Simple Way To Watch Over Kids On The Internet ? ? ?

[Paul Ber]

It seems to me, if one could password lock the History
folder so that there would be no way of deleting anything
from it; a parent could sit down at the computer in the
evening and check every site their children had gone to
during the day.

If bad site had be gone to, then the parent could tell
Johnny, if he continues to go to bad sites, he will be off
the Internet.

Seems simple to me. Can this be done so the child can't
wipe out the History folder ?

Paul Ber

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

It would be best to become proactive and install a
good Internet Security program with parental
controls.

Example:
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=is&pvid=nis2006

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------------

:

| It seems to me, if one could password lock the History
| folder so that there would be no way of deleting anything
| from it; a parent could sit down at the computer in the
| evening and check every site their children had gone to
| during the day.
|
| If bad site had be gone to, then the parent could tell
| Johnny, if he continues to go to bad sites, he will be off
| the Internet.
|
| Seems simple to me. Can this be done so the child can't
| wipe out the History folder ?
|
| Paul Ber

 

[Paul Ber]

I appreciate your answer, but that's not what I asked.
Do you know if the History folder can be password locked ?

 

[Alias]

I appreciate your answer, but that's not what I asked.
Do you know if the History folder can be password locked ?

Ever consider talking to your children rather than playing cloak and
dagger games with them? They will always win.

Alias

 

[Paul Ber]

Talking to kids is fine, but they still get curious and do things you tell
them not to do, so you always have to have a way to check up on
them. If you think you can just talk to them and everything is going
to be ok, you've got your head in the clouds. Sorry.
You must check on them even though you talk to them every day.
It would be great if the Clear History button in IE were gone and
the History folder could be password locked. No need to spend
money for software that no one can tell me is 100% perfect. 2 or
3 times a week, you can read what's in the History folder, and if
Johnny has gone somewhere he's not suspose to, then you can
cut him off the internet for whatever period you consider a reasonable
time as punishment. And if he still goes to bad places, cut him off
forever. SIMPLE

 

[BillW]

Paul,

Your concern is extremely valid. I am of the age that I now discuss
concerns such as yours with my daughter about my granddaughter's baby
sitters and what can she do when my granddaughter is of the age that she can
use a computer and use the internet. If I had school age children at home,
I would take every measure and use every tool to make sure that they not
fall into the hands of a predator. This is nothing to play with and Polly
Ana statements that all you have to do is talk to your kids is not
responsible. It's your responsibility to protect your kids and that's what
you're trying to do. "Do not speak to strangers" is not enough. These
people that prey on your kids are the best at what they do and we have to
protect our children from this scum.

There are several good monitors that you can run on your computer. One we
have used at the office is Spector Pro (product name). Do a Google search
and go to the Spector Pro site and read about it's functionality. It costs
about $100, but it's an investment that falls in to the category of seat
belts, door locks, etc. I feel that it's a requirement in this day and age.
The software is not detectable and will show you the websites that were
visited, key strokes, IM discussions, etc. I think it's important to use
the best tool possible and the History folder (whether you can lock it or
not) is not the best tool.

Good luck and congratulations on an effort to protect your children. By all
means don't be concerned about invasion of their privacy or a concern that
they might do something that you would not approve of. This is not an issue
of communications - this is a father being responsible and protecting his
family. Again, good job and follow through with what you're trying to do.

Bill

 

[Alias]

Talking to kids is fine, but they still get curious and do things you tell
them not to do, so you always have to have a way to check up on
them. If you think you can just talk to them and everything is going
to be ok, you've got your head in the clouds. Sorry.
You must check on them even though you talk to them every day.
It would be great if the Clear History button in IE were gone and
the History folder could be password locked. No need to spend
money for software that no one can tell me is 100% perfect. 2 or
3 times a week, you can read what's in the History folder, and if
Johnny has gone somewhere he's not suspose to, then you can
cut him off the internet for whatever period you consider a reasonable
time as punishment. And if he still goes to bad places, cut him off
forever. SIMPLE

Apparently I have a different relationship with my children than you do.
Clearing out the history, cache and cookies is good housecleaning.
Johnny should get a gold star. Teach him how to run AdAware, the virus
scanner and Spybot to complete the package and then give him a platinum
star.

