KIDNS.EXE
the free child safe DNS enforcing program
kidns.exe is a win32 tray application that locks your PC's DNS settings to a set of my DNS servers that are configured for OPENDNS.COM's child protection set.
It's characteristics are that:
- It copies itself under c:\windows or wherever your %windir% might be.
- It mangles the registry so that it fires up during the PC's start up sequence.
- There is not exit functionality from the tray icon!
- It is resilient to kill from the task manager, meaning that the DNS settings remain if it is killed but not unlocked properly!
I have not created an uninstaller as of yet since I wanted to make it difficult for children to uninstall it, but removing it is as easy as pie. To completely remove it do the following:
- Delete the application from C:\Windows or wherever your %windir% is.
- Fire up regedit and remove the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\KIDNS .
- Reboot of follow the unlocking procedure.
Although the program has not exit option, a parent/guardian can unlock the PC by doing the following little song and dance:
- Fire up the windows notepad application. Hint: clicking on start->run type notepad.exe and click OK.
- Visit the Unlock phrase web page at http://www.unix.gr/kidns.unlock.php
- Copy this phrase verbatim in the notepad window and voila in a couple of seconds KIDNS will t try to undo all it benefits and announce it too.
To better help parents control their children's online behaviour we have configured the following opendns settings automatically for you:
Caveats:
Things might get awry if you already have an opendns account.
Do not use kidns.exe in a corporate environment where you might have other Name Servers like the ones for Active Directory.
The unlock phrase is dynamic visit it often. The software is useless against older kids, they are too technologically savvy.
Have fun! Try to visit play_oy.com after intalling kidns.exe :-)
Do not forget to visit rautor recording and auditing application.