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iPod touch Parental control of internet access

M

MacRumors:Forum

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2008
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I bought an iPod Touch for my teenager without doing my due diligence. I thought that internet access was limited and, of course, the entire world is open wherever there is wireless. There have already been issues with him visiting porn sites. I'm not a prude and he's a good kid, but he is 14 and some careless person in the neighborhood has an unsecured wireless.

Does anyone know if I can control access to the internet? There's an easy way to turn off the wireless but it's just as easy to turn it back on. My son is reasonably savvy but he has friends who are crazy hackers, so I need to be able to disable and turn on access in a controlled way or set a password that I can control. Any thoughts? Any rumors about this issue? Thanks.
 
Try logging on to the router by typing in the main IP (usually 192.168.1.1) into the address bar and push enter. When it asks for the user name and password try the defaults (user name:admin password: admin or similar) if you can log on to it you can block specific sites. That's the only way I know to control other peoples Wi-Fi.
 
...

Maybe talk to him about the problem? I'm a 15-yr-old boy and my parents trust me completely.
If you try to block him from stuff, it just has an effect where he will try even harder to get to what you don't want him to see. trust me, it'll be a negative effect in the long run.


Hope I helped. :)
 
HeavenlyYeti said:
Maybe talk to him about the problem? I'm a 15-yr-old boy and my parents trust me completely.
If you try to block him from stuff, it just has an effect where he will try even harder to get to what you don't want him to see. trust me, it'll be a negative effect in the long run.
Click to expand...


good outlook for your age.;)


good luck trying to stop anyone from seeing anything they want on the web or anywhere else.

teach how to make wise choices and hope that when bad choices are made they do not have a lot of consequences.:rolleyes:
 
You can get internet filters....my parents installed the American Family Assocation filter on my computer.

It was annoying. It blocked google searches of words like "adult" "bomb" or "death." What if I wanted to know about adult smoker death rates? No can do, thank you very much AFA filter!

Not that I wanted to know about those....and if you were crafty you could easily find porn that they hadn't blocked. After a while I found a free program that was designed to remove some spyware, but since the AFA filter apparently controlled theinternet similarly to how spyware works, it would disable the program. Whenever the computer was restarted, the program realized it was disabled and reenabled itself, but a few minutes later I'd have it off again.

I grew out of it. I just don't have the same desire to look at porn now, which is ironic, because now on my Mac I don't have a porn filter (that was on a PC).....


The other solution is a program that reports suspicious websites to you, the parent, so you can talk to him about them.

It's really simple: He's a minor, you are an adult. If you set rules, he has to follow them whether hel ikes them or not. If you want to set up rules on the internet, then do it. If he breaks them, take away priveliges. But, you will need to step up your game because your kid is going to find creative ways to break your rules and look at porn if he really wants to, and he'll do it in ways you can't find out about easily. (friend's houses man!) But it would be good of you to try and keep him out of porn, it's nasty stuff really, and you can very very easily be pulled into it, and be unable to stop. It tears apart families and ruins relationships and doesn't promote a healthy view of sexuality, or a realistic view of male/female relations, either in the bed or outside of it.

Good luck!
 
Check out OpenDNS.com - All you have to do is plug their DNS servers into your wireless router, enable their adult site blocking feature, and all devices in your household (wireless or wired) will get filtered. I use it at my house. I have two boys - a 13 year old and a 17 year old. And well, me. Everyone knows that it's there, so nobody even tries to hit those sites.
 
Honestly, there isn't a whole lot that can be done. It's akin to when we were growing up. My parents didn't allow me to watch R-rated movies, so I just found a friend whose parents did. Mind you, it wasn't very often, and usually, the R-rating was due to swearing and light violence, not nudity.

I'm also a father of two, and I don't mean to rag on the OP, but can someone please explain to me why a 15 year old needs an iPod Touch in the first place?
 
I dont think you can control/monitor sites on the iTouch...

and even if you could, if kids want to find a way to do smth, they will. no matter how hard you try. you can definitely count on that. they dont need to be hackers, normal kids do just fine.

I may not have kids, but I sure remember being one really rebellious one. Its ridiculous to think back to the lengths we used to go to so that we could break rules... and the creativity, OH the creativity...


The ONLY way i personally see it working in any rational and realistic manner, is talking to them. Talking to them not just as an "adult" or "authority figure," but as someone who was once their age too, who understands how it felt to want to do those "bad" things and give into temptation. Talk to them as a friend, not as a lecturer, and who knows, they might actually listen. Really listen.

but what do i know...


i'm sure thats now why you made that posting, you prolly just wanted to see if you could block their web browsing. Sorry for the random rant. just got me thinking, is all.


just my 2 cents.

