[Novalug] limiting web email access

[Nicholas Brenckle]

We all know there are ways around any lock, and we've probably had to bypass
a few ourselves from time to time. So I agree with Kevins comments below,
that you need to talk with your kids and watch what they do.

BUT, that doesn't mean you should leave the gates open and hope they follow
the rules :-) Here at work we use DansGuardian which works fairly well. Our
blacklists are old and we are always find there are newer ways to find bad
material in what you wouldn't think would be a place for it.

Im dying to try Censornet (http://www.censornet.com/)  and its "intelligent
image analyzer" which I swear it claimed at one point did something with
fleshtones.


On 4/19/07, Kevin Dwyer <kevin at pheared.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 11:51:32PM -0400, C Megan Larko wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I had an interestng discussion with another linux person at my church
> > this evening.   He said that he is looking for a way in which to limit
> > internet access at his home to web email preferences.
>
> While I think there may be limited technical ways to accomplish this, I
> don't think any of them are foolproof.  The adversaries, in this case
> preteens, will have plenty of time to probe and figure out a way around
> the blocks, if they are so motivated.  Your only safe bet is to block
> all sites and make available only a select few.
>
> I would advocate a different approach entirely.  First, if the kids are
> going to be using the computer, they need to be educated about what to
> do and what not to do.  It's really no different from the "don't talk to
> strangers" kind of education but tailored for the Internet.  Secondly,
> since they are still pretty young, they don't need private access to the
> computer.  By setting up the computer in a public location, you can make
> it a family issue if one of them is approached or reaches inapproprate
> content.  If for some reason the kids are suspected of breaching this
> trust, it's pretty easy to A) prove it by logging[1] and B) revoke
> privileges if necessary.
>
> -kpd
>
> [1]: See squid, iptables.  You might need something else to save/peek
> into the content of the traffic though.  The least common denominator
> would be tcpdump, but you'd want something a little less hammer-like.
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