Protecting Screen Time  ## Metadata - Author: [[Changelog Master Feed]] - Full Title: Protecting Screen Time - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/d76b65c4-6134-4177-828a-fb45b27e8b73 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Illusion vs. Real Safety in Controls** - Many parental protection tools create an illusion of safety rather than full security. - Complete vigilance is needed as many marketed solutions offer only partial protection. Transcript: Speaker 1 I would wager that in the vast majority of the cases, you could probably find something. I just... For 30 seconds. Yeah, maybe 30 seconds. I just kind of want to open people's eyes to that and I don't want to discourage people but I just want people to think realistically about that. I think sometimes the vendors, whether it's Apple or the people who are selling kind of safety stuff, sometimes I feel like they kind of sell us an illusion of safety instead of real safety. They say, hey, don't worry. All parents want to have this taken care of but also this is not the kind of thing that parents enjoy doing. Nobody wakes up on a Saturday and says, I'm just going to totally dial in my kids' devices. ([Time 0:30:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0566d516-0aff-4ed3-ae93-7f4d5c21c386)) - **Use Whitelist, Not Blacklist** - Instead of blocking only bad sites, block the entire internet and whitelist safe sites for children. - Engage children with dialogue about internet restrictions to build understanding and cooperation. Transcript: Speaker 2 Of those. Red pill. Speaker 1 The red pill. I think you might kind of be a little bit shocked. Speaker 3 And that's where I think if you kind of have this little bit of awakening and say, okay, we got to do something a little bit more intense than this, right now what makes sense to me just kind Speaker 1 Of at a fundamental level is like you've got to flip it. You got to block the entire internet and then you've got to just safeless the parts that like you want your kids to have access to. And different parents are going to have different appetites. I'm kind of on the strict side with my kids. It makes sense to me. So many thoughts about this. But I think if some people knew like how strict I am with my kids and their internet usage, they might say like you're a little bit crazy. But I talked to them a ton about why we do this with them. I talked to them about stuff that I got into as a kid. I talked to them about what I keep myself out of as an adult. And it's not just this kind of like comes from on high of like this is I'm going to block you out of everything because you're a terrible person. It's in the context of like a lot of dialogue and relationship. ([Time 0:31:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/89b6e14b-19c3-4fca-ae41-5c26b3a6f8ac)) - **Transparent Screen Monitoring With Gertrude** - Gertrude software takes intermittent screenshots on Mac with full transparency to children for accountability. - This feature supports remote monitoring to help parents oversee their children’s computer activities. Transcript: Speaker 3 I mean? But I know there's an appetite out there for it and I'm definitely looking into it. Speaker 1 What kind of stuff can't you do that you're doing? Well, like for instance, Gertrude right now allows you to, you can opt into this feature where it takes a semi randomized like it intermittent screenshots approximately every so many Seconds, right? Speaker 3 So Gertrude really is like a combination of this sort of whitelist blocking of the internet that I described plus a whole bunch of kind of like tools and concepts around remote administration Of that to make it easy for parents. Speaker 1 But it also has like monitoring in the form of they're totally opt in, but there's two ways you can do monitoring. You can take screenshots and we don't ever hide this from the kids. Like we don't, it's not like a sort of a creepy scary like, you know, spy on you thing. Speaker 3 If I've got that feature turned on, your kid is sees in their menu bar that Gertrude is recording their screen. Speaker 1 So that's something like no matter what they're doing, no matter whether they're on a browser or using some app or doing homework, Gertrude can just take you pictures of what they're Speaker 3 Doing and they upload it and then kind of on the parents free time or whatever or just in the Gertrude web app, you can just sit there and thumb through and see all the stuff that your kid's Speaker 1 Doing. Speaker 3 I mentioned that because that's a thing that like Mac OS allows you to do. Now you have to grant permission one time for kind of like if you've ever used Skype or anything that wants to record your screen, you got to give a permission one time. But once you've done that, I can like arbitrarily take screenshots and upload those for parents to review. And iOS just doesn't let you do that. Like they don't. It's just a much more constrained environment. They're worried about privacy. They're worried about battery life, stuff like that. And so you can't, if that were an option, then maybe I would have worked on porting Gertrude iOS sooner because the whole screenshot feature is honestly like a, it's like a fantastic Tool for accountability. Not for spying on your kids. Some people kind of get a little bit ([Time 0:38:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3f8a5dba-719b-4449-a314-a3bc25d18013)) - **Gertrude Helps Adult Accountability** - Adults sometimes use monitoring tools like Gertrude to help partners overcome destructive addictions. - Mutual consent and accountability can rebuild trust in relationships affected by pornography addiction. Transcript: Speaker 1 Lack of trust. And this could be a tool to help build trust to provide accountability and to help that person who is addicted, but addicted folks need help. Speaker 4 That's why we called addiction. Speaker 1 And there's all sorts of backsliding and problems. And even if you desire to be done with something in your life, your natural inclination is to fall back into that habit. And so I think it's a great thing that you can provide that as an option for people who otherwise wouldn't have that trust. Maybe that trust has been has been tarnished and they're trying to rebuild that to have that option they can both opt into and they can help each other and they could really, you know, Repair something that was potentially broken. So I know when you said somebody watching their fiance, I kind of my gut was like, Oh, yeah, who would need that? But then I had to stop and realize that people do need help and that people do become addicted to porn. Speaker 4 And sometimes they can't stop and they won't without some sort of help. And so just wanted to to broach that even though it's not the most fun topic to talk about. Speaker 1 I appreciate that. I think you're exactly right. Yeah, it's one of these things again, like no one really loves to talk about it. But I think there's a ton of people who are in really, really painful and destructive