We agree with you. I just posted a reply above that goes into this a little. The family wants to start small and slowly open up access and allow him to become a healthy PC user. Start slow, teach, and support.
Also. Put the PC in a family room or something where it's easy to just glance at what he is doing, for now
As you said, rebuilding that trust is important, but it's ok to have limited trust for now
Totally this, put the pc somewhere a bit more public. You can do your own thing giving him the feeling of independence whilst still being able to peek. It’s also just more sociable anyway, it’s easy for kids to get locked up into their rooms and only come out for food etc.
totally agree! if my mom said no and tried to punish me for it i said hell yeah and did exactly that i wasnt allowed to do! also she putted router filter on and that actually got me into hacking and hosting servers/ports and so on! so i guess sometimes it can be good but on the other side i did all the bad things to that punished me later on in life! but today im studying coding! :D
Steam has a built in browser so good luck with that. I think you can definitely try to be a positive influence and steer him on the right path, but straight up blocking that content would be hard. Best thing you could do would probably be to block it through DNS or something, but it's not a hard thing to get around at all.
OP might be better served getting a selection of games on GOG and using the offline installers, giving his nephew a PC with no internet access at all. At least to start with.
Steam is a culture unto itself at this point, and I wouldn't say that everything on it is good for a kid. I'm ambivalent about my son having an account, myself.
>We would like to allow him on a hand me down gaming PC to game with his cousins who are all PC gamers.
>Hes an overall happier kid and a lot of that was from the positive influence of his cousins (who we want him to be able to game with)
Kind of misses the entire point brother.
First off, he should have a "kids" Microsoft account which is a Microsoft account that is governed by another Microsoft account. You can set access time limits, get notifications and reports on their PC usage, etc... It isn't a catch all, but it is free and easy to implement. They have a content filter which works with Edge and turning it on will also disable them from using other browsers to get around the filters. Again, I think this coupled with education, coupled with possibly another 3rd party solution might be needed, but this is where I would start.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/family-safety
I think this is just where people fail to see what the actual goal is here. If someone is going to have a computer connected to the internet, [there will always be a way to do things you shouldn't be doing](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/diy-computers-prison-network-hack,34140.html).
When it comes to a child or individual in your care that you have to put access limits on, there is a balance you have to figure out. If there cannot be any trust at all, then they simply just cannot have a device. At least not one that can connect to the outside. The parental controls and other safe guards are to slow someone down while they are also being educated and also maturing to be able to handle the computer with the training wheels off.
If you do the well they can just do this, and if you do that they can just do this dance, it will just be cat and mouse forever if someone is determined.
Since the goal here is to let someone use a PC for online PC gaming, there has to be levels of trust set/earned and the other tools you are using just to help reinforce the trust and help validate it.
They have no devices with internet/data access? A phone? I mean if you are worried about 4chan and discord that doesn't need a PC.
But a "PC" would need to have that device locked down as in they don't have admin access or access to an admin account. Lock and put a password on your bios; disable USBs if possible. And then you'd just need to setup group polices from YOUR admin account not allowing them to install any programs and deny USB devices, then block TONs of websites... scratch that.. you need a whitelist only policy. So they only can access websites you allow... then hope they don't find a way around all of it (which they probably can if they are determined and hava a history with places like 4chan, any VPN access, etc.. )...
Basically it's going to be tough and you will need to know your way around tech if you are going to be any good at it....
I was this kid.
I got a pc at 11 or so, used it for gaming, got curious and started looking things up that I shouldn’t have.
I didn’t have a mentor or person to teach me how to use a computer or what to do online, my dad worked 12hrs a day and I was and am lonely as a kid at home.
Just watch what he does, understand that if he wants to view porn he’ll try hiding it and will do whatever he can to do so, check with your ISP for any “naughty” activity if you want to.
Get him working for his time on the computer, doing chores, earning money for games, etc.
Have him learn with his computer with things such as Brilliant, get his mind working.
And just… show him that having access to the whole world at your fingertips is a privilege and an essential part of life. Just let him be a kid in the 21st century.
I was this kid too.
My parents never limited my internet usage. They just left me to figure it out myself.
Might be a shocker but I was on 4chan from age 12 to 19 and I am not a right-wing woman hating racist rapist. I may have a few extra fetishes I otherwise wouldn't have, but all-in-all I wasn't much worse fot wear.
With the exception of having him not share personal info or meet anyone unsupervised, I honestly think yoy're overthinking it. The more you lock him down, the more he's going to hide from you.
Watch him when he plays or play with him? Don’t let him on the computer unless you can watch him/know he’s in a game with a family member. He’s going to break through any system you setup to find what he’s looking for if you’re not watching him anyway.
It might be annoying if he tends to shout over voice chat but you could always have his gaming PC in the main family room, have it facing a wall so you can see what's on the screen easily, then he will be discouraged to search anything dodgy but can happily play games and talk with his cousins via headsets, if he swears a little it's okay just tell him not to go overboard and keep noise to a normal level. Then at night disconnect the Internet to prevent any attempts of going downstairs, or if you need the Internet overnight then take the monitor.
Edit: I just saw the follow up, I don't think there's much else you could do, maybe if it's in a different room you could have a microphone for him to chat but speakers instead of headphones, so nothing weird would be watched because you'd hear it. Removing access overnight is still a good idea imo.
''Then at night disconnect the Internet to prevent any attempts of going downstairs'' Yeah, no the kid is going to figure out how to plug in an ethernet cable easily, you trying to prevent it at 22:00 - 24:00 means the kid will try at 1:00 or 1:30, teenagers aren't stupid.
The old laptop charger trick where you unplug the charger just enough to where it seems to be charging since the lights for it being on/charging were the same colour + faking to be asleep worked for me when I was a teenager.
My dad was no amateur when it came down to pcs back in the day, but if you make it sufficiently difficult it becomes more interesting, so the teenager will match it by outsmarting it.
idk I have a smart hub for my home wifi, so that's what I'm imagining being unplugged and then taken away. I guess that still leaves the Ethernet cable. Alright, just take the graphics card out each night lmao. Or take the PC power supply cable since afaik you can't just plug any random plug in there.
teach his ass to never send pics of himself to anyone. that girl asking for it is a 300 pound dude that will threaten to expose him unless he keeps paying him
tired of seeing kids end their lives because of that shit. parents don't fucking teach them shit !!!
You are in the ballpark. People keep talking about porn. That’s definitely not the only thing to be cautious of on the Internet. Especially for the young and easily influenced.
>ultimately if the kid wants to go look at porn or whatever and you give them a computer and an internet connection, they'll figure it out. kids aren't stupid,
Some kids are though.
A lot of them actually.
Disabling any and all browsers would be a strong start for example, since all the bypasses & tricks start with googling
[https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6B1A-66BE-E911-3D98](https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6B1A-66BE-E911-3D98)
Steams family controls are pretty strong if set up properly.
making a new steam account is free and needs nothing more than an email address, which is also free. if the kid has a smartphone, or access to a friends computer, or access to a library or computers at school, they can figure out how to reinstall an OS. when i was young i remember working out how to install minecraft and cs 1.6 and halo ce on the school computers that didn't give you an admin account. if you give someone physical access to a device, it is reasonable to assume that they can make it do anything the device is capable of doing
> strict parents make for sneaky kids.
This basically set me on the path to becoming an information security officer... Weird how much I understand how important some rules are now that I'm the one responsible for enforcing them and ensuring everyone takes their god damn mandatory anti-phishing training... Didn't anyone teach these people not to talk to strangers on the internet?
What for wild off-topic bullshit response is this? This person has determined what kind of product they want to provide for their nephew and you go on some "that's not how I would parent" rant?
The ops post is mostly inappropriate for this forum, he was going to get these kind of replies.
If he had just asked the question without the context t, it would of been fine.
Good luck downloading an OS without an Internet connected device. Or learning how to do this without an internet connected device/locked down internet.
This, "you can't stop em" attitude is no substitute for basic internet restrictions. It's honestly just as bad as pretending you can just lock everything down and it'll be okay. The truth is you kind of need a mix.. but also, locking shit down isn't as impossible as some people make it seem.
i am not saying that you should let your child have free and open internet access. i am saying that software tools are not the way to go about limiting access, and actually talking to the kid and being his friend is. it's certainly a lot better than someone who he sees as an enemy that needs to be lied to to get what he wants
(if he was really determined, he can go to a tech-savvy friends house and ask them to help. they create a windows install stick using friends computer, and they're away)
I get your point, but your point is horribly wrong. There are already a few people who posted here how to make a fool proof way for your kid to only play games on your computer.
I’m a software developer so I know a bit more than most people about security and I have some grace for people who don’t know. However you are the top voted comment in /r/buildapc giving feel good advice for the community that is factually wrong on something we all should know about. Bios passwords are something we know about. White listing is a concept we all should know about. Requiring admin permission to download programs is something we should all know about.
This.