Maybe Johnny doesn't consider it any of your business where he's been in
cyber space.

Alias

 

[Lem]

Talking to kids is fine, but they still get curious and do things you tell
them not to do, so you always have to have a way to check up on
them. If you think you can just talk to them and everything is going
to be ok, you've got your head in the clouds. Sorry.
You must check on them even though you talk to them every day.
It would be great if the Clear History button in IE were gone and
the History folder could be password locked. No need to spend
money for software that no one can tell me is 100% perfect. 2 or
3 times a week, you can read what's in the History folder, and if
Johnny has gone somewhere he's not suspose to, then you can
cut him off the internet for whatever period you consider a reasonable
time as punishment. And if he still goes to bad places, cut him off
forever. SIMPLE

I don't know how myself, but I'm 99 44/100% sure that something like this can be done with gpedit.
On my work computer, for example, the sysadmin has locked out a whole variety of "Internet Optons,"
including setting the home page, the entire "connections" tab, and the security settings (but not
the "Clear History" button).

Try asking your question in microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin or
microsoft.public.windowsxp.configuration_manage

Of course, merely locking out "clear history" might not prevent a knowledgeable person (and kids can
become very motivated to become very knowledgeable about computers) from deleting the history file
manually. Without thinking about it very much, it seems to me as if you need to give a user, even a
limited user, read/write access to the IE history folder or IE won't work very well.

Or get a commercial app like Net Nanny. I've never used these, but I understand that they typically
generate activity logs, in addition to actually blocking "bad" sites. If you'd rather see if your
kids are following your advice/rules rather than simply presenting them with a locked door, you can
probably set NN or the like to permit access to most sites while still logging.

 

[Leythos]

Maybe Johnny doesn't consider it any of your business where he's been in
cyber space.

As a minor he has no expectation of privacy, he's under his parents
control until he's considered an Adult.

The parents of the Columbine kids thought they knew what their kids were
doing too - it's always best to make sure you know what your kids are
doing.

 

[Paul Ber]

I'm going to make this the last post. You MVP's out there that have more
clout that people like me with Microsoft. You should go to Bill G and say;
You can become the Good Guy of The World. Just get rid of the Delete
Button in IE (for History), and make the History folder password lockable,
and every parent will make Bill their God Father to their children.

No cost, no peaking over their shoulder, no having to put the computer out
in an open space, no nothing. Again, no software is bulletproof. If a
parent
buys your $100 item, they are likely to get passive and never check their
kids,
thinking the software is blocking everything. Not true. Parents need to
check.
And it should be simple and free.

Just check the History folder 2 or 3 times a week and cut the kid off if he
goes to a bad place. This is what I did with my son from the age of 8 to
18.
After that I stopped checking because he went off to college.
Guess what, he never went to bad places once he knew I could check up on
him and he knew I was doing it. That's what parents need to do.

Paul Ber

 

[Rhonda Lea Kirk]

Talking to kids is fine, but they still get curious and do things you
tell them not to do, so you always have to have a way to check up on
them. If you think you can just talk to them and everything is going
to be ok, you've got your head in the clouds. Sorry.

I think Alias is right and you are wrong.

If you start talking to your kids early--about everything--they will
keep you informed of their activities. And if you realize that part of
becoming an individual and an adult is experimentation, you'll perhaps
be a little less heavy-handed in your approach, i.e., instead of "If you
don't stay off bad sites, I'm taking the computer away," try "Let's talk
about what you saw on Ogrish this afternoon."

If you play cat and mouse games with your kids, they will become ever
more clever and more devious mice.

My daughter is 21. I wouldn't do everything she does, but she does
nothing that does not meet with my approval, because her core values are
good. And she's not afraid to talk with me about anything.

Good luck figuring out how to spy on your children.

rl

 

[Rhonda Lea Kirk]

I'm going to make this the last post. You MVP's out there that have
more clout that people like me with Microsoft. You should go to Bill
G and say; You can become the Good Guy of The World. Just get rid of
the Delete Button in IE (for History), and make the History folder
password lockable, and every parent will make Bill their God Father
to their children.

Not every parent.

