Parental Controls

[edsyl]

I have been experimenting with the parental controls and wanted to poll the community as to the effectiveness of the implementation.
Another question I have is what is the most unobtrusive way to determine if indeed the selected devices are indeed blocked.
I want to be able to do this from my central command rather than have "the parent" running to and from various rooms to ensure it is working to my schedule.

Thanks very much in advance.
I wonder if there is any way in the network map to add a little graphic to denote parental block in effect?
Just askin...
Regards
Ed

 

[linkmaster]

I have been experimenting with the parental controls and wanted to poll the community as to the effectiveness of the implementation.
Another question I have is what is the most unobtrusive way to determine if indeed the selected devices are indeed blocked.
I want to be able to do this from my central command rather than have "the parent" running to and from various rooms to ensure it is working to my schedule.

Thanks very much in advance.
I wonder if there is any way in the network map to add a little graphic to denote parental block in effect?
Just askin...
Regards
Ed

My sons PC loses his internet connection exactly at the time set , so in that sense it works fine...however , if he's playing a web game that once cached will play and connect to others playing that game..it will continue to play.

 

[krum]

I have seen the same problem;
with the new routers coming out wonder if they will continue to enhance the Firmware, with this router

Chris

 

[CaptainSTX]

Keep Running

I have been experimenting with the parental controls and wanted to poll the community as to the effectiveness of the implementation.
Another question I have is what is the most unobtrusive way to determine if indeed the selected devices are indeed blocked.
I want to be able to do this from my central command rather than have "the parent" running to and from various rooms to ensure it is working to my schedule.

Thanks very much in advance.
I wonder if there is any way in the network map to add a little graphic to denote parental block in effect?
Just askin...
Regards
Ed

To be sure that devices are truly blocked you will still need to make visual inspections as well as check logs of websites visited.

On PCs it it all to easy to change the adapter's MAC and/or IP which then makes it possible to evade parental controls.

To supplement parental controls you need to not let your kids have administrative privileges so they can add software to avoid parental controls and change other settings such as its IP or MAC address.

You also need to only permit LAN connections from devices that have MAC addresses that you have authorized. This restriction usually only works for WiFi connected devices.

As your kids get older and become little hackers you will also have to sweep for rogue access points including those that don't broadcast SSIDs.

Therefore keep walking and keep looking

 

[RMerlin]

I have seen the same problem;
with the new routers coming out wonder if they will continue to enhance the Firmware, with this router

Chris

The new routers use the exact same firmware, it's just the driver and the kernel that are different. So any change they did to Parental Control for instance would apply to devices from the RT-N16 all the way to the top-of-the-line RT-AC68U.