Help - Parental controls - block Wi Fi
 

Leave it to me as the good parent, I have established parental controls on my kids computers and blocked sites that are not trusted. Now is where it gets tricky.

I can limit internet time with my router, but someone in my neighbrhood has an unsecure router that has great signal in my house. I have looked at ways of preventing the kids PC's from connecting to other networks/routers but just can't seem to find a good solution.

Any ides?

My goal is to have ONLY my router as the ONE the PC's can connect to.

Time to find the neighbors. See if you can "hack" into their router or PC to find out who they are. If their router uses PPOE to access the internet, it should be easy to find out who it is. You can then help them secure their network.

that's a good idea, if they have remote admin enabled then I guess I could possibly gain access to the router.

ok I connected to the router and all I am able to do is see what type it is...Linksys WRT546 and through it's IP I get nothing, so I think remote admin is disabled.
How can I get an ID with PPOE?

Well, I on my Linksys router that connects us to ATT, I need to connect via PPOE which requires my e-mail address. That's on the main Setup screen.

If they use DHCP, then you won't see an e-mail address. Then look for a Status tab, go to Local Network and then click on DHCP table. See if any of the PCs listed there have an identifying name, like BillyBob's PC. I am assuming their UI is the same. You can also see any IP addresses connected to their router. Try to log in one of those PCs. Not exactly appropriate, but in the end you would be helping them out in securing their router.

If you are connected to the router, go to 192.168.1.1 to log in. Default password for Linksys routers is admin... so type admin for both the user and the password. Can you get in?

that was what I attempted before, without remote turned on I would need to be on a ethernet cable to do this.

As for network PC's...only the router is visible.

How old are the kids and how likely are they to try and connect to the other router?

This is what I can get from the router.

Connection-specific DNS Suffix: hosts.bc1.bresnan.net
Description: Atheros AR5005G Wireless Network Adapter
Physical Address: 00-19-7D-63-E6-56
DHCP Enabled: Yes
IPv4 IP Address: 192.168.1.101
IPv4 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained: Saturday, January 12, 2008 4:44:17 PM
Lease Expires: Monday, January 14, 2008 10:35:54 AM
IPv4 Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
IPv4 DHCP Server: 192.168.1.1
IPv4 DNS Servers: 69.145.248.50, 69.145.232.4, 69.145.248.4
IPv4 WINS Server:
NetBIOS over Tcpip Enabled: Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address: fe80::83d:6338:c79d:d8bd%9
IPv6 Default Gateway:
IPv6 DNS Server:

three of them are in High School and very likely to connect to it, they get a kick out of it walking around the neighborhood with PSP's doing exactly that.

I trust them to do the right thing, yet when I want to put down the hammer and take the privlege away I need to know that my router is the only one they can connect through.

These are all Vista machines...is there a way to prevent new connections?

You need to talk to your kids. There is nothing you can do if you believe that your children will do whatever they can to sidestep your efforts for controlling their access. If you locked down my Vista machine, I would simply boot from a LiveCD Linux distro and surf the net for whatever porn I could find.

Now, you need to realize that it is not illegal for one of your neighbors to operate an open (unsecured) access point. However, it is illegal for you to try to connect to their router and attempt to gain information about them. (PPOE, email address, etc.)

If you are really worried about you neighbors open AP, install NetStumbler on your laptop and talk a walk around your neighborhood. Based upon signal strength, you will easily be able to tell where the open APs are located. Then, you can politely approach your neighbors and have a conversation about helping them secure their network.

You can use Group Policies to prevent them from connecting to other networks.

[QUOTE=Paul_Heery;3701812]You need to talk to your kids. There is nothing you can do if you believe that your children will do whatever they can to sidestep your efforts for controlling their access. If you locked down my Vista machine, I would simply boot from a LiveCD Linux distro and surf the net for whatever porn I could find.

+1
Were there is a will there is a way.

You can never outsmart the hormones of a teenager.

ha ha I agree the teenagers will win every time. I have had a good talk with them so time will tell. As for a boot CD, I set their PC's up so it does not boot from CD and password protected the BIOS.

