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Forum Discussion
Netgear Parental Controls not blocking iMessages
Pausing internet with Netgear Parental Controls (Bedtime, Off Time, and manually pausing) successfully blocks http/s traffic but is allowing iMessages on wifi-only (NOT cell-enabled) Apple devices - ...
I don't believe that that can be done from a cell phone perpective. iMessage maybe using something different.
I'm not looking to do anything from a cell phone perspective. I'm looking to block internet traffic with the parental controls "pause internet" feature. It's only partially blocking internet traffic.
I agree entirely that "no internet" should mean NO internet. The Wikipedia article on iMessage states that each device opens a connection to the Apple Service using a proprietary protocol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMessage
I do not recall seeing any technical explanation of how Smart Parental Controls function. Not blocking iMessage would seem to be a big gap in terms of "control".
Like CrimpOn mentioned. iMessages is a proprietary protocol and maybe something that router mfrs are not able to get any control over. Also thinking about this, of course only as a emergency kind of use, but one reason it may not be blocked is for some urgent or emergency need, regardless of the voice, text is another means of communicating besides voice. So something that ya, is mostly chatty for everyday use. If something were to happen, I user still can use text. Something I would prefer to have available. Again this is worst case.
If you need control over Apples iMessages, something to contact them about and see if they have any suggestions for there product. They should know.
bspennington wrote:
I'm not looking to do anything from a cell phone perspective. I'm looking to block internet traffic with the parental controls "pause internet" feature. It's only partially blocking internet traffic.
This is an example of the confusion caused by not having:
- A written user manual explaining what the Parental Controls is intended to do.
- A technical explanation of how Parental Controls functions.
This puts Parental Controls in the same category as the entire Advanced Tab of the Orbi web interface, but the web interface has some "Help" text for each page.
My parents no longer living with us, I have no need to control them and have never activated Parental Controls. (Why pay for something and have no reason to use it?) So, I can only speculate about SPC.
One really cumbersome way to enforce an internet ban would be to use the "Block Services" capability in the Advanced Tab, Security Menu. Block all 65,353 TCP and UDP ports for a specific IP address. If new devices are prevented from joining the network (Access Control) and all IP addresses are allocated in the LAN Setup table, then this should definitely kill all internet use. After the rule has been set up, just open the Block Services web page and change "Never" to "Always". Want it back, change from "Always" to "Never". But... what a pain in the .......
Silly me, I had imagined that Parental Controls was a convenient way to do this from a smartphone app with a simple slider.
(p.s. Yes, I know that Parental Controls is to enable parents to control, not to control parents.)
