Implementing a parental control system

[chathura666]

hello,
I am a student. I have to develop a parental control system to avoid children from visiting unnecessary websites, and logging their activities and block some activities ( softwares, partitions of the harddisk..etc. ). Actually at the moment i dont have any idea how to do this. I checked how firewalls are made because it is a similar thing where i found some things about TDI and NDIS. But still cannot figure out how to do this. actually i know this is not specifically a C++ problem, but i dont know a better place to put this question.

can someone help me in this.
thank you.
:)
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p.s.
I wish to implement this in windows because its what most people in our country uses.

[andywestken]

Sounds like a hard student project!!

How complete a solution do you need to implement? Do you have to implement it ground up, or can you use existing syste support?

If you are able to target Vista and newer, the Windows Filtering Platform (WPF) might help.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463267

Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) is a new architecture in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that enables independent software vendors (ISVs) to filter and modify TCP/IP packets, monitor or authorize connections.

(If you haven't already seen it, this thread might help you decide:
"Simple User Mode Firewall"
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-GB/wfp/thread/fc819796-7fbf-4b62-a8f0-33a4e5c7d283
)

Andy

P.S. Have you written device drivers already??

[chathura666]

Thank you very much for the infomation. i will look into them now.

How complete a solution do you need to implement? Do you have to implement it ground up, or can you use existing syste support?

Well, they expect a complete working system. we are allowed to use external libraries/API/..etc. stuff.

P.S. Have you written device drivers already??

actually no sir.
I may sound stupid to you but, why do i need to write a driver for this?

Also networks is my weakest area in studies.

[andywestken]

You mentioned NDIS = Network Driver Interface Specification. So I assumed you were thinking about writing an intermediate driver which would sniff packets on the way past and block what it doesn't like. This did sound a bit steep to me (learning-curve-wise), which is why I asked.

My experience with driver is quite limited, and multimedia releted. But one of my colleagues has written something similar to what you're described (using an NDIS driver) "for" his own kids. But I think he took shortcuts as it only needed to work on his how PC.

Maybe you could run the WPF route past your "boss" and see what he thinks?

Andy

P.S. I've repaired the link. I didn't expect the ) to be joined to the actual link.