[ale] Old host you want to unload?

Wolf Halton wolf.halton at gmail.com
Mon Jul 22 20:25:03 EDT 2013


I raised 2 kids and the only control I put on their kid-puter was básic
Windows users with no install privileges.
The one time my darlin daughter hit a porn site, she was searching for girl
scout cookies. She was shook up and really learned ad-aware, ccleaner and
all the other malware removers then.

Digital nannies remove chances for learning experiences.

Wolf Halton
--
http://wolfhalton.info
Apache developer:
wolfhalton at apache.org
On Jul 15, 2013 10:20 AM, "Jerald Sheets" <questy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok, I'm at a desk and not on a phone.
>
>
> Let's sort of set the stage, if you will, to clarify a few things.
>
> First, I've raised two boys into their 20's and done this all before.
> Second, I've got a metric crapload of snort processing scripts I've
> written that watch for all manner of icky URL matches on "requested sites"
> and also on Squid's logs to do the same.  I took the stance with the boys
> of "trust but verify" which is a very "apple-storeish" thing to do.  I had
> transgressions once by each boy that got addressed personally and quietly
> and have managed (aside from the occasional pop-up storm) to keep them
> "porn free" if you will as long as they've been under my roof.  Anything
> they've managed outside of the house is beyond the scope of my purview, of
> course, but they pay for their own phones now… I can't "control" their
> intake forever.
>
> Now I'm on "kids 2.0" with my second wife, and they're all girls and at
> ages 3, 6, and 10.  The 10 year old has an internet-capable device,  so,
> I'm putting the same system back in place with the same scripts and logging
> and automated emails and such.  However, their mother wants the added
> protection of content filtering for a couple of years until "aunt flo"
> arrives and she can halve "talk 1.0" with her, but also wanting to know *what
> *was requested and by what mechanism.  Ipcop to the rescue again…you can
> say "no" via automated system, but it's considerably more important to know
> what is being asked for and how.  Was it typed in?  Why is the child
> interested in that particular topic?  (etc. etc.)
>
> Also, having all these folks on the network at home while "mom & dad" work
> from home a lot requires packet-shaping of the Xbox and Rou down and web
> traffic/SSH up.  Also, when on the road, I need to be able to VPN into my
> private network from anywhere to do something even so small as printing a
> doc for my wife all the way to rooting around my internal net for various
> reasons.  (i.e., you can't hit the time machine from the outside)
>
> So, a smallish box with modest means to run a couple hundred meg distro
> for firewalling seemed to be the way to go for us… that's why I asked.
>
>
> TL;DR.  (I've done this before.. I just need hardware)
>
> Something else on the topic…. I re-read and it appeared I was *only*
> asking for "free" stuff… I'm not. If you've got something hogging space and
> you're under a "nag order" to get rid of it, please do think of me first.
>  And if it requires a few bucks, that's good too.  I just wanted to work
> with you guys who may need a few bucks first before giving that cash to
> $company making cheap crap in China.  I'd rather buy the cheap crap from
> you instead.  XD
>
>
> --j
>
>
> On Jul 15, 2013, at 8:52 AM, Tom Freeman <tfreeman at intel.digichem.net>
> wrote:
>
> Please forgive the chime in - but...
>
> +1  with an observation of sorts
>
> A parent still needs to monitor sufficiently to catch a usuable per
> centage (what ever that value is) to ensure that the conversation takes
> place. (I caught a daughter sneaking a viewing of "Flesh Gordon" from a
> copy her late mother gave me. _That_ was an awkward conversation!)
>
>
> On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, Jim Kinney wrote:
>
> 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
> anyth
> ing 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 list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> --
> --
> 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/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20130722/5c8e9582/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the Ale mailing list