Thx, got it. I’ll keep it in mind, but it might be a bit drastic yet.
Good move.
You may also want to talk to him about some basic online safety precautions he should be taking to avoid inadvertently downloading malware. Things like not clicking “Yes” to every dialogue box that comes up, setting your browser to not automatically download files, killing the browser in Task Manager rather than giving up and saying “Yes” if a site won’t accept “No”, that sort of thing. If they have a phone cable hooked into their computer (even if they’re not using dial-up), make sure he knows about dialer fraud. Make sure he knows about phishing and how to avoid it. If he’s allowed to bid on Ebay or other auction sites, tell him how to spot fraud, and what to do if it happens to him. Even computer-savvy people don’t always take the precautions they should to protect themselves from malware or fraud, or even know what precautions they ought to be taking in some cases. And there are far too many people out there, especially teenagers, who don’t understand that if something looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is.
The parents should try to create some sort of incentive for him to tell them right away if he thinks he’s downloaded something bad onto the computer- maybe he loses more privileges if they find something he downloaded onto the computer than if he tells them that he accidentally downloaded something. That will make it easier for them to catch malware early on.
If they’re not doing so already, the parents should be running a software firewall (I like ZoneAlarm free edition) and anti-virus software. ZoneAlarm will let you know if something is trying to access your computer, or if some malware has been installed and is trying to get to the internet without your knowledge. A hardware firewall (a router) would also be a good idea, if they’re not already using one. If they’re using Outlook or Outlook Express for e-mail, you might want to encourage them to try a different program, since so many viruses are designed to work with Outlook. Recommending a browser other than Internet Explorer might help, too- a non-IE browser with proper security settings can keep a lot of sites from trying to install garbage on your machine.
But that’s what we’re saying – you are going to have a heck of a problem enforcing it, given all the readily-available tools to fight censorship.
We’re not debating censorship; you’re right, that indeed does not belong in GQ.
But there won’t be any damage from most of these tools. You won’t even be able to tell at all that he has used them to get around your restrictions. If he just goes to www.StupidCensorship.com, and then types in a ‘forbidden’ URL there, it will redirect the forbidden information to him – it won’t damage anything, and how will you even detect that he’s done this?
I suppose using a keylogger would show this (assuming the parents have the time to read thru the big, unformatted log every night). But this will just encourage the kid to do his browsing elsewhere, at libraries or the homes of friends whose parents are less concerned. Is that the kind of friends you want him hanging out with?
You make this sound like a one-time, one-direction thing – more of a lecture. But what we’re saying is that this has to be a continuing process of communication & trust between the parents & child. That’s what appears to be lacking*, and can’t be replaced by mechanized restrictions or spy-stuff.
If you’re going to go ahead and do this anyway, I’d use a lot of Anne’s points. Sit down with the kid and explain that the Internet (like the world) includes many crooks & scam artists & immoral people, who will try to take advantage of him (& his parents). So you’re setting up security in the computer, to try to keep these bad people at bay. Go thru Anne’s precautions about online security risks, and how to avoid/respond to them.
If you really want to get him involved in this, you might consider saying to him that his parents don’t really understand computers & the internet like he does, and he needs to be the one in the family to watch out for all the scams & scumware out there, and protect their computer from that stuff. Make him the family “security officer”, responsible for keeping their virus-checker, ad-aware, etc. up to date, and for helping his parents out when they get the emails allegedly from ebay or paypal or the bank asking for private info to fix a reported problem. Get him involved on your side in this; it’ll be much more effective. Of course, if you’re trying to sneak this spy-stuff onto his computer without him knowing, this won’t work. And it also won’t work if the parent-child comunication has already broken down to the point where he sees this as a punishment inflicted on him.
I think what we’re really saying here is that the real problem is communication between the parents & child, and that is much more important than computer surveilance techniques. We’re hoping that you, as the uncle, can bring this to their attention.
(* Going entirely from the little bit posted here about the family, which isn’t really very much to go on. We may be quite inaccurate in these assumptions we’ve made about them. You know them, we don’t.)
I’d say that you are right that even blocks that he can get around are worth something. It takes a lot more effort to circumvent even the simple stuff than it does to simply surf the web to “bad” sites. Depending on how far along the battle has gotten it wouldn’t even have to have financial impact, he may just need this mental obstacle to make him think. So it is a worthwhile addition to the other items you said were being done.
But, as others said, if it is a full blown battle between parents and teenage boy about looking at pornography on the web… the parents are going to lose.
