Another letter to the Editor of Linux Format

January 2013's Linux Format had the Article "Think of the Children", which turned out to just be a review of Dan's Guardian.  Dan's Guardian is a Web Content filter and to my understanding is quite good.  I admit that Web Filtering is part of the solution of protecting children on the internet, but only part of it.  E-mail and Chat also need to be monitored, so I thought the article was at least inadequate based upon the title.  

Well my letter to the editor was published in the April 2013 issue after they edited it a bit.

My version:

“Think of the Children” is fine as far as it goes, but to really understand a child’s online activity, you will need more. Fortunately, Linux offers many resources that can assist parents. For example, you could install Bodhi on the child’s computer, with a parent as admin, and the child as a user without sudo rights. Since Bodhi does not pre-install hardly any applications, the parent has complete control over which apps are installed.

Be sure to install Secure Shell Server on the child’s computer. If the computer is on a home network, you, as admin, should always be able to ssh into it. If you can’t, someone may have decided to thwart you by running a live distro.

It’s easy enough to ssh into a remote computer. With
ssh -X @
you can access the e-mail client to spot check activity there.

When a web browser stores the browsing history in an sqlite database (Firefox does), you could also install sqlite and sqliteman on the childs computer.

To access the browsing history:
locate places.sqlite | grep firefox | grep
Copy the file name returned and issue the following command:
sqliteman

In the top right pane, use the following SQL statement:
SELECT datetime(moz_historyvisits.visit_date/1000000,'unixepoch'),
moz_places.url FROM moz_places, moz_historyvisits WHERE moz_places.id = moz_historyvisits.place_id
Click the green arrow to see what web sites the child is visiting.

To access your child’s email, ssh in and then issue the following command:
locate profiles.ini | grep .thunderbird
Copy the file name returned and issue the following command:
thunderbird -offline -P

Now just go through and spot check their inbox.

What got Published:

Mike Saunders' Think of the Children Feature [LXF166] is fine as far as it goes, but to really understand a child’s online activity, you will need more. Fortunately, Linux offers many resources that can assist parents. For example, you could install Bodhi on the child’s computer, with a parent as admin, and the child as a user without sudo rights. Since Bodhi does not pre-install hardly any applications, the parent has complete control over which apps are installed

Be sure to install Secure Shell Server on the child’s computer. If the computer is on a home network, you, as admin, should always be able to ssh into it to check e-mail activity. If you can’t, someone may have decided to thwart you by running a live distro. When a web browser stores the browsing history in an sqlite database (Firefox does), you could also install sqlite and sqliteman on the childs computer and use them to access their browsing history.

And then Linux Format responded:

This has been in the news recently, with the usual suspects demanding that ISP's take responsibility for children's internet access. As always, though, it's best to take responsibilkity for your own children rather then a tech illiterate government,so your suggestions are timely.

Phew, I was afraid I would be accused of being "politically incorrect"!!!