blocking porn sites

[Guest]

Hi,
I've just installed Kubuntu alongside Windows and I want to be ready to set it up to block porn sites when I connect to the net, otherwise I'll waste hours of my time on all that smeg instead of doing anything useful. In Windows, it was easy to just ban all the sites I could think of and get my partner to set the password so I can't change them.

I couldn't find a built-in way to set up a filter that has a separate password from the admin one in Kubuntu. Am I missing something, or do I need to install another application to do it?

I found a slightly related post:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3101684.0

which suggests a few applications - Iptables, Guarddog, Firestarter, Ufw and arno-iptables-firewall. If one of those applications, then that's great but does anyone know whether and which? (I would be happier if the first thing I do when I connect to the internet is install that application and set up the blocking.)

thanks for your time

[vinnywright]

Re: blocking porn sites

I'm not shure just what you mean..??

just how did you block in windows .......

it was easy to just ban all the sites I could think of and get my partner to set the password so I can't change them.

but if your truley comited you will eventualey find a way around that to

VINNY

[Snowhog]

Re: blocking porn sites

DansGuardian - True Web Content Filtering for All
and if you will be using FireFox as your browser:
ProCon Latte add-on

[Telengard]

Re: blocking porn sites

Not really an answer, but very related. I used HostsMan to block all the bad sites on the Windows computers of certain friends. It was surprisingly simple to use and worked quite well for blocking attack sites and such. Not sure if there is anything similar for Linux, but check the links from Snowhog.

[GreyGeek]

Re: blocking porn sites

Besides what Snowhog said you can also use your /etc/host file (modifying it requires sudo) to block any site you wish.

A rather large host file is available from someone who cares, and he includes an explanation of how it works. It really speeds up Internet browsing by blocking sites, or ads from ad sites. However, some websites won't continue displaying their pages if the ad server doesn't return an appropriate response.

For blocking specific sites by domain name using the host file is easy and fast.

[jadams35]

Re: blocking porn sites

I've had problems solving this to my satisfaction until possibly today. Many products exist in the windows world but I'm not having much luck in the linux world until today.

Take a look at opendns.com. The filtering happens by pointing dns requests at my household's router to openDns routers, where the requests are filtered. This filters my whole network, the Wii, wireless machines, and mix OSs. Securing it from evil-self is as simple as having my wife set the router password and the password at openDns. Open DNS has several account options starting at free and going up.

Now, I've only given it token testing, so I can't completely attest to OpenDns's effectiveness, but so far so good.

Also, you can take a look at Dan's Guardian + Squid. Dan's guardian is filter app that uses squid, there's another option besides squid I just can't think of it at the moment. I found it to be cumbersome to setup, way too much hassle to tweak for performance, and utterly impossible for someone to administer who has average to sub-average skills, ie a typical window's user.

Hope this helps. This issue has been the primary issue for delaying my personal adoption of kubuntu, I'm glad I stumbled on opendns.com today.

[GreyGeek]

Re: blocking porn sites

Welcome to Kubuntu and Kubuntuforums, jadams35! 8)

I had known about opendns as an alternative to ISP domain name servers but I wasn't aware that it could be used to filter websites. Thanks for the heads up.

EDIT:
I took a look at the option plans and I am wondering how the openDNSbasic or openDNSdelux plans would be of help in blocking porn sites? The first has a white list or black list limit of 25 and the second only 50. There are THOUSANDS of porn sites.

It's seems to me that the /etc/host, /etc/host.allow (white list) or /etc/host.deny (black list) would be more comprehensive and economical. If you can't trust yourself then you can also install Kubuntu so that your partner's account is the "admin" account and install your account as a "user". Let your partner do the admin work, or let him/her watch after they type in the admin password while you do the admin work.

[sithlord48]

Re: blocking porn sites

I want to be ready to set it up to block porn sites when I connect to the net, otherwise I'll waste hours of my time on all that smeg instead of doing anything useful.

how about some self control.

[GreyGeek]

Re: blocking porn sites

...
how about some self control.

Easier said than done. If it were up to "self control" it wouldn't be an addiction. Addiction usually has a biochemical component that makes unassisted control extremely difficult. One out of 10 people who take a single drink of alcohol can become instantly addicted by that single drink because their genes. Folks who began consuming something and continue for a while usually develop habits and biochemical modifications which make suddenly stopping the addiction difficult or impossible. Addiction to porn is like that, too. Repeated chemical changes in the endorphins production of the brain (one of the causes of pleasure sensations) by certain behaviors can change stasis levels so that such behavior is very difficult to restrain.

Even depression is like that. My wife was chronically depressed for years. It exhibited itself in a morbid obsession with the idea that she had the "Big C". She went diagnosis shopping for a doctor who would tell her what she wanted to believe, that she had cancer, and in the process nearly bankrupted us. I finally told her to seek psychiatric counseling (and marriage counseling) or I'd "take the kids and leave her to enjoy her paranoia alone". With that threat she did. It didn't help, but the tranquilizers the doctors prescribed helped her cope. The problem then became that the tranquilizers made a zombie out of her.

