July 9, 2004
Dear Subscribers:
We're working on a new feature that features you!
It's called "What's on your mind (concerning kids & tech)?"
Would you email me questions, concerns, and stories that have come up at your
house? Thanks! The address is anne@netfamilynews.org.
Here's our lineup for this first full week of July:
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New family PC risks, Part 2: Online
games!
Last week we looked at the phenomenon of invasive
Web sites and pop-ups. This week
a heads-up for gamers of all ages....
If your child plays Unreal Tournament or other multiplayer
games that run on the basic Unreal game code, your PC could become a hacker
playground. "As they develop more online capabilities, games have become an
increasingly popular avenue for online miscreants," CNET reports. The "miscreants" could compromise the Unreal engine's
"security tool" and use it to take over the computer your child uses to play
these games.
We asked CorePROTECT
CEO and father-of-six Tim LaFazia what he thought of this new PC security
development. "This doesn't surprise me. Hackers and spammers focus their efforts
on the weaknesses of any system and ... unfortunately, much of the software
available to gamers (and/or downloadable on the Internet) is not adequately
scanned and hardened to withstand such hijacking."
NFN: What can parents do to avoid this invasion
of the family PC?
Tim:
- Keep up to date on all available security patches
for your OS and software applications [for the former, the key page is Windows
Update.
- Install and update antivirus software (McAfee.com,
Symantec.com, etc.).
- Install a personal firewall (such as Zone
Alarm or Black
Ice).
- Install and routinely scan your system using Ad-Aware
and SpyBot
Search and Destroy. Ad- Aware is a great adware detection and removal
system. SpyBot is an excellent spyware detection and removal tool. Both
tools are free and require regular updates.
- Ensure that for your OS, your browser and each software
application [e.g., instant messaging and file-sharing services like Kazaa]
that security settings are not defaulted to the minimums. [BTW, CNET reported this week that Kazaa may be past its prime, surpassed
by the likes of eDonkey and BitTorrent.]
- Have a "roll back" system in place – such as CoreRestore
[which takes a PC back to its pre-virus health].
NFN: How would you work with your child if s/he
were an avid multiplayer gamer?
Tim: "I would work with them to understand
the threats associated with multiplayer gaming and walk through security configurations
(such as above) together. It's amazing how quickly your child will develop
an interest in securing the family PC once it's been down for a few days following
an infection."
We would add that, if your gamer tells you not to
overreact, s/he's probably right - just ask him or her to make sure s/he downloads
the security patches when they come along (they know where to find them!).
As of this writing, there was a patch available only for Unreal Tournament
2004 (here).
That's from game security researcher Luigi Auriemma, who first discovered
the security flaw. He told us in an email that CNET's report was not
correct in saying that all five versions of Unreal, as well as Postal 2 and
Deus Ex, had patches available. Here's
where Luigi goes to look for patch availability on a day-to-day basis. PC
security company Secunia has a bulletin
that lists the games based on the Unreal engine and affected by its security
flaw.
For further reading
- More on games: Because the gaming industry
keeps pushing the violence envelope, "legislators and activists who claim
some titles must be kept out of kids' hands" are on the offensive again,
the Associated
Press reports. There was a lot of coverage in May because of the big
E3 games convention in Los Angeles that month. See our 5/14
issue for a roundup, 5/28
for a story on "gleam," a new virtual drug showing up in online gaming,
and 7/2 for info
on a disturbing adult-only, kid-accessible game that includes virtual
rape.
- More on family PC security: The lead item
just below; IM risks
& tips; "A tech-literate
dad on file- sharing" and "File-sharing
realities for families"; and "Spyware & an 8-year-old" below.
* * * *
Web News Briefs
- Patch that Windows PC!
If your family computer runs on Windows (and you're
using the Explorer browser to surf), get this
brand-new patch for that Explorer problem we featured last
week. That page at Microsoft has instructions for home users right
near the top. The Explorer flaw "allows online thieves to steal computer
passwords and private data such as bank account numbers," the Washington Post reports, adding: "The patch
does not fix the problem, instead it turns off the function inside Internet
Explorer that contains the flaw. Microsoft is working on another patch
to repair the hole. This article in CNET, "Another Internet Explorer flaw found,"
confirms that our troubles are not over. Not that we needed confirmation!
