I’ve been looking around for this and so far have come up empty handed. My parents don’t want my sister downloading music (the illegal kind that is) due to recent news stories about 15 year olds getting caught with illegally acquired music. The only way to stop her from doing anything shes told not to on the computer, besides putting a lock on it or constantly monitoring her, is through software methods. So to keep this simple, are there any programs out there that just disable downloading off gnutella networks as well as other P2P networks? I’m not sure if theres a port that can just be disabled or if there is some sort of utility that will monitor this but I’m sure theres got to be something that will do the trick. One thing to mention is that this machine is running XP and that she has her own account set up here. Would I have to install the software on her account or could I just install it as an admin and be fine? Thanks in advance!
IMHO the pc should be in the living room. software deterrents are meant to be circumvented. placing the computer in a ‘public’ area will help deal with other problems too, such as spending 5+ hours on IRC.
Just so this doesn’t get out of hand…Lets focus more on the software options.
You could just set her account to a Restricted User in Control Panel->User Accounts. This will allow her to run programs and save documents, but not install new programs. Uninstall the P2P program and she won’t be able to install it again. The only downside is that she’ll need an Administrator or Power User to install legitimate programs for her.
Firewall with a password. Block off ports or programs from using the internet. Blocking specific ports will require a little investigation into the specific programs.
The other upshot to using a firewall is that it keeps your computer safe from worms and trojans.
I suggest Sygate Personal Firewall. Free, very configurable, password.
Still, you will have to do checks every so often to make sure she hasn’t found a work-around to any sort of software blocking. Given enough time, if she can’t disable any controls you place on her, she is too stupid to be let on to the internet. Any blocking software or various admin schemes only buy you time, and make things a bit more difficult for her.