[ale] Making kids stop being entitled slackers with free software

[JD]

I thought DDWRT had per-MAC time controls. Easily spoofed, but if your kid
learns how to do that (good thing) AND you allow the privilege for it to be
possible, then it is your fault. I hven't looked at the router settings in
months - but google showed a screen that had per-MAC settings.

Any proxy will mess with gaming network performance. Game consoles might not
like having any proxy at all, if that is a consideration. I dunno.

Xen has issues that make it less than ideal to use on any desktop.


On 03/04/2014 11:14 PM, Dustin Strickland wrote:
> I thought about it(my router is running DD-WRT), but I decided against
> it. If he wanted to get online while everyone's asleep, nothing would
> be stopping him from using my main workstation or one of the laptops
> which I can't block for various reasons. I run a DDNS client, web server
> and ssh server on the workstation, all of which need constant network
> access(server-0 is a bit of a cripple so migrating these services would
> be an issue). It would be really easy to set up DD-WRT's time-based
> controls, definitely, but I require something that can be fine-tuned
> a bit more, as well as some sort of per-machine override in the event
> that someone who's not him wants to get on the internet after-hours or
> while he's not meeting his work quota.
> 
> On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 22:57:19 -0500
> JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:
> 
>> Many routers have access time controls - tomato and dd-wrt definitely
>> do. Seems much easier, though squid setup as a transparent proxy AND
>> blocking DNS to all clients would be fun too.
>>
>> On 03/04/2014 10:26 PM, Dustin Strickland wrote:
>>> So, my (much)younger brother is doing middle school online. As kids
>>> his age do, he has issues with motivating himself to do anything
>>> other than play video games, think about playing video games, watch
>>> Youtube commentators play video games, or munching on unhealthy
>>> food that he will never be able to work off if he continues his
>>> daily routine(while talking about video games).
>>>
>>> I think I have a solution, but I would like ALE's opinion on the
>>> best way to implement it. Here is a simple map of my home
>>> network(using generic names, of course):
>>> http://s29.postimg.org/fgrszgq4n/network_map.png
>>>
>>> My goal is simple: Unless he does a set amount of work each weekday
>>> when scheduled, the network will lock down to prevent him from doing
>>> anything else. Also, the network will lock down at 9 PM(10:30 on
>>> weekends) and unlock at 6 AM. There will be an override
>>> method for everyone else. His X session will also be suspended at
>>> these times on his main machine(he uses Steam), and ideally all
>>> game consoles would refuse to boot as well. If Microsoft were nice,
>>> they would allow you to remotely change the parental controls PIN
>>> and settings for the Xbox 360 remotely so that I could automate
>>> this job, but they have an extensive history of making gimmicky
>>> products that are barely usable if you need flexibility, so it is
>>> to be expected that they don't.
>>>
>>> After getting my feet wet in the field with a quick Google search,
>>> I'm thinking that I want to use Squid. I'm probably going to
>>> install Xen on his main machine, workstation-0, and have a PV domU
>>> take care of everything. Do you guys approaching this the right
>>> way(from a technical standpoint I mean, I really don't care what
>>> you think about the ethics of it), and is there any other software
>>> you would recommend for this purpose?
>>> _________________