Hello Norton staff,
As a kid whos mom had placed this application on my computer, i immediatly went to work on finding ways around the software, and ways to simply disable it... Here is my list of loopholes, and I would love to hear feedback for each point.
- [BUG]When webfiltering mode is set to warn, but allow... I can click go back, and it will send me through anyways...
- [Sillyness] From the perspective of a kid, im gonna let you know that when my time runs out, i right off the bat know i still have about 15 minutes left, and thats assuming i dont diable anything... The reason here, is you get a 1 minute timer before the client locks your PC, but you can just log back in... Once you log back in, you have 2-3 minuets before another 1 minute timer pops up. I can do this about 3 times before it will finially demand a password with no timer. (9-10 minutes)... I understand that its to allow the kid to finish thire work, but i already get the message saying 15 minutes left, and i think that this to most parents is an annoying flaw in the software.
- [Sillyness] If it is an administrator account that the child uses, then they can easily kill the task in taskmanager, you should create an option to disable task manager (Web side checkbox, that tells the client to update it in group policy)... However you should just recommend that the child uses a limited user account in the first place...
- Here is my favorite... Im not sure why you guys made it possible to uninstall the client without a password by simply turning off the internet.... i can just keep doing that till my parents give up.. (Unless that its legally required by law). Now... if you are a limited account, it requires the password of an administrator account to even run the install file. If you are a computer techie like me, you'd know that passwords on PC's can be pretty easily wiped (with as little as 5 minutes of googling).... So you should see to it that you fix the uninstall file to not let me uninstall without a password
- You should make the program unable to be disabled when disconnected from the internet... i gurentee you right off the bat, that 50% of children that have this program on thire computer will abuse the ability to disconnect from the internet. Especially if they are on a notebook.
- Lastly, the pop-up box in the bottom right corner of the screen... has to be the most annoying thing ever (On my end as the kid)... It's good enough that when i goto www.PORNSITEHERE.com a block screen will pop up. but avast antivirus, and skype, and dropbox.. or any other application that has a client communicating with a server.. When those applications are communicating with a server, it means the child is constantly spammed with your not allowed to visit... Skype.microsoft.servernamehere.longname.randomip.... Thats a big turn off for alot of people, especially the fact that those blocked servers, will spam the list of visited sites for my parents making the list hard to read.
Hope this will help you guys improve the software, as it took me less then 10 minuets to get around this! (im a kid)
Hello Norton staff,
As a kid whos mom had placed this application on my computer, i immediatly went to work on finding ways around the software, and ways to simply disable it... Here is my list of loopholes, and I would love to hear feedback for each point.
- [BUG]When webfiltering mode is set to warn, but allow... I can click go back, and it will send me through anyways...
- [Sillyness] From the perspective of a kid, im gonna let you know that when my time runs out, i right off the bat know i still have about 15 minutes left, and thats assuming i dont diable anything... The reason here, is you get a 1 minute timer before the client locks your PC, but you can just log back in... Once you log back in, you have 2-3 minuets before another 1 minute timer pops up. I can do this about 3 times before it will finially demand a password with no timer. (9-10 minutes)... I understand that its to allow the kid to finish thire work, but i already get the message saying 15 minutes left, and i think that this to most parents is an annoying flaw in the software.
- [Sillyness] If it is an administrator account that the child uses, then they can easily kill the task in taskmanager, you should create an option to disable task manager (Web side checkbox, that tells the client to update it in group policy)... However you should just recommend that the child uses a limited user account in the first place...
- Here is my favorite... Im not sure why you guys made it possible to uninstall the client without a password by simply turning off the internet.... i can just keep doing that till my parents give up.. (Unless that its legally required by law). Now... if you are a limited account, it requires the password of an administrator account to even run the install file. If you are a computer techie like me, you'd know that passwords on PC's can be pretty easily wiped (with as little as 5 minutes of googling).... So you should see to it that you fix the uninstall file to not let me uninstall without a password
- You should make the program unable to be disabled when disconnected from the internet... i gurentee you right off the bat, that 50% of children that have this program on thire computer will abuse the ability to disconnect from the internet. Especially if they are on a notebook.
- Lastly, the pop-up box in the bottom right corner of the screen... has to be the most annoying thing ever (On my end as the kid)... It's good enough that when i goto www.PORNSITEHERE.com a block screen will pop up. but avast antivirus, and skype, and dropbox.. or any other application that has a client communicating with a server.. When those applications are communicating with a server, it means the child is constantly spammed with your not allowed to visit... Skype.microsoft.servernamehere.longname.randomip.... Thats a big turn off for alot of people, especially the fact that those blocked servers, will spam the list of visited sites for my parents making the list hard to read.
