BeepColorado proposing Bill to move age verification to Operating System rather than web site
mrnngglryAs a parent, I wish someone would develop a cross platform, open source, parental control tool that preserves privacy while allowing for strong controls that are simple to use. The best I could come up with is a separate instance of Pihole that any device my kids use is linked to. It would be nice if there was a software option or something implemented in hardware that allowed parents to register the device with the user’s age (no identifying info). Laws could then be passed forcing certain websites and apps to reject any users under a certain age. The restrictions could automatically lift when the user reaches a predetermined age. I’m not an expert so there are probably aspects of this I haven’t thought through but it seems better than what has been implemented so far.
I’m not in IT and only have tangential knowledge, but I would think something like corporate internet control would work for this. I know my company has blanket access restrictions with the ability to modify them on an individual basis. But I haven’t the slightest idea how to implement that. I think all of my company device data goes through a tunnel.
KairuByteYou’d think so, but I promise you that a teenager will work their way around most internet based blocks eventually. The thing that gets you in a corpo environment is that they fully log your browsing, so yeah you managed to find fuckmyfacesilly.com that wasn’t blocked, but you’re going to have a little talk with management as soon as someone checks the logs.
Snot FlickermanIf you’re allowing full-client-logs on Pi-Hole, anything that passes through it will be seen in your Pi-Hole logs in the same way.
Yeah but most parents aren’t going to be checking those logs.
Honestly your best bet is to use a paid service, which I hate because it adds yet another cost to raising kids. It would just be great if device manufacturers could get their shit together and not relegate parental controls to the third party market.
The best I could come up with is a separate instance of Pihole that any device my kids use is linked to.
It’s a little clunky, but you can do this with one Pi-Hole instance by using the Groups feature. In the “Groups” tab make a group for your default Pi-Hole settings (or just use the already included Default group), and then make a separate group for the additional blocked domains for your children’s devices (for purposes here we’ll refer to this group as “Child”). In your Lists tab, choose which Group each list should be applied to (or choose the group it should be applied to while adding the entry). In your Clients tab use the drop down menu to choose and assign devices to Groups, put all your devices in the Default group and put all your children’s devices in both the Default Group and the Child Group. This way your devices will have the default blocklists and your children’s will have the default plus the additional blocklists aimed to protect them specifically.
No problem, I’ve been using Pi-Hole for years but have only recently started exploring options with the Groups feature. In fact I spent a few minutes messing around with it before I wrote my original reply to make sure I was going to explain it right. Don’t be afraid to hit me up with questions, I’d be happy to try to help.
Have you checked your modem/Wi-Fi router?
I did. My router runs a version of OpenWRT and while I can blacklist certain domains, I can’t add lists of domains. They have to be added one by one. The pi-hole solution is much easier. I can add an entire list for social media. I can add a list that forces search engines to use safe search.