Recoveree wrote on 13 Apr 2011 22:31:

Hi Recoveree.  Here are three options for setting up a filter without telling your parents.  All three can be free of charge if you set them up yourself; they will cost money if you hire a computer technician to help you using remote assistance software.  All three will work on any computer:  PC, Mac, or Linux.

== Option 1 ==

Set up your home to use OpenDNS.  It's a free service for your computer, called a "DNS resolution service", that can do many things including filtering.  It will filter the Internet for both you and your parents.

OpenDNS will ask you to set a password.  You can get a sponsor, such as the Filter Gabai, to change the password later.

*  It can speed up your Web surfing very slightly.
*  It automatically fixes certain typos you might make when surfing the Web, like typing "www.google.xom".
*  It helps protect you from one certain type of hacker attack, called a "phishing" attack.
*  It can also do filtering.

Because it does so many things, you don't have to tell your parents the real reason why you signed up for the service:  for filtering. 

But installing it is "a bit of a techie project", according to Father Justin of Greene, NY.  Also, ZemirosShabbos reports that it doesn't block all objectionable content.

If you have trouble setting it up, please post a message at forums.opendns.com/ then email me (tealhill at gmail.com) and ask me to reply there.  Or you can pay me (probably US$15 or so) to set it up for you using Windows Remote Assistance or similar.

== Option 2 ==

Make two separate user accounts on your parents' computer:  one for you, and one for everyone else.  (In my case, I told my mom I'd been spending too much time on the Internet, and that I wanted separate accounts so that I could install break-reminder software.)  Make sure you can only log into your account.  (You can try passwords, a fingerprint-reader device, or some face-recognition software.)  Set the computer up so that, when the computer is left alone for five minutes, it will lock itself and require a password to continue.

Then set up a filter that will affect your account only.  Set a password.  Have a sponsor, like the Filter Gabai, change the password later.

== Option 3 ==

Check with your local Orthodox rabbi whether it'd be permissible to install accountability software on your parents' computer without their knowing it.  X3Watch Free is designed to email just a list of inappropriate sites viewed, and to leave clean sites off the list.  Still, using such software might be sort of like spying on your parents, and if they notice the software, they may be annoyed.

== Conclusion ==

If anyone tries any of these three options, please reply below and let us know how it's worked out so far.  If you can suggest another option, please tell me.

All the best,
--tealhill

Recoveree wrote on 14 Apr 2011 22:45:
But don't think too much, for that is the main cause of 'nothing happenning'.  :

Hatzloocha!!

Besides Hashem, there's No greater connection in life than a father and son.

Pull him aside one day and open up that u need his help overcoming this.. He is your father... He loves you. Period.

Unless of course, you are not sincere. Then this won't work.

But if you look him in the eye, and are truly sincere, and he claims to be a 'frum' jew', than with zero question whatsoever, you'll both be on the same page.

He is also a man, and human, with eyes and sees this world in 2011..

Unless he's drunk, he will be of one heart for his son.

"Moshe saw midas ha'emes and immediately bowed".. How much more so your father.

He's not some 'detached out of touch space case' he's a yid and so are you.

tealhill wrote on 28 Jun 2011 00:48:

I finally decided to try Option 2.  My mom's PC doesn't have a webcam.  I told my mom I'd been spending too much time on the Internet and asked her to set a password for her user account.  My mom is in her fifties now.  She said she doesn't want to set a password because she may forget it and doesn't want to have to have me reset it.

I don't want to buy a clip-on webcam and mess with face-recognition software unless it's really necessary.  I would tell her to have my dad help remember the password, but this seems like an awkward plan:  my mom has arthritis in her knees, and I'm not sure my dad would walk upstairs to whisper the password to her.

Dear all:  What do you suggest I do?

By the way, dear Recoveree and others, how have things gone with your parents and their computers?

recoveree
i know exactly how you feel i am 18 and in yeshiva
and my problems start when i come home
we used to have a filter and then we got a new computer and it was forgotten about
the topic once came up and i asked why it was never put on but nothing became of it
and so i am stuck not wanting to tell my parents yet needing to and not knowing how to breach the subject.


p.s. be on the alert because the subject comes up more often thatn you think and one rightly placed comment can make the difference with out tipping your hand

"tipping your hand"...trying to do the best you can to hide from your parents...congratulations.

Are you busy trying to get better in 'the lions den', or are you expending your ikkar energy on trying to stay hidden from them, there? Puleez.

I understand that opening up to our parents is not always the best way to go - but two things:

1- sometimes, it is the best way to go. They love you and may be not as dumb as you think they are, or...

2- as long as you stop hiding, always hiding from basicallt anybody real in your life, you can still get better. But if all you have is this virtual crowd that you 'open up' to, and hiding behind a fake name (your username), too...well, then I doubt you really will get anywhere. That is not acceptance of a problem. It is remaining a number, just more fantasy. I have been there. I was a terribly struggling 18yo yeshivah bochur once, too. My penis always eventually got the upper hand once I was at home again....I know your struggle.

I suggest you consider meeting Captain Kirk.

Anyone out there able to send this guy the link to him, please?

