Microsoft and Content ratings [modified]
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I thought this was kind-of interesting. The other day I implemented content security through IE for all accounts (including administrator) on my kids system. Basically to ensure that they dont get accidental porn links on a generic search that they might perform for school research. In either case I chase the default settings for everything else including denial of pages that have no content rating. I basically left it at that and went to bed. Today my daughter starts up IE (default page is sympatico.msn.ca) and the first thing that crops up is a message box requiring that I override the access to the site with a password. You would think that Microsoft would at least have ratings for their own pages since their content security out of the box requires it... I gather that I basically need to give my kids unfettered access and let them experience the whole enchilada of human behavior. I am not a prude. I dont have a problem with basic nudity and such but there are things out there that are perhaps my kids are not quite prepared for. It would be nice to defer having to deal with these items until they are better prepared to understand them. What are you other techno savvy parents doing (if anything) to restrict content. ps. I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts. I'd like your thoughts. Cheers, David -- modified at 15:33 Sunday 18th June, 2006
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I thought this was kind-of interesting. The other day I implemented content security through IE for all accounts (including administrator) on my kids system. Basically to ensure that they dont get accidental porn links on a generic search that they might perform for school research. In either case I chase the default settings for everything else including denial of pages that have no content rating. I basically left it at that and went to bed. Today my daughter starts up IE (default page is sympatico.msn.ca) and the first thing that crops up is a message box requiring that I override the access to the site with a password. You would think that Microsoft would at least have ratings for their own pages since their content security out of the box requires it... I gather that I basically need to give my kids unfettered access and let them experience the whole enchilada of human behavior. I am not a prude. I dont have a problem with basic nudity and such but there are things out there that are perhaps my kids are not quite prepared for. It would be nice to defer having to deal with these items until they are better prepared to understand them. What are you other techno savvy parents doing (if anything) to restrict content. ps. I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts. I'd like your thoughts. Cheers, David -- modified at 15:33 Sunday 18th June, 2006
Orcrist wrote:
I'd like your thoughts.
Linux ;P
Formula 1 - Short for "F1 Racing" - named after the standard "help" key in Windows, it's a sport where participants desperately search through software help files trying to find actual documentation. It's tedious and somewhat cruel, most matches ending in a draw as no participant is able to find anything helpful. - Shog9
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I thought this was kind-of interesting. The other day I implemented content security through IE for all accounts (including administrator) on my kids system. Basically to ensure that they dont get accidental porn links on a generic search that they might perform for school research. In either case I chase the default settings for everything else including denial of pages that have no content rating. I basically left it at that and went to bed. Today my daughter starts up IE (default page is sympatico.msn.ca) and the first thing that crops up is a message box requiring that I override the access to the site with a password. You would think that Microsoft would at least have ratings for their own pages since their content security out of the box requires it... I gather that I basically need to give my kids unfettered access and let them experience the whole enchilada of human behavior. I am not a prude. I dont have a problem with basic nudity and such but there are things out there that are perhaps my kids are not quite prepared for. It would be nice to defer having to deal with these items until they are better prepared to understand them. What are you other techno savvy parents doing (if anything) to restrict content. ps. I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts. I'd like your thoughts. Cheers, David -- modified at 15:33 Sunday 18th June, 2006
there are a number of Parental Control programs that work pretty well. With my ISP (Yahoo! - although I'm sure others have it as well) I get one that works great, I can set the hours they can be online, the amount of time per day and filter sites by rating or only allowed specific sites among other things. hth Al
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I thought this was kind-of interesting. The other day I implemented content security through IE for all accounts (including administrator) on my kids system. Basically to ensure that they dont get accidental porn links on a generic search that they might perform for school research. In either case I chase the default settings for everything else including denial of pages that have no content rating. I basically left it at that and went to bed. Today my daughter starts up IE (default page is sympatico.msn.ca) and the first thing that crops up is a message box requiring that I override the access to the site with a password. You would think that Microsoft would at least have ratings for their own pages since their content security out of the box requires it... I gather that I basically need to give my kids unfettered access and let them experience the whole enchilada of human behavior. I am not a prude. I dont have a problem with basic nudity and such but there are things out there that are perhaps my kids are not quite prepared for. It would be nice to defer having to deal with these items until they are better prepared to understand them. What are you other techno savvy parents doing (if anything) to restrict content. ps. I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts. I'd like your thoughts. Cheers, David -- modified at 15:33 Sunday 18th June, 2006
Net Nanny - best home package i've used.
