recognition, critical thinking, or applying logical solutions.

      I interview a few "senior" folks a week. These have already been screened through 2 layers, which weeds out a bunch before I see the cream of the crop. I pass maybe 1 out of 10, and most are in their 30s and 40s, with several up to their 60s. No age bias here, if they know their material, I'll thumbs up them - last 2 that got thumbs up were most likely 60+, I am not allowed to ask. I had some 20-something that somehow slipped through (someone else answering for him earlier?) and couldn't answer even basic technical questions about what he claimed to have accomplished on his own resume. He's not unusual. These aren't just out of school people. They have worked for generally more than 2 companies over a period of years.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    18. Re:Knowing more than parents... by xhrit · · Score: 2

      >...they don't have to worry about people who break the rules and try to bully others into accepting their rule breaking.

      I doubt that - kids that really do stay inside and play video games all day have already seen the worst cheaters, hackers, and trolls the world has to offer. It is hard to maintain faith in humanity when you are constantly exposed to an endless stream of sadistic assholes who enjoy being absolutely the most despicable fuckwads to each other as imaginable.

      --
      Dungeon Tactics : Free Open Source SRPG
    19. Re:Knowing more than parents... by fostware · · Score: 2

      1974 says you're wrong. :)

      I agree that there's appears to be a change in the motivation and thought processes after that *rough* age bracket. Last year our CTO and I were having the same discussion regarding new hires. Initially we thought it was a different mindset between age brackets that wasn't just related to how old they were. New hires were appearing to have padded their CVs more, less likely to take ownership of issues, less willing to apply basic troubleshooting logic (even when flowcharts, knowledge-bases, and internal Wikis are provided), little initiative, and less willing to push themselves.

      In the end, we realised that there's just more people claiming IT proficiency now. In my day, I started on electronics, and moved to computers as an extension. Many of the others I know had a similar background of wanting to know how everything worked. Our claim of working with computers was either met with some admiration and a lot of recrimination (whether verbal or physical) and thats formed a perception of 'if you went through those years and still work IT you must be good'.

      Now almost everyone has a level of IT proficiency but the background is now no longer required and the derision isn't there anywhere as much. Those that do have the background, different mindset, and critical thinking are now preened for promotion/succession and we don't see a lot of our competitors potential Level 3s changing companies since everyone's fearful of the job market. We do concentrate hiring during or after major contract reshuffles (like last months mining industry contractor bloodbath) or competing MSPs folding.

      There's still the same amount of *good* IT people, but the quantity of mediocrity overshadows that. After that conversation, questions about how candidates push themselves outside of work have been added to the practical spot questions interviewees receive.

      All said, we also had some issues with pre-1991-born employees having little initiative or feeling that surfing a news site during waiting for tasks to complete whilst onsite was acceptable. IT infrastructure, procedures, and documentation are never completely optimised, so there is no excuse for non-work related surfing (outside of lunches when employees are suggested to go outside get some fresh air, and surf there)

      --
      "We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
    20. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Patch86 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IT has always been this way. Think back to when you were at school- you and a few of your friends were probably pretty techy, but what percentage of the kids at your school were? Were most of them more interested in sport? Pop music? Heated political debate? Doing drugs behind the bike shed? Things other than computers and technology?

      That's how I remember my childhood, anyway. I loved computers. A few of my friends loved computers. We were a minority.

    21. Re:Knowing more than parents... by bogjobber · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Senior engineers with 30+ years of experience are more knowledgeable than people in their 20s? The horror! The shame!

      I'm not sure what country you or the GP poster are living in, but the people I grew up with seem a hell of a lot more hard-nosed and street smart than most of the boomer generation. We didn't grow up with peace and prosperity, cheap education, and a straight shot into the middle class. We didn't get to ride the coattails of a 50 year economic boom caused exclusively by the fact that North America was the only part of the developed world that wasn't burnt to the ground in the 1940's.

      Your generation of course calls this concept American exceptionalism, because America was largely excepted from the destruction caused by World War 2. This American exceptionalism naturally does not translate to the younger generation, due to the lack of such an important geopolitical event in our parents' lifetimes.

      Said exceptional generation seems (at least as far as I can tell from the history books I haven't read) to have earned their wealth primarily through plundering our country and running it in the ground, and whose main occupation currently seems to consist of trying their damnedest to pull the ladder up behind them by removing every single social program they used to get to where they are today, all the while yelling at us that we're stupid and lazy.

