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

[eehouse]

> 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.

I assume she could dial into a modem attached to a computer on the LAN
and enable/disable interfaces that way, but what's to prevent the
daughter from unplugging the modem cable?  (I don't know what software
to put on the modem; I have a winmodem so I've never played with it.)

Personally, I handle this sort of thing by looking at how much traffic
has been moved over the router at different times.  If my daughter's
looking sleepy and it turns out somebody downloaded 50M between 2 and
4 am the previous night there's hell to pay.

--Eric
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