Cowtoon wrote:
Hi Cowtoon,
I'm not the OP but he'll still see the message I'm sure. Being lucky enough
to have already "passed through" that phase of life, it's easy to sit back
now and be a sideliner, unfortunately.
Pop ... you might have to be as sneaky as your teen ... and when the
moment arrives ... watch what he types to access the admin account. He
either made a good guess (perhaps already knew some of your
favorite passwords) or perhaps watched you type it enough times. Any
controls you would have set may still be in place. When greeted with
denied access, he'll need to type in the password. Be ready ... or
setup a webcam that's activated by movement (when he's not watching,
of course). I believe some webcams can be set to activate on
movement (but I'm not entirely sure). I'd focus it on the keyboard
so that you can see what he types to login (when he logs in as
administrator, that is).
One thing with kids that I've learned is, being as sneaky as they are isn't
necessarily a good way to keep/earn their respect, which is a requirement if
you're going to raise them right. You have to watch very closely for
resentment and overcome it if it lasts more than a day or so. That said:
There are some pretty covert ways to thwart this kind of thing, but in
general I would hope most kids wouldn't need them. What strikes me here is,
I suspect, as with many kids these days, they are using a computer in an
area where they are "private". That alone can lead to devilry if any
boredom at all sets in, which is quick to hapen with kids.
I'd think that between the IE Content Advisor and a good, password protected
net nanny program, the situation could be handled OK. His kid did fess up,
and is getting to see what it takes to "fix" the problems he caused. That's
a great beginning in my book.
The farthest I'd probably take covert applications might be to put in a
key-logger, but I also think I'd tell him it was there and that I could
search it for "http" anytime I wanted to, to see what sites he'd been to.
We had a foster child once who liked and knew about the porn sites (don't
you just love what they bring home from school?). At first I just checked
the history files to see where he'd been but I never explained to him how I
found out. That worked for awhile. Then I noticed he was clearing the MRU,
things like that, and realized he was "preparing" again and learning to
cover his tracks (school again).
SO: I have a TV Out on my video card, so I set it to Clone mode,
connected it to my TV, along with audio from my audio card, and bragged to
him about how I could now see my computer on the TV and how cool was that
etc.? So, he KNEW I could slip in at any time and see what he was doing
from any TV in the house by simple going to Channel 3.
But it didn't help. Fortunately, like most kids that age, it's easy to
tell when they're up to something, and it only took a couple days. I didn't
say anything because he was only at moderately adult sites for the time
being, but it let me hone my observational skills<g>. OH; my video settings
were password protected.
So next, I installed VNC, with a password of course, but I didn't tell
him. VNC is from SourceForge and a neat little program that lets you
operate a computer from another computer in real time. What I did do though
was explain how porn sites were full of malware and viruses and trojans.
"Trojans", just the word, got his attention <g>.
I started watching what he was doing when I thought he looked sneaky and
it wasn't long before he started in going for the porn again. Only now I
was watching him from my laptop and since I had control of his computer,
every time his cursor got near a porn link, I'd slide it off the link on
him. It took him hours to get to some sites he wanted very badly! When I
got tired of that, I just watched and as a site started to open, I'd close
the browser on him with a quick ALT-F-X or whatever it is. He looked a
little dejected after the first session. Next day he didn't use the
computer. Next day he finally asked again. Meantime, I'd changed his logon
password on him. He was convinced the computer was borked, and finally
broke down and told me about it.
I made a big deal out of "fixing" it, and gave him his new password, and
watched. It was a whole week before he tried to check a porn site.
Anyway, it took a couple more times and he gave up because my next step
was to simply set the Content Advisor up to keep him out of the things. I
also removed the door from the computer room for the rest of his stay with
us.
The next thing that happened was, pages started disappearing out of our
junk mails and catalogs; you know, the underwear ads and such.
I might add that, all through this, I was talking to him about the
downsides of the porn life, legality, how I could be arrested for child porn
he'd looked at and his future plans, all that.
He left here much better than when he arrived, and even sort of made us
honorary parents, since he had none (they threw him away). He left for
adoption, but that fell thru a couple months later, and about a month after
that he was arrested for a sex crime. We still hear from him now and then;
he really is a good kid, but he came from an abusive home, had no
upbringing, and was never raised while with his parents; drugs and all kind
of stuff. So, he's out of jail and doing fairly well now. He's even in a
junior college this year.
Wow! I did NOT mean to go off on a tangent like that. It's a good thing I
shortened the story! Apologies!
Pop`
