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Hi,

Earlier today I had a rather interesting discussion about parental control regarding internet access and about how to control/automate /monitor this. My own conclusion so far: there's no way to control this. The only solution seems to be PDPI (Parental Deep Packet Inspection, the only accepted type of DPI ?) or complete denial of internet access.
So...
I'm looking for a way to control the time for specific users to be online on the Internet. To be more specifically: the time they spend on certain websites they visit, per user, per DOW (day of week), time slot, regardless of the local device or OS they use (laptop, tablet, PC, TV, Media Player / XP, Vista, W7, Android, IOS, etc). Has anyone ever seen or found a solution for this? And if not, have you ever wondered why (not)?

peoples behavior is not to be controlled, if you deny them internet access they go to their friends to internet.

this problem excist since the beginning of humanity, and no one except with terror succeeded to control human behavior even then revolting results, see libia syria, iran, china, etc etc etc etc.

internet is the result of the free world and is the most migtiest power to maintain the world free, denying access is the same as forbidding wikileaks.

things like childporn should be banned , i think internet nerds can do a great job there not the police.

labium

@Labium

peoples behavior is not to be controlled

People are what they are just because of control/rules. Without boundairies there is nothing to explorer, nothing to discover, nothing to invent. People need a 'drive' just to do things.

Enough of this philosofic mambo jambo

@Digit
I think that the firewall in your router/modem would be the best bet to look at.
It won't help you with all your questions but you can deny there protocols, urls and block time windows

There is a commercial product for this: Surfcontrol but, it's not that cheap

http://www.websense.com/content/surfcon ... lcome.aspx

labium wrote:peoples behavior is not to be controlled, if you deny them internet access they go to their friends to internet.
this problem excist since the beginning of humanity, and no one except with terror succeeded to control human behavior even then revolting results, see libia syria, iran, china, etc etc etc etc.
internet is the result of the free world and is the most migtiest power to maintain the world free, denying access is the same as forbidding wikileaks.
things like childporn should be banned , i think internet nerds can do a great job there not the police.

Haha, you make it sound like people chained to the wall in a dark basement just because they are somewhat limited in where they may go and for how long. There are certain rules to follow, especially when you're kinda new to that mightiest power called internet. And when a tool can help me, I will use it; I'm pretty sure doing that will not result in mutiny

Mdamen wrote:There is a commercial product for this: Surfcontrol but, it's not that cheap
http://www.websense.com/content/surfcon ... lcome.aspx

I see, thanks, I'll look into it.

AshaiRey wrote:@Labium

I think that the firewall in your router/modem would be the best bet to look at.

My first thought too, but my Fritz is in exposed host mode, so that's a no-go for me.
Thanks anyway!

A few years ago when I ran my own business, we used web proxy software although I can't remember the name of it now. It was configured in a similar way to the firewall and web content filters on some routers, but you could set it up on a per user basis as opposed to a per device or per ip address basis. As I remember, the content filter side required a license fee, but everything else was included in the initial purchase.

It worked well for us on the web browsing side of things as we had multiple PC's that were used by multiple people. A user had to authenticate themselves before it would allow them to browse the web. You could then set up rules for that user based on time, amount of data etc.. and also create numerous types of logs.

Perhaps a similar approach may be suitable for your situation.

I have 2 teenagers in the house and I use the firewall / content filtering/ mac filtering features of my router (Draytek 2820) which seems to work OK for the most part. I use the router to always assign the same IP address to their devices mac adresses and then apply rules to these devices at specific times, so Facebook for instance or various protocols like IM and p2p etc are only available at certain times. I also use the syslog function of my router from time to time to see what they are up to but they seem to know the rules now and work within them most of the time.

The issue you then have is that they just use their mobile phone to get on the internet or someone elses unsecured WiFi.

Paul..

Scooty said
The issue you then have is that they just use their mobile phone to get on the internet or someone elses unsecured WiFi.

Behold and wonder. See here a true example of how boundries tickles creativity. Without the restrictions they would have never learned to find and use unsecured WiFi
Kids are great in bending the rules and find new ways to go around them....

for the record, even windows 7 and vista have build in parental control and logging of webvisits and limitation of websites and online time limits.

a program like netsupport , you can even live watch and record the screen of the user.


labium

Or have a look at something like Clearos: http://www.clearfoundation.com/Software/overview.html
You can set it up as a gateway for all devices (and much more), even in a VM.

John