Children and Internet security

Linux Support
1

Hi Guys

at the request of my daughter I’m putting together a desktop PC for my Grand-Daughter to have at home there will be 2 kids sharing this PC and I’m a bit concerned about online security/privacy, the PC will run Peppermint 4 with Chromium browser, I want to prevent any possibility of them accessing inappropriate content accidentally or otherwise and block inappropriate popups, so at this stage I’m just looking for advice on how to approach this ie can I make it secure enough within Chromium itself or would I need a 3rd party application like Dans Guardian

Any help or advice would be much appreciated

Graeme

2

You could do it with the combination of Squid and Dansguardian but it will not be easy (or even possible) to prevent all expsure.
Othervise you could try Ubuntu Christian Edition it comes with a working Dansguardian solution.

3

Hi SeZo thanks for your input, I’ve never heard of Ubuntu Christian Edition but I’m already committed to PM4, another aspect of this I’m not sure of is would any filtering I done in say dansguardian be global because this PC will have 3 user accounts one each for the children and one for the adults,

Many thanks

Graeme

4

Only suggested CE because it has an effective net filtering set up.
Yes Dansguardian (and) or Squid would be for all users. Though you would have to set up each browsers to point to the proxy server.
Or you could make it transparent via iptables.

5

I’ve never used any parental controls … though I did take a quick look at dansguardian a wile ago … seemed to do the trick, but I never really tested it much.

There’s no reason it shouldn’t work in peppermint :slight_smile:

I thought I read somewhere that Google were going to add parental controls to Chrome/Chromium

You might want to testdrive this Chrome/Chromium plugin:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tinyfilter/nlfgnnlnfbpcammlnibfkplpnbbbdeli
can be password protected too

6

iptables & proxy servers sound a bit outwith my geekiness comfort zone and having had a look danguardian web site that looks no easier, i never expected I could make it 100% safe but it’s beginning to look like there’s little i could do but maybe I could remove any web browsers from the kids applications menu and just create SSB’s for the web applications we trust

just thinking out loud

Graeme

7

See the plugin I mentioned above.

Though your SSB thing would work too … at least until they work out how to start chromium from the command line with a particular address :wink:

8

Never underestimate ingenuity of kids. The best way is to educate them, not present them with the false impression of the world.

9
See the plugin I mentioned above.

Yeah just been having a look at it and it looks like it might do the job :slight_smile:

Graeme

10
Never underestimate ingenuity of kids. The best way is to educate them, not present them with the false impression of the world.

You’re absolutely right and I don’t underestimate their ingenunity, but lets be honest they wouldn’t have to use much ingenuity to be exposed to inappropriate content on the internet these days and I see no point in making it easy for them, the point in building this PC is to help them with their education, Chloe has been using her own PC here for some time but I’m usually with her but I won’t be able to do that with this PC and it just worries me a little

11

Ok having given this some thought I think the best way is to remove any web browsers for the kids applications menu and use ice to give them access to their favourite web applications that way we would have control over what they access online without compromising internet functionality for the adult accounts, the kids are only 6 & 7 years old and really do they need a web browser

So my next question is how do I remove an item from the applications menu for the 2 kids accounts only, I’ve had a look but I can’t see anything that would allow me to do it

many thanks

Graeme

12

You could try (not tested) for every affected user:
Copy the .desktop file of the browser you want to remove from /usr/share/applications to ~/.local/share/applications.
Open the file in a text editor and edit the line that says NoDisplay=false to NoDisplay=true.
If the NoDisplay line isn’t there, add NoDisplay=true

If adding NoDisplay=true doesn’t work, you can add ShowOnlyIn=XFCE

But bear in mind that the browser can be launched from other applications too.

13

As SeZo suggests, .desktop files in /usr/share/applications will be displayed in the menus of EVERYONE

.desktop files in a particular users ~/.local/share/applications are only displayed in the menus of that specific user.

so as he says copy chromium-browser.desktop to the adult accounts ~/.local/share/applications directory(s)

THEN, add the line:-

NoDisplay=true

to the one in /usr/share/applications

which will stop that one from being displayed in everyone’s menus.

–

14

Hmm… I thought that the .desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications override the files in /usr/share/applications :-\

15

Ok

What I’ve done is remove .desktop file from /usr/share/applications completely leaving only one instance in ~/.local/share/applications in the main adult account and that’s removed the menu entry in the kids account under Menu>Internet but there’s still a Chromium entry on the main menu

Any idea how I get rid of that ?

Many thanks

Graeme

16

First (in the kids accounts) backup the panel file:

cp -v ~/.config/lxpanel/Peppermint/panels/panel ~/.config/lxpanel/Peppermint/panels/panel.bak

then open it for editing:

gedit ~/.config/lxpanel/Peppermint/panels/panel

Remove the section that reads:

        item {
            name=Chromium 
            image=chromium-browser
            action=chromium-browser
        }

or similar.

SAVE the file, and restart lxpanel to test:

lxpanelctl restart
17

Unfortunately that didn’t work Chromium is still listed in the menu, here’s the config file

# lxpanel config file. Manually editing is not recommended. # Use preference dialog in lxpanel to adjust config when you can.

Global {
edge=top
allign=left
margin=0
widthtype=percent
width=100
height=24
transparent=0
tintcolor=#000000
alpha=35
autohide=0
heightwhenhidden=2
setdocktype=1
setpartialstrut=1
usefontcolor=1
fontsize=10
fontcolor=#222222
usefontsize=0
background=1
backgroundfile=/usr/share/peppermint/images/panel-background.png
iconsize=22
loglevel=2
}

Plugin {
type = menu
Config {
image=/home/chloe/Downloads/dufc.png
tintcolor=#000000
system {
}
separator {
}

    }
    item {
        name=Software Manager
        image=/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintInstall/icon.svg
        action=gksu mintinstall
    }
    item {
        name=File Manager
        image=system-file-manager
        action=pcmanfm
    }
    item {
        image=system-run
        command=run
    }
    separator {
    }
    item {
        image=gnome-logout
        command=logout
    }
}

}

Plugin {
type = space
Config {
Size=4
}
}

Plugin {
type = taskbar
expand=1
Config {
tooltips=1
IconsOnly=0
ShowAllDesks=0
UseMouseWheel=1
UseUrgencyHint=1
FlatButton=0
MaxTaskWidth=150
spacing=1
GroupedTasks=0
}
}

Plugin {
type = pager
}

Plugin {
type = tray
}

Plugin {
type = volumealsa
}

Plugin {
type = dclock
Config {
ClockFmt=%R
TooltipFmt=%A %x
BoldFont=0
IconOnly=0
CenterText=0
}
}

Plugin {
type = launchbar
Config {
Button {
id=peppermint-logout.desktop
}
}
}

18

Do you mean under “Preferences” in the menu ?

[EDIT]

Tidy that up a bit … so it’s more like this:-

        tintcolor=#000000
        system {
        }
        separator {
        }
        item {
            name=Software Manager
            image=/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintInstall/icon.svg
            action=gksu mintinstall

SAVE the file and run:

lxpanelctl restart
19
Do you mean under "Preferences" in the menu ?

No it’s a main menu item like Accessories, Education, Games. Graphics, Internet etc it’s not in a drop down menu, I tried to take a screenshot but for some reason it wont take a picture with the menu open

Graeme

20

I don’t mean a SUBMENU item of “Preferences” . I mean physically underneath the “Preferences” menu item.

BTW, check my edit above.

[EDIT]

You are editing the panel file in the kids account right ?