Hello Nak...

Was this a new laptop? Usually the probation department takes it to install the software. It works similar to parental monitoring whereby a supervisor password is established so the user cannot alter any settings. Installed software is cheaper to use as it phones home whatever seems suspicious. Monitoring via your ISP is more expensive as they will want to charge a monthly subscription. You probation department may also charge a monthly fee. Using the ISP option would be 2 monthly charges so you don't want that.

Your son should not be afraid of it if he's not doing anything wrong. In fact by using it within the rules demonstrates that he is following the rules. Leaving it in the box tells them nothing.

New laptop, just bought it from bestbuy. It's still in the box and the seal hasn't been broken.
The PO said he would email my son the link to download it onto his computer.
Its' $29 month.

If we didn't have to drive to the police department 30 minutes away and sit there for hours to give them his new email address, which he doesn't have yet, perhaps he'd open the box.

I just want more info about the monitoring.

I'm sure the Feds watch this group anyway, and my computer. So, there's no privacy. I don't like that either. My son accidentally downloaded the cp. He's a little concerned they'll take something that is innocent and turn it into something, like they did the cp. He's got some PTS going on.. It's his call, not mine.

Hmmm... Sound's highly unusual that they don't install it at the probation office to me. You could make a mirror image of the hard drive without the software installed, then install the software then restore the prior image anytime you didn't want to use the monitoring software.That's assuming that you want to defeat the purpose all together which I'm not implying you want to do. It sounds very much on the honer system not including the probation department. But please take this as a good thing. It's a way for your son to prove his actions are not devious and the tracking will validate this. It will flag innocent, legitimate, educational searches because it will not know intent. What will trigger it more would be any chat room conversations rather than normal internet searches.

I am not speaking from experience about tracking software but of having many years in IT programming and the capabilities that exist whether you install software or not.

At any rate, anyone on the registry is also on a sort of "No-Fly" list radar with the IPS's and is probably being monitored. But then again most of us are being monitored regardless anyway! (Can you say NSA?)

I've always said do not put anything on a computer that you would not shout out a window!

Good luck and never give up!

I find it surprising that they are not installing it at the office also. The software is not fool proof and will flag some innocent things. Just make sure your son does not go to chat rooms, as mentioned, and I hope he has learned his lesson about P2P, like Limewire, also.
They are even monitoring TOR also.

Much, much, much harder to monitor tor if used correctly. The amount of bounce tor does is pretty damn good.

He never went to chat rooms, and he won't be downloading music. He's really not into using the internet, never was.
He wanted to put a profile up on FB but he's not allowed. He'll be doing a youtube station and posting his music there and trying to get a gig with local bands. His PO and shrink know about that and think it's a good idea.
Even when he had an email he rarely used it. When they came for him it was not even available anymore because of non- use.

frog,
I saw recently that the NSA, surprise, is trying to monitor TOR gateways. Good luck with that! I know how Hard it is to monitor TOR traffic once it hits the network.

What the NSA has done is compromised several of TOR's exit servers there by allowing them to monitor all the traffic that uses them. So you see they have a key to TOR's backdoor and can listen.

Now if you're using a VPN (linke https://torvpn.com/information.html - not free) the exit traffic would be encrypted. There are some free VPN's out there.

Nak - FL uses something called Covenant eyes - my son only has to have it while on probation and his group guy gets the report - it is not too bad and my son installs it himself (I have the control password along with the group leader) so we set the limits - he has the app on his phone also

Advocate has FL changed it's ruling my case was in 2005 and back then there was no Covenant there was no installing supposely I just had to give them all my screen names before I could use them.