Anyone use Net Nanny or similar?
 

My 12yo son's been looking at porn (actually it was pretty tame) and apparently there's something wrong with that so the wife's telling me to set up something. Net Nanny is the only software I've heard about. Anyone know if it works or if there's something better.

Move the computer out of his room and into the living room or similar "public" place. With the monitor facing out.

Or, if he needs it in his room to do work with, cut the internet cable.

Don't forget that with netnanny, etc. its on the local machine - so booting with a live CD it would bypass it completely and you'll never know....

Most child experts now are saying that kids should not have a computer in their room at all. It should be in an open area where they can easily be observed. This is really a safety issue with child predators, but I doubt he would be surfing porn in an open area either...

We have all off our computers in the den and all monitors face the room and we are all on the PC together. There is no substitute for supervision... no technology can replace parental (or adult) supervision.

"Son, I know your growing up and learning all kinds of new ideas, but there are a few important things you need to know, and stay away from.......there is plenty of time for that when you get older.......you will thank me later on....."

His computer is in a common room facing out and we've had the talk about what's appropiate, but sometimes he's on it when nobody's watching and that's probably not going to change. He's a really good kid, but if he's anything like I was, he's a bit sneaky.

I did some searching and it looks like Net Nanny is old school and doesn't have the features of other programs.

What happened to the good old days when a kid had to dig through apartment dumpsters to find porn?

Ahh, growing up in a college town with all those frats...

In that case you'll be wanting a transparent proxy for his IP address (set up something like nocatauth http://sourceforge.net/projects/nocatauth/ - and on his ips run all outbound to 80 or 443 thru a transparent proxy that denies everything and then you enter a whitelist of sites he is allowed to visit. You'll also want to restrict all other incoming /outgoing traffic to keep him from learning the ways around this stuff.

I feel sorry for mom doing laundry with all those stiff socks :)

Seriously, you can either use the computers or your routers firewall/filtering service and tighten up the serurity/filters on the browser. Has he figured our how to clear the history and delete the cache yet? Could indicate how sly he's trying to be..

So is he allowed in OT on Pelican ??

Guy at work uses this. He has found some interesting things about his daughter.

http://www.big-brother-spy-software.com/

You cant kick the little man down a few Penthouses and tell him not to let his mother find them?

Thats what my dad did when I was 13

Nothing wrong with a young man seeing pictures of a naked woman.

But there are some dark corners of the internet, and there are some things labeled as porn that are pretty disgusting.

I think the playboy/penthouse idea may not be all that crazy......then install net nanny. Gotta tell you though, kids are smart. There are always ways to bypass locally installed software.

Microsoft's new OS Vista is supposed to have all types of security bells and whistles. You can select which websites they are allowed to visit. Also, you can setup an account just for your son and the OS will send you a report as to which sites he visited and which sites he tried to visit. It may be a good idea if you're really concerned.

Back when I was a kid there was not internet porn. Thanks for good old fashioned cable television on public access. Shows like Al Goldstein and Ugly George were great.

I got a free copy of Computer Associates PureSight from Time Warner Cable. I installed it on the family computer and it seems to block adult material. It also filters about a dozen other categories.

I agree with kids not having computers in their room. However, there may be times when yu are not right there to supervise. The technology may fill the gap when you are in the yard or on the deck.

I've got Time Warner, so I'll try their software first, thanks.

Well, the oldest is close to 12, and my weekly check of the browser history (I knew this day wasn't too far away), shows that it's time to join the parental control club.

Man, things are different than the old days. I wouldn't care if he dumpster dove for a few treasured girly mags, but the internet is many levels beyond good clean fun.

so, what's the latest in parental control software? Anything decent that is free? For my opening salvo, I don't need anything super sophisticated, the kids aren't very computer savvy at this time.

i think it was naughty nanny and they took liberties with my credit card after i had quit them. same service?

OpenDNS will allow you to easily set up filters to block content and it's free.

Here's how.

Man when I was younger all we had was dialup.... Porn took too long to load... Didn't even bother....