- Much love to each of you,

Dov

here comes the captain...
www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=4109.msg111973#msg111973

Great point(!) With kirk!..    Shatner ended up with toupee, so there definitely was some fallout

Dear Serene,

It's nice that you read the peice, but will any of the guys who are all in a tizzy about "should I tell the parents?! Ayyee!!"

It's the way it always is...the guys who need the shmuz the most are the ones who do not come to the shul...

Well, if you need an elaborate and perhaps somewhat dishonest plan....

"Break" something in the computer. Perhaps unplug the keyboard or loosen the monitor cable so that the screen does not turn on. "Freak out" and call a Jewish repairman or better, a friend that will fix it for free, when your parents are not home. He will fix the problem in a second. Ask him about viruses, and spyware and stuff like that, pretending to be oblivious and interested if you are not anyway. Casually about filters, say that a lot of magazines and newspapers are writing about them (This is true). He, if he is a Yarei Shomayim, will tell you that filters are great. Hesisate, consider it. Ask him if there will be any problems. He may give you a shpiel about false positives. "Think" for a few seconds, decide, and ask if he can do it for you, and let him keep the password ("I'll never remember it"). You can call him if you need something changed. He will, as computer repairman, like prospects of future business, or, as a friend, do you a favor. Make sure he sets it to low filtering (not TOO low, obviously), as if it gets in the way, your parents will make you remove it. With a repairman, this will obviously cost money. Possibly a lot.

When your parents come home, tell them you did something stupid with the computer and called the repairman/friend. Tell them that you talked and he mentioned that filters are good, and you allowed him to install one. There's no harm in it anyway, since who needs to see shmutz, right? Your parents will be okay with that, probably, unless they decide that the filter will get in the way of their usual web access. Show them their websites, and make them happy. If they're not happy, explain that filters aren't easy to remove, and you don't want to deal with calling the repairman/friend again. "Just try it for a few days. Maybe next week, okay?". If it doesn't bother them, they will forget about it.

Filter victory.


Kudos to you for recognizing your problem and coming here at 17. I did the same, two years ago, though I am unfortunately still struggling. Good luck !

dov wrote on 24 Jan 2012 17:50:

Look Dov, our chaver here wants to know about how to get a filter on the computer and there are plenty of some very creative suggestions mentioned for him. Is it really still necessary for him to tell his parents?
is it necessary for me, a bachur who is thousands of miles away from my parents, to tell them?
Do I really mirror the old captain by not telling my parents?

Did I ever say he must tell his parents? I don't think so. Let me know if I did, please. I have no time right now to plow through the posts above and check, but can't imagine I'd ever say that. And no, he certainly does not have to tell his parents.

I do believe, however, that his making a huge deal about rejection and shame if he would tell his parents, is just not a accurate. If his parents love him, at all, and are not very screwed up in the head, they will sympathize. Even if they are dissapointed, any half-normal parent will be concerned and try to help their child in any way possible. That is not rejection, not disowning, and not a shame. It is normal parent-child relations. And though it may be hard for him to imagine what it is like to have kids, I'd ask him to decide what he would like: if his son had a masturbation and porn problem, would he want the boy to open up to him, or to run in fear of shame and horror and instead keep it a secret and 'keep fighting'? Again - not a reason to tell! - but just something to think about.  Furthemore, a father (or mother) who has a porn, masturbation, or sex problem will often only open up about their own garbage as a result of theor child opening up about it! I have seen this happen.

The only point I was trying to share with him before was that opening up to safe understanding people is key in making any real change, at all. Somebody! Hiding it from his parents is really just a way to hide it from everyone - and opening up about it here while hiding behind a username, is not really opening up enough, if he has such shame fantasies. The fact that he is making a big deal about 'to tell or not to tell?' demonstrates that he feels in himself that he needs to tell somebody - and 'telling' on this virtual forum is just 'virtual telling' - and he feels that. That is what my heart tells me here. Sorry if I am way off..again.

Hey. Fake change we all have plenty experience with, right? I know I do! Maybe he feels the need for real change, and instinctively knows that it will only, only come from real connections. The porn is all about fake connections - fantasy connections. Gevalt. This is so key to me in my own recovery. So I share it here and everywhere.

Hiding and lying is key in keeping on doing everything we have always been doing, and got us in this mess in the first place.

Make any sense at all?

whew!
i really was afraid you'd slap me.
but yes I guess it makes sense

The way I would get my parents to put on a filter is to tell them that the Rabbis have been saying you cannot use internet without a filter/accountability software so you feel uncomfortable checking your email etc. without a filter.
This is a true statement and a great argument for getting filter/accountability software.
If you want it to be more powerful, go to your Rabbi and tell him that you heard the Rabbis are saying you can't use internet without filter and that your parents computer doesn't have a filter and ask him if you can use it or should it get a filter? Most likely, he'll say you should use it with a filter. Done. Tell your parents you cannot use it without a filter so can they please get one?

Regarding telling parents, I never told my parents the extent of my problems. I hinted a bit to my Dad but that was it. He was not too helpful but he also didn't react in a negative way. Kind of Pareve.
I have shared my struggles though with a few people. Some friends, a psychologist and my Rabbi.

I think that's a pretty good balance.

i know, i was so jealous of you that i had to figure it out.