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I thought this was kind-of interesting. The other day I implemented content security through IE for all accounts (including administrator) on my kids system. Basically to ensure that they dont get accidental porn links on a generic search that they might perform for school research. In either case I chase the default settings for everything else including denial of pages that have no content rating. I basically left it at that and went to bed. Today my daughter starts up IE (default page is sympatico.msn.ca) and the first thing that crops up is a message box requiring that I override the access to the site with a password. You would think that Microsoft would at least have ratings for their own pages since their content security out of the box requires it... I gather that I basically need to give my kids unfettered access and let them experience the whole enchilada of human behavior. I am not a prude. I dont have a problem with basic nudity and such but there are things out there that are perhaps my kids are not quite prepared for. It would be nice to defer having to deal with these items until they are better prepared to understand them. What are you other techno savvy parents doing (if anything) to restrict content. ps. I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts. I'd like your thoughts. Cheers, David -- modified at 15:33 Sunday 18th June, 2006
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Net Nanny - best home package i've used.
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Orcrist wrote:
I'd like your thoughts.
Linux ;P
Formula 1 - Short for "F1 Racing" - named after the standard "help" key in Windows, it's a sport where participants desperately search through software help files trying to find actual documentation. It's tedious and somewhat cruel, most matches ending in a draw as no participant is able to find anything helpful. - Shog9
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I thought this was kind-of interesting. The other day I implemented content security through IE for all accounts (including administrator) on my kids system. Basically to ensure that they dont get accidental porn links on a generic search that they might perform for school research. In either case I chase the default settings for everything else including denial of pages that have no content rating. I basically left it at that and went to bed. Today my daughter starts up IE (default page is sympatico.msn.ca) and the first thing that crops up is a message box requiring that I override the access to the site with a password. You would think that Microsoft would at least have ratings for their own pages since their content security out of the box requires it... I gather that I basically need to give my kids unfettered access and let them experience the whole enchilada of human behavior. I am not a prude. I dont have a problem with basic nudity and such but there are things out there that are perhaps my kids are not quite prepared for. It would be nice to defer having to deal with these items until they are better prepared to understand them. What are you other techno savvy parents doing (if anything) to restrict content. ps. I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts. I'd like your thoughts. Cheers, David -- modified at 15:33 Sunday 18th June, 2006
I did the same thing for their Internet use as I did for when they used to visit the local video store or 24 hour candy and magazine stores. I let them know that there exists stuff that they would find disturbing and not understand. And if they had trouble with it, come and talk to either myself or their mother. You can not hide the stuff from them. I think that is just as wrong as trying to promote or introduce the stuff to them. Let then find out about this stuff, but be prepared to help them judge it's appropriateness as they discover it. Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] When no one was looking, every single American woman between the ages of 18 and 32 went out and got a tatoo just above their rumpus. [link[^]]
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How exactly would this be any better? Can you elaborate? On the surface this would seem impractical because most of the kids programs (games and educational) are Windows based but perhaps there is something I missed. Thanks, David
Orcrist wrote:
perhaps there is something I missed.
If so, I've missed it too.
Orcrist wrote:
games
Yep, I've got that problem, I was mentioning Linux from the point of view that you can restrict anything, such as if a game, for example, required Admin privledges then on Linux you can grant them to only that game.
Orcrist wrote:
How exactly would this be any better? Can you elaborate?
