7 ms·

I wish they had a better MDM for kids... All I want to do is ensure that NextDNS is installed/forced and that they can't remove it. Somehow, if you block store

I wish they had a better MDM for kids... All I want to do is ensure that NextDNS is installed/forced and that they can't remove it. Somehow, if you block store, block adding apps and block removing apps and hide the icons, kids still figure out how to remove the damn thing and the only thing you can do to block it is set a 1 minute time limit (why can't you set 0 minutes? wtf apple?) and hope they don't stay up until midnight to click through in 1 minute and slide the slider to off (or figure out how to get into settings/network/dns and disable - which why can't the limits limit that??)

ryanianian 5y ago
The "at your own peril" strategy is effective for some. Or go the panopticon route: "I have software on the router that can see everything you do, but I don't usually look at it."
- noway421 5y ago
  Unless you're running a MITM proxy for SSL traffic with root certificates installed on the home devices, this statement can not be true. And if you're running such a proxy, you would need to have a guest WiFi for people coming into the house who would like to use internet without installing the certificate. At that point, circumventing the tracking is the matter of connecting to the guest WiFi.
- thealistra 5y ago
  This sounds like fueling anxiety in the kids that they are being watched. Doesn’t sound okay
  - ryanianian 5y ago
    > kids that they are being watched They already are though. Usually by tech companies without the kid's best interests at heart. Tailor it to the kid. Certain amounts of anxiety in developing minors around surveillance seem healthy, especially given the risks associated with unfettered access to the dangerous fire-hose that is the internet which itself has tracking at every corner.
    - Hackbraten 5y ago
      Still, lying to your kids is not ok. If you don’t have software on your router that tracks everything they do, don’t pretend that you have. Being surveilled is a feeling that sticks. Being tricked, too. Don’t assume your kids will forget eventually.
  - gwright 5y ago
    > kids that they are being watched Not sure that "kids" is well defined here. But it seems completely normal that "kids" would be watched by their parents. I realize that the appropriate nature of "watching" is going to change with the age of the "kid", but oversight and watchfulness by a parent shouldn't be viewed as inherently problematic.
- nanidin 5y ago
  16 year old me bypassed this and all other monitoring by running a patch cable from the cable modem directly to my machine when up to shenanigans.
Damogran6 5y ago
I figured, when my kids were a certain age, that if I took that route, they'd ALWAYS get around whatever control I put in front of them. Either at home, or at school or at a friends house. Told them there was stuff on the internet that could harm them, that there was stuff they could NOT unsee. They're 18 now, the results of the science experiment are still out, but they seem to have turned out okay.
- _fat_santa 5y ago
  When I think back to when I was a kid, getting around school internet filters and helping my friends remove parental controls from their devices, I can't help but think the Streisand Effect was hard at work in my brain. The adults was determined that I wouldn't see a thing so I was determined to see it because what could they be hiding? Now approaching the age where the thought of having a family and kids is on my mind more and more, I always wonder how I will approach this problem. I can't think I would do it any differently than you. For young children sure, throw up DNS filtering at the router level and the kiddos' will be none the wiser. But if my future kid ever turns out like me, that will probably only work until 7 or 8 (when I figured out how routers worked), at that point I would think it has to be an honest conversation about all the crap on the internet. Even when I was a kid I knew when the adults were feeding me a load of crap.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    What do you think schools should do? I teach at a school (K-12), and there's definitely circumvention of technical controls at the high school level. But I can't help but think we're a whole better off because of the filtering.
    - anonAndOn 5y ago
      DNS filtering (pi-hole is great here), scheduled vLAN time of use shutoffs (no after school shenanigans), obvious blacklists and ip request logging + pop-up warning are probably good enough for 95% of kids.
radicaldreamer 5y ago
Kids will be kids...
zitterbewegung 5y ago
All you are doing is teaching your kids to hack into their own device (speaking from experence) . Try a different strategy than attempting to lock down a device . When your are dealing with an individual who has a large payout if they succeed in getting around security and a long amount of time to circumvent it’s an extremely lost cause. Instead you should limit the amount of time for device access or even just take the device away.
- drcongo 5y ago
  The ScreenTime feature for family members on iOS is an absolute car-crash. Not only is it almost impossible to find (it's not in Settings -> ScreenTime), but I'm endlessly impressed with the ways around it my daughter is able to find. I've recently noticed that she can use WhatsApp without limits just by launching it from the share sheet in Photos.
  - zitterbewegung 5y ago
    I wasn’t clear I mean physically take the device from them.
    - supernovae 5y ago
      I've done this. This is when you find out that they can get online with their switch, their ipad, the long lost android tablet you didn't know you had or the one they bought from 7-11 because they sell 49 dollar kindle fires there. They also have friends phones and buy sims and all sorts of crap.. it's hilarous the lengths kids go to get online...
    - drcongo 5y ago
      I was posting in support of your comment, sorry that wasn't clear.
- jwineinger 5y ago
  Training them for a career in tech/security ;) Parent is playing the career long game.
m_st 5y ago
Did you try setting the device up with the MDM app from a Mac? It's called Apple Configurator or so, can't remember now. But as far as I remember it came with many options.
m_st 5y ago
Also, first time i read about NextDNS. Looks rather interesting. Thank you!
cbushko 5y ago
You can setup NextDNS at the router level.
- supernovae 5y ago
  It is, but the kids know they can juse use 5g and no more home router :)
subhro 5y ago
Can't you do that with Apple configurator by creating a profile and installing it on their phones? It is clunky though.
mschuster91 5y ago
If your kids are intelligent enough to bypass locks... give it up. Seriously. Better, prepare them for the worst of what they will experience on the Internet: violence, pornography, abuse of all kind, and guide them in their use of the Internet. Place yourself as the person your kids can come for help instead of the person they have to be afraid of. That is an incredibly easy and common thing for groomers to exploit.
- supernovae 5y ago
  nah, not giving up. Both kids have fought it, my oldest is 17 and nextdns for her just blocks ads and keeps the spyware from calling home. Every generation has "wtf is that" and what my 13 year old is going through is "WTF IS THAT!??"
ronyfadel 5y ago
Can you DM me? I’m working on something along those lines.
vineyardmike 5y ago
I still have a lot of resentment for the internet restrictions my parents put on my devices. They didn't usually work, but made whatever i was doing significantly more annoying. I still remember discovering a bug in the iphone parental controls where i could go to the amazon app, leave a comment for google.com, click it and open that in a webview, then open that into safari with restrictions disabled. How i discovered that, i have no idea. But there's always a way. Later i just wasted my money on a crappy android phone and forced their hand. Edit: please, please, parents do not do this to your child. Learn trust, have conversations, and let them explore. If you trust your child (truly trust them) and they know it (believe you, not just hear you say it) then they will mostly try to make good decisions. Controls will just be bad for your child in the long run, even if it makes parents job easier in short run. Once a child isn't in eg. middle school, you have to start letting them access tech on their own.
- bradstewart 5y ago
  So I haven't completely thought this through as my kids are still too young, but I'm leaning towards doing both. Some level of controls feels like a way to encourage exploration and learning and the "hacker" mindset. If they escape the controls, great! We also have the conversations about what's out there, how to handle it, etc.
- jon-wood 5y ago
  A quick thanks here for making me feel hideously old by mentioning your experience of parental controls being on an iPhone, a device that didn’t even exist until well after I’d moved away from home and was paying for my own internet connection.
- supernovae 5y ago
  You do realize, that often times controls are put in place when the communications and trust has been violated right? Most people want to not give a shit, it's the kid forcing the response. Beyond that, The internet for a boy, is much different than the internet for a girl - your experience isn't the same as everyone elses and neither are the filters. We home school so some of the controls are just in place so they actually do some school and they're only in place because they choose NOT to do school.

