Just caught my son surfing through some fairly nasty porn sites. He is 12 and quite vulnerable because of Asperger's type behaviour.
I haven't shouted, but I need to start looking at web filters etc to stop him and the other younger children doing themselves damage.
Any recommendations for such software?
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These people
www.e-safesystems.co.uk/
have an office in our building, but I have no experience of their product
M
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"Parental Controls" are supposed to be pretty good in W7. You could start there. And then does your AV not have any such function?
John
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Net Nanny normally comes out heading most tests.
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My son went through a very short phase of the same. I had a Netgear router at the time, in which it was possible to filter out sites with certain words in the URL - and it would show a "site blocked message". You could filter for example *girl* and it wouldn't show any sites with "girl" in the URL....quick & easy with no extra software, but necessarily a catch-all.
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You just need to remember the Scunthorpe paradigm if you are using that sort of blocking....
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Its not possible to block porn web sites using URL filtering in your Router, too many sites and far too many using words you dont expect, all linked from other web sites.
You need a professional filter that is constantly updating.
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>> You need a professional filter that is constantly updating.
>>
Even then, it is a lost battle*. The genie is out of the bottle.
The legal ones are easy to block, but the illegal ones use clever tricks to bypass filters. The harder you make it for your son to find the legal stuff, the more likely it is he will get it from elsewhere (friends, school, phones) and/or discover the illegal stuff.
The best bet is to educate the young one as to what is safe and legal, and the dangers of the illegal stuff being found to be have been accessed via your IP. Tell him that you, as the parent, could end up in jail and with a marker against your name for life, if by chance your son happens on to the kiddie stuff.
* for example, it does not help when organisation in the UK such as National Schools Film Week choose nsfw.org as their url which many kids innocently mistype ".com" .
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But NSFW.com appears as a blocked site on most filters.
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Had same issue with my son, now 16. Caught him at least once and as he never remembers to clear his browsing history he’s easily trapped again.
Tried the filter from router trick but blocking the obvious sites like you porn & red tube and a veritable profanosaurus of naughty words didn't cut the mustard.
He's quite a sensible lad and has lots of female friends both at school and in the air cadets. We've talked about what they might think of his viewing & about trafficked women (had he noticed how many looked eastern European or Philipina?) and whether the girls in the films looked as if they were enjoying themselves.
I think that helped a bit but the shock treatment of being caught out by one of those 'your computer has a virus' pop ups was more salutary. Took me two nights booting, cleaning, removing and re-installing stuff to get rid of the nasty.
Espada obviously has a particular problem with his lad's age and disorder but there's also a bit of me that says most of us handled a few mucky mags or a copy of Deep Throat without lasting harm. I suppose it's the sheer nastiness of the stuff available on the net that makes the difference.
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I don't want to trivialise the problem, but there is a funny story about Express Newspapers and staff access to inappropriate sites.
The company installed a porn filter covering computers at the offices of the Daily Express, Sunday Express and Daily Star.
There was much mirth among the hacks at the Daily Star when they found the filter blocked access to their own site.
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>> Its not possible to block porn web sites using URL filtering in your Router, too
>> many sites and far too many using words you dont expect, all linked from other
>> web sites.
I appreciate that it may not catch many, but it's quick, easy and free :-) And a 12-year old will use fairly obvious keywords & searches.
Last edited by: Mike H on Thu 2 Dec 10 at 19:09
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>> I appreciate that it may not catch many, but it's quick, easy and free :-)
>> And a 12-year old will use fairly obvious keywords & searches.
Ok,
You are a 12 year old boy, you type the search word "naked girls" into google.
Now tell me how many of those hits you would have put into your URL filter.
Free don't cut it.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 2 Dec 10 at 19:25
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You could try using Open DNS as yor DNS resolver. There is the capability to block specific or categorised sites with it.
www.opendns.com/start/
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Just discovered that Google has built in filter which should help. Will monitor. If he was a little older and less vulnerable I would have the 'man to man' talk, but he simply wouldn't understand.
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...Just discovered that Google has built in filter which should help...
Wise move.
At one time you could be sure that only paid-for porn was nasty enough to get you arrested.
But there was a case at court the other day of an adult male who had managed to find some of the hardest 'level five' images free of charge.
All he had done was type some very obvious, barely smutty, terms into Google.
Setting the Google filter may not work, but it does demonstrate to any investigator where you stand on the issue, which in turn could prevent any misunderstandings.
