Protecting Your Children on the Internet with Linux or How to be a Sneaky Parent Part 4 Monitoring Web Activity

We are going to ssh into the childs computer, like before:

    ssh -X [ParentName]@192.168.0.3   

First of all, you need to know what the file name is of the Firefox Database.  So we will run the following command on your childs laptop:

    locate places.sqlite | grep firefox

We are looking for something in the childs home directory that ends in “places.sqlite”.  If you want to make it easier to look at, you can grep your childs name against it, thus:
       
    locate places.sqlite | grep firefox | grep charles

Now just do a copy of the whole file name and add it to the command sqliteman, like so:

    sqliteman /home/charles/.mozilla/firefox/mwad0hks.default/places.sqlite

A GUI app window will open.  Copy and paste (use a control-V to paste) the following command into the top right pane of the app and then press the green arrow above it.


    SELECT datetime(moz_historyvisits.visit_date/1000000,'unixepoch'), moz_places.url
    FROM moz_places, moz_historyvisits
    WHERE moz_places.id = moz_historyvisits.place_id

There is an icon 2nd from the right is a Save As.  Save your script because you are probably going to be using it a lot.
Click anywhere in the second pane and do a Control-A, followed by a Control-C.  Open Libre Office's Calc Program on your desktop computer, Click on the A1 Cell and do a paste.  Select all of the data, go to Data->Sort and descending on Column A.  The History file will now be listed with most recent at the top.  You can now go through and spot check the web sites and see that they are ok. 

If you find a porn site, don't panic, and don't blow up!  Just like anyone else, the child could have gone there by accident or been tricked; it happens.  If he or she isn't spending significant time on these web sites, everything is probably ok.  Otherwise, use your best judgment.

If it was a porn site it probably didn't happen at the house.  They may have taken it to a friends house.  Talk to your child and find out where it happened.  If it was at a friends house, talk to the parents of the child and show them how to change their DNS settings so that it won't happen again.

     If it happened at the house, check your router settings, maybe change the router password. But the best guess is that your child attached to a hotspot that didn't block anything.