ryanianian 5y ago

The "at your own peril" strategy is effective for some. Or go the panopticon route: "I have software on the router that can see everything you do, but I don't usually look at it."

noway421 5y ago
Unless you're running a MITM proxy for SSL traffic with root certificates installed on the home devices, this statement can not be true. And if you're running such a proxy, you would need to have a guest WiFi for people coming into the house who would like to use internet without installing the certificate. At that point, circumventing the tracking is the matter of connecting to the guest WiFi.
thealistra 5y ago
This sounds like fueling anxiety in the kids that they are being watched. Doesn’t sound okay
- ryanianian 5y ago
  > kids that they are being watched They already are though. Usually by tech companies without the kid's best interests at heart. Tailor it to the kid. Certain amounts of anxiety in developing minors around surveillance seem healthy, especially given the risks associated with unfettered access to the dangerous fire-hose that is the internet which itself has tracking at every corner.
  - Hackbraten 5y ago
    Still, lying to your kids is not ok. If you don’t have software on your router that tracks everything they do, don’t pretend that you have. Being surveilled is a feeling that sticks. Being tricked, too. Don’t assume your kids will forget eventually.
- gwright 5y ago
  > kids that they are being watched Not sure that "kids" is well defined here. But it seems completely normal that "kids" would be watched by their parents. I realize that the appropriate nature of "watching" is going to change with the age of the "kid", but oversight and watchfulness by a parent shouldn't be viewed as inherently problematic.
nanidin 5y ago
16 year old me bypassed this and all other monitoring by running a patch cable from the cable modem directly to my machine when up to shenanigans.

Damogran6 5y ago

I figured, when my kids were a certain age, that if I took that route, they'd ALWAYS get around whatever control I put in front of them. Either at home, or at school or at a friends house. Told them there was stuff on the internet that could harm them, that there was stuff they could NOT unsee. They're 18 now, the results of the science experiment are still out, but they seem to have turned out okay.