Are you still on your network or theirs?

As in did you disconnect from yours and specifically connect to theirs?

Seems odd that the network would be both open and have remote turned off.

Anywho, If you can manage to get into their admin just block the the MAC address (Media Access Address, nothing to do with Apple) of your kids computers from being allowed to join. Look for MAC Filtering.

You can lock down their rights to the local PC so that they can even get into the control panel or run the associated applications. That would be easiest I think.

The very first rule for family Internet usage is that computers should only be used in common areas with monitors facing into that common area. Laptops obviously make that much more difficult.

As for the Linux Boot CD, I'd put that in the category of l33t sp34|(. If they are using elite speak and linux, you've already lost the battle.

That is how I have them controlled on my router, Mac filter only allows them on a small portion of the day...that's when the neighbors router becomes an issue since their PC's conect to it. I did go in and delete it's settings from the managed networks but I am sure once my router is unavailable the PC's will search it out and connect.

Set your kids boxes to use Static IP's, assign the statics on your router then lock CP access.

If you can keep them locked to static then they can't pick up a Dynamic address from another router.

great idea...seems simple enough and just might work!

Only if you pick a "non-standard" IP range for your network and your router.

Pick something like 192.168.111 as your range (if you can) and change your router to something other than the default .1

Otherwise, if the other network has the same defaults as you do, odds are pretty good that your static IP will also work for them there as well.

Slight Hijack Smitty - sorry.

What do you do to limit their access to the wily intArw3bs? I'm struggling with this myself as I have an industrious 8YO who has no qualms about typing in "pimp my ride" at the google prompt. :eek:

I would like an entire network based solution, not a single client based one - that way I don't have to worry if he's on my laptop vs. his machine, or my wife's for that matter.

The best I've come up with is setting up a proxy with firewall - and then find/pay for blacklists; similar to what businesses do... I'm not crazy about that idea however due to the maintenance and hassle of keeping it running.

I've played around with "glubble" which is too restrictive - but heading in the right direction...

Try K9.

You'll need to install on individual machines but it's free for home use and a good product.

http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

Good one, it depends on how much money you want to spend, you can get good access points that will sort of DOS the other signals, but then you aren't being a good neighbour ;)
You can find them easy by the signal even something like WiFiFoFum on a PDA will allow you to track to the location. My neighbours have a wide open linksys as well, but it's very useful for testing my perimeter :D

Like others have said, you can lock down the PC's with policies as long as your kids haven't already installed keystroke loggers.

Good Luck

K9 works well.

Check out the Phantom iBoss too. Its a "firewall" of sorts with all kinds of content controls.

Here is the link: http://www.iphantom.com/residentialProduct.html

If you're using Windows XP you can restrict their accounts so that they cannot adjust the network settings. Without those abilities they can't connect to 'rogue' access-points. Then I would try to find out who owned it and discuss the ramifications of it with them. Technically you could call the police and have them talk to them about providing porn to children. I realize that may be considered a bit over the top; but still. Kids generally speaking should not have access to internet porn. Leaving your playboys about is probably okay though.

Careful logging on to other people's routers. I believe that is illegal, even if they haven't secured them.

For web content filtering, try Dan's Guardian. It is FOSS, and it will run on minimal hardware. However, you will still need to pay for a blacklist subscription.

You may as well handle it through discussion, because if they want to get connected, they will.

Reminds me of a time when we were little. My friend's parents had a cable box with a PADLOCKED switch on it that, when locked, would not allow us to see porn. Talk about archaic!

So anyhow, there we are, trying to use paperclips to unlock the thing. Easily tried for a few hours (hey, we were 12 and wanted to see boobies). No luck. His 9 year old brother happened to walk by. He comes in, asks for the paperclip. He went to work for about 5 seconds and CLICK- off came the lock. The little ba$tard had spent something like a year perfecting his lock-picking techniques. We allowed him to hang out with us that day, and watched boobies.

Where there is a will...

Can someone please post the blacklist? I am bored with my current porn sites. ;)