Hope this will help you guys improve the software, as it took me less then 10 minuets to get around this! (im a kid)
Thanks again for posting, I've tried to summarize responses for each issue you brought up. If there are any others (or you find new ways to break the product) please let us know
1. This is a bug which should be fixed in 2.9 (next release)
2. Extended time was added as a feature, to give the child a chance to save their work or do any other last minute tasks. We may simplify this to a shorter time
3. You're correct, having an administrator account means that you can kill the process. It is recommended that parents create a standard user account for each child. We are looking into ways to prevent this in a future release. I believe that the parent will still be notified that the child has tampered with the product.
4/5. Dealing with a lack of internet access is tricky, because we want to make sure it is the parent, not the child, that is attempting to uninstall, so we force them to sign in. This is a trade off because we don't want users to get into a state where they can't connect to the internet (or we are having service issues) and are unable to remove the product.
Storing passwords on the client is risky, because its possible they could be cracked or otherwise tampered with.
We are looking into better options to make this more secure, while at the same time not making it unreasonable for users who have intermittent internet access. There have been additional safeguards added in 2.9 that should prevent this
6. That is a good point, we will look into making this more user-friendly
Hello Norton staff,
As a kid whos mom had placed this application on my computer, i immediatly went to work on finding ways around the software, and ways to simply disable it... Here is my list of loopholes, and I would love to hear feedback for each point.
- [BUG]When webfiltering mode is set to warn, but allow... I can click go back, and it will send me through anyways...
- [Sillyness] From the perspective of a kid, im gonna let you know that when my time runs out, i right off the bat know i still have about 15 minutes left, and thats assuming i dont diable anything... The reason here, is you get a 1 minute timer before the client locks your PC, but you can just log back in... Once you log back in, you have 2-3 minuets before another 1 minute timer pops up. I can do this about 3 times before it will finially demand a password with no timer. (9-10 minutes)... I understand that its to allow the kid to finish thire work, but i already get the message saying 15 minutes left, and i think that this to most parents is an annoying flaw in the software.
- [Sillyness] If it is an administrator account that the child uses, then they can easily kill the task in taskmanager, you should create an option to disable task manager (Web side checkbox, that tells the client to update it in group policy)... However you should just recommend that the child uses a limited user account in the first place...
- Here is my favorite... Im not sure why you guys made it possible to uninstall the client without a password by simply turning off the internet.... i can just keep doing that till my parents give up.. (Unless that its legally required by law). Now... if you are a limited account, it requires the password of an administrator account to even run the install file. If you are a computer techie like me, you'd know that passwords on PC's can be pretty easily wiped (with as little as 5 minutes of googling).... So you should see to it that you fix the uninstall file to not let me uninstall without a password
- You should make the program unable to be disabled when disconnected from the internet... i gurentee you right off the bat, that 50% of children that have this program on thire computer will abuse the ability to disconnect from the internet. Especially if they are on a notebook.
- Lastly, the pop-up box in the bottom right corner of the screen... has to be the most annoying thing ever (On my end as the kid)... It's good enough that when i goto www.PORNSITEHERE.com a block screen will pop up. but avast antivirus, and skype, and dropbox.. or any other application that has a client communicating with a server.. When those applications are communicating with a server, it means the child is constantly spammed with your not allowed to visit... Skype.microsoft.servernamehere.longname.randomip.... Thats a big turn off for alot of people, especially the fact that those blocked servers, will spam the list of visited sites for my parents making the list hard to read.
Hope this will help you guys improve the software, as it took me less then 10 minuets to get around this! (im a kid)
Thanks again for posting, I've tried to summarize responses for each issue you brought up. If there are any others (or you find new ways to break the product) please let us know
1. This is a bug which should be fixed in 2.9 (next release)
2. Extended time was added as a feature, to give the child a chance to save their work or do any other last minute tasks. We may simplify this to a shorter time
3. You're correct, having an administrator account means that you can kill the process. It is recommended that parents create a standard user account for each child. We are looking into ways to prevent this in a future release. I believe that the parent will still be notified that the child has tampered with the product.
4/5. Dealing with a lack of internet access is tricky, because we want to make sure it is the parent, not the child, that is attempting to uninstall, so we force them to sign in. This is a trade off because we don't want users to get into a state where they can't connect to the internet (or we are having service issues) and are unable to remove the product.
Storing passwords on the client is risky, because its possible they could be cracked or otherwise tampered with.
We are looking into better options to make this more secure, while at the same time not making it unreasonable for users who have intermittent internet access. There have been additional safeguards added in 2.9 that should prevent this
6. That is a good point, we will look into making this more user-friendly