[clug-talk] INTERNET BLOCKING

[Dana Harding]

Hi Dan,

DNS resolves human readable names to IP addresses.
eg:   www.clug.ca  =  64.34.11.150,
www.google.ca resolves to several IP addresses - one of them is 
74.125.127.147

If you 'break' DNS functionality, your computer will be unable to resolve 
the name into an IP address and will not know where to connect to 
(effectively blocking access).

Opendns allows you to selectively block/allow dns lookups for specific 
entries.   So you can allow   www.goodsite.com to resolve,  but block 
www.nodaughterofminegoeshere.com.     I do not know if opendns will allow 
you to block all except a whitelist or not.

The best solution probably depends on the scope of monitoring/blocking you 
desire.
If you expect the laptop to remain on your own LAN - you could put a web 
proxy at your gateway to get more granular filtering and monitoring,  and 
will take a bit more effort for them (or one of their more technically apt 
friends) to figure out a way to get around it.   Make sure your neighbour's 
wireless is secured... ;)

Alternately, or additionally for a layered approach, I found one example 
where the parent installed squid on the local machine:
http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/08/31/how-to-use-squid-as-an-easy-web-filter/



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Mueller" <danm at reliable-tube.com>
To: <clug-talk at clug.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 1:13 PM
Subject: [clug-talk] INTERNET BLOCKING


>I looked at the mozilla idea and did some reading up and it would seem that
> its not quite ready for that yet. And as for my 3 daughters, they as of 
> yet
> wouldn't know how to go around the browser.
>
> What is the deal with the dns thing. Keep in mind that im like cornel
> klink.  I KNOW NOTHING!!
>
> Dan