mikeg's blog

And now, on with the discussion! So the actual question of a kiddie-friendly password thing is easy. Anyone with an ING Direct account can come up with a number of good challenge-response authentication methods and I know Debian can support them. There's also spoken password stuff floating around for Linux, biometrics, etc. The technical challenge is uninteresting to me (which you've probably guessed from my background above) since it's solved in many elegant ways. What is interesting is how quickly Slashdot decays into "Protect your kids but don't invade their privacy" mode. The truth is, I'm torn. Had my parents tried to tightly control my internet activity I would have rebelled, jumped on a bus to somewhere where I could do whatever I wanted with no supervision and made it home in time for dinner with nobody the wiser (the benefits of being a latchkey kid). Conversely, if my parents (and to a lesser extent myself) don't keep close tabs on my little brother I'm afraid he'll wind up some lard-ass pedo's bitch - either by his own naivete or the malice of the amorphous internet, which (like it or not) is not as nice a neighborhood as it was when I moved in all those years ago... It's hard for me - a bleeding heart commie pinko libertarian son of a bitch - to say this, but we've reached a point where children who have a computer connected to the internet really can't expect privacy. I applaud the AC who posted the question for giving his sister the first real tool she will have to learn about computing - even more so for giving her a *NIX machine which (no matter how friendly) will eventually require her to grok something arcane and difficult to make it work the way she wants - and I believe that - yes - children should have root/admin on their machine (if it's really a machine for them and not a shared box), but the responsibilities of a parent mean that Mom & Dad really do *NEED* root on that box too. When my little brother got his first computer I set it up fully locked down - If he wanted software, I had to install it. If he wanted network access I had to log in to our edge machine and grant him access. He lived in the police state until my parents and I saw that it was no longer tenable (around 9-10 years old), at which point my parents and I evaluated AV and filtering tools and built a gilded cage as best we could. It's not perfect, but it affords him a fair degree of freedom while keeping him out of the worse parts of the internet. None of this is a good solution though -- The good solution is the computer being in the living room. While my computers were always in my room my parents and I determined that not only was that a Bad Idea for me, it was an even worse idea for a young kid on the new Big Bad Internet, and so my brother's network activities are monitored by virtue of being public. This is the strategy I advocate for EVERY family. Don't bother with the software filters - they'll get around them. Don't demand to see every email, know every friend, etc. (did YOUR parents know EVERYONE you hung out with?). Above all, DON'T ignore the 'net and believe nothing bad will happen. Rather be aware of your children - If you see something out of the ordinary investigate; If they clam up THEN make the demands. Do I know that this works? No. In fact I know it doesn't - you can't watch 100% of the activity 100% of the time (Hell my little brother downloaded Creepy Anime Porn! You know *I* wouldn't be lettin' that happen if I was paying attention!) But it's the best we can do. It is the duty of parents to protect their children from harming others or from being harmed by the less savory elements of our world, but it is also their duty to prepare children to face that world alone someday. A careful blend of trust and vigilance is needed to satisfy both charges. This has been a public service rambling from someone totally unqualified to raise kids :)