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by stirner 2442 days ago
When I was young my parents installed a system-wide child filter for OS X called Safe Eyes that had tons of false positives (and more importantly, blocked online games). I didn't know much about computers but it drove me to learn how to install and configure Linux so that I could do what I wanted. Kids find a way.
2 comments

My dad installed a menu launcher with password-locked parental controls for MS DOS. Within a week, I discovered that the configuration file (which I could open with word perfect), while mostly binary contained the passwords in plain text.

As an example of how not-sneaky I was as a kid, I immediately ran to my dad and showed him how I got the password.

My parents tried a similar thing on my system i had built in high school. I immediately reinstalled the os and secured root on all the networking hardware. We remained poised for mutually assured destruction until they dropped it.
Was this for content or time? As my kids approach HS age, I can't imagine trying to regulate what media they consume (though the quantity could indeed be a concern).