As usual I was trolling the Android market for great apps when I came across a parental control app that promised to filter malware apps and block access to a list of websites that you’ve decided your kids shouldn’t be viewing. But seriously, are these apps any good at preventing today’s tech savvy kids from accessing online content if they really want to?
With tons of sites out there revealing how to circumvent cell phones security apps, parents and guardians best efforts of trying to protect their children may not be enough to thwart the most determined and tech savvy teenager. In fact, installing parental control software may actually motive some teens to try even harder to hack/bypass the security measures you have setup. Unfortunately, some of these hack attempts may actually make your child’s device more vulnerable.
For example, in order get around parental control software kids may setup proxy servers and open unsecured connections to the Internet, which is a no-no as far are Internet security is concerned; need I say that hackers absolutely love such security holes. However, parents and guardians must do you their best to protect their children from themselves and others.
How Teens Bypass Parental Controls
Below is an outline of some of the strategies and techniques that teens often use to hack parental control software and gain access to restricted content.
Remote Desktop Software – These applications can be used to remotely access and use a computer just as if you were actually sitting in front of the remote computer. Your child can use a remote desktop (RDP) app, such as LogMeIn Ignition, to access a remote computer (that doesn’t have any restrictions) and surf the web without alerting the parental control software. The remote computer could be at a friend’s house, at school or be an unrestricted device in your home. Oh, there are remote desktop apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phones as well.
Twhart by: Removing RDP apps and requiring administrator privilege to install programs.
Use Proxy Server/Site – A proxy server processes requests to access a restricted site on behalf of another computer that is sitting behind a firewall or has Internet monitoring software installed. Sites such as Vtunnel and HideMyAss creates a virtual tunnel to any site the completely bypasses the monitoring software. All the user needs to do is go to the website enter the address/URL of whatever site they want to visit and it will take them there. Some monitoring software can actually block Proxy sites. Unfortunately this setting isn’t always enabled or the parental control software may not recognize the proxy server.
Thwart by: Blocking access to Proxy sites and servers with parental control software.
Install Another Copy of the OS – The parental control software that you have installed only works on the copy of the Operating system to which it was installed. Your teen can simply install another instance of the OS to accomplish this. They have to be pretty determined to go to this length though. Hopefully they won’t overwrite the previous installation of the OS and any important file you have saved.
Thwart by: It is hard to prevent a tech savvy teenager from setting up a dual boot but setting a password to access systems settings and to install new applications may deter them.
Lost in Translation Tactics – Monitoring software heavily relies on recognizing questionable keywords in order to do its job, but monitoring software won’t always recognize the foreign language variations of a keyword. Your teen can get around software restrictions by using Google Translate to find the Bulgarian or Maltese equivalent of a keyword or website and be on their way. If you block ‘Translate.Google.com’ you will only ensure that your child can’t complete their foreign language assignments.
Thwart by: Installing and configuring a good parental control app.
Direct IP Address Browsing – Whenever you enter the name of a site in the browser it will go find the actual IP address of the site (using a Domain Name Server) before it can find and display the actual website. If the monitoring software is set to block specific sites names it may be ineffective if your child uses the actual IP address to access the site.
Thwart by: Installing and configuring a good parental control app.
Use your Password – Maybe you have blocked access to proxy servers and installed the best parental control software you can find, but your fortification is completely useless if your password is known. Your child can easily get your password by installing a keylogger. The software will secretly record everything you type (including your username and password) to a text file that can be retrieved later.
So when you are not looking they can login to the monitoring software and give themselves super user access and do whatever they want. Or they may change a blocked link from .com to .org, in hopes that you will miss the subtle difference.
Thwart by: Scan for and remove keyloggers with a good security app and keep your password safe.
Remove Parental Controls with Antispyware Software – Teens can also use antispyware software to detect and uninstall parental control software. This often works well because some parental control/spy apps register as malware so security software will target them for removal.
Thwart by: Check the status of your monitor software often and require special rights to install programs.
Effective Parental Control
As a parent you should be proud is your child is tech savvy, at least he/she will have some technical skills that can serve them well if used responsibly. In any case you will need to ensure that do all you can to protect them from the kind of online and tech centered things that can harm them.
Start by educating your kids about the dangers of consuming certain kinds of content, and if necessary use the best parental control software you can find; Mobistealth is one of the best. When your kids aren’t being honest with you, and you are not sure what they are using their cell phones to access, use the parental control features of Mobistealth to:
- Locate their cell phone on a map
- View their call and browsing history
- See what pictures and videos are stored on their phone
- Do a reverse phone lookup on SMS, address book contacts
- Read their SMS
- Secretly listen to and record conversations from their phone
Author Steve McFarlane
Steve is the founder and chief contributor of this site. Connect with Steve on Google+
And to think I was going to talk to smonoee in person about this.
I would suggest that any teens reading this go ahead and do a system wipe of their phone and it should eliminate your parents apps.
Haha I’m reading this, and it’s been so helpful telling me (age 15) how to get around my parent’s crappy software. Never would have thought of HideMyAss, A+ to authors.