      This is, of course, completely true. Our generation is demonstrably different from, and in every way inferior to, the one preceding us. This is proven by the obvious fact that our country, right as the younger generation is coming of age (hardly a coincidence wouldn't you say?), is on the edge of economic collapse, with a failing political system and a military that is fighting multiple unnecessary wars around the globe.

      In fact, most of those soldiers are members of the younger generation! The fact that we can no longer pay for college, long considered well within the reach of an average working class youth, is further evidence of our generational failure. If only we worked a little harder, like our daddies did, maybe we'd have something to show for it.

      There are vast reaches of this great land of ours, usually in the suburbs, where Montessori schools are churning out glaze-eyed traveling team soccer players who are destined to be nothing more than mediocre students and passive recipients of whatever the nanny state or corporate bureaucracy tells them to do.

      Places where information is inaccessible, ambition does not exist, minds are not independent, selfs do not actualize, and the older generation is simultaneously the cause and victim of (but entirely devoid of culpability, or indeed self-awareness, in either case) the inter-generational misunderstanding that has been so well-documented over the course of history that to call it trite is a truly magnanimous compliment.

      Or... maybe... you're just getting old.

      Dude.


      I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
      - Hesiod 8th Century BC

    22. Re:Knowing more than parents... by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

      Bullcrap. The time period you were born in has nothing to do with your innate drive to learn and accomplish cool things. I was born in 1994, started experimenting with computers when I was 8, learned ANSI C when I was 12, and now I'm a bored college student

      Did you take intro to statistics yet?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    23. Re:Knowing more than parents... by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      That's a no.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  4. RTFM by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Informative

    RTFM

    XBMC supports multiple user profiles, much the same as setting up individual users on your home computer. These individual profiles allow you to customize the environment for multiple users, allowing for such functionality as:

    • Customized view settings such as skins for each user
    • The ability to lock folders, such as network shares on a per-user basis
    • Separate Media Libraries for each user

    Did you even attempt to find something yourself?

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    1. Re:RTFM by WilliamGeorge · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have mod points, but where is the option for 'Informative - but a jerk'? Granted, it can be annoying to help someone when the answer to their question is a short Google search away... but the question there at the end seems unkind (at best). Lets keep things civil :)

      --
      William George
    2. Re:RTFM by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 5, Funny

      It could have been worse. He could have linked to this http://lmgtfy.com/?q=XMBC+lock

    3. Re:RTFM by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No. people need to know they are being lazy, and being nice hasn't been working.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:RTFM by c0lo · · Score: 2

      No. people need to know they are being lazy, and being nice hasn't been working.

      Working for what (i.e. what purpose do you target)? 'Cause not all the nerds share the same purposes, moral or ethical values (and it's is still OK... less boring, you see?)

      E.g. if it is the opportunity of jerks to show themselves informative (which I can accept as a passable purpose), it seems it's working quite well.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    5. Re:RTFM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He should also stop pretending he's trying to hide Terminator movies. We all know who is stabbing who in the face and with what in his collection.

    6. Re:RTFM by cgimusic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My ideal target is for Ask Slashdots to be interesting and informative with the pros and cons of various solutions to a complex problem being discussed. With a really basic problem such as this I really would have thought a simple Google would have given the best solution. In fact I had this very problem several months ago and all I did was search the internet and the manual for XBMC came up top.

    7. Re:RTFM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No. people need to know they are being lazy, and being nice hasn't been working.

      Working for what (i.e. what purpose do you target)? 'Cause not all the nerds share the same purposes, moral or ethical values (and it's is still OK... less boring, you see?)

      E.g. if it is the opportunity of jerks to show themselves informative (which I can accept as a passable purpose), it seems it's working quite well.

      Yes, you're right. Not all nerds share the same purposes or values.

      That being said, do you know what all lazy people have in common? Being fucking lazy.

      Bottom line is when it takes longer to type the question on Slashdot than it does to find the answer in Google, you're not only doing it wrong, but you have no right calling yourself a nerd.

    8. Re:RTFM by wer32r · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I really hate this one. Few things are as annoying as searching for some difficult-to-search topic, find a forum link on the top search result with a relevant topic, and then find that Imgtfy link to just another Google search. Typically when this happens, the result of the next search is as little informative as the link itself. The really annoying part is that you know that whoever posted the link is likely to know the answer and could have stated it in a few words or have provided a relevant link instead of being a douche.

