Post in our forum for parents, teens - You! - at ConnectSafely.org.

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Child porn on file-sharing networks

In another reminder that kids wanting to swap tunes can encounter other types of files on file-sharing networks, CNN reported that "dozens of people" (of all ages) were arrested this week for trafficking in child porn on P2P services. "One 19-year-old youth recently arrested and convicted told authorities he started using peer-to-peer applications to share music, but later moved on to sending and receiving images and movies of child pornography." That's a federal crime on which the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are cracking down, having formed interagency task forces at federal, state, and local levels for this very active law-enforcement effort.

Friday, May 14, 2004

Kids accessing Web porn with image searches

"I was equally surprised and shocked that without paying a dime my child could access porn that is way, way beyond Playboy," writes Michelle, a subscriber of our newsletter, "including under-age, incest, animal images, among other things. It is disturbing for me, but how does a child process this stuff? Do they understand the extremes and how do they reconcile these images with real life relationships requiring respect and love?....

"I'd like to caution other parents that my discovery and reprimanding did not end the situation. It took tenacity and a lot of further talks to get through to my (straight-A, conscientious) son. Just as he learned how to access these sites from his friends, he also learned ways to get around the filters. I soon realized I could not keep up with my extremely tech-literate child." Click here to find out how this wise mom dealt with this parenting challenge.

Another mother's email started this string, sparking an article in my 4/30 issue about kids using search engines. Post or send in your own experience or comments. Fellow parents' stories can be very helpful!

Cell phone parental controls

They're not available yet, but are they something your family could use? Here's what we're talking about:

  • Limit the amount of time kids talk on the phone
  • Designate the times when the phone can be used (e.g.,
    not after 9pm - that's homework time)
  • Allow communication only with certain phone numbers
    (e.g., Mom, Dad, sibs, your 10 best friends, your grandparents, and emergency
    numbers)
  • Block certain numbers
  • "View history" - check what calls a child has made.

The technology exists but hasn't yet been picked up by US cell phone companies like Verizon, Nokia, or AT&T. Read one mom's thinking on cell phones for kids and what would simplify the decision in this issue of my newsletter. Getting Lynn's thinking definitely helped clarify my thinking on the subject.

Kids accessing Web porn with image search

"I was equally surprised and shocked that without paying a dime my child could access porn that is way, way beyond Playboy," writes Michelle, a subscriber of our newsletter, "including under-age, incest, animal images, among other things. It is disturbing for me, but how does a child process this stuff? Do they understand the extremes and how do they reconcile these images with real life relationships requiring respect and love?....

"I'd like to caution other parents that my discovery and reprimanding did not end the situation. It took tenacity and a lot of further talks to get through to my (straight-A, conscientious) son. Just as he learned how to access these sites from his friends, he also learned ways to get around the filters. I soon realized I could not keep up with my extremely tech-literate child." Click here to find out how this wise mom dealt with this parenting challenge.

Another mother's email started this string, sparking an article in my 4/30 issue about kids using search engines. Post or send in your own experience or comments. Fellow parents' stories can be very helpful!

22 million teen Net users

...in the US by 2008 is the latest figure from Jupiter Research, up from 18 million right now. Jupiter got its figures from working with a core group of "teen influencers" who represent 17% of online teens in the US and who spend about eight hours a week online, CNET reports. "During the estimated seven hours a week they spend online, most teenagers regularly use instant messaging and browse online content like personal pages and blogs."

Symantec firewall flaw: Help

If you have this company's firewall on your family PC, read this article in The Register, which tells you how to get the flaws patched. At the bottom is a link to Symantec's update pageRed alert over Symantec firewall flaw.

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Embedded ads in kids' games

You've certainly seen how it's done in movies - the latest-model BMW in a James Bond film, a certain brand of cigarettes on the table as a lovely actress lights up. Well, advertising watchdogs are now concerned about this: "Advertisers have discovered that videogames are a cool way to get their products in front of impressionable kids," as Reuters reports. The example the article gives is ex-cop Nick Kang, "cool Charles Bronson-type antihero" and pitchman for Puma sportswear in the videogame world of "True Crime: Streets of LA," from Activision. This might be a good subject for family discussion on what kids are noticing in the games they play.

