How Teens Bypass Parental Controls like OpenDNS?

Internet is making kids intelligent as they are gaining lots of tech knowledge through the internet. The web contains many useful as well as futile information.

Kids are addicted to explore online activities. They are connected to the internet for playing games and other entertainment purposes more than for research and educational purposes.

There are many undesirable contents on the internet that psychologically affects children. Besides that, children are also victims of cybercrime which is making parents worried. Because of these reasons, parental controls are critical for families.

Why do Kids Bypass The Parental Control System?

No doubt, the internet has been essential for children; they need the internet to study and for recreational purposes. Internet is also one of the reasons for the increase in screen time of children. Children also use the internet for communication purposes. Since all the things a kid wants are available online, they become addicted to it.

Children, especially tween and teens, feel that their privacy is in question due to parental control apps. They do not like being monitored by their parents whenever they are on the internet. Therefore, they try to bypass parental controls like OpenDNS. Here are some of the reasons why kids bypass IP bans and these apps:

Gaming

There are probably no kids who do not love to play video games on the internet. Playing online games does not harm kids if it is played for a limited time. Spending excessive time on online games and being obsessed with such games can harm one's mental health. Parents should know the risk associated with online games.

Since children do not know much about the adverse effect of gaming on their mental health, all they care about is their games, and they want to play such games no matter what.

Social Media

After gaming apps, the most addictive thing that you will find on the internet is social media and messaging apps. If you do not set a time limit on social media usage among children, they can use the phone and tablets using social media all day and night.

Parents want to keep an eye on their kid's social media activity by using parental control apps. At the same time, tweens and teens want to maintain their social media privacy and bypass parental controls.

Sharing files and media

Parents use many ways to block inappropriate content and violent content so that their kids can remain safe. But kids share and receive violent content through various other mediums. Mostly, kids can get addicted to pornography, and violent media will try their best to bypass the parental controls you have set for them.

Methods Kids Use To Bypass Parental Control Apps

There are various methods available online that kids use to bypass parental control applications. Some of the procedures help in the long term, whereas some work only for a short time. Most of the method involves software tweak, and some involve hardware tweaking.

As parents, you may use some applications with parental control features or a router with control features. No matter how strong parental control apps or devices you use, if your child, is tech-savvy then they can always find a way to crack them. Here are some of the methods that kids use to crack parental control apps:

Bypassing OpenDNS

What is OpenDNS?

DNS stands for Domain Name service, also known as a name server that works as a menu on the internet. When you want to visit a site, you can search for the site using DNS and give you the result. On the other hand, OpenDNS parental controls help you point your DNS servers to other DNS servers. This will allow you to block sites that are harmful to your kids.

How Teens Bypass OpenDNS?

There are various methods to bypass parental controls with OpenDNS. Teens can use public DNS on their phones and crack them, while some directly use a modem. And also, the simplest way to bypass OpenDNS is to use mobile data on their phone.

How to Prevent it?

You should always check your kids' devices frequently and also check their DNS requests. Likewise, watch your kids' traffic patterns and data usage to prevent them from bypassing OpenDNS. After tracking their activities, remove them by physical tweaks or installing some software.

Proxy Sites

What is a Proxy Server?

A proxy server acts as a middleman between your system and the web. It acts as a gateway separating the user's IP address from the sites they browse on their computer. Proxy servers will secure your system by hiding your history and location.

How do teens bypass using proxy sites?

Proxy sites allow kids to hide most of their activities. Your kids can visit a proxy site and surf the blocked sites. These sites are available on the internet and use a proxy server to act as a middleman. As a result, you can't check on your kid's device browsing history.

How to prevent it?

Usually, most parental control applications block proxy sites, but if your kid is tech-savvy, they will find a way to use it. To prevent your kids from using proxy sites, you can physically monitor them or manually block the proxy sites they are using.

Brute-force Password

What is a brute-force attack?

Brute force is a hacking technique used to find the victim's password by guessing various possible credentials. This attack has a minimal chance of working, but sometimes it works. The attackers use several combinations and permutations to get inside your system.

How do teens bypass using brute-force passwords?

Children can use brute force to reveal the password. Since most parents do not use a strong password, kids can easily guess the password and surf the internet. There are various techniques available on the internet that will help your kids with brute-force passwords.

How to prevent it?

You can prevent the usage of brute force attacks by setting a strong password. Using a strong password will make it difficult for your kid to guess your password. You can also view your kid's activity in parental control applications.

Using Different Wi-Fi Network

How do teens bypass using different Wi-Fi?

