January 21, 2005
Dear Subscribers:
Here's our lineup for this third week of January:
~~~~~~~~~~Support the Newsletter!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Help support Net Family News: Make a
donation
to our free public service, via Network
for Good's online fundraising system
for nonprofit organizations. Contributions are tax-deductible.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filtering, monitoring, etc., Part 2: Insights from experts
"Filters are of only limited use with chat and instant-messaging,"
said Josh Finer, publisher of Software4Parents.com.
For these communications apps so popular among tweens and teens, "monitoring
software is better." Talking with Josh and Jerry Ropelato, publisher of InternetFilterReview.com,
turned up some helpful insights - not just into what various types of online-safety
software can do but also into parents' current interests. [See Part
1 for an introduction to their Web services.]
Josh's point about monitoring software suggests a
shift in parents' concerns. A few years ago, when he started Software4Parents,
Josh found that parents' No. 1 goal for buying filtering was to block online
porn. Now it's just as much about contact as content - keeping strangers away
from kids.
But every family's unique, he said in a recent phone
interview. "Parents of a 13-year-old boy are more interested in filtering,
while those of a 13-year-old girl are more interested in monitoring software,"
Josh said he's found. "For parents of younger kids, it's filtering." I asked
him if parents give him or his customer service people that much detail, and
he said definitely so. "They typically share their kids' ages. To be honest,
I think they share too much information with me." It's clear there's a need
to find the product that works best for each family's dynamics.
If filtering out "the bad stuff" is in your mix, the
good news is, filters have gotten a lot better. "No product filters 100%,
but I'd give the latest versions a 90%," said Josh, who's written online-safety
software himself. [His accuracy rate is close to that of researchers at Australia's
MacQuarie University, who said some filters are "getting about 87% success,"
Australian
IT reports.]
Filter makers have also added some very useful beyond-filtering
features. For example, "there's something called a privacy filter in NetNanny,"
Josh said. "You tell the software the child's name, address, etc., and if
your child ever tries to communicate that information in an email or instant
message, it appears as all x's at the other end." It's not talked about too
much in advertising messages, he said, "but I think it's an excellent feature."
The other filter he sells, CyberSitter, was PC
Magazine's "Editor's Choice" in its latest annual review of this product
category.
Another key feature, in Josh's view: time controls.
They allow you to schedule when a child can have Web access, can chat or use
other programs on the PC. "I'm hesitant to recommend anything without time
and privacy controls," he said.
A key feature that InternetFilterReview.com's Jerry
Ropelato looks for in a filtering product is whether it will identify file-sharing
and other programs that kids tend to download onto their family's PCs - "will
it give you a list of apps you may be concerned about?" is the question he
asks.
But filters can't go beyond that basic ability to
detect (IM or P2P) on a computer - they don't affect what's going on within
those programs. "If a kid downloads an X-rated video [with file-sharing program
like Kazaa or BitTorrent], there's nothing that'll detect [or block an in-coming
video like that] in today's marketplace," Jerry said. "Most people don't even
know porn exists on the P2P networks" (two US lawmakers brought this to public
attention in the summer of 2001 - see my 8/3/01
lead feature and "File-sharing realities for families" ).
What some filters can detect, using basic keyword technology, is what's in
the text labels associated with porn images or videos, but some such files
are intentionally mislabeled, so this is not a reliable safeguard.
Conflicts among various software products installed
on a PC sometimes come up. Jerry pointed one out: "A lot of Net filters won't
run with Norton anti-virus on their computers, and it's probably not the filters'
fault." McAfee's anti-virus services probably work better with filtering.
What's important to remember, Jerry points out, is
that "a lot of kids can find ways around almost any software protection anybody
comes up with." For example, what wireless connecting "offers." "Kids can
just go buy a $15 or $20 wireless card, install it, and use the next-door
neighbors' router [if they have a wireless hub]." The oldest and most obvious
work-around is simply leaving the house: no matter what precautions parents
take at home, there's always a friend's house or libraries and other public
places with fewer restrictions.
As for work-arounds for filtering software: "Years
ago, kids could get around any [PC-based] filtering product. They really can't
get around the top 3 now," Jerry said. On the other hand, Peacefire.org
- an anti-filtering site that "represents the interests of people under 18
in the debate over freedom of speech on the Internet" - tells people how to
circumvent all "censorware" by getting a friend with a filter-free PC to download
its software called "Circumventor" so they can "get around all Web-blocking
software."
