Orbi RBR40 with single satellite on firmware 2.5.1.22
I have Circle Premium active ($4.99/month) and have a device group for our son which is set to have bedtime limits.
I have just discovered that he has been using a VPN on his devices to bypass the restrictions. I don't have any age-related or site-by-site filtering activated (he's 17... if he wants to watch p*, who am I to stop him) but I am very dismayed to see that the VPN apparently bypasses the *bedtime* setting too, so he is able to continue to play games etc. late at night.
If I use the basic Access Control on the Orbi (admin console or the app) to disable specific device(s), that works fine, killing post-bedtime VPN access too, so I don't understand why the Circle function can't do the same thing. I completely understand how a VPN can bypass the site-by-site filtering, but that's not the issue. If a device group is time-limited, it should kill every device in that group by MAC Address and be done.
This basically makes Circle useless for what I want it to do, which is frustrating when I'm paying $5/month for it.
As a separate question, does anyone know if the Circle implementation in Netgear devices is a licensed software layer only, or is the actual same Circle hardware as their separate box actually embedded in the router, doing ARP Spoofing etc. I guess if the latter, that would make it a purely Circle problem, but I'm no better off.
@Christian_R thank you for this. The port blocking idea sounds plausible, although I'm sure port usage is not consistent among VPNs so he'll probably just switch to another one which uses a different port.
For now I have decided to be open with him, and just ASK him not to be silly in terms of late-night usage. Since Circle doesn't manage to do the ONLY thing I need it to do, it's useless to me, and a waste of $4.99/month so I have canceled it for now.
I tried activating the alternative OpenDNS-based parental controls, but it requires an OpenDNS account, and I couldn't work out how to make one of those for a mere mortal, as opposed to signing up for some Cisco business account. Some research seems to indicate that Netgear are just clumsily and inconsistently phasing out all the old tools in favor of Circle. Sigh.
If he proves unwilling or unable to stick to our new agreement, I will dig into this again.
“If he wants to watch p* who are you to stop him?” ... um, his parent? The grownup? The person his life who is supposed to be a steward of his mind and body until he is mature enough to make responsible decisions? Unbelievable.