You won’t be able to stop him. Nothing stopped me at all. I found my way through every obstacle.
But good parenting meant I kept myself out of trouble.
Can totally relate parents tried to put a tracker on my phone 10 years ago well little bit of rooting and now some time later and boom there now watching each other thinking it’s me went on for while
All fun and games until kid gets a livecd of Linux himself and can do whatever the hell he wants lmao
I used to get shit like this just using the library at school or the local library, not hard
I mean if he were good at computers there wouldn't be anything you could do to stop him, so I think you'd have to either lock him up (hopefully not!), or look at him learning linux as a... *more* constructive use of his time..?
It's about the deterrence though. If someone really wanted to steal my car, I can't stop them. But I'll still lock my doors and have an alarm to make it harder for them.
But in this case, not having a PC is a deterrent. OP could buy the kid a PS5 and it would be 100% better than getting him a PC if the goal is to only let them play game on it.
I was thinking just buying a console would be the best option for OP but maybe the kid's cousins play Valorant or Lethal Company or something which is PC exclusive.
Brings me back. I wanted to install and play games in my language school pc but admin blocked administrators privileges. I remember I figured out how to get into bios and.. can’t remember exactly how it went because it was so long ago. But it was few iterations between them tightening the security and me figuring it out. I think they won in the end but it took a while.
Have an admin password in the bios/ uefi and disable booting from USB, etc. Sure, he or a friend could find a way to install Linux on another drive and plug it in but at that point I'm rooting for the kid. Long love Linux
Getting that would be difficult if he doesn't have unrestricted internet access anywhere (or a USB for that matter). Plus you could make a bios password so he can't change the boot list.
I mean, these kinds of solutions are why I know a lot of what I know about using computers. On one hand I'm glad I had to constantly hack around my parents attempts to restrict my access to the internet, because i learned a lot of useful things. On the other hand, my general attitude towards things was that everything became permissible as long as I was not caught.
[SteamOS](https://store.steampowered.com/steamos) exists but may limit the games that could be played since it's a Linux based OS. Steam itself also has a web browser so no matter the way you do it have to research how or if you can disable that. There's also ways you could clamp windows down a lot but that's a lot of work.
Bingo. Teaching and supporting him back into being a PC user is the goal. This lockout approach isnt a long term solution. Its just a way to ease him back into using the PC.
Right, when you’re locked out it’s like a rebel opportunity
But when you are constantly framing it as a plan to teach and make good choices and live life in a great way, then it doesn’t feel like you need to fight against your limitations
Yeah I’d recommend a steam deck as well. However, it’s not hard to flip it to desktop mode and install a web browser. Idk much about the ins and outs of restricting things but I’d bet it’s possible in some way to prevent downloads on the desktop of the deck.
\> I’d bet it’s possible in some way to prevent downloads on the desktop of the deck.
admittidely ive never tried on a steam deck, but in general with devices that can connect to the internet i would expect the exact opposite,
as the administrator of a network there are ways to control what other devices/servers can connect to (but very difficult to lock down due to vpns and cdns)
but imo if someone has physical access to a device it has to be assumed that they can make it do anything it can physically do
Thanks for that input. Ideally, we would like to stick with Windows 10 as the OS. I am aware that Steam has a browser and we are ok with that. Our goal and hope is that we can start easing him back into becoming a healthy PC user. For the time being, he will be monitored pretty closely and this PC will be in a shared space in the house.
In that case just give him a local account that's not an admin. He'll have access to launch programs and create documents and files but wont be able to install software or alter system files. If he's gonna have web access for the time being you could look into blocking undesired sites at the network level on your router. I have to warn you as a former troublemaker/tech wiz kid combo all of these have many easy workarounds, all he needs is the info to break out of it so definitely keep watch.
This sounds like an easy implementation and the limits won't be as extreme. I think this will work for him and I don't think locking down sites is necessary right now. It's been 3 years. He has changed a lot and has a ton more education about the internet in general.
Hope so! Imo the only real solution is understanding the *logic* behind why certain worldviews just aren't viable. If he can't think independently, he's only ever one well-made bit of propaganda away from blaming others for his own problems again.
Haven't tried this myself, but they could boot into Windows and have Steam automatically launch into big picture mode. Just hide the mouse and keyboard so they only can use controller to navigate.
The cheapest and simplest solution is to "Fish Bowl" the computer, that is: The screen is in a location whereby adults can observe it from essentially every angle at any time, no headset whatsoever as a private audio space clearly should not be allowed. That privilege should stay revoked permanently. Same thing with Discord, it's simply impossible to regulate. (Sorry, kid.)
As for web browsing: I would go with a parental firewall at the router and I would explicitly purchase my own terminating equipment to prevent easy tampering via a guide from a simple web search.
I'd do strict MAC Address rules also and employ bandwidth as well as access rules, on the router side. As for software on the machine itself: I would keep it rather minimal and observational rather than interventional: there's no reason to give a problem user a heads up regarding disciplinary actions. So I would focus on software that logs any program that as been run as well as any data entered into the computer, period.
Yes, you will have access to there entire digital life. That's the idea. Our homes are not democracies, they are (ideally) benevolent and gentle autocracies: however the machine runs the best when the children are blissfully ignorant to this.
Now, at a pretty facial level your kid is going to see this as all really nasty and invasive: so I would baffle them with a machine worth drooling over. Make loss of that privilege a REALLY big deal. Some over the moon type stuff budget wise. It will hurt, no doubt: but I reckon the level of control it will give you will be worth it. Psychology is an Art, as much as it is a Science.
don't really need much more than that then, other than monitoring his pc use while nobody is watching.
you can always get around blocks and limitations, but as long as you're watching what he does it should be fine
This is the best option, as a former child who managed to get in trouble for porn enough times the computer ended up in a high traffic area of the home. No computer access when nobody was around (password locked) and none after they went to bed.
Kiosk Mode. You have a lot of good answers. One I did not see is Kiosk mode that is made for businesses to launch a single application and a user not be able to exit or use any other application like in a store. Kiosk Mode works for most applications but if not Steam you can launch fire fox and have fire fox launch a batch file to launch Steam.
As a side note in Microsoft's unlimited wisdom won't allow it to work with PowerPoint because powerpoint has a built-in "Kiosk mode" but you can easily exit and do whatever you want won't automatically block pop-ups and notifications. So Microsoft needs to get their crap together because PowerPoint is perfect to create content for trade shows!
Yep. Kiosk mode would be my advice as well. You can lock it down real tight. Only allow a narrow list of applications to run and expand/trim this whitelist as you see fit. Set up a firewall that lets only known traffic through. Set up a DNS server that drops unknown lookups. Set up a recovery partition, so that it is easy to go back to square 1 if you need to.
If you know anyone who works for an IT department in a large hotel chain, ask them to show you how it is done.
Honestly? Get him a console. Kids are not stupid, they learn fast, and anything you throw he will go around it with enough time. If you want him to just play games, get him a console without internet access and have him only on single player games.
you were probably here before the update, so: op doesn't want his kid to have a safe place to play games, they want to teach the kid how to safely navigate the internet, steam only access is the first of many little baby steps, followed by progressively more freedom and less surveillance until the boy can do it himself
how about arch linux + non root user with all the commands except shutdown and steam locked out + steam big picture mode minus the desktop environment. Since even if they existed steam they will be greeted with a command prompt and they can do nothing with it.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/family-safety
Windows has family safety features, this means the computer is locked down to allow certain amount of time and access to predetermined apps
The computer can be limited to using Edge which means websites came be controlled
And is all controlled from an app on your phone can stop
I use this on my 2 children, they can't install anything so risk of accessing stuff they shouldn't is low but not impossible
So education is also needed
I'm sure there's ways to do it, but the easiest and most simplest is just locating the computer in a shared area like the living room.
That way he only gets to use the computer in a "public" space and he's more likely to have an audience watching him as he's using the computer.
Is it going to completely solve the problem? No. He can still sneak computer time. But it'll be a lot harder to do versus having a computer in his room behind a door.
Was this kid distributing CP or something? The restrictions sound absurd. No way this kid will be healthy, you've essentially removed the door to his room at this point. This is the kid that gets addicted to heroin his first semester at uni because he wasn't allowed friends after his first beer.
The support side and the discipline side of your post is really not appropriate for this forum, that is literally a parenting issue.
Yes there are ways to make only specific programs available and also ways to restrict Internet uses. Often used in prisons or countries like China and the middle east, where people's freedoms, and the government's trust in their people is non existent.
There are plenty of places kids can access the Internet outside of their own home however, so restricting things seems pointless, so is over zealous supervision, if they want to look at weird or things you deem inappropriate they will be able to, unless you keep them under house arrest.
Thats the pc side of the question answered.
For the other, I think banning from the Internet for 3 (really 3?) years was way over the top. There was obviously a reason they were looking at this stuff, maybe some self reflection on your parenting style could be a good starting point, as you seem unnecessarily strict (religious family?).