And so the debate about filtering's effectiveness
goes on. Which is why online-safety experts urge parents to stay engaged in
their kids' online experiences and keep working with them to develop the best
filter there ever was: the one that's installed between their ears!
More info
- PC Magazine's picks for both filtering and
monitoring lined up with Software4Parents. Here's its latest survey of products
in the monitoring
category with Spector Pro as its "Editor's Choice." And here again is
its latest
review of filters. An earlier piece looked at filtering
IM, etc., but it needs updating.
- Washington-based nonprofit GetNetWise.org
has software product information provided by the makers themselves (a large
array of products for filtering, monitoring, PC time controls, etc.); a
way to get a feel for the full spectrum of products available, definitions,
and features.
- A team of researchers at MacQuarie University in
Australia found that the best filters were blocking at about an 87% accuracy
rate, but they were over-blocking (filtering out legitimate sites). So they're
developing a new type of filtering that they'd like to see used in
Australian schools. Australian
IT reports.
Readers, what's working at your house? We'd love to hear about solutions
you have - from family policies to tech tools. Email comments anytime to anne@netfamilynews.org!
(Here is Part 1 of this little series.)
* * * *
Web News Briefs
- Parents monitor online kids
A whopping 95% of US parents surveyed said they
monitor their children's online activities, "mainly out of concern for
inappropriate content and predators," Newsday
reports. Another surprising finding was that nearly 75% of parents
"are present when their children go online." One dad told Newsday that
he'd discovered "his high-speed connection allows his children to surf
the Web using any browser, avoiding MSN and its parental controls" and
that a Google search could turn up porn sites (he must not know about
filtered searching - see the paragraph beginning "We're surprised teachers..."
in my 4/30/04 issue).
Among other survey findings:
- "More than a third of parents examine the Web
browser history to see which sites their children visited."
- "A fifth use parental controls to limit sites
children can visit, and many parents use a combination of monitoring
techniques."
- "Most computers that children use in the home
are in common areas, such as the den, the report found" (just 13% said
their children use computers in their own rooms).
- Less than 25% of parents have imposed no time
restrictions on kids' Net use. Restrictions are imposed to create balance
in children's activities, for their health, and to give other family
members time at the computer.
- Among kids 6-12, nearly 75% go online for school
work, "but an even greater proportion for fun. For teens, school-related
Net use is No. 1, though "fun" is high on the list.
- 75% of teens communicate via email and 63% via
instant messaging.
The findings are from the Board's latest Consumer Internet Barometer, a
quarterly measure of who's doing what on the Internet which "covers 10,000
households." Here's their press
release.
- Apple suing teenager
Now he's 19 and a Harvard student, but Nicholas
Ciarelli was 13 when he first started annoying Apple by building a Web
site that published "insider news and rumors about Apple," the Washington
Post reports. His Web site, ThinkSecret.com,
now generates millions of pageviews a month from Apple's "legendarily
zealous fans," the Post adds. "After a series of letters warning the Web
site to stop publishing proprietary information, Apple decided enough
was enough." Apparently, it was Nicholas's prediction that Apple would
come out with a computer for less than $500 (the Mac Mini) and other tip-offs
that sparked Apple's lawsuit "accusing him of illegally misappropriating
trade secrets." [Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the Mini at MacWorld last
week - see my news
brief.] How does Nicholas get this information? Just like any journalist,
he says - by talking to "sources" and following up and confirming hunches
or things he hears. Of course, some sources could be disgruntled Apple
employees posting inside info at ThinkSecret.com. Anyway, the latest news
is that Terry Gross, a San Francisco-based lawyer "specialising in freedom
of speech and the Internet," is taking up Nicholas's defense free of charge.
That's from the Associated
Press Thursday.
- Schools & cyberbullying
Harassment and bullying can take on "a new and
ominous tone" when it happens online, reports the Philadelphia
Inquirer. Especially when online "buddies" encourage a despondent
young person, such as Ryan Halligan (who reportedly found solace in the
anonymity of Net communications), to commit suicide in October 2003. His
dad, "an IBM manager who built his own computers, [John] Halligan, of
Essex Junction, Vt., thought he knew the risks of letting his son have
a computer in his bedroom. His ground rules were clear: no talking to
strangers, no sharing of passwords or personal information." Those are
good rules, and Ryan's case was at a terrible extreme end of online harassment.
