Need to monitor son's internet activity

[Wackery]

iPad: helicopter parent edition

 

[M. Gustave]

Why has nobody mentioned the obvious iOS restrictions?

Settings > General > Restrictions

You can limit what apps are available, ratings of media, and limit internet use to specific designated websites.

That's the technical answer. The philosophical answer, as a parent of two girls, is that monitoring, spying, restricting your child (whatever you want to call it), sends a very powerful message to them that a) you don't trust them, b) they're not independent beings therefore they don't deserve privacy from you, and c) they can't handle 'the real world'. People saying naughty words, and having sex, is part of life. Does a teenager really need to be shielded from that?

I'm raising my daughters so they have privacy, personal space, freedom to make their own decisions (age appropriate), and to trust their own critical thinking. Those send positive messages, IMO, and girls who trust their own opinions and have a positive self image probably don't "party", hookup online, sext, and any of the other insecure validation-seeking behaviors that kids fall into. I imagine it's similar for boys. I myself was treated as a felon from 13 to 18 by my parents. It took many years of therapy to undo the effects of that.

 

[Feenician]

Why has nobody mentioned the obvious iOS restrictions?

Quite literally the first response

 

[M. Gustave]

Quite literally the first response

Ah, well, if you want people to actually read your response, maybe don't start it with this:

"Before I start I don't have a complete answer for you but maybe something will point you in the right direction."

So I skipped the rest. Apologies.

 

[Feenician]

Ah, well, if you want people to actually read your response, maybe don't start it with this:

"Before I start I don't have a complete answer for you but maybe something will point you in the right direction."

So I skipped the rest. Apologies.

I didn't have a sermon on parenting no-one asked for either. Silly me

 

[M. Gustave]

I didn't have a sermon on parenting no-one asked for either. Silly me

Well I'm sorry, when you post to a public forum "How can I violate my son's privacy?", you should expect a sermon.

 

[Wando64]

Monitoring will only work until you present your son with evidence of wrongdoing. Thereafter he will smarten up and that's the end of any monitoring.
There are loads of ways he can avoid any monitoring (VPN, etc...) and if he's not using them now, he will soon do as he finds out your are monitoring his online activity.
So, the usefulness of monitoring a family member's activity is very limited and questionable (at least by some).

By the way, nothing stopping your son or wife monitoring your activity. Is that OK by you?

 

[SuperKerem]

No.

 

[mrex]

Kids know pretty well how to by-pass restrictions when internet usage is narrowed.

Atleast, if you are going to monitore the avtivity, please, tell him before starting, if you dont want to loose his trust on you.

 

[Cassady]

You can set your router to log websites. If your router doesn't do it out of the box, get one that does. Software solutions, in my opinion, are very easy to circumvent.

I also believe that monitoring or censoring the internet is an exercise in futility, but could have good unintended consequences:

My parents never restricted my internet, and allowed me to have a computer in my room. I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s. This is despite the fact that my father is a software and hardware engineer, knows quite a lot about technology, and at that age tough me everything I know. Finding whatever I wanted online was no problem for me.

My best friend's parents though were crazy about it though. We liked going to steak and cheese dot com, which was blocked for obvious reasons. Initially they installed a little snooping and lockout program on his desktop in his room (initially Windows 98SE, later Windows 2000). After telling his parents we were doing research for school, so they unlocked his browsing, we proceeded to find instructions online on how to disable this snooping program without letting the administrator know that something was up. Later, they installed a different program. Again, we manually found keys in the Windows registry that let us disable certain functionalities.

Later, his parents installed a network-based censoring program that was configured to block his computer. We learned how to spoof a computer's MAC address. They upped the security restrictions to include all computers but their own, we learned how to kick their computers off the network and spoof their MAC address. They upped the security restrictions to apply to all computers all the time, we found a program that brute-forced the admin password for the router. They got a different router... and we went to college. Both of us went into some form of engineering, armed with the large amount of Windows registry and IP networking experience we learned fighting his parents.

Moral of the story, locking your network might encourage your kids to learn to hack.

Would LOVE to know what you do for a living these days!

 

[gnasher729]

If that is the case, what's to prevent your son from changing this password and locking you out of your own Apple ID account? If you trust your son not to do that, why don't you trust him to be responsible with his internet browsing?

