The Loomiverse

It must have lasted for nearly two weeks.  With a few caveats, I found my MacBook to be quite usable with Parental Controls switched on.

With a little tuning, the Application restrictions were fine, except of course for the fact that I couldn’t use XCode, but I guess that’s not something that developers aren’t really in the Parental Controls target audience.

I never really got into the time restrictions properly, whenever I exceeded my limits, I just typed in the admin password, and gave myself more time.  The system is entirely workable however, it just wasn’t the point of my experiment.

The Mail and I assume Chat restrictions worked quite well.  Despite the intrusive nature of the process, if we’re talking about managing a child online, then the system works exactly as I’d want it to.

Like all web filters, the content filters leave a little to be desired, I couldn’t read a page on the supposed dangers of Soy Milk, I assume, because it mentioned the effect Soy Milk is supposed to have on ones libido.  But I could successfully search for breast tattoos on google images, and get to see naked chicks, some were even goths as per my previous post.  What really let the content filtering down was it’s complete failure to handle SSL – All SSL sites are blocked by default, and the error messages and silent failures are anything but helpful.  Some more investigation is warranted here, I can’t help but think that the OS is running a transparent proxy to check the pages, which would mean that it would work with any installed browser, which would be a good thing (bring on Firefox or Opera) but makes handling SSL difficult.

Overall, the experience wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected if Apple can overcome the SSL problems, then I can see how Parental Controls could be a useful tool.  Of course, the experiment did reinforce something that I already new – It is only a tool, and no substitute for effective communication between the Parent and the Child.

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