Gamers not just kids

The majority of video game players are over 18, Reuters reports, citing an Entertainment Software Association survey. "In fact, the average age of game players was 29 and the average age of buyers was 36, with men making up 59 percent of the playing audience," ESA found. Their game playing is at the expense of watching TV and going to the movies, and 43% of them play games online an hour or more a week, up from 31% two years ago.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Daughter's blog, mom's dilemma

"Not long ago, a friend sent me an unsettling email," writes a mother in the Washington, D.C., area in a commentary at the Christian Science Monitor. "She'd discovered the Internet links for her daughter's and my daughter's online journals. Was I interested in reading my daughter's?" Would she end up doing so? You'll see that arriving at the answer was neither simple nor applicable to all parent-child relationships, but it helps to read a fellow parent's thinking process on a tough issue. Please email me (or click on "comments" just below) if you've faced a similar question - I'd love to hear what you and your child worked out.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Cyberbullying: Thorny new parenting problem

As some of us know only too well, technology's instant and macro-level results (via the Web, IM, etc.) mean two things to pranksters and the grownups in their lives: They've "all but erased the reflection time that once existed between the planning of a silly prank - or a serious stunt - and its commission" and "made it nearly impossible to contain a regrettable deed - because once committed, there's almost no way to retrieve and destroy all evidence of it in cyberspace," writes Mark Franek, dean of students at Philadelphia's William Penn Charter School, in a Christian Science Monitor oped piece. A mean instant message to 140 kids on a child's buddy list can not only hurt the subject of that IM but can be archived for Googling by her future acquaintances, employers, etc. An inappropriate photo taken by picture phone in a school locker room and posted in a blog can be found and circulated around the Net indefinitely by total strangers who could be criminally prosecuted for doing so. "Schools, technology companies, and parents need to educate themselves and take responsibility for getting this growing problem under control," Mark writes. He provides some helpful tips for schools and parents. Our street smarts can help protect tech-whizkids from making big mistakes with technologies that not only enable but magnify and broadcast those mistakes.

For an email conversation with Bill Belsey, Canada's top expert on the subject, see "The growing cyberbullying problem" in the 2/6/04 issue of my newsletter.

File-sharing privacy risks to families

Parents, if you don't know that kids' file-sharing (or digital music downloading) activities can be a family privacy risk, here's a heads-up. We asked Tim Lordan, head of Washington-based GetNetWise.org, about this issue, and he said that - though reports of identity theft and other privacy violations are as yet nonexistent - exposing personal files on the P2P networks is definitely happening. By personal files, we mean emails, tax returns, medical records, and in some cases people's entire hard drives. Tim pointed to a study done over a year ago that found this kind of file-sharing a widespread mistake, partly because the design of the software (whether it's the well-known Kazaa or one of the newer, more obscure programs) is confusing. "Many users [especially kids eager to find their favorite songs] do not realize that when they add files to the download folder, all the files in the directory, as well as the directories below it, can be recursively shared," reported PCWorld in its coverage of the study. "The report also criticizes the way the software searches for files to be shared, noting that it does not give criteria for discovering folders to be shared, such as searching only for media files. Therefore, when it discovers a folder to be shared, 'it presumes that users haveba perfect knowledge of what kinds of files are contained in those folders and what will be shared,' the researchers wrote."

For more on this, see "A tech-literate dad on file-sharing" in the 1/16/04 issue of my newsletter.

Game Boy: Grown women vs. teen boys

Game Boy is not going away any time soon. The number of people using handheld game players will grown from 23 million last year to 43 million in 2009, when they'll be a $2.7 billion market, CNET reports, citing a Jupiter Research study. "The study looked at users of game devices ... as well as people who play more than five hours per week on PDAs (personal digital assistants) and cell phones - a group expected to grow at an average annual rate of 16% through 2009," CNET adds. The most interesting figures, though are the age and gender breakdowns: Of the 17% of online adults who own handheld game devices, nearly two-thirds are women. Teens are "almost the opposite": of the 34% of teens who own handheld game devices, nearly two-thirds are boys. Game devices were a major draw at this week's huge game show, Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3, in Los Angeles.