:D
 
Leave the kid alone and be thankful you're not in Europe where he could turn on the television at any given time and see nudity...

;)
 
OpenDNS.com :)

See if you can't get into your neighbor's wireless... try leaving the user blank and the password "admin" without quotes.
 
...

BOSS10L said:
Honestly, there isn't a whole lot that can be done. It's akin to when we were growing up. My parents didn't allow me to watch R-rated movies, so I just found a friend whose parents did. Mind you, it wasn't very often, and usually, the R-rating was due to swearing and light violence, not nudity.

I'm also a father of two, and I don't mean to rag on the OP, but can someone please explain to me why a 15 year old needs an iPod Touch in the first place?
Click to expand...

was that directed to me or the TC's kid?
If you meant me...
I'm into all this tech and my parents are Apple Fanatics.
(Plus, I can watch all my Naruto vids :p )
 
HeavenlyYeti said:
Maybe talk to him about the problem? I'm a 15-yr-old boy and my parents trust me completely.
If you try to block him from stuff, it just has an effect where he will try even harder to get to what you don't want him to see. trust me, it'll be a negative effect in the long run.


Hope I helped. :)
Click to expand...

I'm 15 too and feel exactly the same way.

I know people and have friends who aren't allowed to drink because their parents said no, so they go out and get completely plastered behind their parent's backs. It's becoming a very serious problem in England.
Most of the parents are all "We don't want them making the same mistakes we made when we were young" so the kids deliberately do that sort of stuff.

Myself? I am allowed to drink in moderation. My parents even encourage me to drink at times and buy me alcohol every 6 months or so... and thus I don't go out and get so drunk I can barely walk - trust me, I've seen it to happen to people my age and younger. It's an appalling and pathetic sight.

If your kid is watching porn, let him. He'll do it more if you tell him not to. It's how kids work. I'm sure you must remember when you wanted to do the complete opposite of what your parents said - standing up to the oppressors and all that.

At least he has a healthy interest in sex, on the positive side. If he didn't, you should be worried about your teenage son. In this day in age, it's almost impossible to keep kids away from sex. It's on TV. It's in films. It's on the internet. He's going to be interested in it for some reason. Even if you isolated him from those things, his friends would still talk to him about it.

However, there really isn't much you can do when it comes to filtering the Touch. I'm guessing you'll just have to trust him not to go on porn - and if he does then let him. At the end of the day, it's unlikely to do any serious harm to him. Either that or take away his iPod touch... but in the long run, that's likely to so more damage. Conflict at home, etc.

BOSS10L said:
I'm also a father of two, and I don't mean to rag on the OP, but can someone please explain to me why a 15 year old needs an iPod Touch in the first place?
Click to expand...

I'm 15 and I want an iPod touch really badly.

Reasons I want one:
-It's an iPod. I love music, as do most teenagers, and I want to listen to it on the go
-It plays videos. I love watching videos and would like to watch them on the bus to school.
-It has wifi. My entire life revolves around the internet, I want to take it wherever I go
-I love Macs. It is technically a Mac since it runs OS X.
-Can't afford an iPhone (darn tariffs) but love the UI. Self explanatory.
-It's cool. Again, self explanatory.

lol so yeah, I take it that those are probably the reasons why a 15 year old would want an iPod Touch. No-one NEEDS an iPod touch. No-one NEEDS and iPod. It's just about what we want. For some, they want a Nano. Others want a Classic. And so forth. You make it sound like you've got to be a sensible adult to enjoy these things. Really, if you can afford it, buy it :)
I spent 9 months saving up for my iMac by building, cleaning and selling my old Lego sets on ebay (I was 14 at the time). I don't see why I shouldn't have on just because I'm 15 :) and I probably need it more than a lot of people who buy iMacs.
 
"If your kid is watching porn, let him. He'll do it more if you tell him not to. It's how kids work. I'm sure you must remember when you wanted to do the complete opposite of what your parents said - standing up to the oppressors and all that."
Click to expand...


Umm, yea thats what you get with advice from a 15 year old. What about people who have standards and morals or religious beliefs? Or what about the people that just dont agree with Pornography and other explicit material? With that attitude he might as well just have a gun, the more he shoots the more likely he is to get bored :rolleyes:

And OpenDNS is your best free option
 
sgtboy said:
Umm, yea thats what you get with advice from a 15 year old. What about people who have standards and morals or religious beliefs? Or what about the people that just dont agree with Pornography and other explicit material? With that attitude he might as well just have a gun, the more he shoots the more likely he is to get bored :rolleyes:

And OpenDNS is your best free option
Click to expand...


