[vox][OT response] Article: A parent's guide to Linux Web filtering

[Micah J. Cowan]

On Fri, Jul 02, 2004 at 02:46:17PM -0700, Shwaine wrote:

> Well, you could always drop an unroutable sniffer (no IP address, snip the
> transmit wires, etc... think setting up a Snort box) on the house LAN.
> Lock it up somewhere that the kid can't access (unless they take up lock
> picking, which is a whole other subject). Have it record all web site
> visits, etc that you want to monitor. Perhaps have it set up to dump the
> logs to some removable media every hour or so. Then you could take the
> disk to your workstation to process the logs.
> 
> This is of course a rather paranoid approach that I would probably rather
> use to monitor all the computers in the house for worm/spyware/etc
> activity rather than to monitor what the kid is doing. I think the OP has
> the right idea about having honest (age-appropriate of course)
> conversations with the kid about such things. You have to give kids
> boundaries, but you don't need to use the electric fence approach at the
> borders. In fact, being too strict without an explained context (and even
> with it sometimes) really does often backfire in kids who are old enough
> to regulate their own activities. It makes it seem like you don't trust
> them to be responsible so you put up "spy" software. Being a person whose
> parents trusted me to act responsibly as a teen, I can tell you I was far
> better adjusted throughout high school and adult life than several of my
> peers whose parents micro-managed them.

I believe I said something similar to this in my first post, as well.

> Hey, and if you do the worms/spyware monitoring approach, you could make
> it a family project. Teach the kid a little bit about security and sys
> admining while setting up the box. If you start young with the "worms are
> bad, but here's a machine if you want to fiddle" approach, your kid will
> be more likely to be a true hacker in the non-media warped context sense
> and less likely to be a script kiddie. When I was a kid, my dad brought
> home a machine and said "you put it together". He also showed me how to
> make DOS boot menus, use hex editors, brought home an old set of spiral
> bound manuals from some Unix flavor (can't remember which) and so on.

Mucho kewl.

-- 
Micah J. Cowan
micah at cowan.name