Just the control freaks.

rl

 

[Rhonda Lea Kirk]

As a minor he has no expectation of privacy, he's under his parents
control until he's considered an Adult.

To some extent this is true. But there are laws to inhibit parents who
believe they are God.

Fortunately.

The parents of the Columbine kids thought they knew what their kids
were doing too - it's always best to make sure you know what your
kids are doing.

Do you understand what a fallacy is? Because you just went right down
the old slippery slope. Among other things.

If this is what you believe about childrearing, please don't have
children. There are enough kids in the world who are totally screwed up
by control-freak parents, and we don't need more.

rl

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

If it could, don't you know that any kid can search
the internet for a password hack and foil it?
Like I suggested before, consider purchasing a
good internet security program!

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------------

:

| I appreciate your answer, but that's not what I asked.
| Do you know if the History folder can be password locked ?

 

[Leythos]

To some extent this is true. But there are laws to inhibit parents who
believe they are God.

Fortunately.

No, my kids have any rights I give them, that's it, nothing else. You
can take that as you want, but don't go over the deep end in how you
interpret it.

Do you understand what a fallacy is? Because you just went right down
the old slippery slope. Among other things.

No, I'm just not of the mind that parents should just "believe" their
kids are good, that their kids will do as they've been taught, will
always do the right thing - I'm not foolish enough to believe it.

If this is what you believe about childrearing, please don't have
children. There are enough kids in the world who are totally screwed up
by control-freak parents, and we don't need more.

I have three great kids, always good, always doing the "right" thing,
but I also check on them so that if something happens I'm not blind to
it. Anyone that believes people will do what is always right is a fool.

 

[Plato]

It seems to me, if one could password lock the History
folder so that there would be no way of deleting anything
from it; a parent could sit down at the computer in the
evening and check every site their children had gone to
during the day.

Best not to invade your kids privacy.

 

[Alias]

I think Alias is right and you are wrong.

If you start talking to your kids early--about everything--they will
keep you informed of their activities. And if you realize that part of
becoming an individual and an adult is experimentation, you'll perhaps
be a little less heavy-handed in your approach, i.e., instead of "If you
don't stay off bad sites, I'm taking the computer away," try "Let's talk
about what you saw on Ogrish this afternoon."

If you play cat and mouse games with your kids, they will become ever
more clever and more devious mice.

My daughter is 21. I wouldn't do everything she does, but she does
nothing that does not meet with my approval, because her core values are
good. And she's not afraid to talk with me about anything.

Good luck figuring out how to spy on your children.

rl

Hear, hear!

Alias

 

[Alias]

I'm going to make this the last post. You MVP's out there that have more
clout that people like me with Microsoft. You should go to Bill G and say;
You can become the Good Guy of The World. Just get rid of the Delete
Button in IE (for History), and make the History folder password lockable,
and every parent will make Bill their God Father to their children.

No cost, no peaking over their shoulder, no having to put the computer out
in an open space, no nothing. Again, no software is bulletproof. If a
parent
buys your $100 item, they are likely to get passive and never check their
kids,
thinking the software is blocking everything. Not true. Parents need to
check.
And it should be simple and free.

Just check the History folder 2 or 3 times a week and cut the kid off if he
goes to a bad place. This is what I did with my son from the age of 8 to
18.
After that I stopped checking because he went off to college.
Guess what, he never went to bad places once he knew I could check up on
him and he knew I was doing it. That's what parents need to do.

Paul Ber

I have Firefox set so that it clears the history, cache, cookies,
everything, when my daughter closes it.

Alias

 

[Rhonda Lea Kirk]

Leythos wrote:

[snip everything}

Dude, do you always make off-center interpretations of what people
write? Or am I special?

And, um...because I am a collector of strange links that apparently have
no bearing on the world we live in today:

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/

rl
--
Rhonda Lea Kirk

The only thing that makes life worth living is the willingness to
risk everything. Unless you risk everything, you don't have a life.
Roger Payne

 

[Leythos]

Leythos wrote:

[snip everything}

Dude, do you always make off-center interpretations of what people
write? Or am I special?

I don't have a clue as to what you mean. My comments were direct,
completely on topic, and accurate.

Maybe you could explain what you mean?