Hi guys I'm a developer on this project if you have any questions or notice something that could be improved please tell me here or kris@dnslearning.org
Thank you all!
Thank you all!
I don't see a privacy policy or other page which makes it clear what information you collect and how that information is stored.
How is session management handled from the point of view of administering the service, how does the service track users and for how long is that information stored?
In general there is an entire category of the majority of users who don't care enough about their privacy, and then a second group who want to know that it's been considered but appreciate the convenience of relying on a third party. (I think the Signal app is good example of a tool attempting to cater to these first two categories.)
A slightly overlapping but mostly separate third group is not going to be satisfied by just about anything a third party claims to do (often in part due to nation-state level considerations) and typically doesn't use off-premises tools like this one. It is hard to justify attempting to meet the needs of this small but vocal group of users since it reduces the level of convenience (and thus mass-market appeal) that can be offered to the other groups.
It is, however, very much worth documenting where the line is drawn because doing so can alleviate legitimate concerns of the privacy-conscious but busy second group and avoid public outcry (caused by speculation/proof of incompetence and/or indifference) being picked up by the majority of potential users.
https://dnslearning.org/privacy
The wording isn't perfect yet and we have to be careful how we say things, but we don't sell any data to a third party. We don't use Google Analytics either or anything like that.
We automatically delete the data after 30 days and we actually have this implemented so the user can decide how long they want data to be kept, but when I cleaned up the UI the ability for users to modify this setting got lost.
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- We haven't seen your phone or table yet!
+ We haven't seen your phone or tablet yet!
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</td>I may give it a whirl this weekend with my kids, but I'll see how it goes. The issue with most of these strategies is that kids are generally good penetration testers in their own (limited) way; if one means of accessing the internet is blocked, they'll use another one; given that they have access to different devices and no universal management system, I think they will just flip to another device.
Don't get me wrong, I think things like this are a useful tool in the arsenal of a parent who cares about their child's upbringing. I always find it slightly depressing when I see comments such as "this isn't a replacement for being a real parent", etc., which always seem to come with the subtext of [like i am] to them. I don't think anyone who would care about this sort of thing would think it was a replacement. I'm a step-parent to 4 kids (18,16,13,11) and it is a difficult task to get them onside in terms of what I see as responsible internet usage (which increasingly comes down to not only time, but the kind of sites and apps they are using), and most importantly what's easiest referred to as 'screen time' - games, etc. As mentioned above, if you do manage to lock something down in terms of time, then they'll use something else. And I really care about this, but it's a difficult thing to police in terms of actual effort, attention and also expectations. I don't think it's healthy for them to spend all their time on any kind of device, so we go out for walks and do activities when we can, and Sunday afternoon until Monday breakfast is no devices for ANYONE at all (Us included, which has been a real success after the initial resentment and whining), but often real life or work gets in the way, and having a way of enforcing limits of usage or actively promoting worthwhile usage to gain credits for trivial use would be a good thing to do, IMO.
But I'm yet to see anything which comes close to doing it; I did have a router running Gargoyle a few years ago, with each device in an appropriate group, and times enforced, but it couldn't handle that many reservations and crashed enough to make it more trouble than it's worth. That's compounded by the older kids having their own phones with some (limited) data plan, which can of course get round any restrictions. Promoting a 'stop using your device an hour before you go to bed' can be wearing, no matter how good your intentions, and how pleasant the kids may be.
In short, unless there's a universal standard for this, and everyone signs up to it (across all manufacturers and devices), I think it will have limited success, alas.
With regards to device hopping, try getting a spare router and setting it up then changing the Wifi password so kids only have access to the single router. Some routers will also enforce DNS packets (so even if they modify the DNS in their phone or tablet it will not work)
I agree we are not a replacement for parenting in general. We are a tool. We think parents want to be better at managing this but don't have the tools to do it. Even the best solutions available we could find require setting strict schedules or constantly being pestered to turn a site on or off.
Also we provide the ability to modify how long they get access for. It defaults to 30 minutes right now, but I would suggest setting it higher if you think they will put up a fight. What I have seen (even with myself) is virtually any amount of time limit will eventually invoke the "Why am I watching this?" effect since you value the time more if you work for it.
With regards to phones we have an Android app right now and are in the process of finishing our iOS app. Both platforms support installing an app that requires flashing the phone back to stock to disable it. We have tested this on both platforms but not yet enabled it since it complicates things and we are still getting what we have working. Also our apps are a VPN itself, and you cannot have multiple VPNs enabled on either platform. While we currently only use our Layer 2 control in the VPN to enforce DNS settings in the future we can do a lot more.