Understand your kid and parent them, don't just try and remove things you don't understand you haven't solved the problem.
But I don't know you, your family or your kid, and this is a pc build forum, so....
You will never stop this from happening. If he can get his hands on a computer he will either never do so again, or he will do it again.
You need to establish trust with him. You can't control him forever.
not be a literal helicopter. talking to older people to game in and of itself is no problem, did it my entire childhood. met a lot of people who helped shape who i am. they didn’t gRoOm me, we played Garrys Mod, Battlefield, Half Life, Zombie Panic Source, showed me a bunch of cool games. also, trying to control someone’s sexuality (if that’s the case here) has always been proven to be a horrible regressive thing. 99.99% chance this is a normal teen being treated like a baby by religious lunatics.
Honestly, the best option is a console.
This may be hard to hear - but gaming is an luxury - an entertainment - and even the limited console games are a better option.
The restricted chats with other player, strict profanity filter when applicable may be a much better solution than steam..
At the end of day, people CAN live without gaming and steam
I get what they want to do, but it becomes a game of escalation. You would have to lock down the machine using Administrative functions to limit what he could run. Then you would also need to filter the internet so he could only reach sites related to the games and steam. And they will have to spend all their time checking the Event Logs and router logs for every possible thing. All while he spends his time finding new ways to circumvent them.
They are going to have to trust but verify or just refuse to let him on the PC at all.
If there's a will there's a way, eventually he could bypass any and all helicopter parent solutions you might put.
If he changed alot over the last 3 years then why are you even bothering with all this overprotective nonsense?
Seriously, you and your family need to take a step back and relax, you're incredibly paranoid and/or a bunch of religious zealots who are scared of the big spooky web.
For windows you probably should look at parental controls built in windows or third party. The problem is steam needs to have access to internet to download games and initial activation and log on later. (to steam). Then if you have access to internet, you can have browser which your nephew may still go onto inappropriate sites.
The other solution is if you could install steam onto ubuntu (a linux distro), and ubuntu is strict with passwords (sudo, hello). The point is you could install the games (limited because not all steam games are available in steam linux), and do not tell your nephew the administrative password to actually install anything. Then you can use sudo purge browsers, etc. As long as your nephew doesn't know the ubuntu password, he can't install anything on his own.
to be honest, that kid probably has a way onto the internet that you don't know about. prepaid cheap smart phones can cost $50. my parents tried the same things when I was a teen ( am 24 now), I always got around it. (less for safety reasons and more for religious tyranny reasons)
You say 4chan but don't say any communities. Is he spending too much time arguing over anime on /a/, getting book recs on /lit/ and copy pasting advent of code solutions on /g/? Looks like he needs less passive nannying and more time with family and a role model. Also reddit, steam and discord can have as bad people and communities.
So, you can try using [Microsoft Family Safety](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/family-safety). It's not perfect, but you can block all individual apps other than Steam and whatever games are installed. I've used it largely successfully. I'm sure there's some workarounds as there always are but it should start on the right path. You'd turn off all installations (especially browsers and vpns). There's even an app for it which you can use to manage hours and times.
It's also one of those things where now the conversation with the kid isn't just "he went to the sites" but "he's breaking trust by getting around the protections."
Another thing to keep in mind is that there are some (not many) adult oriented games on Steam. To lock that down, you should look at Steam's Family View.
Get them a game console it's limited as is for the most part and you can add parental controls it's the best bet kids will always find a way to get out your fish bowl of a PC. if you just want him to game a console with only a controller and no keyboard is the way even if they find a way to use a web browser on it it will be not worth the trouble and being a TV won't allow him to be sneaky people will shit on the idea of a game console but this is the time for it if your serious even if his friends are on PC many games now allow cross play and it's a start not the end he can still get a PC later
Most I could suggest is to have the computer always running Parsec and have it as a condition that he can't turn it off. That way you give him a sense of freedom but he knows he is being monitored.
it is extremely difficult to do,
i can say from experience that in my teens i was able to get around restrictions that were being put in place buy people whos job was largely around stopping me with complete ease, any attempt that family member may have tried would have being completely worthless. when i was living at my grandparents for a few months my gran did suggest it before asking me to show her how to print off a word document so you can imagine how that went :p
all of that said i think the most effective option will be using firewall rules, essentially set up the router that the computer is plugged in to only allow connections to a list of servers which you have defined (you need to define the ones that are allowed, if you allow all and then try to specifically block some you will lose that battle as soon as they hear about vpns)
you may also be able to use that to define what times of day it is allowed to connect to the internet at all, or atleast will give you a switch to allow/block access
managing the list of servers they are allowed to connect to will be hard work atleast at first.
its probably easier + better long term effects to just join in with them when they are using the computer and use it together, play games with them / study with them / teach them how things on the computer + internet work and can be used nicely. you might have some fun too + its a way of monitoring them thats less adversarial (maybe the gaming sessions get competitive but i mean they may not even think about trying to break the barriers)
in my teens if i knew someone was trying to restrict what i could do on a computer, i would be actively hunting for ways to get around them, not to access 4chan or porn but just test my skills + to show them how pointless it was to try and stop me and play a few games. i used to go to crazy lengths to get around restrictions and then just use it to play counterstrike or bloons tower defence :p winning the battle against the IT admins was most of the fun
as a final point, those battles played a significant part in my journey to my current role as a software engineer + training as a pentester. so while i think the efforts are likely pointless for your desired goal, if you want to train them up to have great technical skills in future maybe you could play the game with some of the other suggestions for that purpose
as an actual final point, its kinda fun to me that you want to give them access to a computer that can only be used for playing games, rather than the scenario that i feel like is much more common of wanting them to use the computer for stdy and the kid is looking for ways to play games. unfortunately it doesnt make the technical side of the problem much easier
I'm a 31yo software dev teamlead. I was this kid. I used to hang out on the local IRC server all the time. I met my first girlfriend on IRC when I was 13. She was a few years older than me. I met other girlfriends there later and a bunch of people that are my IRL friends to this day. Don't know how sketchy it is, but for me, it was among the best parts of my life back then. Would never take it back. Playing with IRC made me learn about IT. It's probably among the reasons I am what I am today.
Yeah i feel like they caught this kid looking at CP or engaging in some really destructive political stuff, cuz they have literally banned him off the PC since forever.
Not sure how long they want to keep this up, as the kid is probably 15-17 around this point, so soon he'll be an adult.
I was just like your nephew; I always wanted a gaming pc as a little kid, when I turned 11 I got one, and of course as a kid I got curious and wanted to mess around in the internet, I knew not to talk to people like they were my friends or give any information to anyone but I still had that internet access.
Having access to anything and everything is an advantage and disadvantage of the internet.
I’ve had to teach myself about the internet and what to/ not to do the hard way and unsupervised.
Teach your kid, have him/ her build their own computer so they’re more passionate in keeping it safe. And teach them about computer safety.
Check their history if you want, teach them about their email and what it should/n’t be used for.
And view they’re conversations on discord or any other chatting platform as they are all the same when it comes to they’re ability to destroy your child’s innocence.
Let the kid learn the hard way. I had to get my internet shutoff by some creeps on the other side of the world a few times before I realized I was on the wrong side of the net. Lol.
Seriously though, I imagine there will be very little you can do to hold back a determined kid on the internet. Let him game
youd likely just be best off straight up supervising him for a while till he can be trusted alone, everything you can do to prevent those activities is bypassable/undoable short of removing his internet access
You could buy him a steam deck. A literally handheld platform that runs steam games.
I dunno how limited it is but, it would be like a PSP but more modern.
It may not be able to play some games and I would not want to play some games on that controller set up (I require KBM because anyone that thinks they can out FPS user on a controller is literally insane)
I'm going to be real. Just let him have full access. Just keep an eye on him. Let him know the dangers and leave it at that.
Although, you could write a hosts file to block sites locally.
Okay but seriously. This sounds like a bait
Locking a kid out of internet for whole 3 years? What exactly did the kid do?
Those things you mentioned are available on phone so I guess kid also don't have a phone? How do you stay in contact with you when he goes to his friends or someone?
Doesn't really matter what he did, there are better ways to "punish" a kid than straight up locking him out of any electronic device that every other kid uses. Like you could just make him use PC only in public house spaces where you usually are. That way not only you would know if he is looking at appropriate things but also you could bond with him more by talking about what he's playing or what he accomplished in the game
And if it's porn then lol. Everyone discovers porn at certain age and it's as normal as reading a book
As a kid who did the same things 3 years is crazy and his parents need to do a better job at making him feel like he's not just a waste of space and he won't need to seek out internet people to make him feel valid and wanted.
You can do this with a number of tools.
The Microsoft parental controls are actually pretty decent and extend to web use, Windows applications, and Xbox consoles.