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>> Just discovered that Google has built in filter which should help. Will monitor. If he
>> was a little older and less vulnerable I would have the 'man to man' talk,
>> but he simply wouldn't understand.
>>
Your son will soon outsmart you on IT matters, if he is anything like today's typical boy.
If he is clever, when he first encounters a block, he will google to find out how to unblock it.
Zero said nsfw.com is blocked by many filters . Google for a solution and you will find a way to get around it, and will link you to a google cache of the site which probably won't be blocked.
As iffy said, there is danger out there for the unwary.
John or Jane Ozimek of theregister.co.uk said "readers should remember that many porn sites will download all manner of images, sometimes going well beyond the matter originally sought. The lesson is therefore clear: be careful where you surf."
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Yes well if they make a determined attempt to get round the thing then you can cuff them round the head and take the complete PC away from them.
There is a difference in actively trying to find the stuff and looking at it because its easy to get to.
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You do rather get poked in the eye with it, so to speak!). The first time I found any was at work (!). I was researching the 2000 compliance of Lotus 123 and typed in "Lotus", Oops!
Good job I didn't try "Amipro"!
John
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I am envisaging the total membership of this forum typing in "Lotus" into Google search, as I write!
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I just use the windows parental controls... bit of a pain in that it blocks all blogs and other OK stuff so I'm forever putting in the password.
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>>Will monitor. If he was a little older and less vulnerable I would have the 'man to man' talk, but he simply wouldn't understand<<
If the lad can use a computer, then he must know the difference between right & wrong.
If he doesn't due to Aspergers, then I would suggest a 'man to man' wouldn't be such a bad idea,
under these circumstances.
Sometimes, the reason you think your children aren't ready for 'the talk', is that you're not ready for the talk.
No criticism intended - merely an observation.
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>> Sometimes, the reason you think your children aren't ready for 'the talk', is that you're
>> not ready for the talk.
>>
>> No criticism intended - merely an observation.
>>
ditto.
He needs to be told that why it is wrong for a number of reasons, put the fear of the law in to him, and discuss the subject in full to include (not an exhaustive list):
- legal implications due to his age, and how it might impact upon the parent(s) if it went to the authorities, risk of being taken in to care, etc.
- legal implications if even trying to view "soft" stuff he ends up with unwanted stuff that gets "downloaded". Definitions of what is legal, and what "possessing, downloading, making an image, viewing an image," etc. mean are not usually what Joe Public think they might be. Explain to him why it would be you as the parent who would have to face the consequences. Does he want you to go to jail?
- dangers of this behaviour becoming addictive, especially if person has addictive personality, and then requiring specialist help to get out of it.
- moral and ethical arguments
- ask him to think whether how he would feel if the women involved were related to him.
- tell him that after he is 18 and living in his own place, he can use his free will how to use his own internet connection to surf the web.
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I forgot to include:
- warn him that nothing he surfs on the web remains private. Tell him that even if he destroys the computer, google keeps the data and that your ISP keeps the data.
"Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."
whereismydata.wordpress.com/category/2-law/uk-law/isp-data-retention/
Do ISPs currently store data?
Yes, they do. There are two reasons for this.
Commercial reasons, obviously the more data they have about individual’s habits the better they can hone their service, and marketing.
Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act. Currently the government has a voluntary code of practice, whereby the ISPs voluntarily collect the data
Last edited by: John H on Fri 3 Dec 10 at 18:04
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Various software as mentioned - however, keeping computers in public places where the screen can be seen by anyone, and limiting times used to when other people (i.e. parents) are around, is as useful.
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salutary tale reported today
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1335618/Innocent-grandfather-gassed-hours-child-porn-police-raided-home.html
snippets below:
"Michael Curtis's home was raided and three laptop computers seized after intelligence led officers to his address after he stumbled upon one indecent picture and viewed it for a matter of seconds.
The investigation on July 28 was led by Interpol intelligence from Luxembourg after Mr Curtis innocently viewed the picture in March, 2009.
Detective Sergeant Howard Berry told the coroner: 'There was no evidence but there was intelligence. Police in Luxembourg traced access to the website to the address.
'A picture had been viewed which was of an illegal nature. Intelligence came to police through international channels. Then there was a decision to investigate further and the warrant was issued.'
Mrs Curtis, together with sons Simon and Paul and daughter Jennifer, said after the inquest: 'The police effectively took Mike's life. They may as well have shot him.
