Re: Belkin router parental control feature no longer works

In comp.security.firewalls John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> [POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
>
> In <dmbd3b$8jo$1@domitilla.aioe.org> on Sat, 26 Nov 2005 23:36:20 -0500,
> "dejablues" <deja.blues@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>><perfb@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>news:1133021590.229258.35270@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>> Anyone use the Belkin router's parental control feature? Provided by,
>>> I think, 'Cerebian' or somesuch company. It used to work pretty good,
>>> now I cant get the login screen or anything.
>>
>>Why don't you *personally* monitor your kids web access, ie: look over their
>>shoulder once in a while?
>
> Good suggestion, but it takes much more than that.

>>You don't trust
>>them?
>
> Not entirely.
>
>>All this "parental control feature" crap is just that. Crap.
>
> I respectfully disagree.
>
>>If your kids
>>are in junior high, or high school, they *know* how to get around your
>>'parental control features".
>
> Not here.

>>Maybe it doesn't work because your kids (who are undoubtably smarter than
>>you) have hacked it!
>
> Maybe you're overly simplistic and rude.

While dejablues may have been a little more expressive than necessary,
it *is* the general consensus here that content filtering does not work
- or at least, that it will block some of what you want it to, miss
quite a bit it should have blocked, and block quite a bit that you don't
want it to. (For example: how many content filters allow access to
www.virgin.com?)

It's a question that comes up often, and, if you had actually searched
the archives, you would have known that the response you received is
rather typical of these questions in this group.

There are a few points:
        + technically, it doesn't work (well enough). It's far too
difficult to restrain access by 100%. E-mail filters are far more
sophisticated, usually, because there's that much more demand - and even
those don't come anywhere near to 100% (actually, you can get pretty
close, but that requires using a lot of technologies not present in web
filtering).
        + false negatives defeat the whole purpose, after all, a couple
of pr0n sites is enough.
        + false positives are annoying, and will require you to
reconfigure the router often, if it allows whitelists at all (I assume
it does, though)
        + circumventing such a device is usually very possible
        + the premise is flawed - kids will see equally bad stuff on
television, when visiting friends, and so on. And the forbidden fruit is
always the most attractive.

And probably a couple more; all in all, it's quite likely that you will
not receive any helpful responses at all (of course, the fact that very
few people ever used such a feature makes it less likely that people
will know the answer, anyway - I, personally, don't have half a clue for
example). Try the manual.

                Joachim
Received on Sat Dec 3 04:18:27 2005