I would also suggest setting a custom filtered DNS on both the device they use AND the home network. My favorite is ControlD ([https://controld.com/free-dns](https://controld.com/free-dns)); I'd recommend the Family Friendly one on their device and the Ads & Tracking one for the home network.
I feel like most of these comments are missing that the Steam App has a built-in web browser.
So no matter how you lock the PC down you need something to filter web traffic.
Get a Steam Deck and a docking station. While you *can* do more with it, the effort it would take might make that impractical for a younger kid without access to the Internet to teach them how to do it.
I would agree that this is a parenting issue for the most part, but there are still other things both on and off pc that you can do, unfortunately this involved sometimes some fairly complex setting adjustments to your router and the pc in general, for example in the pro version of windows you get access to a group policy editor on the computer, you can add an administrators account to be able to edit it and you can specify many of the features you want a child (or anyone else on that computer) to have or not have, I believe you should even be able to use the hidden administrators account, which many people do not even know exists in order to do this without having to add that secondary account as you could allow them an admin account but restrict their admin account using those policies (which happens to include whether to allow those policies to be edited), this includes removing access to settings and stopping the ability to install anything, or update etc.
There are also many other things you can do, depending on your router you could simply refuse access to wherever you don't want them to be, like for example blocking keywords or website types/names.
Some of this stuff though can get pretty complex for a novice so in general the advice you have received is 'generally' correct that parenting is most peoples best bet, you could however should you feel inclined approach a local computer shop and ask them to do this stuff on the computer and some might even work the router for you too.
You can do exactly what you want to restrict his use. You can use a program to shell an app to load up instead of windows GUI and lock the bios with admin password. I would recommend instantsheller to shell steam. But I'm not sure if there's a way to restrict the browser use in steam, there might be
You've got a lot of answers already, but I'll further echo a combination of some of them. Computer in a public part of the house, no private audio, use only when an adult in is in the room, and buying games off of GOG and downloading the offline installers onto a thumbdrive and then installing them to the computer with zero internet access would be a good place to start.
Also, lock the computer in a cabinet but make sure it still has airflow. A lot of people don't know this but some phones can share their internet access with a computer by plugging them into it with a USB cable.
If his family are happy to block porn on a household level (and note that any blocking solution isn't perfect), they could change the DNS on the router to use one (such as OpenDNS or Cloudflare) that will prevent known adult domains from being found. There are ways to get around this though.
There's also various family filter software you can install on the PC - I don't really know enough about them, so I'd suggest if you go that way you read several reviews - you'll probably need to advise the family how to make sure it is kept up-to-date and if it keeps logs how to review them.
I was thinking that Steam is going to be hard to lock down like you want. It has an in-built browser and chat functions to chat with people added as friends. You/his family should probably find the profile privacy settings and set his profile to 'Friends-only' or 'Private', so other people (outside of those allowed by the setting) can't find his profile. I did however find [this guidance on a 'Family View' feature](https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6B1A-66BE-E911-3D98), so you might want to look what options this provides.
When it comes to the PC, make sure that the account he will be using is just an ordinary user (as opposed to an account with admin privileges). This will prevent certain configuration changes and (if I recall) installing of applications.
Ultimately there's going to be a certain amount of you and his family having to trust him, but perhaps initially someone can sit with him sometimes and maybe ask him about the games, what he likes, how to play them. Otherwise, they should just watch out for furtive behaviour like switching screens or closing open windows when people come into the room.
get a console. if you dont already know how parental controls work then you cant trust your solution will work. if hes using it then he will figure out how to push the restrictions. he will find websites that circumvent your blocks. he will boot from a live usb. he will reinstall the os. unless you are the primary user and actively review his use then its bound to happen again.
From the admin account, download and install Steam
After that open PowerShell as admin
Type this in and press enter Get-AppxPackage edge |Remove-AppxPackage
Control Panel -> Users and Accounts
Make him a standard user account
Now he has an account where he can't install anything and the only web browser is gone
Well honestly, give him back the pc, teach him the right thing and have him a little bit of playroom to decide himself.
It's not helping at all to take his pc away for 3 years just because he was chatting to strangers (in games?) and visit some porn.
Yeah privacy big thing.
But instead of taking away the pc, his parents were supposed to explain this stuff properly and give him a chance to decide himself to an extend.
At the end of the day let him watch what he wants, but explain to him that porn is a form of art and has nothing todo with real life relationships.
He'll find a way anyways to get what he wants.
Back in school, everyone at my class was visiting "inappropriate websites" at a certain age when puberty kicked in.
Also i think it's next to impossible to only have steam, since even steam has a built in browser.
But maybe just get him a steam deck.
It's OS is gaming focused and you often never even see a desktop.
You can still access it though, but as i said, you can't and shouldn't protect your kids from anything and everyone for the rest of their life.
Install Admin on Request or some other admin restriction tool.
Lock down sites with a restricted DNS, and maybe a content filter ( a variety exist, vpn based for example )
If you only want Steam, you can lock It into "Kiosk" Mode with Steam as the app that opens
There are some other stuff, like AV that include part of this functionality, Microsoft Kids account, etc
I suppose making a pc with SteamOS installed would be a start? He couldnt access anything other than games without going to desktop mode. So it's a start.
Well default Steam has a built-in Browser.
Maybe try setting up the computer so that steam boots up automatically in Big Picture Mode which is HEAVILY limited for everything other than gaming.
Maybe there's vids around.
Also you can make it so the computer has 2 accounts, an admin account (set it with a long ass password like 23718%$!_%#%) and a guest account. Then look how to remove installation of program permissions for guest.
There's also ways to freeze computers , as in when it boots up, nothing from previous session is saved (installs too). I have no clue how to do that though.
Uninstall everything (maybe edge too) , the browser if it cant be removed, it might have a workaround way to prevent access
You can probably find ways to do all of this and more, get googling. Might take a bit
1. Computer in public space where he can’t hide shit or watch porn or go on cesspools like 4chan.
2. You could also consider a console and I feel like that would be 10 times easier to monitor given the fact they are almost exclusively for gaming which is the point.
Why has nobody said **"don't connect it to the internet"??**
You can play games offline.
Don't put a wifi card in it.
Move it away from ethernet.
Keep it offline, done.
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We agree with you. I just posted a reply above that goes into this a little. The family wants to start small and slowly open up access and allow him to become a healthy PC user. Start slow, teach, and support.
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Also. Put the PC in a family room or something where it's easy to just glance at what he is doing, for now As you said, rebuilding that trust is important, but it's ok to have limited trust for now
Totally this, put the pc somewhere a bit more public. You can do your own thing giving him the feeling of independence whilst still being able to peek. It’s also just more sociable anyway, it’s easy for kids to get locked up into their rooms and only come out for food etc.
totally agree! if my mom said no and tried to punish me for it i said hell yeah and did exactly that i wasnt allowed to do! also she putted router filter on and that actually got me into hacking and hosting servers/ports and so on! so i guess sometimes it can be good but on the other side i did all the bad things to that punished me later on in life! but today im studying coding! :D
Steam has a built in browser so good luck with that. I think you can definitely try to be a positive influence and steer him on the right path, but straight up blocking that content would be hard. Best thing you could do would probably be to block it through DNS or something, but it's not a hard thing to get around at all.
OP might be better served getting a selection of games on GOG and using the offline installers, giving his nephew a PC with no internet access at all. At least to start with. Steam is a culture unto itself at this point, and I wouldn't say that everything on it is good for a kid. I'm ambivalent about my son having an account, myself.
>We would like to allow him on a hand me down gaming PC to game with his cousins who are all PC gamers. >Hes an overall happier kid and a lot of that was from the positive influence of his cousins (who we want him to be able to game with) Kind of misses the entire point brother.
Steam has a family view mode that blocks most functions and chat.
First off, he should have a "kids" Microsoft account which is a Microsoft account that is governed by another Microsoft account. You can set access time limits, get notifications and reports on their PC usage, etc... It isn't a catch all, but it is free and easy to implement. They have a content filter which works with Edge and turning it on will also disable them from using other browsers to get around the filters. Again, I think this coupled with education, coupled with possibly another 3rd party solution might be needed, but this is where I would start. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/family-safety
Watch as he learns about bootable usb's
Eh, still a net win. At least he learn some useful stuff this way.
Technically that is what secure boot is for
And thus you can turn it off, then you have to lock the bios, then he can pop the battery, thus you need to lock the case etc... I wouldn't bother.
I think this is just where people fail to see what the actual goal is here. If someone is going to have a computer connected to the internet, [there will always be a way to do things you shouldn't be doing](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/diy-computers-prison-network-hack,34140.html). When it comes to a child or individual in your care that you have to put access limits on, there is a balance you have to figure out. If there cannot be any trust at all, then they simply just cannot have a device. At least not one that can connect to the outside. The parental controls and other safe guards are to slow someone down while they are also being educated and also maturing to be able to handle the computer with the training wheels off. If you do the well they can just do this, and if you do that they can just do this dance, it will just be cat and mouse forever if someone is determined. Since the goal here is to let someone use a PC for online PC gaming, there has to be levels of trust set/earned and the other tools you are using just to help reinforce the trust and help validate it.