_fat_santa 5y ago
When I think back to when I was a kid, getting around school internet filters and helping my friends remove parental controls from their devices, I can't help but think the Streisand Effect was hard at work in my brain. The adults was determined that I wouldn't see a thing so I was determined to see it because what could they be hiding? Now approaching the age where the thought of having a family and kids is on my mind more and more, I always wonder how I will approach this problem. I can't think I would do it any differently than you. For young children sure, throw up DNS filtering at the router level and the kiddos' will be none the wiser. But if my future kid ever turns out like me, that will probably only work until 7 or 8 (when I figured out how routers worked), at that point I would think it has to be an honest conversation about all the crap on the internet. Even when I was a kid I knew when the adults were feeding me a load of crap.
- mlyle 5y ago
  What do you think schools should do? I teach at a school (K-12), and there's definitely circumvention of technical controls at the high school level. But I can't help but think we're a whole better off because of the filtering.
  - anonAndOn 5y ago
    DNS filtering (pi-hole is great here), scheduled vLAN time of use shutoffs (no after school shenanigans), obvious blacklists and ip request logging + pop-up warning are probably good enough for 95% of kids.

radicaldreamer 5y ago

Kids will be kids...

zitterbewegung 5y ago

All you are doing is teaching your kids to hack into their own device (speaking from experence) . Try a different strategy than attempting to lock down a device . When your are dealing with an individual who has a large payout if they succeed in getting around security and a long amount of time to circumvent it’s an extremely lost cause. Instead you should limit the amount of time for device access or even just take the device away.

drcongo 5y ago
The ScreenTime feature for family members on iOS is an absolute car-crash. Not only is it almost impossible to find (it's not in Settings -> ScreenTime), but I'm endlessly impressed with the ways around it my daughter is able to find. I've recently noticed that she can use WhatsApp without limits just by launching it from the share sheet in Photos.
- zitterbewegung 5y ago
  I wasn’t clear I mean physically take the device from them.
  - supernovae 5y ago
    I've done this. This is when you find out that they can get online with their switch, their ipad, the long lost android tablet you didn't know you had or the one they bought from 7-11 because they sell 49 dollar kindle fires there. They also have friends phones and buy sims and all sorts of crap.. it's hilarous the lengths kids go to get online...
  - drcongo 5y ago
    I was posting in support of your comment, sorry that wasn't clear.
jwineinger 5y ago
Training them for a career in tech/security ;) Parent is playing the career long game.

m_st 5y ago

Did you try setting the device up with the MDM app from a Mac? It's called Apple Configurator or so, can't remember now. But as far as I remember it came with many options.

m_st 5y ago

Also, first time i read about NextDNS. Looks rather interesting. Thank you!

cbushko 5y ago

You can setup NextDNS at the router level.

supernovae 5y ago
It is, but the kids know they can juse use 5g and no more home router :)

subhro 5y ago

Can't you do that with Apple configurator by creating a profile and installing it on their phones? It is clunky though.

mschuster91 5y ago

If your kids are intelligent enough to bypass locks... give it up. Seriously. Better, prepare them for the worst of what they will experience on the Internet: violence, pornography, abuse of all kind, and guide them in their use of the Internet. Place yourself as the person your kids can come for help instead of the person they have to be afraid of. That is an incredibly easy and common thing for groomers to exploit.

supernovae 5y ago
nah, not giving up. Both kids have fought it, my oldest is 17 and nextdns for her just blocks ads and keeps the spyware from calling home. Every generation has "wtf is that" and what my 13 year old is going through is "WTF IS THAT!??"

ronyfadel 5y ago

Can you DM me? I’m working on something along those lines.

vineyardmike 5y ago

I still have a lot of resentment for the internet restrictions my parents put on my devices. They didn't usually work, but made whatever i was doing significantly more annoying. I still remember discovering a bug in the iphone parental controls where i could go to the amazon app, leave a comment for google.com, click it and open that in a webview, then open that into safari with restrictions disabled. How i discovered that, i have no idea. But there's always a way. Later i just wasted my money on a crappy android phone and forced their hand. Edit: please, please, parents do not do this to your child. Learn trust, have conversations, and let them explore. If you trust your child (truly trust them) and they know it (believe you, not just hear you say it) then they will mostly try to make good decisions. Controls will just be bad for your child in the long run, even if it makes parents job easier in short run. Once a child isn't in eg. middle school, you have to start letting them access tech on their own.

bradstewart 5y ago
So I haven't completely thought this through as my kids are still too young, but I'm leaning towards doing both. Some level of controls feels like a way to encourage exploration and learning and the "hacker" mindset. If they escape the controls, great! We also have the conversations about what's out there, how to handle it, etc.
jon-wood 5y ago
A quick thanks here for making me feel hideously old by mentioning your experience of parental controls being on an iPhone, a device that didn’t even exist until well after I’d moved away from home and was paying for my own internet connection.
supernovae 5y ago
You do realize, that often times controls are put in place when the communications and trust has been violated right? Most people want to not give a shit, it's the kid forcing the response. Beyond that, The internet for a boy, is much different than the internet for a girl - your experience isn't the same as everyone elses and neither are the filters. We home school so some of the controls are just in place so they actually do some school and they're only in place because they choose NOT to do school.