It was more a tongue in cheek answer than a serious one, although if you didn't have the problem of games then Linux can be more easily resitricted at the moment there are almost no "big" games (e.g. San Andreas) that run under anything but Windows. (Must remember to put Joke icon next time :-O)
Formula 1 - Short for "F1 Racing" - named after the standard "help" key in Windows, it's a sport where participants desperately search through software help files trying to find actual documentation. It's tedious and somewhat cruel, most matches ending in a draw as no participant is able to find anything helpful. - Shog9
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I did the same thing for their Internet use as I did for when they used to visit the local video store or 24 hour candy and magazine stores. I let them know that there exists stuff that they would find disturbing and not understand. And if they had trouble with it, come and talk to either myself or their mother. You can not hide the stuff from them. I think that is just as wrong as trying to promote or introduce the stuff to them. Let then find out about this stuff, but be prepared to help them judge it's appropriateness as they discover it. Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] When no one was looking, every single American woman between the ages of 18 and 32 went out and got a tatoo just above their rumpus. [link[^]]
By-and-large I whole-heartedly agree with what you say. I am very much into keeping my kids informed. We are actually quite a liberal household compared to most North American families. If the kids (9 and 11) accidentally viewed 'clean' sex or nudity I wouldnt be terribly concerned as they are already quite aware of this aspect of 'animal' behavior. The part I struggle with is the more explicit 'human' behavior aspects of the web. I myself tend to lean in the direction you are suggesting but my wife is another matter entirely. :-) She would like some controls and was the impetus behind me starting to provide some content cotrol in the first place. If it was 'easy' I would be inclined to add it, but if the sympactico.msn.ca unrated site is any indication this is probably a losing proposition. I think I will have to poke at it a bit more using unrated pages and see if it filters some of the less desireable content (that would probably be good enough). Besides if my wife wanders into the office at just that time I can tell her that I am legitimately doing research. LOL Thanks for your insight. Cheers, David
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I thought this was kind-of interesting. The other day I implemented content security through IE for all accounts (including administrator) on my kids system. Basically to ensure that they dont get accidental porn links on a generic search that they might perform for school research. In either case I chase the default settings for everything else including denial of pages that have no content rating. I basically left it at that and went to bed. Today my daughter starts up IE (default page is sympatico.msn.ca) and the first thing that crops up is a message box requiring that I override the access to the site with a password. You would think that Microsoft would at least have ratings for their own pages since their content security out of the box requires it... I gather that I basically need to give my kids unfettered access and let them experience the whole enchilada of human behavior. I am not a prude. I dont have a problem with basic nudity and such but there are things out there that are perhaps my kids are not quite prepared for. It would be nice to defer having to deal with these items until they are better prepared to understand them. What are you other techno savvy parents doing (if anything) to restrict content. ps. I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts. I'd like your thoughts. Cheers, David -- modified at 15:33 Sunday 18th June, 2006
I would sugest http://www.zonelabs.com the security suite incorporates content filtering, virus scanning, spyware, e-mail protection, and others. Cheers
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I would sugest http://www.zonelabs.com the security suite incorporates content filtering, virus scanning, spyware, e-mail protection, and others. Cheers
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I thought this was kind-of interesting. The other day I implemented content security through IE for all accounts (including administrator) on my kids system. Basically to ensure that they dont get accidental porn links on a generic search that they might perform for school research. In either case I chase the default settings for everything else including denial of pages that have no content rating. I basically left it at that and went to bed. Today my daughter starts up IE (default page is sympatico.msn.ca) and the first thing that crops up is a message box requiring that I override the access to the site with a password. You would think that Microsoft would at least have ratings for their own pages since their content security out of the box requires it... I gather that I basically need to give my kids unfettered access and let them experience the whole enchilada of human behavior. I am not a prude. I dont have a problem with basic nudity and such but there are things out there that are perhaps my kids are not quite prepared for. It would be nice to defer having to deal with these items until they are better prepared to understand them. What are you other techno savvy parents doing (if anything) to restrict content. ps. I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts. I'd like your thoughts. Cheers, David -- modified at 15:33 Sunday 18th June, 2006
Orcrist wrote:
I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts.
Can you give them a restricted account but set up the games and kids programs to run as Admin? I believe there is some sort of mechanism for this in WinXP, but I've never tried it before so I don't know how reliable it is. -- Marcus Kwok
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Orcrist wrote:
I tried setting them (the kids) up with a basic user account but too many of the games require Administrator accounts to run. So basically I cant restrict acces through user accounts.
Can you give them a restricted account but set up the games and kids programs to run as Admin? I believe there is some sort of mechanism for this in WinXP, but I've never tried it before so I don't know how reliable it is. -- Marcus Kwok
Not a bad idea. I know you can use explorer to execute a program under "Run As...". Unfortunately that would be inconvenient to have to do everytime the kids started the game but perhaps there is commandline parameters that will allow the executable to run under a different Identity that can be configured in the shortcut. I know there is an Advanced button on the shortcut that gives you the ability to run under different credentials but if I recall you also need to enter the user password at that time. I'll have to dig a bit and see what I can find. Thanks, David