    9. Re:RTFM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, then come back and bitch about being hungry tomorrow.

      Teach a man to fish, and he'll leave you the fuck alone.

    10. Re:RTFM by c0lo · · Score: 2

      That being said, do you know what all lazy people have in common? Being fucking lazy.

      Bottom line is when it takes longer to type the question on Slashdot than it does to find the answer in Google, you're not only doing it wrong, but you have no right calling yourself a nerd.

      Gosh, buddy... you let common sense slipping into /. . This does need to be corrected... so let's build a theory and draw a conclusion that is in no logical relation with it... bonus points if the conclusion is emotionally loaded and involves building a strawman!

      That a look on the nickname of the OP (Serenissima not Serenissimus). Together with the mention of "so I could get some cleaning done" best chances that's a she - and I'm not implying the cleaning is done by women only, but I surmise women are more likely to mention it to establish a context for the post (male nerds wouldn't think of it as a relevant information)

      Now, we may have a person:
      1. which know what /. and posting on /. are
      2. does cleaning (mind you: this may be as a reasonable explanation for not turning to Google as laziness would be. Not for the lack of time - Google is faster - but do I need to ask you what would you prefer: posting on /. or cleaning? Speaking for myself, I'm procrastinating from ironing my shirts for the next week as I'm posting this on /.)
      3. has a small kid (which, highly probable, indicates sex in the near past)
      4. likely to be a woman.

      Of course, the above doesn't describe a very typical nerd (points 2 and 3 being highly atypical), but... hey... why would you try to quench cultural diversity on /.? I thought nerds are quite liberally minded.

      (ducks)

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  5. Permissions, Groups, and ACLs by bmo · · Score: 2, Informative

    One set of movies has "kids only" group permissions
    The other set of movies has "Adults and kids" permissions.

    Your son doesn't belong to the "adults and kids" group.

    ????????

    Profit.

    --
    BMO

  6. Coming of age by White+Flame · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If they're smart enough to figure out how to pry through complex systems and look at daddy's files, exposure to what they see will have a self-determining effect on them. Either they'll be scared of what they saw in the "grown-up movies" and will leave it alone (and you can talk it out with him), or the kid will find something he likes and expand his horizons a bit.

    You don't say how old he is, but I generally believe that you've got to let curiosity run its course for everyday sorts of things like this.

  7. Try being a parent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Instead of looking for a technical solution to do your job for you.

    Yeah, i know. mindblowing for sure.

    Kids require 24-7 supervision for about 16 years or they WILL get into something you don't like. 100% guaranteed. The only fix is doing the job you signed up for when you had a child.

    1. Re:Try being a parent. by Nutria · · Score: 2

      It's patently obvious that you have no clue about how parenthood actually works.

      (Don't feel too stupid, though: I spouted the same drivel before I had kids, too.)

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:Try being a parent. by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 4, Funny

      Anyone that disagrees with me doesn't have a child. All children are the same, too, and that's why everyone's opinion about how to raise a child will be the exact same.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  8. File server + ACLs + ldap by boule75 · · Score: 2
    Currently running under Zentyal over Ubuntu 10.04.

    Each family member has an account, parents have RW access everywhere, kids are generally RO or have no access at all depending on the folder.

    --
    I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
  9. Forgot your own media library by maharg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the boy has the whole internet to peruse unless you have locked that down also... Seriously.. Are you actually running a walled garden ? If not all bets are off...

    --

    $ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
    @(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
  10. I too XBMC my media... by shakezula · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...from a NAS device. Like you, I've spent HOURS getting all the TV cataloged, named correctly, and with images. Like you, I have kids I don't want watching certain things and I solve it thusly:

    1:Create a share on your NAS which has the items you DON'T want them to watch and make it so that it needs a password or whatever credentials you need to connect to it.

    2:Add the share to XBMC, but put it under a Master Profile.

    3: Create another Profile for your younglings that can't access the shared files. Double bonus, since you password protected the share, if they do go scanning the network, they'll have to have to know the (hopefully) different password to mount the share with your non-kid content.

    4:??? Profit?

    Check this out: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=108232 I think it will help you sort your media out with haste.