Kids can use the knowledge gained via the internet and use it to crack other's Wi-Fi passwords. They can also ask for help from neighbor kids and use it. When your kids do not use home routers, you will have no idea about his/her browsing details.

How to prevent it?

You can prevent this by using live parental controls and by keeping your eyes on them physically. Frequently checking your kids' devices and tracking their data usage can help you solve the problem.

Using VPN

What is a VPN?

Virtual Private Network (VPN) helps you create a secure connection between your device and access point over the internet. IT uses encryption and other technology to protect your data from hackers and attacks.

Many big companies use VPN to keep their data anonymous. But these days even, normal users use VPN apps to secure their data and credentials from hackers.

How teens bypass using a VPN?

There are many free VPN apps on the internet that kids can download easily. Kids can use these VPNs in their system, which will completely encrypt their data, and the family shield applications won't work. With VPN, they can also visit websites that you have restricted them from visiting.

How to prevent it?

VPN encrypts the data and won't reveal the IP address of your kid's computer. Due to this reason, other parental control applications cant detect your kid's gadget. The only way to check if your kids are using a VPN or not is by physically checking their system.

Using portable browsers

What is a portable browser?

A portable browser is a type of browser that can run on your system via mobile devices like SSD, USB, portable HDD, and so on. These browsers come with various features like any other browser. Many mobile browsers are available for free on the internet. It can save you from data leaks and also from attacks.

How teens bypass using portable browsers?

All the portable browsers are the same as the standard browsers. But some portable browsers can help your kids hide their browsing data and surf the web. Dedicated kids can mostly download browsers like the Tor browser and surf the web using the browser. Tor browser is a highly secure browser, and this browser will never reveal the details of the system to the public.

How to prevent it?

To prevent your kids from using portable browsers like Opera, Tor, and chrome, keep an eye on them physically. You should make sure that your kids do not have any external hard disks, USB, SSD attached to their system. Also, watch their system physically to check their data usage and traffic.

Google Translate Proxy

What is Google translate proxy?

Google translate can be used as a makeshift proxy when a blocked website's URL is translated into another language and translated back to English from other languages. You can open the link and use the link inside the google translate page.

How teens bypass using Google translate proxy?

This method is the easiest way to get access to a blocked site. Kids use Google translate as a makeshift proxy. They can use a blocked website's URL, translate it into another language, and then translate it back to English. After that, the link opens from the google translate page, and the parental control application cannot detect it.

How to prevent it?

To prevent your kids from using google translate as a makeshift proxy, you have to deploy an advanced parental control application. You can use live tracking to detect them using google translate as a proxy, which is only available in a few parental control applications. Parents can also physically monitor the kids and track the data usage of google translate to find the problem.

Disabling location trackers

What are location trackers?

Location trackers are devices installed in computers that electronically keep track of collected data. These are physical devices that are used in computers to navigate locations. Businesses and government organizations use tracking applications to track some people who are involved in criminal activities.

How teens bypass by disabling trackers?

Most smartphones and computers come with many sensors and trackers. Users have the power to allow permissions to these devices. Kids can easily disable some trackers to prevent you from watching them.

How to prevent it?

To prevent this problem, you have to allow all the tracker permissions from your child's device. You can also use a powerful parental control application that can track your kid's location by locating their Wi-Fi area.

Factory resetting

What is factory resetting?

A factory reset is the process of deleting all the data from your phone and resetting all the restrictions. This is the most common and highly used trick by most kids to get rid of restrictions.

How teens bypass using Factory resetting?

Kids can easily reset their phones via the phone settings. After Factory resetting, most of the existing restrictions can be exploited. Some teenagers also use this trick to get online more often without their parent's notice.

How to prevent it?

The only way to prevent kids from resetting their phones is to set a live tracking application or hide their phone credentials from them.

Using Dual boot

What is a Dual boot?

Dual boot means installing a different Operating system(OS) alongside the current Operating System(OS). You can use several numbers of OS on the same computer if you have the right hardware requirement.

How teens bypass dual boot?

Parents install parental control applications on a device and start monitoring. Kids use a dual boot system and different OS that will hide all their activities. When your kids use other OS, your monitoring system fails.

How to prevent it?

To prevent your kids from dual-booting their operating system, you can set a BIOS password. You can also physically check the device and remove the OS they are using for surfing the internet.

Conclusion

The internet is helpful for kids who want to keep learning. Like any other thing, it has an ethical side and an unethical side. You must allow your kids to surf the internet, but at the same time, you should teach them about its adverse effects.

There are many tools to control internet activities and keep an eye on them. But as a parent, you should not overdo things and restrict your kids from all the activities. Parents and guardians should keep updating themselves to cope up with this changing technology.