[TriLUG] Childproofing

[Ken MacKenzie]

I hear everything you are saying.  I am more worried about the accidents
that can bring the hardcore pr0n to your screen.  I remember one time at
work in the 90's mistyping msnbc.com as msbc.com and it took me to the site
cafe flesh with 20 million popups of even worse.  It was not 2 minutes
later the network admin was at my desk as I finished closing it all and I
had to revisit the process to show him how easy the error was to make.

My wife and I agreed and I tested things l like making sure it would block
the above but say let through a site about Wendy O for example.

I don't want to censor, I want to prevent the predatory practices of those
businesses on the internet.

Also keep in mind all my children are under 10, so the concerns are
different now than they will be in a few years.

Ken

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 9:33 AM, Joseph Mack NA3T <jmack at austintek.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, 10 Nov 2014, Ken MacKenzie wrote:
>
>  So as my kids get older and more online I am starting to deal with content
>> filtering.
>>
>
> The filtering that worked best for me was leaving the network open (other
> than a firewall on the outside to prevent intrusion). It's 100% reliable.
>
> I remember my son, probably about 14, standing behind me, showing me how
> to find things with tpb or maybe kickasstorrents. The first thing I saw was
> images associated with advertisements that I wasn't prepared for. I looked
> back at my son, showing my surprise. He explained "all these sites have
> them Dad".
>
> I did log his network usage with rrdtool. The network would have high
> throughput all weekend. I assume he was playing video games. At least that
> was what was on the screen whenever I was in his room. He'd tell me what he
> was doing and what level he was on and what he wanted to do there.
>
> I explained that when I grew up, we didn't have these sorts of things and
> told him what I'd done with my childhood (build electronics, go on hikes
> with Scouts). I said that with him being the first generation to have video
> games, that we didn't know what would come of it as far as preparing him
> for adulthood. However I said that it wasn't obvious to me that it was
> helpful. I told him that he had to choose what to do and I wasn't going to
> restrict his time playing video games as long as he handled his obligations
> (homework, chores).
>
> I talked to my partner about this, concerned that he would never get a
> life. She shrugged "he'll grow out of it". He did, but it took till he got
> a life elsewhere (he joined the theatre at his school in high school). I
> spent a lot of time in despair in the meantime.
>
> My son had girlfriends on and off from early on and in the house we always
> talked about them like they were a normal part of life. I think my partner
> talked to him more about girls than I did. In early high school he talked
> to me about his interest in girl's bodies. I said that much of the stuff in
> the media he'd encounter was designed to mess with his head to sell things
> and that if he put too much attention into it that it would stop him being
> able to see females as people.
>
> Later, when he was 16 and got a serious gf, I told him that her body was
> her body and he could only do things with it on invitation. I told him to
> think of it as if a friend of his came around with a nice car (say a
> Maserati). You don't ask or expect you'll get to drive it. You just say
> "nice car". Maybe you'll be invited to drive it, maybe you won't. The
> friend is still a friend no matter which option he gives you.
>
> The problem I knew about was the amount of time he spent on video games.
> The problem went away eventually. I don't know if we were lucky or my
> partner and I can take any credit for it. I don't know how much time he
> spent on porn. If he did look at any of it, it doesn't seem to have
> affected him.
>
> Joe
>
>