    --
    I know what you're thinking. Did I forward 65,535 packets or 65,536 packets?
  11. Parental controls? by Raven42rac · · Score: 2

    http://www.xbmchub.com/blog/2012/08/13/parental-control-for-xbmc-addons/

    --
    I hate sigs.
  12. parenting, not technology by plaut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Set and communicate the rules and the consequences for breaking them, monitor compliance, and enforce the consequences if the rules are broken. If you force compliance with technology, your son won't learn what is and isn't appropriate behavior and you won't have the opportunity to build trust. And, believe me, you'll need that trust when he's older.

    1. Re:parenting, not technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This should have been moderated to 5:insightful by now. Parenting is a social feat, not merely a technical or biological one.

      This parent could have simply said "hey, there are a lot of grownup movies on here that WILL give you nightmares. You are not allowed to watch the grown-up movies, ask me first before you change what's playing." You don't even need to threaten with punishment. Just state that this is how it will be, and if they start testing boundaries when they get older, THEN you can step in and start revoking privilege as punishment.

    2. Re:parenting, not technology by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Some things are adult by nature simply because of unavoidable social convention. Those really should be locked away using some mechanism that is expected to pose some sort of minimal barrier.

      It doesn't have to be unhackable. It just has to create a clear boundary.

      It doesn't matter if it's a "parents" fileshare or a lock on a gun cabinet.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    3. Re:parenting, not technology by jamesh · · Score: 2

      From TFA I got the impression that the child probably isn't 2 yet. A 2 year old will _love_ doing things themselves - making a movie play by themselves without your help is almost as much fun as watching the movie (which is why you'll find them constantly flipping through movies). Sure you could helicopter over them and tell them no you can't watch that one, or that one, but you've instantly robbed the fun from the experience of learning independence.

      Much better to construct a nice safe sandbox where (as far as they are concerned) their freedom has no limits. Of course that doesn't mean you can then just walk off and leave them to their own devices - you still need to be around but at least you won't be telling them 'no' constantly.

      The stuff you are talking about is definitely appropriate for an older child, although the appropriateness varies wildly depending on the child - two of my kids would be likely to do as instructed by the time they were 4 or 5, the other two not so much at the same age - both because their insane curiosity of the world would overwhelm any sense of possible consequences.

  13. you bult a media server? by geekoid · · Score: 2, Funny

    but you can't google?
    http://www.xbmchub.com/blog/2012/08/13/parental-control-for-xbmc-addons/

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  14. Require "Adult Presence" for Restricted Movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's what I do: To keep it simple, I tag all the "bad" movies as restricted. Then on the server in each room where a movie could possibly be played, I require that the server has an "adult present" token. At first this token was just a USB stick I carried around with just a certain named file on it (no crypto). A few years ago I switched to detecting the presence of a bluetooth device - my cell phone or a few other authorized devices. The server scans for the MAC address every 30 seconds, if it can't find it 3x in a row it disables playback of restricted movies. But you can use any convenient token.

    I don't use this at home but at a non-profit I run (a haunted attraction). It's got a mix of adults and teen volunteers, and we have PG-13 and R stuff in our horror video library. The system has worked rather well, but I admit the security of it is based on obscurity - that the teens don't know what enables the restricted content! If they ever figured it out, I'd switch to a secure token.

  15. Re:two choices by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 2

    "In trad slashdot style, I didn't read."

    Typically with stories tagged askslashdot you need only read the submission itself. Or do you mean you have that esoteric abillity to answer questions you don't know?

    I prefer a hardware solution. Different devices for different users, preferably with some sort of hardware locking mechanism for the NC stuff. I'm rather suspicious of software-only solutions since they're either a joke or too expensive or complex for the task at hand unless you're a bum willing to tweak all day.

  16. Try something different by MrKaos · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Treat your kid like an intelligent human being and implement the security measures the code has but no more. Explain to you child why but in a way that lets them weigh their own value system against their curiosity. We don't need more kids in the world that are mindless accepters of whatever is put in front of them. Allow them to make their own decisions and own the consequences for them, including nightmares.

    If they break through the security, get them to show you how they did it, congratulate them, fix it and challenge them to find the next one. Turn that part into a game and you maybe able to give you child an advantage over 99% of the sheeple out there.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  17. Re:Safe from kids? No problem! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can we be clear on this? Does "adult video" harm children?

    Yes, it does.

