Disabling LAN ports on a Sky F@ST 2504

Until recently, keeping my son "banned" from the internet as a punishment was working fine by using MAC address filtering. He has since found out that by plugging a cable into one of the ports on the rear of the modem that he is able to access the 'net. Is there a way to either:

a) Disable the ports to disallow any throughput or
b) Something similar to wireless filtering that will prevent a particular pc connecting via wired.

Thanks for your help.

Mark

It may be possible. Manufacturers are less likely to provide disabled ports as a desirable feature as you could accidentally disable all the ports and be locked out requiring a reset.

MAC addresses are a property of wired as well as wireless network adapters so you may be able add that too and see if it is blocked. But MAC addresses can be changed by software.

But anyway it is not really a technical matter - if he is knows he is banned from the internet and ignores you, that it is a discipline problem as on a technical level he could be congratulated for learning something about networking.

The usual approach would be to simply make ignoring the ban punishable by something worse than "no internet". The obvious next question is: can you not confiscate the device he is using, but perhaps a sanction unrelated to technology may be more appropriate as otherwise you are just challenging him to find another workaround.

In reply to a post by prlzx:

if he is knows he is banned from the internet and ignores you, that it is a discipline problem

Agreed, and up until the disagreeable oik became 16 and left school last year, he was reasonably well behaved. Nothing at the moment seems to sink in with him, it is the only control I have over him except to give him a good slap, which unfortunately, would leave me in the wrong. I have a soft Wife who won't allow me to remove him from the house, so she lets him doss around all day watching TV and on the (his) laptop.

So, my last resort is a ban of the internet. I have no control over what he does when I am at work, it is one of his "wonderful friends" that told him about using a wired connection. The only option seems to be to remove the router from the house when not home then, which means trouble as we are on a ling line and speeds can suffer terribly

Hmm, time to think of some more options I think

Thanks

Can you replace the router with one which a has parental control?

For example the 2wire2700 provided by BT to business customers will allow you to give him access as certain times based on wired or wireless MAC. You can also only allow specific applications/sites to be accessed.

The 2700 is also excellent on long lines and often improves the speed.

Yes the problem with using technology as a sanction is that it can turn into a game - options include hiding all the ethernet cables, or leave just one out but slice into the wire, only damaging it enough to make an intermittent fault.

Or if you could lock the port speed to 10Mbit/s half duplex (laptop or router) that would slow things down on the wired side. A mismatch is even more unpleasant.

You could turn off DHCP and manually set IPs on the devices to have access - then he would have to learn about how IP addressing works.

On the router you may have some kind of "Disconnect" option to close the session (the PPPoA connection between you and the ISP) while remaining synced to the exchange (the exchange does not regard this as a fault).

I haven't found the manual for this model, just a few screenshots so you would need to have a nose around the various menus to see what can be changed.

If you are saying he bought the laptop with his own money and you don't feel comfortable confiscating it, perhaps you could misplace the laptop mains adapter or accidentally take it to work with you - rationing rather than a ban.

Most of these options require additional work for you so you are being punished too. At 16+ he can probably walk into any shop and pick up a PAYG internet dongle no questions asked, or figure out how to use a mobile as an internet connection for the laptop, so an internet ban will only get you so far.

Also if he is only just learning what an Ethernet port does that is another problem of schools that teach Office but not what the connections on the back of a computer do.

Yes if the OP wishes they could try a different router, or if they can get hands on a legacy PC to setup as the router.
Open-source firewalls often have options block a particular device or limit access / bandwidth to it.

If it's Sky though, getting their PPPoA username and password takes extra steps and as usual the ISP tech support may refuse to support it (so something of a misnomer).

Stop him going somewhere he really wants to e.g. a birthday party / festival. That's a fair punishment

In reply to a post by Discus:

The only option seems to be to remove the router from the house when not home then, which means trouble as we are on a ling line and speeds can suffer terribly

Yes, your only option is to remove or replace the Sky router or your wife, cos it doesn't take too long to find the hard reset button.

I suppose the easy answer is just ban the MAC of his wired card too.

Long-term, it's a waste of time - how long before he figures out that he can just unplug your router and replace it with one of his own when you're not about?

You can set the router to assign a certain MAC a certain IP always, and then edit the outbound firewall rules so that you can just enable the rule which doesn't give him outbound access when you leave for work and disable when you return. (Assuming the menus are the same as the standard sky router). You may even be able to set a schedule for his access..

Any progress?