Bypassing Parental Controls in AOL

I just discovered that 13 year olds are smarter than the parent generation. Actually I had suspected it for years, but just got proof.

All you users of AOL who have used the parental controls thought you were protecting your young ones from the bad side of the web, right? So did I until recently.

I went to a friends house and she said her 13 year old was looking at porn. I checked the usual signatures hidden in the machine that identified the sites being visited on that machine under the master name. He somehow got the password for the master account. We set the controls for the tightest possible thinking this would but a block on his activity.

Then for some unknown reason, I opened Internet Explorer and the home page was porno. I reset the home page to a neutral theme. Then I realized that none of the controls you put in AOL affect Internet Explorer. And believe me the kids already knew this. So for full control, you must set limits in IE also (in the Internet Options in the Control Panel).

Actually a better way might be to use one of the web nanny programs available. Search for Parental control software. I used the Dogpile search and found these pages:

http://www.cybersitter.com/cs2001.htm

http://www.software4parents.com/main.html

http://www.familycow.com/internetfilters.html This page shows 3 different packages and gives comparisons and prices.

They all claim to be best. I have not evaluated any of them. There are many on-line reviews of software that may help in making a selection. I found these pages by searching for "Parental control software +reviews":

http://www.kidshield.com/software/

OK, You got the idea? If you want more info, just search the web for filtering software.