[ale] Old host you want to unload?

Mon Jul 15 08:21:12 EDT 2013

In short: don't rely on technology as a role model stand-in for children.

I have exactly 0 filters on the feed at my house. none. waste of time. Kids
will find what interests them. If it's porn, you're overdue for "the talk"
and that one will go on for the next several years. If the adult is not
capable of sitting down and watching what they are and rationally
explaining what is problematic about it, the child will begin to disregard
the adult as an authority figure and view them as just another knee-jerker
wearing blinders.

Most kids are wanting to find stuff that's not porn and other "bad stuff".
Most kids get embarrassed or grossed out when it accidentally crosses the
screen on an errant mouse click. It's far more important to have them
understanding that they will not be punished the occasional mistake but
will be expected to learn from them. Teach them the "back" button in both
mouse and keystrokes :-)

Ron brought up a bigger issue that can't be filtered with current tools:
what the kids actually say online to each other. Between 12-13 and about
19-20, girls are vile, horrid creatures to other girls and boys are
brain-damaged monsters with illusions of invincibility. A useful tool would
be a screen mirror with recording so the nasty things they say to each
other can be replayed, discussed, and used as reasons why privilege A is
being withheld. I'm thinking of a chat mirroring tool or email copy
process. It will only get to be used once then they will change methods (if
they are smart). But that level of guidance, no matter what _they_ think,
would benefit them greatly learning how to relate with others.

Besides, once the hormones kick in, they will find a way to find out about
it. If the default view at home is "NO! BAD!", they will look elsewhere for
answers unless they are totally dominated by helicopter parents. Most
commercial porn is crap with subtle and not so subtle overtone of violence
against women as themes. It's a challenge to find something that can serve
as guidance for humans really relate in bed. And intelligent bed banging is
far better than stupid gun banging in the street.

On Sun, Jul 14, 2013 at 9:46 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:

> **
> Hi all,
>
> Since I brought up OpenDNS, even though I'm a user and a fan, I should
> point out some limitations.  About 10%, as a rough guestimate, of the ugly
> stuff will sneak through the filter.  The purveyers of junk bring up new
> sites too fast for everything to be in the database.  Do not assume your
> kids will be totally prevented from getting to any and all "insert bad
> category" stuff.
>
> Also, if your kid knows how to do any of the following, he / she can
> bypass the filter: choose an alternate dns server on the pc, use a proxy /
> anonymizer (although you can filter that category), browse by ip alone
> without dns, start up a vpn, take their laptop / smartphone to a friend's
> house or hotspot or step parent's house.  Anything that bypasses the use of
> the OpenDNS servers or changes their public ip bypasses the filter.  I have
> wished in the past that I could tie the filter to a specific pc, but
> OpenDNS does not provide that as far as I know.
>
> Internet Explorer provides some built in content filtering options, which
> can tie into things like NetNanny (I think), but I've never used it.
> Firefox doesn't provide any of that natively that I'm aware of, but there
> may be plugins for it.
>
> I have links to a couple of Christian sites related these topics I could
> try to dig up if anyone wants.
>
> Note that, even if they cannot easily access "uglyjunk.com" because of
> OpenDNS, they can see links to it in google and bing, and in the latter
> case, with live video coming though bing.  The child's pc need not ever
> visit "uglyjunk.com" to see some of its content, albeit with smaller
> pictures.
>
> You can make things harder to bypass by putting the OpenDNS servers in
> your router settings.  Then, any pc which just uses basic dhcp to get it's
> ip and dns will pick that up from the router.  But, that does not prevent
> the pc from querying another dns server directly if it wants to.  If the pc
> can get an ip for "uglyjunk.com", it can still visit the site.
>
> I have heard that you can get hosts files of preconfigured blacklist
> sites, then the computer is just directed to nowhere when they try to get
> those sites, before even querying the dns.  I've never used that though.
>
> The service also depends on linking your public ip to your account.
> That's why going to a hotspot bypasses the filter.  They'll have a
> different public ip which is not linked to your account.  Even if the pc
> was set to use the OpenDNS servers, your personal filter settings would not
> be in affect.  You would still get phishing protection though.
>
> Since your public ip is subject to change periodically when your cable /
> dsl modem resets, you need to run a small utility, which I run in Windows,
> to link your current public ip with your account and filter settings.
> You'll have to check on whether they have a linux utility, but they
> probably do.  When your ip changes, if the utility runs, the OpenDNS
> servers get set to respond to the new ip.  If your ip setting utility
> doesn't run for a few days, then your filters won't be in affect for a few
> days if your ip has changed.
>
> I do NOT recommend running the ip setting utility on the child's
> computer.  Here's why.  Let's say you did that.  They go to starbucks.
> They login, then the ip utility links STARBUCKS public ip to YOUR filter
> account.  Your child would then be subject to your filters, but so would
> EVERYONE ELSE in starbucks.  That might cause some problems.  This would
> remain in effect until your child logged into another network and got
> another public ip.
>
> Because ip's change, the system occasionally gets confused as to which
> account owns which ip.  This is rare, but, for example, let's say there is
> a disruption at the isp and all the cable modems get reset.  You may end up
> with what was someone else's public ip and they may end up with yours.  It
> may take a little while for the ip setting utilities to set everything
> straight.  So, the possibility does exist that they could see stuff in
> their account logs on OpenDNS that came from you and you could see theirs.
>
> One other slight disadvantage of the OpenDNS system is that all pc's in
> the house with the same public ip will have the same filters.  You could
> always active a vpn or proxy on your own pc though and bypass your own
> filter.
>
> Despite these limitations, I found the service extremely useful and
> wouldn't want to be without it with a child in the house.  You could gang
> other technologies on top of this, if you wish.  I still have it active,
> even though my child has moved out, to filter out rubbish that I might hit
> accidentally.
>
> This is slightly off topic to the original question, but I'd consider a
> certain amount of monitoring of my kid's communications online.  Chat,
> email, facebook, whatever.  How much is up to you.  I'd also set rules on
> who it was appropriate to communicate with.  Again, up to personal
> discretion.  You can get books about how to deal with these issues.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron
>
>
>
> On 7/14/2013 8:09 PM, Doug Hall wrote:
>
> 27" iMac is sweet. But I agree with Ron. There's no reason to buy ANYTHING
> if you use OpenDNS to filter content. I'm very satisfied with the free
> service. Okay, maybe paranoia is a reason. I wouldn't be surprised to know
> that OpenDNS is releasing records to the NSA. But then again, so could your
> current ISP.
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 14, 2013 at 5:03 PM, Jerald Sheets <questy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  I do.  It's a slamming 27" iMac.  :)
>>
>>
>> Jerald Sheets
>> Sent from my iPhone5
>>
>> On Jul 13, 2013, at 10:20 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>   Jerald, you're missing the entire point: Upgrade _your_ machine and
>> give the old one to the young-uns. Put squid-guard on it and provide a pile
>> of bookmarks they are interested in.
>>
>>  :-)
>>
>>  House Rule: Dad ALWAYS has the best hardware unless someone else is
>> paying for it.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 10:00 PM, Neal Rhodes <neal at mnopltd.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  I would think you could look for off-lease "no-os" refurb units on
>>> TigerDirect for maybe $100.
>>>
>>> On Sat, 2013-07-13 at 21:22 -0400, Jerald Sheets wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all.
>>>
>>> I've come to the point where my next generation o little ones will be going online, and I'm going to build me a content filtering firewall.  (Ipcop)
>>>
>>> Thing is, I don't have any old hardware and need to get something, but anything I would buy in a store would be overkill.
>>>
>>> I'm looking for something P3 or later, mid tower with one drive bay is fine and 4-8G of memory.
>>>
>>> Anyone have anything like that you'd like to unload?
>>>
>>> Jerald Sheets
>>> Sent from my iPhone5
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Ale mailing listAle at ale.orghttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists athttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> James P. Kinney III
>> *
>> Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you
>> gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own
>> tail. It won't fatten the dog.
>> - Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
>>
>> http://electjimkinney.org
>> http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>>  *
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
>
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)
>
> Ron Frazier
> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
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>
>
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>
>

-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
*
*Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
*
http://electjimkinney.org
http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
*
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