The battle between kids and parents when it comes to the internet and video games seems to be never-ending.

But often, it’s the child that has the technological expertise, which can give them the upper hand.

This story from Reddit is one such example of exactly that.

Check out the details!

You broke the entire internet again, mum!

So, just a little bit of context. My parents do NOT approve of me playing video games, and they’ve made that clear.

Even though I tell them that just because I’m on my computer, it doesn’t mean I’m playing video games, they don’t really listen.

He’s not ALWAYS playing games when he’s on the computer, and he handles his business otherwise.

I would understand them if my life was absolutely ****, but in reality, I’ve got a full time job over the summer with good pay

Afterwards I’m moving out to go back to the top rated university in my country, so I wouldn’t exactly say video games have “ruined my life”.

Anyway, one day I get home, and log onto my computer. But, my Steam and Discord wouldn’t connect.

I thought at first the servers may be down, but they weren’t. I used mobile data to ask my friends what was up and they said everything was fine.

After digging around a bit, trying to reset the internet router, changing from static IP to dynamic, etc, I finally figured out what it was:

My mother had put a child safety lock on the internet modem.

She really thought she had outsmarted him, but he had motivation to figure out a work-around.

Yep, child safety.

The purpose of this lock is to prevent your kids from going on dangerous sites, or sites they shouldn’t be on.

My mother did this as she saw she can choose to block video game sites, so she immediately pounced on that.

I asked my mother if she’d done anything with the internet, and she told me that she’d blocked video game sites so I could “go outside and do something more productive”, which was exactly what I’d expect.

Instead of going out and doing… whatever the hell non-gamers do, I went into my router settings to see if I could change it back, but I couldn’t, as the safety lock was done from her email account (Our router is Virgin Media, and her account owns it).

He was stumped, but not out of options.

I thought that I couldn’t do anything about it, until I realized: my parents know next to nothing about how the internet works.

So, what I did was went BACK into my router settings, then dug through the options to see what I could do.

At first I was thinking I should put my computer into “modem mode”, which basically stopped any Wi-Fi connections and internet only went through Ethernet connections, which at the time, only my PC was connected to.

But I decided against this as it would arouse suspicion as all my family had no connection, but I did.

Instead, I decided to go into the MAC Filtering settings, and found the address of all the devices that are connected to our network.

It was easy to find the devices they were connected to, as my family all uses iPhones, which basically just have a name next to the address saying “[person]’s phone.”

So I blocked the connection on all of them, before they got home, then when they did get home I simply unplugged the Ethernet cable of my PC.

It wouldn’t be long before they realized something was up, but he was home free.

My parents soon realised that something was up with the Internet, and they asked me about it.

I just came up with some excuse like “That filter you put on must have bugged out, I can’t connect to any site at all!” and they believed it.

So, as soon as my mother turned off the filter again, I quickly unblocked the MAC addresses and huzzah! Video games were back! And they never knew a thing…

They actually tried turning the filter back on again. Twice.

I don’t know if they’d forgotten or something, or maybe they just thought that the problem they had before was suddenly fixed.

But every time they re-enabled it, I just did the same method, made up some excuse, and every single time they believed it.

So that was my petty revenge story. Am I an ******* for doing it? I don’t know.

In either case, I’ll be moving out next month so I can finally gain control of the internet. Because, you know, I’m paying for it, and stuff.

Sounds like an enterprising, if a little devious, young man.

Let’s see what the commenters of Reddit think of his tech-savvy petty revenge.

Top comment loves the story, and wishes he could emulate the author.

Why are video games so bad, asks this comment?

Oh how the turntables turn – or they could, according to this commenter.

It’s perfectly acceptable to connect with friends online, says this commenter.

It’s a lost cause anyway, says this commenter.

Don’t try and outsmart a teenager when it comes to technology!

You’ll have to find another way to get their attention.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.