Parental Controls - Commonly Used Methods To Bypass Parental Controls

Commonly Used Methods To Bypass Parental Controls

Several methods of bypassing parental controls are commonly used. If the filtering software is located locally within the computer, all Internet software can be easily bypassed by booting up the computer in question from alternative media or with an alternative operating system. However, if the computer's BIOS is configured to disallow booting from removable media, and if changes to the BIOS are prohibited without proper authentication, then this approach is not available.

Another technique involves using external proxy servers or other servers. The user sends requests to the external server which retrieves content on the user's behalf. Filtering software may then never be able to know which URLs the user is accessing, as all communications are with the one external server and filtering software never sees any communications with the web servers from which content really originated. To counter this, filtering software may also block access to popular proxies. Additionally, filtering systems which only permit access to a set of allowed URLs will not permit access anything outside this list, including proxy servers.

Modifying the software's files is a common form of bypassing, too, as well as brute-force attacks on software passwords.