But it had one point of intersection with so many young people's encounters
with strangers online: very often they don't feel people whom they only
know online (have never met in person) are strangers (see "Rethinking
'stranger danger'"). Much more common is an anecdote cited further
down in the Inquirer piece: "Earlier this month at Titus Elementary School
in Warrington, Bucks County, sixth graders listened intently to a story
about Alex, a teen in the county whose classmates created a Web site titled
simply 'Reasons to Hate Alex'." The school is now taking part in a new
training program on how to deal with cyberbullying, "created for schools
to meet a growing demand."
In a recent story from Baton Rouge, La.-based
WAFB TV,
three high school students were arrested in a cyberbullying case. "A 15-year-old
female student created a Web site called 'Lorangersbiggestqueer.com.'
The Web site featured pictures of a 14-year-old male student. He responded
with his own Web site, which investigators say included a list of students
he called 'The Preps,' and poems so graphically violent, investigators
say 'they crossed the line'." For more on this (and one Net-savvy school
counselor's handling of IM-based harassment), see "The
IM life of middle-schoolers."
- File-sharers convicted: A first
This week saw the first convictions of file-sharers,
Reuters
reports. But the two middle-aged men from Texas and New York state
were not your run-of-the-mill users of P2P services like Kazaa (more than
7,000 of whom have been sued by the recording industry to date). They
"operated hubs in a file-sharing network that required members to share
between one gigabyte and 100 gigabytes of material, the equivalent of
250,000 songs," according to Reuters. The US Justice Department said investigators
downloaded material worth $25,000 from the two hubs. Both men pleaded
guilty to felony copyright infringement, and they each face up to five
years in prison and a fine of $250,000, with sentencing due in late April.
Meanwhile, the BBC
reports that file-sharing is not only here to stay but - even as they
continue suing file-swappers - media corporations are working on ways
to capitalize on the phenomenon. Also, legal downloading is soaring, with
sales of pay-per-tune songs having "shot up more than tenfold in 2004,"
according to the BBC.
BTW, parents of digital music fans, here are a
few aids and heads-ups: a little primer from the Washington
Post, explaining formats, retailers, and tune players; Wired
magazine's inside look at wildly popular P2P service BitTorrent and
its creator; the latest global figures on file-sharing at itWorldCanada.com;
BBC confirmation
that new, harder-to-detect P2P services are popping up all the time; and
the Associated
Press on how movie file-swapping's a little different from the music
P2P scene.
- Student tech support: Win-win
As computer use grows the burden on school IT
departments isn't - at least not in the Natchez-Adams School District
in southwestern Mississippi. There, 25 high school students provide tech
support for the entire district, the Natchez
Democrat reports. Their work in classrooms and offices is the hands-on
part of a two-year "computer system technology" course the high school
provides, one of 10 such programs in the state. The first year is more
about hardware, the second about software and the Internet. The benefits
to schools, with mounting computer- and network-servicing costs, and students,
with ambitions to start computer science and software engineering careers,
are obvious. In fact, a 2003 National School Boards Foundation study found
that 60% of US high schools have "students performing maintenance and
troubleshooting on computers," according to the Raleigh, N.C.-based Centers
for Quality Teaching and Learning. Here's a page about "Generation
TECH," providing schools with guidelines for establishing a student
tech support program. For a student perspective, here's an interview with
the "Fab 5" student tech support team for the Sedgewick, Ks., school district
in 2000-01, at 4Teachers.
But these young techies are probably already aware of the one potential
downside, as chronicled here in CNET:
the unintended life-long side job of tech support for great-aunts, second
cousins, and their "best friends."