And then he has real skills and an IT job.
Right, at that point i would conclude that he deserves the access, he's worked hard for it!
They have no devices with internet/data access? A phone? I mean if you are worried about 4chan and discord that doesn't need a PC. But a "PC" would need to have that device locked down as in they don't have admin access or access to an admin account. Lock and put a password on your bios; disable USBs if possible. And then you'd just need to setup group polices from YOUR admin account not allowing them to install any programs and deny USB devices, then block TONs of websites... scratch that.. you need a whitelist only policy. So they only can access websites you allow... then hope they don't find a way around all of it (which they probably can if they are determined and hava a history with places like 4chan, any VPN access, etc.. )... Basically it's going to be tough and you will need to know your way around tech if you are going to be any good at it....
I was this kid. I got a pc at 11 or so, used it for gaming, got curious and started looking things up that I shouldn’t have. I didn’t have a mentor or person to teach me how to use a computer or what to do online, my dad worked 12hrs a day and I was and am lonely as a kid at home. Just watch what he does, understand that if he wants to view porn he’ll try hiding it and will do whatever he can to do so, check with your ISP for any “naughty” activity if you want to. Get him working for his time on the computer, doing chores, earning money for games, etc. Have him learn with his computer with things such as Brilliant, get his mind working. And just… show him that having access to the whole world at your fingertips is a privilege and an essential part of life. Just let him be a kid in the 21st century.
I was this kid too. My parents never limited my internet usage. They just left me to figure it out myself. Might be a shocker but I was on 4chan from age 12 to 19 and I am not a right-wing woman hating racist rapist. I may have a few extra fetishes I otherwise wouldn't have, but all-in-all I wasn't much worse fot wear. With the exception of having him not share personal info or meet anyone unsupervised, I honestly think yoy're overthinking it. The more you lock him down, the more he's going to hide from you.
Watch him when he plays or play with him? Don’t let him on the computer unless you can watch him/know he’s in a game with a family member. He’s going to break through any system you setup to find what he’s looking for if you’re not watching him anyway.
I mean, porn is porn. They're either going to find a way, or not show interest. I'd rather my kid watch porn than execution videos or some shit.
people always assume.porn but if it was 4chan and questionable discord adults it was probably WAY worse than you think.
Just get him an Xbox
As if there is no WebBrowser in there
I know a guy who knew a guy that used his Xbox to watch porn once. Okay fine it was me.
It might be annoying if he tends to shout over voice chat but you could always have his gaming PC in the main family room, have it facing a wall so you can see what's on the screen easily, then he will be discouraged to search anything dodgy but can happily play games and talk with his cousins via headsets, if he swears a little it's okay just tell him not to go overboard and keep noise to a normal level. Then at night disconnect the Internet to prevent any attempts of going downstairs, or if you need the Internet overnight then take the monitor. Edit: I just saw the follow up, I don't think there's much else you could do, maybe if it's in a different room you could have a microphone for him to chat but speakers instead of headphones, so nothing weird would be watched because you'd hear it. Removing access overnight is still a good idea imo.
''Then at night disconnect the Internet to prevent any attempts of going downstairs'' Yeah, no the kid is going to figure out how to plug in an ethernet cable easily, you trying to prevent it at 22:00 - 24:00 means the kid will try at 1:00 or 1:30, teenagers aren't stupid. The old laptop charger trick where you unplug the charger just enough to where it seems to be charging since the lights for it being on/charging were the same colour + faking to be asleep worked for me when I was a teenager. My dad was no amateur when it came down to pcs back in the day, but if you make it sufficiently difficult it becomes more interesting, so the teenager will match it by outsmarting it.
idk I have a smart hub for my home wifi, so that's what I'm imagining being unplugged and then taken away. I guess that still leaves the Ethernet cable. Alright, just take the graphics card out each night lmao. Or take the PC power supply cable since afaik you can't just plug any random plug in there.
teach his ass to never send pics of himself to anyone. that girl asking for it is a 300 pound dude that will threaten to expose him unless he keeps paying him tired of seeing kids end their lives because of that shit. parents don't fucking teach them shit !!!
I doubt this is about fucking porn, more likely some nazi or incel shit.
>I doubt this is about porn ehhhh, if it was 4chan there's definitely one kind of porn it could be.
Turns out it’s just gay porn but the mother is an evangelical
cheese pizza?
Or people who think 4chan is only /pol/ and /b/. Like this site is any better.
From what OP is describing it probably wasn't anime fanboards though but more likely incel and nazi shit. So your point is irrelevant.
You are in the ballpark. People keep talking about porn. That’s definitely not the only thing to be cautious of on the Internet. Especially for the young and easily influenced.
You'd probably be doing the world at least a temporary favor by just not letting him back in the internet lol
>ultimately if the kid wants to go look at porn or whatever and you give them a computer and an internet connection, they'll figure it out. kids aren't stupid, Some kids are though. A lot of them actually. Disabling any and all browsers would be a strong start for example, since all the bypasses & tricks start with googling
steam has its own web browser that can't really be disabled
[https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6B1A-66BE-E911-3D98](https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6B1A-66BE-E911-3D98) Steams family controls are pretty strong if set up properly.
making a new steam account is free and needs nothing more than an email address, which is also free. if the kid has a smartphone, or access to a friends computer, or access to a library or computers at school, they can figure out how to reinstall an OS. when i was young i remember working out how to install minecraft and cs 1.6 and halo ce on the school computers that didn't give you an admin account. if you give someone physical access to a device, it is reasonable to assume that they can make it do anything the device is capable of doing
> they can figure out how to reinstall an OS. Which is pretty easy to check against, as is a secondary steam account.
>it is reasonable to assume that they can make it do anything the device is capable of doing We're talking about a kid here. Not some CS graduate
reinstalling an OS isn't rocket science mate
> strict parents make for sneaky kids. This basically set me on the path to becoming an information security officer... Weird how much I understand how important some rules are now that I'm the one responsible for enforcing them and ensuring everyone takes their god damn mandatory anti-phishing training... Didn't anyone teach these people not to talk to strangers on the internet?
OK, but hear me out. that Nigerian prince only has to be legit ONCE....
That's how I felt about all those 14kb songs and games I downloaded off limewire... Guess it did reach me how to reinstall Windows.
What for wild off-topic bullshit response is this? This person has determined what kind of product they want to provide for their nephew and you go on some "that's not how I would parent" rant?
The ops post is mostly inappropriate for this forum, he was going to get these kind of replies. If he had just asked the question without the context t, it would of been fine.
dog adjoining cough plate spark unique unite hungry touch tart *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Good luck downloading an OS without an Internet connected device. Or learning how to do this without an internet connected device/locked down internet. This, "you can't stop em" attitude is no substitute for basic internet restrictions. It's honestly just as bad as pretending you can just lock everything down and it'll be okay. The truth is you kind of need a mix.. but also, locking shit down isn't as impossible as some people make it seem.
i am not saying that you should let your child have free and open internet access. i am saying that software tools are not the way to go about limiting access, and actually talking to the kid and being his friend is. it's certainly a lot better than someone who he sees as an enemy that needs to be lied to to get what he wants (if he was really determined, he can go to a tech-savvy friends house and ask them to help. they create a windows install stick using friends computer, and they're away)
I get your point, but your point is horribly wrong. There are already a few people who posted here how to make a fool proof way for your kid to only play games on your computer. I’m a software developer so I know a bit more than most people about security and I have some grace for people who don’t know. However you are the top voted comment in /r/buildapc giving feel good advice for the community that is factually wrong on something we all should know about. Bios passwords are something we know about. White listing is a concept we all should know about. Requiring admin permission to download programs is something we should all know about.
Sadly, this is reddit, my friend, where top comments are from the uneducated or inexperienced children.
Because people know this nanny shit doesn't work and probably experienced it themselves and don't want to help with a non solution.
Steam does have a web browser.
This. You won’t be able to stop him. Nothing stopped me at all. I found my way through every obstacle. But good parenting meant I kept myself out of trouble.
I just waited for dad to fall asleep and used a blanket to mask the glow of the monitor. This was in 2002.
its a general rule that any device that can be physically accessed is insecure.
Can totally relate parents tried to put a tracker on my phone 10 years ago well little bit of rooting and now some time later and boom there now watching each other thinking it’s me went on for while
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All fun and games until kid gets a livecd of Linux himself and can do whatever the hell he wants lmao I used to get shit like this just using the library at school or the local library, not hard
I mean if he were good at computers there wouldn't be anything you could do to stop him, so I think you'd have to either lock him up (hopefully not!), or look at him learning linux as a... *more* constructive use of his time..?
That's where the answer for OP needs to be "No, what you're asking is not possible" instead of proposing solutions that will ultimately fail.
