Hacking parental controls
Learn about the workarounds for parental controls that your little darlings may try…
YOU MAY well encounter some resistance to setting up parental controls. As you’ve seen, macOS enables you to tailor the operations your kids can perform, according to how responsible they are. But some kids may decide to take to the internet in an effort to circumvent controls, and indeed there are a number of websites devoted to getting around the very restrictions you’ve just set up.
The security of the restrictions depends on you keeping your user account’s password safe, so be sure to change it if your child used to share your account, or if you suspect they may know it. Make sure to do the same for any other admin accounts.
Your child’s next best option if they want to undermine parental controls is to try to create a new, hidden admin account, meaning they can log in to the Mac and have unrestricted use of its features.
TECH-SAVVY KIDS
There are several ways to create a new admin account, such as enabling the root account, or restarting in single-user mode and entering the necessary commands. Once this is done, a tech-savvy kid will most likely hide the account so it doesn’t appear in the usual /Users folder, nor in System Preferences > Users and Groups.
Follow the steps in “Detect hidden user accounts” opposite to make sure your child hasn’t already done this. Next, consider setting a firmware password (see top right). This prevents anyone from starting up the Mac in single-user mode and entering commands that create a new account, or otherwise interfere with your parental controls.
If you do choose to set a firmware password, this will also be required each time you want to start up in macOS Recovery, in which the “root” account can be enabled and passwords reset.
Another option your child may try is to install another operating system, such as Ubuntu Linux, on a flash drive and start up from this. As the system would load from that drive into memory, no trace of
your child’s activities would be left on the Mac. You can prevent starting up from external drives without first entering the firmware password by following the box to the right. Write down the firmware password and keep it safe; if you forget it, you’ll need to take your Mac to an Apple Store or Authorized Service Provider to reset it. SMOKE AND MIRRORS Should your kids find they’re unable to create an admin account on the Mac or start up in another operating system, they may try to find workarounds within macOS itself.
Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and make sure the Guest account is disabled, as parental controls don’t log any activity there.
If you haven’t set up explicit app restrictions, gifted kids may try to install “portable” apps to an external drive and run them from there. You can prevent access to external drives by choosing the Simple Finder option in the Parental Controls pane’s Other tab. Alternatively, choose to limit applications in the Apps tab to only those you approve.
Although you can block individual websites, your kids may be able to circumvent restrictions by visiting a web proxy – a website designed to bypass controls like these, which will fetch the website for them as well as hiding the identity of whoever visits. Keep a close eye on their account logs; if you find they’ve been visiting a proxy site, add it to the banned list.
Certain websites, such as The Pirate Bay, maintain mirrors – multiple copies of the same web page at different locations around the internet. Because of this, while one mirror such as thepiratebay.org may be on the blocked list, another such as pirateproxy.cc may still load with no problems.
Again, watch your child’s web activity closely and add mirrors of sites to the block list as necessary.