If you heeded PC security experts' suggestion
earlier in the week that it might be easier to just switch to another
browser - as of today (Friday) - that's no longer true. The people behind
Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation, just announced it too has a security
flaw. This only affects PCs with the Windows XP operating system, ZDNet
UK reports. So if you're an XP family and made the switch, you definitely
need to click to this
page on Mozilla.org, download the patch and follow the instructions
(they're a lot less user-friendly than Microsoft's security patches, we
have to say - to Microsoft's credit). "Mozilla developers said that future
versions of the Firefox Web browser would have automatic update notifications
that would make it easier to notify users about security fixes," according
to ZDNet. See "Spyware & an 8-year-old" below for more on browsers.
- Spyware & an 8-year-old
We keep hearing about this thing called "spyware"
- Congress is certainly concerned about it (see Reuters
report) - but many parents aren't exactly sure what it means. Well,
a recent commentary in The
Register literally brings the issue home....
"One of my friends called me in a panic the other
day. It seems his eight-year- old daughter was surfing the Internet, searching
for Barbie dolls ... when something bad popped up on the screen. She may
not have understood what she saw, but she knew it was bad and so she called
Mom and Dad. You can probably guess what popped on the screen. That's
right, a page with explicit, graphic pornography. But wait, there's more.
It gets worse." The site she clicked to somehow installed porn images
all over the computer - from the desktop to the browser's Quick Links
toolbar to the Favorites list. "The browser was also redirected, or 'hijacked'
to display an explicit porn site as the home page." The dad tried two
different anti-spyware programs, and they detected it but couldn't remove
it. The spyware could update itself and did so to a newer version that
the removal software couldn't affect. We never find out in The Register
piece what this family ended up doing - only that the dad, who works in
the software industry, "spent significant time figuring out how to manually
delete a malicious, system-level application that he never installed."
The problem, PC security experts say, largely
lies at the Explorer browser's doorstep, and the reason is its installed
base (about 80% of the world's Net users). The odds are against your children
having an experience like the above, but - to avoid it - switch browsers
(to Safari on the Mac or Firefox or Opera on the PC). USAToday
this week ran reviews of these and other browser alternatives. Or turn
up Explorer's security setting to "high" (the Washington Post helpfully
explains how here). And CNET reports that
more and more security software companies, such as PestPatrol here,
are offering consumers anti-spyware information on the Web.
- Teen romance, online-style
"Even the most personal conversations now occur
without human contact," reports college student and contributor Amy Sennett
in the Washington
Post. In her entertaining article about the electronic elements of
dating, she tells us that, these days, instant messaging (IM) is the "communication
lifeline" of young adults, and "the rules of virtual conversation and
courtship are no more simple or well defined than they were in Jane Austen's
world." There are no fewer conventions with email- and IM-enhanced relationships,
you see. "One of the new conventions is that an email carries more weight
than a casual IM conversation," where mere flirting occurs. "E-mail, at
least for my guy friends, is one rung down on the emotional ladder from
marriage proposals and shared bank accounts," Amy writes. "As a result,
hundreds of thousands of confused college women like me now decode these
messages as if we are searching for hidden professions of love in the
Rosetta stone." Amy's piece focuses on the nuanced impact of various technologies
on new friendships, more than on the ethics and etiquette involved at
the other end - breaking up online. Is it a cop out not to let someone
down face-to-face? All this is still being worked out, and it's a fascinating
process needing plenty of TLC on the observer/parent's part (we would
love to hear from you and your son or daughter if you have stories of
this type to tell - via feedback@netfamilynews.org).
Another layer of this social-techno tangle kids
face, not dealt with in Amy's article, is texting on a cell phone - probably
closer to IM in lightness of touch and brevity of message. One mom told
us her high-schooler uses his phone more "for quick messages to figure
out meeting logistics with friends and his family" (see our
5/7 feature on cell-phone parental controls). Maybe phones kick in
when the relationship is already in full swing!
- Gamers: More and more going online
If they don't know already, parents of gamers
will want to know how easy Sony and Microsoft are making it for console
gamers to go online, link up with other players, "form alliances and socialize
in groups," the New
York Times reports. We're not referring to computer gamers; we're
talking about the PlayStation 2 and XBox gamers who typically start playing
at much younger ages. Computer gamers were always necessarily a little
more techie and knew how to go online; now it's easy for gamers of all
ages. "Once a console is hooked up to an Internet connection, players
merely click a button that takes them directly to the online game portal,"
according to the Times. More than 10% of the 25 million PlayStation 2s
sold are online-capable, but about 1.2 million PS2 users are playing online
so far, according to market research. Microsoft says 1 million out of
14 million Xbox users have bought the online kit and subscribe to Xbox
Live, while - for Nintendo GameCube - only two games are available for
online play (by contrast, Sony expects to have 100 PS2 games available
for online play by Christmas, up from 65 now, the Times reports).
