[ale] Niece's laptop

[Joshua Kite]

I've played with filtering in a number of ways.  One of the better solutions
for MS machines is Safe Eyes.  The software has to be installed on every MS
machine.  Safe Eyes does offer an appliance which is based on linux, but
there is no linux version available, and the appliance is cost prohibitive
for home use.

For our home I've been considering setting up a proxy through which all
traffic will travel using either
dansguardian<http://dansguardian.org/?page=news>or
censornet <http://www.censornet.com/>.  I've not begun working with either
of them, so I can't comment on their impact on performance or their
effectiveness.  It looks like censornet follows the traditional URL
filtering method while dansguardian actually dynamically studies the page
and determines whether to allow it through based on bayesian filtering.

Of course, both of these solutions requires setting up a proxy.  I don't
know whether you could set either of these could be set up to run on a
single machine to filter it and only it.  Even if that were possible, her
hardware might not be up to that sort of task.

Good luck.  This is a problem all of us parents will have to face for a long
time.

On 7/31/06, Dow_Hurst <dhurst at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> My niece has a IBM Thinkpad 770Z that had Win98 on it.  She does mainly
> AIM messaging and watches DVDs.  I think she browses the web some but this
> is thru AOL's security enabled browser that blocks most inappropriate
> content.  The DVD player stopped working and the machine would lock up
> alot.  I offered to put Linux on it and set it up for her.  Right now, I
> have SUSE 10.1 on it, DVDs will play, and firefox runs.  Of course it is
> slow, but it is useable.  However, the concern is the lack of any oversite
> on the browsing of the web.  The machine is pushed to the max just running
> 10.1 and KDE.  I tried XFCE but it is so plain that I am sure the more
> usual graphical environment of KDE is what my neice will use.  How can I
> filter out bad sites as well as AOL security center would?  Can the machine
> manage that and get updated on it's own somehow?  Is there a service or site
> that does what AOL's software does for protecting kids while browsing the
> web?
>
> Kopete will manage online messaging just fine.  Abiword is fast enough for
> word processing for school.  Firefox is great for browsing.  I even had a
> wifi card from Edimax that will work well with SUSE.
>
> The machine is a PII at 366MHz with 128Mb RAM.  Has a small 10Gb hard
> drive that is a bit noisy.  She earned the money and bought the machine
> herself.  I hate to say to her that I can't help and I need to put Win98
> back on it with AOL's software just to please my sister and
> brother-in-law.  Any ideas on what would be best?
>
> There is a Linksys wifi WRT54G router in the house she will connect
> thru.  I believe there is a service from Linksys for filtering web pages
> available there.  I'd love comments.  Even a new laptop as a gift would
> still need to have good filtering of web browsing.  I just can't plan on
> being able to manage the filter list manually as I don't have that kind of
> time or dedication!
> Thanks,
> Dow
>
>
> No sig.
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