Parental Controls: The Rigged Game
2024
Dr. Kenneth Woog, BSEE, MBA, Psy.D.
While effective for younger and less technically competent children, traditional parental control solutions often don't live up to their promise when used with older, computer-savvy teenagers. When at least one parent is less computer literate than the teen, parental controls are even more problematic. During my own experience working with teenagers with problems related to excess computer use over the past 20+ years, I found that a determined, technically knowledgeable teen could easily find a way to defeat almost any parental control solution. Back in 2002 I thought this must simply be parental incompetence, but as I researched further, I discovered that this is a rigged game. I realized that there were so many holes in the security of computers at that time that it was impossible. One simple example was holding the F7 key (Safe Mode) while booting a Windows PC allowed any user to boot without parental controls. Absurd. This led me to develop the PC Moderator, a hardware device that locked on and monitored and limited screen time on desktop personal computers. It was awarded PC Magazine's Editor's Choice Award, however due to compatibility and usability issues the device was discontinued in 2015. I designed and produced the first Sentinel Gaming System that same year. It was the only solid way to help set limits for those struggling with videogame addiction.
Today, in 2024 there are now a myriad of solutions to help parents. But now there are also so many devices to manage that the job has become overwhelming. We have tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles and handhelds, Windows PCs, Macs and even the apps themselves now offer parental control settings. The vast majority of parents now complain that this is their biggest challenge and ask for a unified solution. The problem is that these devices all have different hardware architectures, Operating Systems and ecosystems for parental controls. This task is impossible. Yes we have internet blocking solutions but children simply use these devices off-line to circumvent that as well.
Highly motivated and determined teens will go to great lengths to covertly defeat parental controls. They will search the Internet and uncover discussion groups with a dialog specific to the topic. Remember that personal computers and operating systems for home use were not designed with this as a primary concern. While teens are highly motivated to break these features, parents are often ill equipped or lack the energy to play this cat and mouse game. And when the cat and mouse game is played and parents fail, they are left with little confidence in their ability to assert parental authority over computer use in the future.
This article is about all the ways parental control solutions can be defeated, not how to set up parental controls in the first place. A great, concise article on that subject is available from Common Sense Media - The Parents’ Ultimate Guide to Parental Controls.
operating Systems
All modern personal computers have parental control features built in to the Operating System (OS). In order to enforce OS security, parents must remain the system administrator. This places the responsibility for setting up operating system security, user settings/privileges and they must be involved in order to install and remove software from the computer. Otherwise, the child could simply remove or change settings of the parental control software. Not merely an inconvenience, one misstep (i.e. leaving the computer unattended for even a minute) could allow the child an easy way to create a new system administrator account or change parental control settings without the parent’s knowledge.
If a child is not currently the OS system administrator, this can be easily remedied. We won't go into details on how this is done, but a quick Google search will offer several easy ways to create a new user account with System Administrator privileges. From this local user they can use the computer any time with no restrictions. More defiant and less sophisticated users will then remove the parent's account, thus locking them out of the computer.
Other common workarounds
1. Create an alternate partition on the hard drive and install another separate Windows OS that they will use when they want to bypass your controls.
2. Create an OS version on a USB thumb drive so it boots off that drive. Although personal computers are not configured this way by default, there are ways to secure the system BIOS to block this. Again, a quick Google search will show how to fix that.
3. Download a Windows OS recovery image and reinstall the Windows OS altogether.
Software parental control applications
Parental control software applications originally filled a gap when operating system parental controls only provided limited capabilities. These products provided support for features such as website filtering, time/use restrictions and activity logging. While modern operating systems provide these features, parental control software applications continue to provide enhancements to the operating system capabilities and while many of these products have disappeared, several remain with niche features. While suitable for younger children, these products are vulnerable when used with tech-savvy and motivated users. If the user is the system administrator they can simply uninstall the program. In order to prevent this, some "advanced" programs use a "stealth" installation process that works exactly like software viruses. Besides the risks associated with using off-brand software in this way, they are actually easy to remove. Virus/malware removal applications can easily identify this as a virus and remove it. Once your child realizes there is stealth parental control software, they can either use the built in malware removal features of the Windows Operating System or download a trial-ware or free-ware virus checking program to remove it. Even if they can't remove the program, as a last resort, they could simply reinstall the Microsoft Operating System.
Other Solutions
There are various hardware/software combination products, network routers, Internet Service Providers (ISP) that offer parental control solutions for monitoring or limiting computer and Internet use. Unless locked in a secure location, simple routers can be bypassed, defeated, or even factory reset. Over the past few years, sophisticated routers have added many parental control features, including user time limits. These are being promoted as whole home solutions to parental control. Even the Disney Company provides such a product. This seems like a comprehensive solution because it promises to also restrict mobile devices. While useful for younger and less tech-savvy users, workarounds are easy. These products require a process of registering all networked devices from their unique internet Mac Address. One simple workaround is to install a program on your Windows computer or Android mobile device to "spoof the Mac address" (you can Google this) presented during WIFI setup so that it matches another device (i.e. parent's laptop, visible on the network). To prevent this you can establish multiple restricted WIFI networks and restrict other WIFI enabled devices from being visible on the network,. But now we are entering the territory of network security professionals. Some parents, out of desperation unplug the router and take it to bed with them each night!
Although much more difficult, I have even seen a motivated and tech-savvy youth hack a neighbors WIFI passcode. Don't Google this! I am presenting a legitimate link to a PC Magazine article so you won't do a Google search and click on a dangerous site and get a virus on your system.
Regardless of how tech-savvy and motivated your child is, network based limiting products only restrict Internet/on-line use of the computer. Many video games can be played off line and of course, video content (i.e. YouTube) can be downloaded for later viewing. Besides paid subscription services, a quick Google search will reveal many free applications that can easily preload YouTube content for later viewing.
There are a few older products that claim to provide computer time limiting by controlling the power to the monitor or computer through card readers or programmable electronic timers. Since the vast majority of monitors use the industry standard removable power cords, the child can simply unplug the cord at the display and replace it with another one.