How can I track my 14 year old son's online activity (More details below)...

[Jane101]

My 14 year old son, Jason, has never gotten in any major trouble relating to the internet. The only time I can think of was when he was 11 years old, with pornography on his iPod.

He is a huge tech freak, and has been frequently taught by his school about internet safety since he was little, so I haven't really ever worried.

However, I needed to borrow his computer to import some photos from my camera. I saw a file called "Tor browser". I was curious, but didn't open it since it looked innocent.

I googled what Tor Browser was, and found out that it is an internet browser that makes anyone who uses it completely anonymous online, meaning that you can do literally anything you want (Buy drugs, look at child pornography, hire assassins, buy fake identities, and many other horrible things) without being caught.

I called my brother, who works at a tech company, and told him about it. He recommended going into the browser and look for bookmarked tabs. I did that, and saw no bookmarks. He suggested looking on the computer for a list (Like a word document) containing different links.

Sure enough, I found a word document with a link in it. Copy and pasted it into the browser, and it took me to WikiLeaks (A website where one can read leaked, and often confidential, government documents).

While I would prefer my son to not be reading confidential CIA torture reports, it's much better than him buying drugs or viewing child pornography.

However, I would still like to know if he is doing any of the mentioned illegal activities without putting the links on file.

Does anybody know of any way for me to do this? I only plan on talking to him about it if I find any illegal things.

 

[artmom]

Talk to him about it, anyways.

There has been a lot of talk in media about WikiLeaks in the past few years. People are curious about it because it confirms conspiracies people suspect of the government. Since this has been the only thin you found, I think he's just afraid you wouldn't approve of him looking at the material and reading about the governments dark side.

My daughter has been quite active online and I've talked to her about some stuff that has come up. I keep an open door for her to come to me about anything and let her know that I will check up on her messages at any given time. Her Google plus account is also linked to my gmail, so whatever she is posting I can see. She doesn't have her own email account and me and the whole family is in her friends on facebook. Those are the only social media accounts she has, apart from youtube, which is also linked to one of my emails.

It's not intended to snoop on her for the fun of it.
If your son were into drugs or anything illegal on purpose it wouldn't be on the internet.

 

[TabascoNatalie]

WikiLeaks is a public secret. There's nothing in there that people don't already know (or expect). Should be the least of your worries

 

[Wickett]

Personally, I think you're way too trusting in your 14 year old son. It's not like he's 16 or 17 with a computer in the living room, he's 14 years old with a computer in his own room I'm supposing. In my opinion, that alone is a terrible idea, but you were also apparently okay with an internet capable iPod at 11, so you and I just clearly don't see eye to eye on that.

So to me, this Tor Browser thing is the least of your concerns. I would not allow my son to have it. Anything that he is going to use that for is 99.9% of the time not something he needs to be getting into anyway.

 

[singledad]

I don't really know. I don't think I would allow that level of freedom at 11, but perhaps I might. I'll decide when I get there. You know you're child - do you believe he can be trusted? Do you have a relationship that is open enough that he would feel comfortable talking to you, even about hard subjects? Have you discussed Internet safety with him?

I would base everything on that. I definitely wouldn't freak about Tor and wikileaks. I have Tor installed. I have it because I know that everything you do on the Internet is tracked on logged, and I have had occasion to research topics for which I don't want related adds popping up and surprising me, or just to make me feel more secure in my anonymity. Yet, it was all completely harmless. And wikileaks can be interesting. Especially for someone like me, who believe in transparent government, and that governments should only keep secrets in extreme circumstances. (and even then, someone should be "watching the watchers")

PS: I now know that Tor isn't nearly as secure as we all thought - in fact, if was developed by the Chancellor (Google it, I would link and article, but I'm on my tablet and copying urls on here is a bitch )

 

[kate0311]

there is a product you can buy called koalasafe which plugs into your router. it limits the sites they can visit and also gives you a report of the type of content they have accessed and for how long I think. www.koalasafe.com