addictions to pornography and they desperately want out. And I don't think like a relationship like the one I described works without kind of both parties wanting it to work, you know, but right. And so it's a little bit less like I as a parent, I can just use my parental authority and say like, Hey, you're not going to get on the internet except for in the ways that I allow you. But in a peer to peer adult relationship, there's like, I think there needs to be like buy in. But I can tell you that it's not just a couple people who want that. Speaker 3 They're the kind of like the algorithm and the access and just the ubiquity of what's available on the internet these days has, I don't know, there's been a huge, huge cost to ([Time 0:52:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0a3af23e-cfb0-4f34-870c-bae0a5fc8236)) - **Consider Open Source for Growth** - Open sourcing security software like Gertrude can invite community contributions and improve security. - Offering both hosted and self-hosted options meets varied user skill levels and increases adoption. Transcript: Speaker 2 You can help families deploy this for themselves, provide support. That means more people potentially, but I just wonder if open source that route gives you the distribution and the freedoms within the software to reach the widest market, you know, Globally, because it's simply out there free and you provided the host of service. So you can soon be open source. You host the open source service with things up around it, but I can easily also stand up my own version of that with Docker on my network or whatever. Or, you know, on a cloud on a VPS, like an one-click deployed digital ocean. If I don't want to like manage local infrastructure with whatever and all I'm doing is API calls to my $10 a month thing at digital ocean, I'm just thinking out loud here because I'm not Seeing all those are good or right or bad. It's just are there freedoms that come with it being open source and distributions that come from open source that kind of are at the core of what you're trying to do anyways, which is Provide a useful tool to the world that might also be more secure because of more people knowing about it, caring about it, pouring back into it, etc. Speaker 1 Yeah, that's interesting. I'm real sympathetic to that. And like I'm already my wheels are spinning a little bit and just thinking, yeah, why don't I open? I mean, not so far as to immediately go to like building a self-hosted version just because that's a lot of work, but like just a simple step of like, hey, I could go open source this stuff. It's probably just as secure. Like that actually sounds really good. And I think that like there's a possibility of like long term kind of like allowing self-hosted stuff that'd be great because if they want to self-host it and take on themselves the expense Of like maybe put it on a $5 digital ocean droplet, that's great. The one thing I would sort of push back on that is like, there's a pretty small percentage of like, like we're not talking about a developer tool here. Like if we were talking about like this is like, you guys normally talk to developers and your people building tooling for companies and engineering teams and stuff. The Gertrude's a thing for like normal parents. And it's a very, I would guess it's a very, very small percentage that would have any sort of idea to think like, oh, can I host this on my own Docker instance, you know, and like you guys Are super technical and knowledgeable about that stuff and it just make it clicks with you like, hey, I want to run it myself. But like honestly, one of my main sort of passions about this whole thing is I really feel bad for like ordinary parents with ordinary computer skills and just the sense that most of them Are completely overwhelmed by this. And I would like to put a lot of time and effort basically into like helping normal parents succeed at keeping their kids safe. Speaker 3 And to me that feels more compelling than I don't mean to, you know, say that you're not important to Adam, but like the small percentage of people that might potentially run their own, Speaker 1 You know, I'd love to do both. And maybe I will. But like, I just think, oh, the ([Time 1:12:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b2e1e4bf-b4c1-4ae4-b1f0-f66740b7fe77)) - **Parental Controls as Generational Legacy** - Today's children protected by parental controls will become tomorrow’s parents who may also use these tools. - Parental safety software can become a multigenerational legacy for family internet security. Transcript: Speaker 2 And in the moment they didn't realize all the details, right? But I know it's hindsight. Like I think back to my mom all the time, things she did and things I didn't like as a kid. But now I appreciate as an adult, the way is that she, you know, covered me and protected me or guided me. And I think, wow, that's software protected me when I was younger. I didn't agree with it, but it's still there today. And it's still, it's like a Linux. It just keeps growing, you know. And it's just there and it's known. It's got the brand equity from being available. I don't fully agree with the name Gertrude. So let's maybe workshop that one, but either way, the idea is that today's child is tomorrow's parent, right? They have a past of being protected in the future where they're like, Oh, no, I've got some kids or I've got the fiance situation or this accountability partner situation, you know, With someone from their community that they're just trying to help, you know, being more safe, you know, because of this choice back in the day that made the long term more possible. You have this lifetime ([Time 1:22:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ca6c2cfb-7128-4b37-84ea-33a778cbce47)) - **Help Non-Techy Parents Secure Networks** - Use your technical skills to help less savvy parents protect their households from inappropriate content online. - Sharing knowledge about tools like Pi-hole or Gertrude can have lasting positive impact on families. Transcript: Speaker 3 A little bit of responsibility that falls to us to help the people that we have close relationships with. And if you're going to like spread out your time of technical things, maybe let's all do a little bit less like fixing our neighbors printer and maybe kind of help them with this stuff Instead. I think it's long term. It's so much more important to help people feel like they, you know, have control and that they're kind of guarding the hearts of their kids as they grow up. Like that's a thing I would encourage like people just listening to this. If you're probably in the top, you know, 5% in terms of like tech savvy or top 1% and just consider like helping a few people like figure this out. And I think it'd be time really, really well spent for sure. Speaker 4 Well said, Adam, any last words from you? Speaker 2 I just want to commend ([Time 1:31:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/76d7f93f-372d-4e28-9498-8c00a903f909))