Some kids don't share the same morals or religious beliefs. It's better not to shove stuff down your kid's throat than force them into abiding to what you believe when they're showing that they don't want to follow it. You want what's best for them, of course - all parents do- but it's their life, and if they wanna look at pornography then you shouldn't stop them because they'll just do it more and more. They'll find ways to get around it. Especially on a mobile wireless internet device.
I'm not saying that you should say "Hey son, you're allowed to look at porn" but there are times when kids need to grow up and maybe looking at porn helps him feel older? More mature? Not like a little kid anymore?

Also, linking watching porn to killing people is kinda ridiculous. No-one is getting hurt from him looking at naked people on his iPod. It may be against how you feel about it but he's making a choice to do it and if you don't want him to look at it for any Christian reasons then surely you're stopping his Free will, which would mean you're contradicting God's wishes. If not for religious reasons then he's made his choice. He's probably going to do it anyway when he leaves home so stopping him now won't do anything. If he's gotten to his teenage years and hasn't turned bad then him looking at pornography now certainly won't trigger anything.

Anyway, OpenDNS can stop your router but it won't stop him getting access from the unsecured router down the road. Why not have a word with the owners of the router and ask them to put a password on it? (If you don't know where they live, take a wireless device (ie. your son's iPod) and connect to it and walk past the houses. If the signal increases then you're getting nearer. Then take a wild guess and hope you're right :) If not, why not have a quiet word with your son about it in a friendly manner? Hope you get this sorted)
 
Some kids don't share the same morals or religious beliefs. It's better not to shove stuff down your kid's throat than force them into abiding to what you believe when they're showing that they don't want to follow it. You want what's best for them, of course - all parents do- but it's their life, and if they wanna look at pornography then you shouldn't stop them because they'll just do it more and more. They'll find ways to get around it. Especially on a mobile wireless internet device.
I'm not saying that you should say "Hey son, you're allowed to look at porn" but there are times when kids need to grow up and maybe looking at porn helps him feel older? More mature? Not like a little kid anymore?

Also, linking watching porn to killing people is kinda ridiculous. No-one is getting hurt from him looking at naked people on his iPod. It may be against how you feel about it but he's making a choice to do it and if you don't want him to look at it for any Christian reasons then surely you're stopping his Free will, which would mean you're contradicting God's wishes. If not for religious reasons then he's made his choice. He's probably going to do it anyway when he leaves home so stopping him now won't do anything. If he's gotten to his teenage years and hasn't turned bad then him looking at pornography now certainly won't trigger anything.
Click to expand...

Wow, i think there is some serious misunderstanding here :(
 
suggestion

I think you should get him interested in something else.
My personal suggestion? "Naruto" or "Halo". Excellent anti-*insert problem here*. I've converted some pretty "corrupt" friends thanks to one or the other.
Try that.

^_^


(every Naruto episode is available on Youtube, a button conveniently located on the iTouch homescreen)
 
pismodude2 said:
Try logging on to the router by typing in the main IP (usually 192.168.1.1) into the address bar and push enter. When it asks for the user name and password try the defaults (user name:admin password: admin or similar) if you can log on to it you can block specific sites. That's the only way I know to control other peoples Wi-Fi.
Click to expand...

lilstewart said:
See if you can't get into your neighbor's wireless... try leaving the user blank and the password "admin" without quotes.
Click to expand...
Logging into a router owned by another person without explicit permission is completely unacceptable, and I'm sure, illegal.

It would be a far better idea to talk with your neighbor, and offer to secure their wireless connection.
 
EricNau said:
Logging into a router owned by another person without explicit permission is completely unacceptable, and I'm sure, illegal.

It would be a far better idea to talk with your neighbor, and offer to secure their wireless connection.
Click to expand...

He said 'someone in the neighborhood' ergo, not a known neighbor, and probably not someone it would be comfortable asking to block porn because you can't trust your son.

FYI, most people don't like telling others about their son's happy time. :rolleyes:
 
pismodude2 said:
He said 'someone in the neighborhood' ergo, not a known neighbor, and probably not someone it would be comfortable asking to block porn because you can't trust your son.

FYI, most people don't like telling others about their son's happy time. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
While that may be, it's still no excuse. In no way is it okay to tamper with someone else's network.

If that were the case and the neighbor was unknown, there would be no reason to provide any details (or make something up!). Certainly that's a better option than hacking their network. ...You might as well break into their house a steal the router - problem solved! :rolleyes:
 
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