
Ask HN: Best practices blocking an estranged son from accessing illicit material - hermitdev
Background, I have an 18 year old old stepson that has been estranged for 2 years. A few months ago, he came back into our lives. He&#x27;s in college, but on winter break. Tonight, he was visiting his grandparents and left hos computer in my (and wife)&#x27;s home unlocked with, well, questionable porn on his desktop. It was anime, but definitely depictions of minors. Without scouring his computer, it does leave me as concerned.<p>I have no control over his computer (he&#x27;s an 18 ur old emancipated minor, but back livong at home).<p>I do have control over the network to the outside world. I&#x27;ve been thinking a Pi Hole to sink his perversions into oblivion, but this will obviosly be a reactionary.<p>I thought about backdooring his PC, but it&#x27;s Win10 home, so doesn&#x27;t support remote access without tools I dont want to get into (was hoping Pro and enabling RDP, but, no).<p>I can easily change the Wi-Fi password, but my wife insists I dont as she doesnt want to alert her son that we know.<p>We dont care as such if he has normal porn proclivities, but given his mental history and actions, we want to be able to block him from illegal activities, especially on our network.<p>Any suggestions?
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Hackbraten
Talk to your stepson.

The situation is complicated enough (and your stepson old enough) that
technical measures alone may not fix the problem.

Tell him how you and your wife may get into legal trouble if he chooses to do
illegal stuff on your network. Ask him to come up with a suggestion on how to
prevent this from happening. Who knows, maybe a discussion like this even
helps re-ignite a bit of trust between the two of you? Deploying a network
blocker without talking to each other certainly won’t.

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thrwaway69
Eh, just talk to him? Don't erode on his privacy. I feel that is pretty anti-
HN to install backdoors and tracking an adult.

You own the house, make it clear you don't want this on your network. Other
than, open up to therapy if what you find is _truly_ too far off and you think
he is not good from a mental health standpoint.

Remember, your role is to help him. Not punish him or make him feel like a
criminal. Connections are hard to make without being honest or upfront about
the problem, it's going to take effort. Don't take the easy way out by
avoiding to talk. If you damage the trust by snooping in or secretly doing
something, then he is just going to feel more alienated.

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cable2600
Other than Netnanny (If it still exists and does not have a backdoor yet) try
running all web service through a Raspberry PI using Squid:
[https://www.websense.com/content/support/library/deployctr/v...](https://www.websense.com/content/support/library/deployctr/v76/dic_squid_init_setup.aspx)