A few years later I over extended myself by working 80+ hours per week computerizing a college while at the same time teaching a 16 to 22 hour load of physics, chemistry and calculus classes. To stay awake I began using diet Dr Pepper (NutraSweet) for the caffeine. What I didn't know at the time, because Donald Rumsfield (ya, THAT Rumsfield) suppressed these facts, was that 10% of those who use Aspartame have reactions to it. The upper half of my body turned beet red, I began sweating sebaceous oil, my skin pealed like I was sunburned, and I had a cracking headache almost 24/7. I began having memory problems. I also became very depressed, even to the point of contemplating suicide one night at 1 PM, while driving home. My memory became so bad that I was having trouble remembering the names of my children, to say nothing of the science and math I had spent years learning.

But, for the first time, being depressed, I truly understood what depression is, and how it controls one's thinking. I also came to believe that it is partly due to the chemical makeup of the brain, which is largely determined, in the absence of altering drugs, by the genetic makeup. I realized that my wife had, in fact, inherited her personality & depression from her father, who was also continually depressed. Our son inherited her mother's personality and depression.

When I quit drinking diet Dr Pepper my oil sweats, sunburns and headaches went away. So did the depression. My memory gradually improved, but never came back even close to its former level because, I later learned, Aspartame releases METHOL ALCOHOL into the bloodstream, which attacks liver, kidney and brain cells. I did some research into how the brain stabilizes mood and found that a naturally occurring body chemical called SAM-E decreases as folks age, or is low in those with continual depressions. Both my wife and I started taking 600mg/day. Within a week she was like a woman I had never seen before. She was fun to be around. She wasn't always "examining her navel" or constantly doing body exams searching for possible tumors. In other words, she wasn't so self absorbed. After I few years I stopped taking SAM-E and my wife is on a "maintenance" dose. She is STILL fun to be around, and we are having a blast in retirement!

I also realized that a LOT of her depression was caused by my narrow minded focus on my career to the exclusion of her and the kids, except for birthdays, holidays and vacations. IOW, I caused a LOT of her depression by being uncaring, judgmental and accusatory, simply because I "thought" I knew what her problem was when I really didn't, because I didn't understand the problem. Becoming depressed gave me the opportunity to walk awhile in her shoes and to see how "self control" is the equivalent of trying to lift one's self off the ground by pulling on one's boot straps.

If it takes someone else to hold the passwords for a while so that the brain can chemically re-balance it self to the lower frequencies and intensities of an endorphins rush, or eliminate rushs from those antagonists altogether, then more power to them.

[jadams35]

Re: blocking porn sites

Really no need to justify yourself to some stranger taking jabs at you over the internet GreyGeek. The world is full of those who build their self-worth by pulling down another's.

As for me, I struggle with a long list of addictions, drugs, alcohol... porn is just the last of a long line of self-medication.

The whitelist/blacklist are, if I'm not mistaken, in addition to the normal content filtering. That is, you whitelist a domain to 'aprove' it for your network, regardless of its network. Reverse is true of blacklisting. It has blocked everything I've tried. Of course, I'm not going nuts trying to get around the blocking.

We now know there are two honest men ; )

[sithlord48]

Re: blocking porn sites

Really no need to justify yourself to some stranger taking jabs at you over the internet GreyGeek. The world is full of those who build their self-worth by pulling down another's.

i was not saying anything to GG,the comment was for the OP. yes addictions suck i know that (been a smoker for years...).

[doctordruidphd]

Re: blocking porn sites

Easier said than done. If it were up to "self control" it wouldn't be an addiction. Addiction usually has a biochemical component that makes unassisted control extremely difficult.

Yeah, but...

There are many types of addiction, and what "addicts" one person to one thing might not be the same thing that addicts another to it. Agreed, biochemical component, but not necessarily of the neuromimetic type (ie opium or nicotine). It can also be of the hypothalamic reinforcement type, which is what often gets called (erroneously) "psychological addiction".

But that's the last ditch. The first one is behavioral. Try reading Aleister Crowley's "Liber III vel Jugorum", which can be found in many places ("Gems from the Equinox", for one). You'd be surprised how effective methods like that can be. And buy a lot of long sleeve shirts...

[vinnywright]

Re: blocking porn sites

life is short.... and I injoy ALL my vices even porn.

BUT it's taken most of that short life (and a lot of hard work with the vices) to learn how to manage them so that eney one of them or a combo of them all dosent start ruling my life .......(as was the case 1-2-3-times in it).........when it get's to the point ware the vice becoms life insted of a part of it.......... well time for a brake (or some intervention) or for the OP some of the masurs diskribed ubuve.

like when the doctor finaly tels me I better cut ham and bacon out of my diet I will laff and say a life withought bacon is not worth living

well ...... time for some vice

Humm ware is the OP

VINNY

[Qqmike]

Re: blocking porn sites

Sounds like you guys are having some fun here
Self control is -- in my opinion -- a relevant issue. As might be some Zen Buddhism or some-such.
(There aren't too many "issues" I'm not familiar with re addictions and moods.)

From a practical, behavior-mod aspect, try giving yourself a time-budget (to do what you want) rather than saying an absolute No.

Everything in moderation, my friends.

[Snowhog]

Re: blocking porn sites

Seek not; find not.