this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
904 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
59235 readers
4412 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
My parents had a porn blocker, and all it made me do was learn enough about computers to circumvent it. Even if they put age verification in front of every porn site in the world there's still torrents and chat rooms and forums all over where you can find it, and kids will find it. Next thing they'll mandate is putting toothpaste back in the tube.
Not only will they find it, they'll end up going to the sketchier sites that don't do the age verification because they're not well known enough and not following the laws and they'll likely get something infected on the computer/network or worse.
It's like that time we declared a war on drugs and then there were no drugs. Wait, actually that led to a massive black market and tons of violence.
Point being, you're not gonna stop it. You're just gonna make it less safe.
Yep. Who among us as idiot teenagers hasn't downloaded "$current_starlet full nude sex tape.exe" from some shady site?
Funny you should mention putting toothpaste back in a tube, because I actually helped someone do that last night. It's possible, but also a huge pain in the ass. That's not a commentary on anything besides literal toothpaste.
I would like to hear the rest of the story, please.
My housemate was going on a trip to Alaska the next morning. She had a mostly empty 3 oz toothpaste tube and she was trying to refill it from a larger tube. No idea what she was so opposed to just buying toothpaste when she arrived. I think she was mostly just doing it because she could.
The solution involved holding the tubes end to end and squeezing the larger tube, alternating with using a stirring rod to pack the toothpaste into the smaller tube.
But why?
My housemate was going on a trip to Alaska the next morning. She had a mostly empty 3 oz toothpaste tube and she was trying to refill it from a larger tube. No idea what she was so opposed to just buying toothpaste when she arrived. I think she was mostly just doing it because she could.
The solution involved holding the tubes end to end and squeezing the larger tube, alternating with using a stirring rod to pack the toothpaste into the smaller tube.
I'd build some kind of suction device to put negative air pressure on the tube while holding the nozzle in the toothpaste
I think I saw something like that on YouTube. I'll look for the video later.
When my wife insisted I put a porn blocker on the internet, I did some simple DNS tinkering, then told my son not to let his mother catch him bypassing the "blocker" I put on.
When I was growing up we had the ultimate porn blocker.
Dial up internet was far too slow to load more than about half an image per hour.
It would loan line by precious line. Should I look now and enjoy the suspense or wait ten minutes and see the whole pic in all of its glory? Usually I would be weak and sit there enjoying the anticipation..one line at a time..then finally, when you were so horny you just couldn't take it anymore..you see her penis :/
Kids today don't know how good they got it.
This blows my mind. Why not just push back on your wife for being ridiculous? I say this as a woman with two boys who has been married for 10 years.
Well now there's an apt metaphor... :-P
Mine straight up used Spyware. I learned to make multiple copies of older sessions to cover up anything I wanted, then I replaced current sessions just like they did on security cameras in the movies lol.
I just think of it as a safety net to prevent (or at least reduce the risk) of young children accidently stumbling upon something nasty or graphic that they didn’t mean to.
This should also be done by proper parenting and supervision but as technology and internet devices are friggin everywhere I don’t think it’s a bad idea for parents to also have some decent filters on their internet connection.
Doesn’t stop someone who even knows half way what they are doing, but by that point hopeful parents will have talked and educated their children about things before there’s a concern about intention seeking stuff out.
Porn sites have had "Confirm you are over 18" since the dial up days. That's about as much of a safety net as I think is necessary or practicable.
A decent filter on a network (think pi-hole and next dns and the like) helps block adverts, trackers, scam sites, shady pop ups as well as bog standard porn sites etc
Internet is full of things that it’s easy to accidentally stumble on that you wouldn’t want a young kid to see and I think it’s a reasonable step to have some basic levels of controls on your own network
The onus is on the parents to manage internet access in a way the feel best and shouldn’t be forced or assumed. definitely not to porn sites (or any other site!) to collect entirely unnecessary personal data which would inevitably get leaked.
I totally agree and I put in a good faith effort to block that stuff from my kids' devices using a pihole and what's available on their phones. But I remember being their age and getting away with things because I figured out the workarounds.
At the very least it'll teach them a little about networking and computers which will serve them well in their careers.
Absolutely, that’s why I keep saying “accidentally” - anyone who thinks an internet filter will stop someone with any determination is kidding themselves.
I am a parent and I have decided not to worry about this stuff. Teens will look at porn and that is just a fact about our existence. I don't have to like it or approve of it or concern myself with it.
Teenagers will. Young children though may accidentally stumble upon something nasty which is far from age appropriate and something they aren’t ready for.
Having good network controls can help with that, but so does good supervision and education about internet safety.