(I made the assumption that it was viewing pornography that was the problem, as we are dealing with the internet and a teenaged boy.)
Make sure he knows that what happens on the internet doesn’t always stay on the internet. Some examples:
People have been sued for sharing music and movie files on P2P.
Any personal information he posts on the internet can and probably will be used against him by somebody, online or offline. It might just be used to annoy him with spam, or someone might pick up enough information to stalk him, if he’s not careful.
Harassing or threatening someone on the internet can get you in trouble with your ISP, and possibly with the law.
Anything he posts anywhere on the internet is very likely to be publicly available for a very long time. It’s very unwise to post about things he’d rather certain people not know, or about illegal activities, such as using drugs. Anything he says now could come back to haunt him many years from now, for example if a prospective employer or girlfriend searches the internet for things he’s said or that have been said about him. Even if the place he posts is supposedly anonymous, or uses a pseudonym, there’s no guarantee that what he said won’t be traced back to him.
I would advise that all you really want is some reasonably foolproof logging of what he does. Then the parents’ job is to say “we will be monitoring the sites you go to. You know what kinds of sites you are not allowed to go to. If you go to inappropriate sites, we will talk to you about it, and if you continue breaking the rules, we will disable your network access as punishment. If you tamper with the computer to get around this, then <some severe punishment including complete loss of computer priveleges>.”
To apply the “no internet access” punishment, log on as an administrator, go to the “Network Connections” control panel, right click on the network connection and choose “disable”. All the caveats about clever 13-year-olds being able to circumvent this apply, but the parents need to be willing to say, “This is your punishment. If you figure out a way around it, you will be a very clever boy, but you will be a clever boy who is in big f’n trouble.”
If the parents ever find that their admin password has been changed, refer to “big f’n trouble” speech.
Whatever you tell him not to do, make sure he understands why he shouldn’t do it. Some teenagers, and I was one of them these many years ago, won’t listen if you just tell them to do something (or not to do something), but will listen and try their best to do it if you explain why they’re doing it. It also lets him save some face if there’s a power struggle between him and his parents- he’s not staying away from these sites because his parents told him to, he’s staying away from them because he doesn’t want to get malware on the computer and have to pay his uncle to remove it. That sort of thing is very important to some teenagers.
I agree with galt’s advice that the punishment if they catch him trying to circumvent the blocking should be serious, and should include loss of computer privileges. Make sure he also knows that something very serious will happen if he hacks into anyone else’s computer system like wonder9’s kid did.
Well, I can’t help much, but I can tell you how to restrict specific websites.
You need to open notepad and go to C:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers/etc and open hosts (file type should be “All Files”). Then press enter under the localhost entry, put in the IP 127.0.0.1, press tab and enter the website, then save.
EG
127.0.0.1 www.msn.com
That will block MSN.com
If you open your web browser and go to that website, it will not connect.
Note: This will block that website on all accounts, but if your blocking something like a porn website, you’re not going to go to that now are you? 
But the sheet amount of porn sites guarantees that most will not be blocked by the hosts file.
I commend to your attention Child Control 05 which we recently installed on a friend’s computer and will be installing on the computer currently under construction for a grandchild. It not only allows you to decide where and where not on the internet the kid can go, it generates a list of attempted sites so parents can check out the sites and either approve or disallow access. It also lets you decide when the computer can be accessed, for how long, and time periods for individual applications. For example, you can set it up so the computer can’t be used by certain logins during school hours, after school access to games and internet can be made contingent on use of educational programs and only for specified periods of time. It’s pretty cool, I have to admit.
Lots of good stuff already mentioned, but on the technical side I’d go further. Find an old PC - a basic Pentium will do - and set that up as a firewall and proxy server using something like Smoothwall, and block the ports used by the offending apps. Then network the two together. The parents can then browse the proxy server logs to see exactly where he’s been
If you can scrounge an old Windows 2000 Server license, you could lock him down significantly by using a domain structure and a mandatory profile. You may be able to do the same with Linux and Samba.
All interesting thoughts. Thanks everyone for their suggestions. Some I will take, some are great solutions, but too envolved.
As you may have gathered, most/all of the “good family” efforts are already underway, but they are looking for some tracking/filtering, as an addition.
We’re not in a big rush to do this, but I wanted some “home level” suggestions, as I’ve only done this sort of thing at a corporate level.
This thread wasn’t to debate the merits of different parenting approaches, but rather how to implement a specific need. Thanks to all that kept on topic and gave those great suggestions!