Triple X

Yesterday, some big news happened in the world of Parental Controls. There was a new domain suffix approved for .xxx

This means that pornography sites can now choose to use porn.xxx instead of porn.com. This sounds like great news for parental control software because parents can easily block *.xxx and be safe, right?

However, the key problem with this solution is that there is no legislation to enforce this. Businesses which have an established business will keep their .com addresses (Playboy will still be Playboy.com)

The second, and bigger problem with this is that it gives a false sense of security for parents. Because even if a parent were to block all .xxx domains, it is trivial to discover what the actual address of a domain is. So even if a parent were to block playboy.com, their child could still visit 216.163.137.68

In the end, the new .xxx domain means very little for parental controls.

Rules

This week I heard Rosalind Wiseman detail her family's Family Internet Policy.

Technology can be really fun to use, and it gives us incredible access to the world, but it is a privilege not a right, and because it is a privilege, you have the responsibility to use it ethically. What using technology ethically looks like to me is that you never use it to humiliate, embarrass ... or misrepresent yourself or someone else, never use a password without the person's permission, never share embarrassing information or photos of others, put someone down, or compromise yourself by sending pictures of yourself naked, half-naked or in your underwear. Remember that it is so easy for things to get out of control. You know it, I know it. So I reserve the right to check your online life, from texting to your Facebook page, and if I see that you're violating the terms of our agreement, I'll take your technology away until you can earn my trust back. This is my unbreakable, unshakeable law."

~ Rosalind Wiseman

How about your family? Do you have a Family Internet Policy?

The iPod Touch

This week marked a monumental move by Apple. They banned over 5,000 "overtly sexual" apps from the app store. These apps were making money for Apple and developers and this decision was not based on finances.

However, dear reader, there is something you should know about the iPod Touch. This machine is more than an iPod. It can play music, but you need to know that when it is in the vicinity of any wi-fi hotspot, this machine is as powerful as most laptop computers. It can browse any part of the internet. It can connect to youtube, facebook, twitter, myspace, instant messaging clients, etc.

The iPod Touch can even act as a cell phone with apps such as Skype and Fring. This is a powerful computer.

There are parental controls which are built into the iPhone and iPod Touch operating system. These are accessed by going to Settings | General | Restrictions. Until I write my own version, I would like to point you to this easy guide by Suren Ramasubbu

quote

“The battle to one-up each other in parental controls is only going to benefit consumers,” said Chris Swenson, director of software industry analysis at the research firm the NPD Group. “There’s really no excuse now for parents not to lock down their PCs for their children.”

Walter S. Mossberg, You Have Weapons in Your Computer to Monitor Your Kids, Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2007, at B1.

Dad, It's Not Working!

Mac OS X 10.5+ (Leopard and Snow Leopard)

The Problem
Every couple of months my first-rate detective son will yell, "DAD, The Parental Controls aren't working again!"

This problem manifests itself in several fairly obvious ways.
1. Safari will allow any website.
2. Time Limits are not obeyed.
3. Application restrictions are not obeyed.
etc.

Basically the kid's account behaves as though it has no parental controls.

The Solution
Reboot holding down the X key.

This will force the OS to rebuild the kernel. I was told that the OS automatically does this every month or so, but sometimes it needs to be forced.

It took me approximately 2 hours on the phone with Apple Geniuses before we got to this solution, but I have now used it four times and it works like a charm. It has occurred on both my MacBook and the Mac Minis.

Printer Fix (Mac OSX)

In a previous post, I detailed how to remove the control of adding printers from the kids accounts. This works out fine until you need to print something from your own account. When a printer is added to system preferences it is added for all users. Leaving the kids free to print out more coloring pages from pbs.org's Super Why. This explains the mystery of why, after removing all the printers, my kids are still able to print.

Never fear, readers, I shall now present to you the penultimate solution to this problem. The first step is to make sure you have a separate account for the kids (System Preferences, Accounts). Make sure you remember what shortname you assign to the kids account.

There is a secret magic hidden and powerful set of options for your printer driver.

Open Safari, make sure the coast is clear, and navigate to the secret address:

http://localhost:631

This page may require a login. If so, use the administrator's shortname.
Once logged in, you should see a screen like this:


Click the Administration tab and then Manage Printers.


This should present a list of all printers which can be accessed by this computer.
Click on the printer you wish to restrict.
Then choose "Set Allowed Users" from the Administration drop-down menu.

Now for the final step. Allow only a set of users to print, or disallow certain accounts from printing. This requires the use of shortnames. If multiple shortnames are desired, separate them with a comma as you can see below.


Once you click the Set Allowed Users button, these accounts will no longer be able to print.

Done.
(for real this time.)

These options are on a per-computer basis, not a per-printer basis. So if there are two macs, both will need to have the options set.

Some Links

I have recently learned of some wonderful resources for parents. So let me hit you with a slew of links.

Yahoo! has some very in-depth sites to help parents.
This is their family site. which covers many issues parents face regarding technology. Their experts blog is useful too.

Somewhat related is Yahoo's security page which covers virus software and other security issues. They have a specific article regarding kids here as well.

NetFamilyNews
I have also recently found myself hanging on every word from Anne Collier's excellent blog. I cannot say enough about this blog. She raises some very interesting questions about the social web (myspace, facebook, etc.) and kids.

Downloadable Book
Also, here is a very comprehensive and free guide to parental controls

Software listing
This is a very comprehensive list of parental control software. The rest of the web site has some very useful information.

MacWorld
These three articles are fairly well written.
One
Two
Three