I purchased NetNanny in order to limit my teenage
daughter's IM time. She has since discovered that if she
reboots the pc enough times, NetNanny eventually will not
load properly, and she can IM to her heart's desire.
NetNanny customer service was not much help - although
they did suggest I disable the ability to restart the pc
from the START button, the command they gave me does not
appear to work with my XP pc.
Does anyone know another way to disable the shutdown
command or have any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Mark
Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] - 23 Apr 2004 15:46 GMT
Honestly, I'm not sure. She could always press the power button repeatedly
even if you removed the start button entry.
As the sage Ed Crowley said, "There are seldom good technological solutions
to behavioral problems"....there are plenty of other third party apps that
purport to do what you want, but I have yet to meet the savvy teenager who
can't bypass what their parents set up. What about removing the computer to
a room she can't get into when you aren't there?
> I purchased NetNanny in order to limit my teenage
> daughter's IM time. She has since discovered that if she
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> Thanks,
> Mark
Mark B. - 23 Apr 2004 18:13 GMT
Well, our "problem" is pretty much only with the amount of
time she spends IM'ing, not that she is surfing all over
the web. I THINK she is much like many teenagers, in that
she will usually push the envelope, and she what she can
get away with (to a small degree). She's not all that
computer saavy...each time she has found a way around "the
system" it has been through pure luck, not because she has
any speacial or above average technical or computer
ability. Like the example I mentioned - one day, a program
she was working with locked up, so she rebooted the pc -
amazingly enough, NetNanny did not completely load, and
she was able to IM all she wanted.
She needs to be able to access the pc once or twice a
week when she is at home alone for an hour or two in
order to do her homework. So, I need something that will
allow me to limit her access, not just cut it off
completely.
At this point in time, I realize she will eventually
bypass whatever I set up - but, I would like to try and
stay either a step ahead of her, or no more than a step
behind.
>-----Original Message-----
>Honestly, I'm not sure. She could always press the power button repeatedly
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>
>.
Rosanne - 23 Apr 2004 20:52 GMT
> Well, our "problem" is pretty much only with the amount of
> time she spends IM'ing, not that she is surfing all over
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> stay either a step ahead of her, or no more than a step
> behind.
There are a lot of disciplinary actions you can take as an
"administrator", to include cutting Internet access off, or grounding
her from the computer entirely. I don't think there's going to be
anything reliable that will TIME her IM access, though, other than in
her skull and on her wrist.
~ Rosanne
Nobody - 23 Apr 2004 15:50 GMT
:I purchased NetNanny in order to limit my teenage
:daughter's IM time. She has since discovered that if she
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
:Thanks,
:Mark
First of all, I suggest that you set up user accounts and logins and
passwords, giving yourself administrative rights, and your daughter
restricted/user rights. What version of XP do you have?
And last, there is a way to disable the shutdown via the registry but
you have to take the first step in setting up the first line of
defense: Login access. Until then, she is an administrator and will
probably figure out what was done, and undo it.
Good luck
cquirke (MVP Win9x) - 28 Apr 2004 01:29 GMT
On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 05:18:20 -0700, "Mark B."
>I purchased NetNanny in order to limit my teenage
>daughter's IM time. She has since discovered that if she
>reboots the pc enough times, NetNanny eventually will not
>load properly, and she can IM to her heart's desire.
This does illustrate several problems with the "help me use technology
to trick my kids" approach:
1) Kids are cowboys; they don't care too much for consequences
2) Kids resenting coersion *really* don't care for consequences!
3) On a tech-savvy battlefield, kids are more likely to win
So you end up with bit-rot, data loss and instability due to recurrent
bad-exits, because junior just resets the PC to work around the
fences. What this really teaches her is that life is a battlefield
(true, perhaps) and victory goes to the tech-savvy, who are thus more
worthy than the lumpen newbies. That's a great way to "learn" herself
into a future showdown with the law she won't be able to back out of.
Maybe I'm just thinking about Gigabyte, who's now doing jail time for
writing and spreading viruses. Young, talented, convicted.
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Malware coders are the Wild Weasels
of Microsoft Quality Assurance
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