With my account, for anything important Apple sends a text message to my iPhone (one specific phone number).

 

[Gav2k]

How old is your son??

 

[Romans 5:6-7]

Why has nobody mentioned the obvious iOS restrictions?

Settings > General > Restrictions

You can limit what apps are available, ratings of media, and limit internet use to specific designated websites.

Using restrictions also disables the ability to clear your web history, so it may be the solution you're looking for.

 

[Newtons Apple]

Kids are going to be kids and if you raised them right they should be trusted. No doubt they will be looking at images that are not ready for prime time but it is all part of growing up. I would have a frank talk about strangers but there is far more to worry about than just when he/she are on their iPad.
[doublepost=1468516111][/doublepost]

How old is your son??

Hope he is not like 27!

 

[noanker]

Use OpenDNS and you can block entire categories of sites you don't wish your children to visit or just particular sites. Depending on how locked down you want to go, you can even blacklist everything and permit only certain sites. The best way to utilize OpenDNS is to use their DNS settings in your router. This way every device on your network is issued their DNS servers when those devices get their IP via DHCP.

Parents should utilize OpenDNS and services like it if they're remotely concerned about their children's safety online.

I use OpenDNS and have malware and other adware sites blocked. Their DNS is also much more responsive than my own ISP's.

 

[tw1ll]

Ah, well, if you want people to actually read your response, maybe don't start it with this:

"Before I start I don't have a complete answer for you but maybe something will point you in the right direction."

So I skipped the rest. Apologies.

Ah, well, saw the poster was M. Gustave and skipped the rest.

 

[Night Spring]

With my account, for anything important Apple sends a text message to my iPhone (one specific phone number).

Does that allow you to get back in if your password has been changed? Or does it not let you change your password unless you send an "ok" from your phone?

 

[mrex]

Use OpenDNS and you can block entire categories of sites you don't wish your children to visit or just particular sites. Depending on how locked down you want to go, you can even blacklist everything and permit only certain sites. The best way to utilize OpenDNS is to use their DNS settings in your router. This way every device on your network is issued their DNS servers when those devices get their IP via DHCP.

Parents should utilize OpenDNS and services like it if they're remotely concerned about their children's safety online.

I use OpenDNS and have malware and other adware sites blocked. Their DNS is also much more responsive than my own ISP's.

Just blocking sites doesnt do much. If you havent blocked other dns requests and filtering ports only for opendns in your router you can easily bypass routers dns settings from your computer.

 

[ibookg409]

looking for some program that is REAL TIME that monitors my son's internet activity.
We all use the same Apple Login and Password, so I can actually look on my Iphone and update the history every few minutes. however, I think he is deleting sites shortly after he visits them. When he deletes them quickly, they don't show up on my phone because there is a delay.
Don't want to alter his physical Ipad, would rather use something that either monitors the cloud and records activity every 5 minutes or so.

Does anyone know if anything like this exists???

Thanks so much!!!

Get an Apple TV and set it up to mirror to another screen in your house. That we you can see everything in real time.

 

[tagumcity]

We never wanted to monitor or restrict our children's internet usage. Does the OP have a safety concern?

 

[noanker]

Just blocking sites doesnt do much. If you havent blocked other dns requests and filtering ports only for opendns in your router you can easily bypass routers dns settings from your computer.

Keep in mind some parents aren't going to have the patience or technical knowledge to properly secure their home network, so for most, a hardware/software/service is the preferred solution.

 

[pat500000]

Disable the Internet when you are not home.

 

[Daws001]

My mum tried to do the same thing back in the day (swap iPad for dinosaur pcs). It's amazing how quickly kids/teens swap into ninja mode and take evasive action against parent monitoring.

Your son will adapt and evolve. Life finds a way.

 

[stiligFox]

I had a iBook G4 when I was younger that had a 2 hour usage restriction on it and allowed some websites only. My solution was to use Singler User mode commands to create an admin account, lift the restriction, work and play as long as I wanted, and when I was done I'd redo the restriction and delete the admin account. Left no trace. Apple has gotten better since then but it's never fool proof

 

[Perene]

Try using this (configured in the router, of course) to block certain sites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_ConnectSafe

Lock the router from being accessed through the browser by changing its password.