- Monitoring teen bloggers
The headline of this Detroit News article is not
news to a lot of parents: "Teens
spill deep secrets in Web logs." But these articles in local papers
always offer insights. This one leads with an online journal entry from
West Bloomfield High School sophomore Rachel Hines, "one of millions of
American teenagers now turning to the Web, writing in online journals,
also known as live journals, Web logs, or simply blogs." [Rachel told
the paper that she thought about 60% of the people in her school have
blogs.] Her blog entry's innocuous, but some go into great detail about
teenagers' sex lives, family members, drug use, etc., "blurring the line
between public and private life." It's like they're making themselves
the stars of their peer group's own reality TV show. Or just "venting"
- "getting their frustrations out," as Rachel put it. For some teenagers,
that can mean victimization - online harassment or cyberbullying (see
"Cyberbullying more
harmful to kids" and my series, "The
IM life of middle-schoolers"). On the other hand, "some experts laud
online journals because they get students to write and as a place where
they can try out personalities and test boundaries in a virtual world
they often find safer than the physical one," the News reports. What do
you think about online journals - does your child blog, do you
check in on it every now and then? (Rachel's mom doesn't read her blog
- "I decided it was her private thing," she told the News.) Do send
in your comments and experiences!
- UK: Cell phone for kids cancelled
UK-based mobile phone distributor Communic8 Ltd.
took its phone for 4-to-8-year-olds, the "MYMO," off the market "over
safety fears," The
Register reported. In announcing the move, Communic8 cited a report
from the UK's National Radiological Protection Board that reignited concerns
about cell phone safety. "Although there's no proof to show that they
pose a damage to people's health, experts at the UK government-appointed
National Radiological Protection Board (NRPD) warned people to continue
to take a 'precautionary' approach to their use of mobile phones," particularly
use by children and other "potentially vulnerable sub-groups," according
to an earlier article on this at The
Register. Cell-phone figures for young Britons are pretty amazing:
One-quarter of all elementary schoolers and 90% of 11-to-16-year-olds
own mobile phones, according to the Times
of London.
- PCs in family rooms?
Microsoft and other companies want to turn the
PC into an entertainment hub - let families watch TV or a DVD, display
their trip's slide show, and listen to music all with a PC in the family
room, the New
York Times reports. Ok. That consolidation won't hurt on general principle,
but our family really doesn't need to have it all happen on one big screen.
What happens in our family room is, everybody sort of watching something
on the big screen while one family member surfs the Web or instant-messages
his friends (with a wirelessly connected laptop). We like having that
little screen in the family room too so we have the IM-er with us and
so we can generally keep tabs on kids' online activities. So we really
don't mind having separate screens for TV/film and the Internet. But,
the Times reports, there are other drawbacks to having the PC set up as
a media center - for example, the picture quality of the video on the
screen. But read the Times article for a good look at all the arguments,
pro and con.
- Online safety in Shreveport, La.
"Don't be intimidated by your lack of computer
knowledge," is part of the sound advice police Lt. Bill Duncan tells parents
in his Shreveport-area online-safety talks. He tells them to "talk to
their kids" so they'll be more willing to tell them what's going on in
their lives - including their online experiences," the Shreveport
Times reports. One mother who attended a Duncan talk told the Times
she went home and did just that, and - although her teenage daughter is
"very computer savvy," some of the points made in the online-safety presentation
was news to the girl, which surprised her mom. That's the funny thing
about technology and human nature. We seem to assume that if someone else
knows more than we do about tech, they somehow know all there is to know.
This is especially not the case with the Internet. It's so vast, so many
different media - from information (news, advice, advertising) to communications
(email, IM, chat, discussion boards, VoIP telephony) to gaming (little
games at PBS Kids and NickJr
to massively multiplayer big-kid games with chat), and so on - that each
person really only know the little corners of it s/he uses on a daily
basis. Plus, as I learned from Dr. Herb Lin, who led a major mid-'02 study
at the National Research Council on "Youth,
Pornography, & the Internet," parents and kids use the Internet differently,
so each has his and her own area of expertise, and it's risky to make
assumptions about each other's online activities. [For more from Herb,
see "Dial-up's just
fine, thanks" and "Family Tech," 9/5/03.]
* * * *
Share with a Friend! If you find the newsletter useful,
won't you tell your friends and colleagues? We would much appreciate your
referral. To subscribe, they can just click here.
We are always happy to hear from potential sponsors
and distribution partners as well. If you'd like to make a
contribution or become a sponsor, please email
us or send a check payable to:
Net Family News, Inc.
P.O. Box 1283
Madison, CT 06443
That does it for this week. Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Anne Collier, Editor
Net Family News