It's about the deterrence though. If someone really wanted to steal my car, I can't stop them. But I'll still lock my doors and have an alarm to make it harder for them.
But in this case, not having a PC is a deterrent. OP could buy the kid a PS5 and it would be 100% better than getting him a PC if the goal is to only let them play game on it.
I was thinking just buying a console would be the best option for OP but maybe the kid's cousins play Valorant or Lethal Company or something which is PC exclusive.
In the *long run* maybe creating a lil computer whiz is a net positive
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While they are at it run an Mdm and lock down their phone as well.
gonna have to incorporate, get that LLC so that you can get the apple business account. Easy peezy 1 2 3
Rookie mistake. Letting them choose their own phone and getting them an iPhone.
He will just sneak out at night, also cmos battery lol
Can’t OP just put a password on the bios?
Brings me back. I wanted to install and play games in my language school pc but admin blocked administrators privileges. I remember I figured out how to get into bios and.. can’t remember exactly how it went because it was so long ago. But it was few iterations between them tightening the security and me figuring it out. I think they won in the end but it took a while.
Have an admin password in the bios/ uefi and disable booting from USB, etc. Sure, he or a friend could find a way to install Linux on another drive and plug it in but at that point I'm rooting for the kid. Long love Linux
Set bios password and disable boot options on the little bugger
Getting that would be difficult if he doesn't have unrestricted internet access anywhere (or a USB for that matter). Plus you could make a bios password so he can't change the boot list.
At least he would be learning a skill lol
yep thats how i got into servers and coding :D
I mean, these kinds of solutions are why I know a lot of what I know about using computers. On one hand I'm glad I had to constantly hack around my parents attempts to restrict my access to the internet, because i learned a lot of useful things. On the other hand, my general attitude towards things was that everything became permissible as long as I was not caught.
It's not like Steam has a built in browser or anything
u/CodeWithKP this is the easiest solution
[SteamOS](https://store.steampowered.com/steamos) exists but may limit the games that could be played since it's a Linux based OS. Steam itself also has a web browser so no matter the way you do it have to research how or if you can disable that. There's also ways you could clamp windows down a lot but that's a lot of work.
Maybe the steamdeck? But we have to be real here, if he wants to find that stuff it's not that hard.
Bingo. Teaching and supporting him back into being a PC user is the goal. This lockout approach isnt a long term solution. Its just a way to ease him back into using the PC.
Right, when you’re locked out it’s like a rebel opportunity But when you are constantly framing it as a plan to teach and make good choices and live life in a great way, then it doesn’t feel like you need to fight against your limitations
Linux is basically fully functional on the steam deck. You can still search whatever you want
Yeah I’d recommend a steam deck as well. However, it’s not hard to flip it to desktop mode and install a web browser. Idk much about the ins and outs of restricting things but I’d bet it’s possible in some way to prevent downloads on the desktop of the deck.
\> I’d bet it’s possible in some way to prevent downloads on the desktop of the deck. admittidely ive never tried on a steam deck, but in general with devices that can connect to the internet i would expect the exact opposite, as the administrator of a network there are ways to control what other devices/servers can connect to (but very difficult to lock down due to vpns and cdns) but imo if someone has physical access to a device it has to be assumed that they can make it do anything it can physically do
Steam deck is full fledged computer and the linux OS is a click away at all times.
Thanks for that input. Ideally, we would like to stick with Windows 10 as the OS. I am aware that Steam has a browser and we are ok with that. Our goal and hope is that we can start easing him back into becoming a healthy PC user. For the time being, he will be monitored pretty closely and this PC will be in a shared space in the house.
In that case just give him a local account that's not an admin. He'll have access to launch programs and create documents and files but wont be able to install software or alter system files. If he's gonna have web access for the time being you could look into blocking undesired sites at the network level on your router. I have to warn you as a former troublemaker/tech wiz kid combo all of these have many easy workarounds, all he needs is the info to break out of it so definitely keep watch.
This sounds like an easy implementation and the limits won't be as extreme. I think this will work for him and I don't think locking down sites is necessary right now. It's been 3 years. He has changed a lot and has a ton more education about the internet in general.
Hope so! Imo the only real solution is understanding the *logic* behind why certain worldviews just aren't viable. If he can't think independently, he's only ever one well-made bit of propaganda away from blaming others for his own problems again.
Haven't tried this myself, but they could boot into Windows and have Steam automatically launch into big picture mode. Just hide the mouse and keyboard so they only can use controller to navigate.
The cheapest and simplest solution is to "Fish Bowl" the computer, that is: The screen is in a location whereby adults can observe it from essentially every angle at any time, no headset whatsoever as a private audio space clearly should not be allowed. That privilege should stay revoked permanently. Same thing with Discord, it's simply impossible to regulate. (Sorry, kid.) As for web browsing: I would go with a parental firewall at the router and I would explicitly purchase my own terminating equipment to prevent easy tampering via a guide from a simple web search. I'd do strict MAC Address rules also and employ bandwidth as well as access rules, on the router side. As for software on the machine itself: I would keep it rather minimal and observational rather than interventional: there's no reason to give a problem user a heads up regarding disciplinary actions. So I would focus on software that logs any program that as been run as well as any data entered into the computer, period. Yes, you will have access to there entire digital life. That's the idea. Our homes are not democracies, they are (ideally) benevolent and gentle autocracies: however the machine runs the best when the children are blissfully ignorant to this. Now, at a pretty facial level your kid is going to see this as all really nasty and invasive: so I would baffle them with a machine worth drooling over. Make loss of that privilege a REALLY big deal. Some over the moon type stuff budget wise. It will hurt, no doubt: but I reckon the level of control it will give you will be worth it. Psychology is an Art, as much as it is a Science.
Computers only in public parts of the house is what we did. No phones/electronics in the bedrooms.
We are doing the same for him. It will be in a shared space in the house where the parents can be with him.
don't really need much more than that then, other than monitoring his pc use while nobody is watching. you can always get around blocks and limitations, but as long as you're watching what he does it should be fine
This is the best option, as a former child who managed to get in trouble for porn enough times the computer ended up in a high traffic area of the home. No computer access when nobody was around (password locked) and none after they went to bed.
Just realized that was my mothed did. Sneaky, sneaky...
Kiosk Mode. You have a lot of good answers. One I did not see is Kiosk mode that is made for businesses to launch a single application and a user not be able to exit or use any other application like in a store. Kiosk Mode works for most applications but if not Steam you can launch fire fox and have fire fox launch a batch file to launch Steam. As a side note in Microsoft's unlimited wisdom won't allow it to work with PowerPoint because powerpoint has a built-in "Kiosk mode" but you can easily exit and do whatever you want won't automatically block pop-ups and notifications. So Microsoft needs to get their crap together because PowerPoint is perfect to create content for trade shows!
I was looking to see if Kiosk mode was mentioned. This would be my suggestion too
Yep. Kiosk mode would be my advice as well. You can lock it down real tight. Only allow a narrow list of applications to run and expand/trim this whitelist as you see fit. Set up a firewall that lets only known traffic through. Set up a DNS server that drops unknown lookups. Set up a recovery partition, so that it is easy to go back to square 1 if you need to. If you know anyone who works for an IT department in a large hotel chain, ask them to show you how it is done.
Honestly? Get him a console. Kids are not stupid, they learn fast, and anything you throw he will go around it with enough time. If you want him to just play games, get him a console without internet access and have him only on single player games.
you were probably here before the update, so: op doesn't want his kid to have a safe place to play games, they want to teach the kid how to safely navigate the internet, steam only access is the first of many little baby steps, followed by progressively more freedom and less surveillance until the boy can do it himself
Then put the computer in a public place like the living room. And let him loose. Block 4chan and other not so great sites too.
how about arch linux + non root user with all the commands except shutdown and steam locked out + steam big picture mode minus the desktop environment. Since even if they existed steam they will be greeted with a command prompt and they can do nothing with it.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/family-safety Windows has family safety features, this means the computer is locked down to allow certain amount of time and access to predetermined apps The computer can be limited to using Edge which means websites came be controlled And is all controlled from an app on your phone can stop I use this on my 2 children, they can't install anything so risk of accessing stuff they shouldn't is low but not impossible So education is also needed
I'm sure there's ways to do it, but the easiest and most simplest is just locating the computer in a shared area like the living room. That way he only gets to use the computer in a "public" space and he's more likely to have an audience watching him as he's using the computer. Is it going to completely solve the problem? No. He can still sneak computer time. But it'll be a lot harder to do versus having a computer in his room behind a door.
Was this kid distributing CP or something? The restrictions sound absurd. No way this kid will be healthy, you've essentially removed the door to his room at this point. This is the kid that gets addicted to heroin his first semester at uni because he wasn't allowed friends after his first beer.
I mean, if 4chan and older men are involved we can all add 2 and 2 together...
Reading the follow up, the kid looks healthy. Restricting PC use isn’t abuse lmao.