    I grew up with computers, and early on pressed my parents into getting me access to the Internets. I saw plenty of pixelated, low-resolution boobies and at the ripe age of thirteen, was having sexy IRC times with what appeared to be hawt nerdy college chicks.

    I went on to become a systems administrator.

    Parents, don't let this happen to your children. Teach them to be developers; they get paid more and don't have to wake up at 3 AM because some drunk C-level forgot his password.

  18. Parental control by mrops · · Score: 5, Informative

    did you try it

    http://www.xbmchub.com/blog/2012/08/13/parental-control-for-xbmc-addons/

    Keep all shares password protected with mounts/drives only available to xbmc PCs.

    1. Re:Parental control by cusco · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is everyone serious? Have you never heard of NTFS? Put all the movies he's allowed to access in a folder with Full Control permissions for Everyone. Put the movies that you don't want him to get in a different folder, remove Everyone from the Access Control List, give Full Control to the Administrators group or just to your user account. When you're logged in you can access everything, when he's logged in he can only access his folder.

      It ain't rocket surgery.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    2. Re:Parental control by cusco · · Score: 2

      Oh. I'm a moron. Just re-read the summary and realized it wasn't a Windows machine. The principle is the same for Linux permissions.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    3. Re:Parental control by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 2

      Yeah just give the kids there own user account and remove his read permissions to the files for videos above his maturity.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  19. Re:two choices by telchine · · Score: 5, Funny

    OP is asking how to secure media on a media server...and one of the solutions is to put them on a media server?

    Well, yes, that;s not such a bad idea. Have two media servers - one open and one locked down.
    Perhaps a third one too ;)

    What state would the third one be in? Open and locked down at the same time? Is that the set-up that Schrodinger opted for with his media?

  20. Come on... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why don't you just admit you don't want your wife seeing your collection of My Little Pony hentai?

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  21. File all my porn ... by PPH · · Score: 2

    ... in a folder named 'Merchant Ivory'.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  22. Re:two choices by Artifakt · · Score: 2

    I'm seeing this as a hardware and software combined solution, if the user can afford hardware solutions at all - A house server with everything the user wants backed up, and a smaller file server, or just an end user device with some internal storage, just for the kid frendly stuff, plus software to make it so the kid's server or whatever machine can''t pull, but only be pushed to, to load it from the main server. Ideally, if you ran whatever network software was on the kid's server, it wouldn't even show the main server on its lists. Combine this with the main server being in the parent's bedroom, study, dad's den, or wherever it can be locked away without being to difficult for the parents to use, and with the kid's server not being able to access the internet without a password, or even not being able to access the internet directly at all, glue over any USB or card ports, and the kids probably won't be able to bypass all that until at least age 9.

    --
    Who is John Cabal?
  23. Re:two choices by arth1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The third one being the one the spouse doesn't get to see...

  24. Discuss what things are appropriate by musicon · · Score: 2

    Unfortunately, children will explore and learn things you don't want them to regardless how much we will (or want to) shelter them.

    That said, the solution my wife and I have is we tell them certain things are appropriate, and others are not. When they're older, they can view them, but for now it's not appropriate.

    We have two Popcorn C-300s, and the media I don't want the kids to watch are in a separate directory called "Not Appropriate". That way, you don't have to go nuts with security and lockdowns, and your kids know what's there. Knowing the media is there but shouldn't be viewed also teaches them self-restraint.

  25. Re:two choices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I just don't have kids.

  26. No one mentioned Truecrypt? by zuki · · Score: 3, Informative

    Buy a humongous hard drive (3Tb is good). Make a giant Truecrypt partition, like at least 1 Tera, ensuring that it's the type that can accommodate files larger than 4 gigs. (NTFS for Windows, HFS+ for OS-X)

    Copy all those movies to this partition while it is mounted. Unmount it... Then just mount it again with password when needed to either watch a movie or copy new ones into the partition.

    If you run out of room, make a second partition on the same disk with the same password.

    All done.

  27. Re:Two servers by Architect_sasyr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I mount and unmount the various age-shares automatically via cron - that way the teenagers can't even watch movies during the day when they have other things to do - but the smallest can watch finding nemo whenever they have free time and a movie is their option. They can see the movies there (no porn in folders!) but can't play them if the source files aren't there.