Checking video games' ed value

The Education Arcade - a consortium of educators, policymakers, game developers, and gaming publishers - wants to help parents looking for value beyond entertainment. The group has launched a "games for learning" seal-of-approval program, the Toronto Globe & Mail reports. "Beyond labels, the group hopes to persuade game companies to make more educational games. It could be a tough sell, though, in an industry that favours low-risk, high-profit sequels built on established franchises," according to the Globe & Mail.

Sasser kid: He did it for mom?!

Here's hoping no other mother's teenage son supports her career in quite this way! The Verdun, Germany, prosecutor's office said it was possible that 18-year-old Sven Jaschan's motive for creating the Sasser worm that "caused chaos around the world ... may have been to drum up business for his mother." Sven's mom and stepfather run a computer tech-support business, Reuters reports. The boy "could face trial in June on charges of computer sabotage, which carry a maximum five-year prison sentence. But the punishment may be less severe because ... [Sven] was 17 when the crimes were committed." The boy's tech teacher told the media he was very skilled (German police believe he also wrote all 28 variants of the earlier Netsky worm) but should've understood the implications better.

The 5th Sasser variant discovered within hours of Sven's arrest last Friday appears to have been an effort on his part to limit the worm's damage, backing up the idea that this kid is more misguided than malicious. In its code is a warning to users "whose computers are vulnerable that their systems have not been patched," CNET reports.

Rapid growth in hate sites: New study

To a parent, this means our kids can encounter hate and bigotry - sometimes graphically depicted - on the Web as easily as pornography. SurfControl, a UK-based Net-filtering company that monitors thousands of Web sites in this category, found that the number of hate and violence sites has increased 25% just since January, and 300% since 2000, The Register reports. SurfControl says it was monitoring about 2,756 Web sites that "promote hatred against Americans, Muslims, Jews, homosexuals and people of non-European ancestry, as well as graphic violence" in 2000. By last month it was monitoring 10,926 such sites. SurfControl "went on to claim that some existing hate sites have expanded in shocking or curious ways, such as the inclusion of graphic images of dead and mutilated human beings. Another example given by the company was a white supremacy Web site that included a dating service and a $1,000 scholarship contest for a student that could write the best essay on 'actionable, practical solutions' for dealing with anyone who is not white."

Monday, May 10, 2004

Sasser kid caught

It took a week for law enforcement to find at least one of the alleged creators (notice all those qualifiers) of the latest Net scourge, and he's a teenager. Either police are getting faster, or international cooperation better, but he appears to have been an 18-year-old German high school student was arrested last Friday and later released, having admitted to creating the Sasser worm that affected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide, the BBC reports. But he may not have been the worm's only creator - since a new variant was circulating the Net two days after his arrest, and computer security experts told ComputerWeekly.com that they thought a group was behind Sasser.

Apparently, it was a tip to Microsoft - which offers rewards to people who turn in virus writers - that led to the arrest. According to SearchSecurity.com, a group of people in Lower Saxony last Wednesday asked Microsoft about a reward if they turned the young man in. Could it be the group of hackers who launched the worm? See our Sasser coverage in last week's issue of the SafeKids/NetFamilyNewsletter.

No more 99 cents/tune?

Young music fans may increasingly be hitting up Mom or Dad for "legit" downloads, witness iTunes's latest news. Apple "has now signed agreements with EMI, Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), Sony, Universal, and Warner that will see prices on some songs rise from 99c to $1.25, an increase of over 26%" - lower, at least than the $2.99 the labels had been pushing for, The Register reports. As for album prices, some will remain $9.99, others are already $16.99, a 70% hike, The Register adds. Of course one impact will be increased revenue for the labels. But they will also be sending more and more fans to indie labels and new bands
Another much more Between this news and ever-burgeoning anti-piracy lawsuits, the record industry must either be in very difficult straits or want to send more and more fans to the indie labels.