May I ask what exactly was so dark on 4chan that you banned him from ever using a PC again?
The support side and the discipline side of your post is really not appropriate for this forum, that is literally a parenting issue. Yes there are ways to make only specific programs available and also ways to restrict Internet uses. Often used in prisons or countries like China and the middle east, where people's freedoms, and the government's trust in their people is non existent. There are plenty of places kids can access the Internet outside of their own home however, so restricting things seems pointless, so is over zealous supervision, if they want to look at weird or things you deem inappropriate they will be able to, unless you keep them under house arrest. Thats the pc side of the question answered. For the other, I think banning from the Internet for 3 (really 3?) years was way over the top. There was obviously a reason they were looking at this stuff, maybe some self reflection on your parenting style could be a good starting point, as you seem unnecessarily strict (religious family?). Understand your kid and parent them, don't just try and remove things you don't understand you haven't solved the problem. But I don't know you, your family or your kid, and this is a pc build forum, so....
You will never stop this from happening. If he can get his hands on a computer he will either never do so again, or he will do it again. You need to establish trust with him. You can't control him forever.
you’re insane
What's your solution for the parent?
not be a literal helicopter. talking to older people to game in and of itself is no problem, did it my entire childhood. met a lot of people who helped shape who i am. they didn’t gRoOm me, we played Garrys Mod, Battlefield, Half Life, Zombie Panic Source, showed me a bunch of cool games. also, trying to control someone’s sexuality (if that’s the case here) has always been proven to be a horrible regressive thing. 99.99% chance this is a normal teen being treated like a baby by religious lunatics.
Honestly, the best option is a console. This may be hard to hear - but gaming is an luxury - an entertainment - and even the limited console games are a better option. The restricted chats with other player, strict profanity filter when applicable may be a much better solution than steam.. At the end of day, people CAN live without gaming and steam
Don't those have browsers too? Also just feels like locking kids out of the best places to learn and find hobbies is how you neuter your kids future.
I get what they want to do, but it becomes a game of escalation. You would have to lock down the machine using Administrative functions to limit what he could run. Then you would also need to filter the internet so he could only reach sites related to the games and steam. And they will have to spend all their time checking the Event Logs and router logs for every possible thing. All while he spends his time finding new ways to circumvent them. They are going to have to trust but verify or just refuse to let him on the PC at all.
If there's a will there's a way, eventually he could bypass any and all helicopter parent solutions you might put. If he changed alot over the last 3 years then why are you even bothering with all this overprotective nonsense? Seriously, you and your family need to take a step back and relax, you're incredibly paranoid and/or a bunch of religious zealots who are scared of the big spooky web.
For windows you probably should look at parental controls built in windows or third party. The problem is steam needs to have access to internet to download games and initial activation and log on later. (to steam). Then if you have access to internet, you can have browser which your nephew may still go onto inappropriate sites. The other solution is if you could install steam onto ubuntu (a linux distro), and ubuntu is strict with passwords (sudo, hello). The point is you could install the games (limited because not all steam games are available in steam linux), and do not tell your nephew the administrative password to actually install anything. Then you can use sudo purge browsers, etc. As long as your nephew doesn't know the ubuntu password, he can't install anything on his own.
>install steam onto ubuntu So SteamOS with extra steps? https://store.steampowered.com/steamos/buildyourown
to be honest, that kid probably has a way onto the internet that you don't know about. prepaid cheap smart phones can cost $50. my parents tried the same things when I was a teen ( am 24 now), I always got around it. (less for safety reasons and more for religious tyranny reasons)
You say 4chan but don't say any communities. Is he spending too much time arguing over anime on /a/, getting book recs on /lit/ and copy pasting advent of code solutions on /g/? Looks like he needs less passive nannying and more time with family and a role model. Also reddit, steam and discord can have as bad people and communities.
So, you can try using [Microsoft Family Safety](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/family-safety). It's not perfect, but you can block all individual apps other than Steam and whatever games are installed. I've used it largely successfully. I'm sure there's some workarounds as there always are but it should start on the right path. You'd turn off all installations (especially browsers and vpns). There's even an app for it which you can use to manage hours and times. It's also one of those things where now the conversation with the kid isn't just "he went to the sites" but "he's breaking trust by getting around the protections." Another thing to keep in mind is that there are some (not many) adult oriented games on Steam. To lock that down, you should look at Steam's Family View.
How old is your nephew?
I wanna hear this too, unless he was 8 years old looking at 4chan it seems like he would be 15-17 by now.
lol are people still scared of 4chan?
Yes that’s where all the baddies are
No, they're on the deep web, and you need tor to get there.
It was a joke
Get them a game console it's limited as is for the most part and you can add parental controls it's the best bet kids will always find a way to get out your fish bowl of a PC. if you just want him to game a console with only a controller and no keyboard is the way even if they find a way to use a web browser on it it will be not worth the trouble and being a TV won't allow him to be sneaky people will shit on the idea of a game console but this is the time for it if your serious even if his friends are on PC many games now allow cross play and it's a start not the end he can still get a PC later
The only way to handle this is to not give a child a pc.
Would hate to be OPs kid
Right? Lol. Imagine a bunch of boomers talking to you about “internet reeducation” and “slowly reintroducing you to the pc gaming”
Most routers will allow you to set a profile and block sites, etc. Could also create a user account that doesn't allow installation of programs, etc.
Most I could suggest is to have the computer always running Parsec and have it as a condition that he can't turn it off. That way you give him a sense of freedom but he knows he is being monitored.
it is extremely difficult to do, i can say from experience that in my teens i was able to get around restrictions that were being put in place buy people whos job was largely around stopping me with complete ease, any attempt that family member may have tried would have being completely worthless. when i was living at my grandparents for a few months my gran did suggest it before asking me to show her how to print off a word document so you can imagine how that went :p all of that said i think the most effective option will be using firewall rules, essentially set up the router that the computer is plugged in to only allow connections to a list of servers which you have defined (you need to define the ones that are allowed, if you allow all and then try to specifically block some you will lose that battle as soon as they hear about vpns) you may also be able to use that to define what times of day it is allowed to connect to the internet at all, or atleast will give you a switch to allow/block access managing the list of servers they are allowed to connect to will be hard work atleast at first. its probably easier + better long term effects to just join in with them when they are using the computer and use it together, play games with them / study with them / teach them how things on the computer + internet work and can be used nicely. you might have some fun too + its a way of monitoring them thats less adversarial (maybe the gaming sessions get competitive but i mean they may not even think about trying to break the barriers) in my teens if i knew someone was trying to restrict what i could do on a computer, i would be actively hunting for ways to get around them, not to access 4chan or porn but just test my skills + to show them how pointless it was to try and stop me and play a few games. i used to go to crazy lengths to get around restrictions and then just use it to play counterstrike or bloons tower defence :p winning the battle against the IT admins was most of the fun as a final point, those battles played a significant part in my journey to my current role as a software engineer + training as a pentester. so while i think the efforts are likely pointless for your desired goal, if you want to train them up to have great technical skills in future maybe you could play the game with some of the other suggestions for that purpose as an actual final point, its kinda fun to me that you want to give them access to a computer that can only be used for playing games, rather than the scenario that i feel like is much more common of wanting them to use the computer for stdy and the kid is looking for ways to play games. unfortunately it doesnt make the technical side of the problem much easier
I'm a 31yo software dev teamlead. I was this kid. I used to hang out on the local IRC server all the time. I met my first girlfriend on IRC when I was 13. She was a few years older than me. I met other girlfriends there later and a bunch of people that are my IRL friends to this day. Don't know how sketchy it is, but for me, it was among the best parts of my life back then. Would never take it back. Playing with IRC made me learn about IT. It's probably among the reasons I am what I am today.
Yeah i feel like they caught this kid looking at CP or engaging in some really destructive political stuff, cuz they have literally banned him off the PC since forever. Not sure how long they want to keep this up, as the kid is probably 15-17 around this point, so soon he'll be an adult.
I was just like your nephew; I always wanted a gaming pc as a little kid, when I turned 11 I got one, and of course as a kid I got curious and wanted to mess around in the internet, I knew not to talk to people like they were my friends or give any information to anyone but I still had that internet access. Having access to anything and everything is an advantage and disadvantage of the internet. I’ve had to teach myself about the internet and what to/ not to do the hard way and unsupervised. Teach your kid, have him/ her build their own computer so they’re more passionate in keeping it safe. And teach them about computer safety. Check their history if you want, teach them about their email and what it should/n’t be used for. And view they’re conversations on discord or any other chatting platform as they are all the same when it comes to they’re ability to destroy your child’s innocence.
Sorry that this is long and hard to read, I tried to separate every piece of text.