    --
    Me failed English...
    FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
  28. Relax or get seriously bent, those are the options by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Funny

    Imagine it man, Kids running around nude in Africa have more knowledge about real life than your sheltered children. They know how babies are made because they got the water from the stream and helped out with some other birth, rather than some nurse. They know of the finality and consequence of death and respect danger because they've gutted animals to help their parents cook, or even killed beasts themselves. Hell, these 3rd world kids will be giving back to their community while yours will be throwing tantrums about not getting some worthless toy -- And you're worried about censorship? Damn, seek professional help or chill, the actual fuck, out.

    You didn't turn out all fucked up despite knowing so much more about computers than your parents, and seeing the things you did that your parents wouldn't have approved of. Your parents didn't even inform you about masturbation! Why are you raising your children to be so damn ignorant about the world? Look, I don't really care why. Thing is, you're a parent now, time to man up and delete the damn movies if you don't want your kid to see them, and you can't be troubled to actually learn how to fucking USE *nix file system permissions or set up accounts on a damn multi-user OS. I mean, you come HERE? Asking US?! "What would Slashdot have me do?" Well, first off I'd have you neutered, you ignorant son of a bitch (that's right, I just called your mom a bitch -- it's for not being OK with what you wanted to watch when you were a kid), then secondly I'd ship your kid to a 3rd world country where they may die, but at least they won't be brain damaged by the likes of a lamer like you!

  29. Re:two choices by noh8rz9 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Am I the only one who infers an extensive porno collection, lovingly curated with covers and fan art?

    --
    let's have a conversation! let me know what you think.
  30. Re:two choices by azalin · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm not sure what fan art for porno movies would look like, but neither am I sure if I really want to know.

  31. Re:two choices by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

    Actually its even easier than that, windows media Center has parental controls so you can require a password before it will play above a certain rating, and you can always hide the folders that have the R rated movies as WMC won't have any problem playing from hidden folders, just put in your password when it comes time to watch your R rated movies and tada! It all works easy peasy.

    If you would like to have all the artwork and synopsis and the full nine yards but don't feel like doing all that work I'd suggest just following this simple how to which provides links to the two little freeware programs that will set the whole thing up and do all the work for you. if you want the movies hidden from prying eyes when you first run Yammm which is the program that takes care of all the metadata and artwork simply check "hide playlist members" under settings (if you forget you'll find the config in your all programs or can type yam from the start box) and that is all there is to it, if the kid goes to the folder all he will see is an empty folder, the actual video files will be hidden. Too easy and you really don't have to do anything, just let it run its service (less than 35Mb when its downloading the artwork) and ignore it.

    One word for the impatient, because the dev didn't want to slam the free movie DB he has it take its time downloading artwork, I've found with around 300 movies it takes about a day for the whole thing to be updated, but of course you can fire up WMC right away, it'll just take about a day for all the artwork and data about each individual movie to be integrated into WMC. But once it does...wow, you have a full synopsis with art, date the movie was made, genre, its all filled out, and of course for young and old its easier to just click on the poster of the movie you want instead of reading down a list,

    so give it a try, I've been using this on my HTPCs as well as my own PC for a few months now and its great and if you add more movies later simply rerun file2folderGUI again, takes less than 10 seconds and it'll put everything in the correct folder format so the metadata can be applied.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  32. Re:two choices by beowulfcluster · · Score: 3

    Yeah I think we all know this has nothing to do with hiding Terminator from the kids but hiding the porn from the girlfriend.

    Or from mum, since this is Slashdot.

  33. Re:two choices by demonlapin · · Score: 2

    There's a description here of how someone did this with Plex, basically you create a second library consisting of all kids' movies and make it a separate share. The kids' logins only get them access to those movies. You have a different library with all the movies. (You could even put the really adults-only content in yet another library, should you choose.)

    You could do something similar with different shares on a NAS. I've got a Synology and the DS Video app is quite handy for iPads, etc., so I'd probably leave the kids' movies there and put the inappropriate stuff in folders I would access directly.

  34. Worry about more than your movies by mdf356 · · Score: 2

    I wouldn't worry too hard about keeping your kids from seeing your movies -- they're too long to be interesting, mostly. The real issue is once your kid figures out how to click around on youtube. You'll start them with Sesame Street or something and when you turn back they're watching a kid pretend Elmo is being butt-raped, with graphic commentary.

    YouTube "related video" links are the real problem in this space.

    --
    Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.