[PLUG] Remotely disable Internet access with a cell phone?

Ryan ryan.mannon at gmail.com
Thu Jan 4 08:14:33 UTC 2007


Here is a little idea that I have been mulling around, I think it might work
and I would just like to get some input from some guru's.

My sister in law has two teenagers at home. The boy 14, doesn't spend too
much time on the net other than e-mail and myspace. Now the 13yr old girl is
a fiend. Every spare moment she has she is on the net chatting, downloading,
myspacing, staying up all night in front of the screen, etc, etc. I have
suggested many a time to remove the cable modem when my sister in law is not
at home or when she goes to bed. But she is lazy when it comes to policing
what her kids are doing on the computer. Thats a whole different issue that
I personally label as not interested in knowing what her kids are doing on
line. Makes me mad but they are not my kids. Anyway back to the "idea".

Here is a possible situation: Mom grounds kid from computer. Mom goes to
work and kids are still home. Kids turn on the computer and are surfing all
day long. Kids turn off computer before mom gets home. But what if mom was
able to dial a number on her cell phone and a voice says "press one to
disable network access, press two to enable network access". Network access
is unavailable until mom dials number and re-enables network access no
matter what account on the computer is logged on.

I have a feeling that this would have to be enabled in the modem, but what
if the program was installed on the computer and a very specific key
combination was the only way to open the program? I've been doing some
research on Google but the closest I can come are a few programs that block
access for a specific amount of time.

Has anybody heard of something like this, is it feasible? Anybody who has
any ideas on how or if, I would love to hear from you.

Thanks in advance

-ryan



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