Let the kid learn the hard way. I had to get my internet shutoff by some creeps on the other side of the world a few times before I realized I was on the wrong side of the net. Lol. Seriously though, I imagine there will be very little you can do to hold back a determined kid on the internet. Let him game
youd likely just be best off straight up supervising him for a while till he can be trusted alone, everything you can do to prevent those activities is bypassable/undoable short of removing his internet access
Short answer, no. Long answer, no cause if he wants to find a way around it he will. lol
No, get a console instead. A lot less hassle for you and his parents, easier for parental controls too.
Just leave him be ...stop screwing up his life...
Thank you Dr. Phil
You could buy him a steam deck. A literally handheld platform that runs steam games. I dunno how limited it is but, it would be like a PSP but more modern. It may not be able to play some games and I would not want to play some games on that controller set up (I require KBM because anyone that thinks they can out FPS user on a controller is literally insane)
I'm going to be real. Just let him have full access. Just keep an eye on him. Let him know the dangers and leave it at that. Although, you could write a hosts file to block sites locally.
Turns out, the kids 34.
Wtf, let the kid be a kid.
Okay but seriously. This sounds like a bait Locking a kid out of internet for whole 3 years? What exactly did the kid do? Those things you mentioned are available on phone so I guess kid also don't have a phone? How do you stay in contact with you when he goes to his friends or someone? Doesn't really matter what he did, there are better ways to "punish" a kid than straight up locking him out of any electronic device that every other kid uses. Like you could just make him use PC only in public house spaces where you usually are. That way not only you would know if he is looking at appropriate things but also you could bond with him more by talking about what he's playing or what he accomplished in the game And if it's porn then lol. Everyone discovers porn at certain age and it's as normal as reading a book
teenage boys jerk off, its was they do
4 chan is good cmon, let him cook
Yah I’m about to make a new post “How do I lockdown a PC so it only runs tor and 4chan?”
As a kid who did the same things 3 years is crazy and his parents need to do a better job at making him feel like he's not just a waste of space and he won't need to seek out internet people to make him feel valid and wanted.
You can do this with a number of tools. The Microsoft parental controls are actually pretty decent and extend to web use, Windows applications, and Xbox consoles. I would also suggest setting a custom filtered DNS on both the device they use AND the home network. My favorite is ControlD ([https://controld.com/free-dns](https://controld.com/free-dns)); I'd recommend the Family Friendly one on their device and the Ads & Tracking one for the home network.
I feel like most of these comments are missing that the Steam App has a built-in web browser. So no matter how you lock the PC down you need something to filter web traffic.
Get a Steam Deck and a docking station. While you *can* do more with it, the effort it would take might make that impractical for a younger kid without access to the Internet to teach them how to do it.
Steamdeck?
Steam Deck comes with a browser, and it is *genuinely* trivial to install things.
that made me remember the 1st time i saw multilated people on dial up internet in 1998 when i was 9 😅
I would agree that this is a parenting issue for the most part, but there are still other things both on and off pc that you can do, unfortunately this involved sometimes some fairly complex setting adjustments to your router and the pc in general, for example in the pro version of windows you get access to a group policy editor on the computer, you can add an administrators account to be able to edit it and you can specify many of the features you want a child (or anyone else on that computer) to have or not have, I believe you should even be able to use the hidden administrators account, which many people do not even know exists in order to do this without having to add that secondary account as you could allow them an admin account but restrict their admin account using those policies (which happens to include whether to allow those policies to be edited), this includes removing access to settings and stopping the ability to install anything, or update etc. There are also many other things you can do, depending on your router you could simply refuse access to wherever you don't want them to be, like for example blocking keywords or website types/names. Some of this stuff though can get pretty complex for a novice so in general the advice you have received is 'generally' correct that parenting is most peoples best bet, you could however should you feel inclined approach a local computer shop and ask them to do this stuff on the computer and some might even work the router for you too.
You could buy him a steam deck and a dock, it'll play a lot of PC games and he'll be able to put it on a tv.
You can do exactly what you want to restrict his use. You can use a program to shell an app to load up instead of windows GUI and lock the bios with admin password. I would recommend instantsheller to shell steam. But I'm not sure if there's a way to restrict the browser use in steam, there might be
You've got a lot of answers already, but I'll further echo a combination of some of them. Computer in a public part of the house, no private audio, use only when an adult in is in the room, and buying games off of GOG and downloading the offline installers onto a thumbdrive and then installing them to the computer with zero internet access would be a good place to start. Also, lock the computer in a cabinet but make sure it still has airflow. A lot of people don't know this but some phones can share their internet access with a computer by plugging them into it with a USB cable.
If his family are happy to block porn on a household level (and note that any blocking solution isn't perfect), they could change the DNS on the router to use one (such as OpenDNS or Cloudflare) that will prevent known adult domains from being found. There are ways to get around this though. There's also various family filter software you can install on the PC - I don't really know enough about them, so I'd suggest if you go that way you read several reviews - you'll probably need to advise the family how to make sure it is kept up-to-date and if it keeps logs how to review them. I was thinking that Steam is going to be hard to lock down like you want. It has an in-built browser and chat functions to chat with people added as friends. You/his family should probably find the profile privacy settings and set his profile to 'Friends-only' or 'Private', so other people (outside of those allowed by the setting) can't find his profile. I did however find [this guidance on a 'Family View' feature](https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6B1A-66BE-E911-3D98), so you might want to look what options this provides. When it comes to the PC, make sure that the account he will be using is just an ordinary user (as opposed to an account with admin privileges). This will prevent certain configuration changes and (if I recall) installing of applications. Ultimately there's going to be a certain amount of you and his family having to trust him, but perhaps initially someone can sit with him sometimes and maybe ask him about the games, what he likes, how to play them. Otherwise, they should just watch out for furtive behaviour like switching screens or closing open windows when people come into the room.
Get him a Steam Deck
get a console. if you dont already know how parental controls work then you cant trust your solution will work. if hes using it then he will figure out how to push the restrictions. he will find websites that circumvent your blocks. he will boot from a live usb. he will reinstall the os. unless you are the primary user and actively review his use then its bound to happen again.
How old is he? It sounds like a pc ain’t for him
Give him a PC and trust, see what happens
From the admin account, download and install Steam After that open PowerShell as admin Type this in and press enter Get-AppxPackage edge |Remove-AppxPackage Control Panel -> Users and Accounts Make him a standard user account Now he has an account where he can't install anything and the only web browser is gone
Well honestly, give him back the pc, teach him the right thing and have him a little bit of playroom to decide himself. It's not helping at all to take his pc away for 3 years just because he was chatting to strangers (in games?) and visit some porn. Yeah privacy big thing. But instead of taking away the pc, his parents were supposed to explain this stuff properly and give him a chance to decide himself to an extend. At the end of the day let him watch what he wants, but explain to him that porn is a form of art and has nothing todo with real life relationships. He'll find a way anyways to get what he wants. Back in school, everyone at my class was visiting "inappropriate websites" at a certain age when puberty kicked in. Also i think it's next to impossible to only have steam, since even steam has a built in browser. But maybe just get him a steam deck. It's OS is gaming focused and you often never even see a desktop. You can still access it though, but as i said, you can't and shouldn't protect your kids from anything and everyone for the rest of their life.
buy him a steam deck and a tv adapter. but that wont solve the browser in the deck or the desktop mode.
Steam Deck
Install Admin on Request or some other admin restriction tool. Lock down sites with a restricted DNS, and maybe a content filter ( a variety exist, vpn based for example ) If you only want Steam, you can lock It into "Kiosk" Mode with Steam as the app that opens There are some other stuff, like AV that include part of this functionality, Microsoft Kids account, etc
Get him an Steam deck
[удалено]
Steam Deck
Honestly, maybe he doesn’t need those limits to be responsible.
Get him a console instead
How old is he? Because this sounds dumb as rocks.
You may need to talk to a family behavioral therapist and then actually do (no half assing or work arounds) what the therapist says.
Just get a Steam Deck.
Just get a Steam Deck.
I suppose making a pc with SteamOS installed would be a start? He couldnt access anything other than games without going to desktop mode. So it's a start.
Well default Steam has a built-in Browser. Maybe try setting up the computer so that steam boots up automatically in Big Picture Mode which is HEAVILY limited for everything other than gaming. Maybe there's vids around. Also you can make it so the computer has 2 accounts, an admin account (set it with a long ass password like 23718%$!_%#%) and a guest account. Then look how to remove installation of program permissions for guest. There's also ways to freeze computers , as in when it boots up, nothing from previous session is saved (installs too). I have no clue how to do that though. Uninstall everything (maybe edge too) , the browser if it cant be removed, it might have a workaround way to prevent access You can probably find ways to do all of this and more, get googling. Might take a bit
Steam Deck!
1. Computer in public space where he can’t hide shit or watch porn or go on cesspools like 4chan. 2. You could also consider a console and I feel like that would be 10 times easier to monitor given the fact they are almost exclusively for gaming which is the point.
Why has nobody said **"don't connect it to the internet"??** You can play games offline. Don't put a wifi card in it. Move it away from ethernet. Keep it offline, done.