'The police when they turned up to the house treated him like he was guilty and treated him exactly like they would a convicted paedophile.
'I don't understand how accidently looking at one single picture for a matter of seconds in March 2009 has filtered down into an investigation in July 2010. "
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A salutary tale indeed.
Although he didn't give the hapless flatfoots the chance to tell him there would be no charges:
"The inquest into his death heard that the 50-year-old amateur photographer gassed himself with fumes from his car just hours after police had executed a warrant at his home."
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Typical Daily Mail reporting... none of us know if he was innocent or not. But to 'stumble across' a picture that was of an illegal nature which apparently involved minors means he was visiting some strange websites. Surely, the only way he'd be investigated would be if the site was of interest and being monitored by the authorities.
There's more to stories like this than we might ever know... if he was innocent then he should have cleared his name. I wonder what else he stumbled across? There's some nasty stuff on the Internet these days isn't there.
I think the suggestion above of having the PC in an area than can be seen is a good one. Also worth checking out the history of viewing too. Although many browsers have a mode that you can enable that does not record history etc. on the local machine.
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...Typical Daily Mail reporting...
It's a report of an inquest.
What was said, was said.
The paper's been very accommodating to the family by publishing their fanciful claim the police killed the guy.
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>> The paper's been very accommodating to the family by publishing their fanciful claim the
>> police killed the guy.
This is the bit I think is typical Daily Mail. This guy accidentally stumbles across a website (which the police are monitoring) that hosts child porn and then gets the police come round his house.... hmm not sure I believe that. But that angle for this story suits the paper.
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...This guy accidentally stumbles across a website (which the police are monitoring) that hosts child porn and then gets the police come round his house...
I've seen dozens of internet porn cases at court in the last few years and 99 per cent of them work in the same way.
An investigating authority obtains the customer list of a mucky website and passes the information on to the police local to each customer.
First thing the customer knows is when the coppers literally knock on his door and wave a warrant under his nose.
One of the biggest round-ups in recent times was Operation Ore in which the US Postal Service obtained thousands of names of internet porn customers from around the world who were using websites based in America.
There were hundreds of warrants issued in the UK and subsequent court cases.
Quite a few people got a short stretch.
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And Operation Ore had one famous musician get away with it because he was 'doing research'. Sadly for this chap in the Mail's story, he probably didn't want all of the truth to come out and neither does the family now.
Back to the original question... there is so much filth out there that you don't need to pay for, it will be difficult for any software to filter it all out. Better to have a chat and to have the PC monitored.
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..And Operation Ore had one famous musician get away with it because he was 'doing research'...
Who do you mean?
Don't think he was from My Generation, but I bet he Won't Get Fooled Again.
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Pete Townshend got caught out by Operation Ore. He looked at some child porn sites for research purposes.... Read into that want you want.
Although he only used a credit card to get access to a site once allegedly.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 4 Dec 10 at 21:55
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My daughter's Home Access laptop came with NetIntelligence parental control software pre-installed. It seems to be very comprehensive in its abilities. Luckily I don't have a problem with her viewing inappropriate content yet but it has a handy feature where it will "lock" her computer at a certain time - currently set to 9.30pm so that it will catch her out if she oversteps our agreed 9pm cutoff time for internet use.
www.netintelligence.com/parental_control.php
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>> currently set to 9.30pm so that it will catch her out if she oversteps our agreed 9pm cutoff
>>time for internet use.
Some routers can be setup to restrict Internet access based on time too. So no way around the software on that computer.
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Back to the original question re:blocking software. I use Blue Coat K9 Web Protection. It's free and appears to be highly effective. It even blocks the ability to turn off Safe Search on some fairly obscure search engines. Every site looked at is checked by a central database before being loaded, so if a site isn't rated, you can't even get to it without the admin password. This makes it pretty secure.
Ok, I'm not a 12 year old boy, so I haven't really *tried* to beat it, but it does appear quite solid to me.
The great thing about K9 is that you can tweak the level of protection, so you can chose to block sites also related to gambling, proxy avoidance, social networking (how mean!) and even forums if you so chose!
If you only want to stop proper porn but allow nudity for example, you can do that. You set it as your own morals dictate, which is nice.
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Just tried Googling "porn" and got 221,000,000 references. If email spam filters are anything to go by, the task of screening is impossible.
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Anti Porn software - borasport