- Peer-to-peer gambling
First it was pretty much just music (widely shared
with file-sharing technology). Then porn, viruses, and spyware (see our
"File-sharing realities
for families"). Now casinos are using P2P technology in a big way.
"Peer-to-peer betting, which has been increasingly popular in Europe,
Asia and Australia, is one of the fastest-growing online gambling enterprises,"
the New
York Times reports in "Gambling Sites Offering Ways to Let Any User
Be the Bookie." The US-based P2P gambling service that will illustrate
this phenomenon will be Betbug, set to launch July 21. It's "remarkably
similar to file-sharing programs like Kazaa and Morpheus, which let people
exchange music and other media over the Internet. Anyone downloading the
Betbug software will be able to propose a wager, then reach out to everyone
else on the network to find a taker for the bet." The US Justice Department
has lately been after offshore Internet gambling casinos, but Betbug's
creators use a similar argument to that of the file-sharing networks:
They say they should be exempt from US law because they're not acting
as a central bookmaker - just making software available to users who choose
what they want to do with it. Just to hedge their bets, though, they're
basing Betbug in Toronto. Of course, where child Net users are concerned,
file-sharing networks with no central databases or participation in the
goings-on are passing the buck to parents.
- School tech tidbits
- Inappropriate content in the classroom.
A majority (59%) of school technology decisionmakers report incidents
of students accessing inappropriate Web content at school in the past
year, according to a new
survey sponsored by school filtering company St. Bernard Software.
The content they're referring to is online games (45%), pornography
(39%), violence (25%), music file-sharing (19%), and hate content (13%).
The Child Internet Protection Act requires schools to protect students
from inappropriate content while using the Internet at school. Despite
their responses, the school tech decisionmakers said the problem is
not getting any worse, and 75% give their districts relatively high
marks for adequately protecting students from inappropriate content.
- Net good for test performance. Almost
two-thirds of K-12 teachers say that the availability of computers improves
student performance on standardized tests, and 77% say they don't have
enough computers for students in their classrooms, according to a "Teachers
Talk Tech" poll unveiled at the recent National Education Computing
Conference.
- Guess again, teachers. In its just-unveiled
survey, "Speak
Up Day for Teachers 2004", NetDay found that "teachers think their
students learn about technology from their friends first and from their
teachers secondly. In reality, students feel that friends, self-exploration,
family, and TV and radio ads all have a stronger influence than teacher
recommendations." NetDay also found that 71% of teachers said they would
use students to provide tech support or expertise in the classroom (interestingly,
older teachers were more comfortable with student tech support than
those 29 and under).
- Cell phone injures teen
It wasn't a serious injury but something parents
might want to know about. The 16-year-old in California, who'd had the
phone in her back pocket, was treated for second-degree burns and shortly
thereafter released from the hospital. A fire investigator said the phone
in question, whose battery reportedly caused "fist-size flames," was a
Kyocera Wireless 2325, CNET
reports. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission "has yet to decide
what to do" and - as of this writing - Verizon Wireless, which sold the
phone, was trying to get more information from the girl's family and Kyocera
didn't return the reporter's calls. Kyocera. CNET adds that "it's not
the first reported instance of a Kyocera phone malfunctioning. All of
the incidents have raised concerns over the safety of a device jammed
into pockets, handbags or pressed against a person's face."
- Controlling kid TV-viewing
Some parents have heard of the V-Chip, but few
know what it is or how to make it filter out TV programming they don't
want their kids to see. ZDNet
home electronics specialist Steve Kovsky calls the V-Chip - legally required
in every TV over 13" manufactured since January 2000 - parents' "first
line of defense." But it isn't always user-friendly (you can always read
your TV's user manual), Steve says, so for parents seeking better, more
convenient parental controls, he recommends DVRs (digital video recorders)
such as TiVo and ReplayTV or, even better, Windows XP Media Center. All
of these options, of course, add a significant chunk of change to filtering
efforts.
* * * *
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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Anne Collier, Editor
Net Family News
