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Welcome to the SafeKids/NetFamilyNewsletter and thanks to everyone who's just subscribed! Please invite friends and colleagues to sign up, visit our blog, and help us to help grownups stay informed about children's safe, constructive use of the Internet. Email us anytime!

 

May 21, 2004

Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup for this third week of May:


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WebSafeCrackerz.com: Neat new Web safety site

We sheepishly admit we thought a teenager's reaction to WebSafeCrackerz.com's debut would be, "Oh great, another online safety site." But that wasn't the case with Rishi, 13, or George, 15, when we asked them about the site.

"We [teens] are a hard age group to please completely," Rishi emailed us, "as our tastes vary so much, but I think in WebSafeCrackerz there's something for everybody."

As for George: "The reason why I think the advice section is so good is because it is: a) confidential, so people using it don't feel embarrassed and so feel they can speak out and b) people may think that their parents do not understand properly and that the parents may punish them for going onto chat rooms...."

We found those two points interesting and will get back to them in a moment, but first a bit about WebSafeCrackerz.com. It's a UK-based Web site "designed by teens for teens [13-16] to help them understand the importance of safe surfing on the Internet," according to a press release from MSN UK, the site's sponsor (and we're spotlighting it because online-safety-ed resources that appeal to teenagers come out once in a blue moon, and this one's worth knowing about). MSN enlisted the help of London-based Childnet International for online-safety expertise, as well as parent and teen perspectives, and Childnet got us in touch with George and Rishi, two of their teen advisers.

Knowing that the two boys had seen the light about online safety, we asked them if they thought other teenagers with a lower awareness level would agree. George said, "I think a majority of teenagers would agree with me because no one wants to be harassed online or anywhere else for that matter, and I think that they would see it as an important message, especially after reading the ASL Files, because they illustrate that it could happen to you if you aren't careful." (We recommend the ASL Files too, for parents as well. Click on them from the center of the "Blah Blah Blah" page.)

The appeal of anonymity to young people is a known issue, documented in a recent study at the London School of Economics Department of Media & Communications, which found that "simply pressing for more parental monitoring, restriction, and control could encourage children's evasion rather than their cooperation with attempts at Internet regulation in the home. While often naive about threats to their privacy from external sources, children are fiercely protective of their privacy in relation to their parents." If kids feel they can't talk with or get information about something from a parent, and they can't find advice or information elsewhere, sometimes they won't talk to anybody, and they simply don't get help.

Were there any negatives about the site? Rishi: "The games are ok (not fantastic)," he said. George: The site "seems to be aimed at younger people to myself," he told us, "because some of the content may be a bit obvious to people of around my age as they already know it."

Which raises the question of how to reach his age group? We think the answer might lie in George's comment about anonymous advice-seeking. Older teens may just prefer a site that doesn't try to teach through entertainment, but rather one with straightforward information about the implications of using various technologies. It would be good to get a tech-savvy child psychologist involved in this type of content development, because it would need to cover everything from gossip to online dating (breaking up via IM) to soliciting gifts in one's personal Web site (search for "camgirls" in the search box above for our coverage of this). BTW, there's some great advice in the Nick-Star section about safe music downloading - very helpful for teen file-sharers (and their parents) who will probably download at all costs, using software that can bring spyware, viruses, and porn to the family PC, as well as share way too much information on it (more on this in a future issue).

Finally, the crucial question on our minds was whether teenagers would visit even a very cool online-safety site on their own initiative. George told us adult influence would help: "I think many teenagers may go to the site if it was properly advertised, etc., but I think many more would visit the site if it were part of a school project or if they were guided to by teachers."

Rishi: "I would check this Web site out," he said - if it were marketed to a decent degree, if he could find it "under 'net safety' on Google or some other search engine."

WebSafeCrackerz.com, its creators say, is a work in progress. They're open to feedback; on the About Us page they ask, "What works? What stinks? What's missing?", providing a window in which to type answers.

For the views of SafeKids.com's Larry Magid and his 17-year-old son William, click to "Finally a Good Internet Safety Site for Teens."

And of course your comments - on anything - are always welcome here. Email feedback@netfamilynews.org!

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A subscriber writes: Cell-phone parental controls

In response to our feature on cell phones & kids (5/7), subscriber Gay in Texas emailed us this week:

"I agree that parental controls should be an options for parents. My daughter (age 16) wants a cell phone, and I'm not willing to purchase one for her because it is hard to hold her accountable. I would rather start with the list you recommended...


"...so that she would be successful without my having to pay for a big mistake after the fact."

We asked her how much extra she'd be willing to pay for parental controls, and here's what she said:

"I would be willing to pay $5-$7 a month for this service. I think $10 is a little steep, when it is all probably computerized. I think the ideal price would be $2.50 a month, which I'm sure over time would cover the service's extra cost."

Readers, we love hearing from you - your views and stories are important to other parents. Email us anytime.

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Web News Briefs

  1. Parents unconcerned: Study

    A full third of US parents "are not concerned about their children's safety when using the Internet," according to a recent survey done for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Twenty percent of parents "do not know any of the Internet codes or passwords, IM handles or email addresses for their children using the Internet," according to the NCMEC's press release. And 5% or less of parents surveyed are familiar with the most commonly used acronyms used by children on the Internet, like "POS" ("parent over shoulder"), often used before a computer screen is quickly minimized before its contents can be seen by Mom or Dad.

  2. Girl's photos published on Net

    A Canadian man who, with a camera phone, took nude pictures of his 17-year-old girlfriend and published them on the Web was convicted and imprisoned for distributing child pornography, Reuters reported this week. He was sentenced to six months and "will be banned from using a cellphone or computer for two years after he is released." Because of the nature of the Web, the tragedy is that the girl's photos can be copied and circulated around the world indefinitely, all copies of which would be difficult if not impossible to find, much less removed from the Web or all the computer hard drives connected to it. Here's one educator's view on how parents and educators need to help kids think through implications like these.

  3. What worries young file-sharers

    Whether they're downloading games, music, or software, kids 8-18 are concerned most about viruses (60%), then lawsuits (50%), spyware (43%), and whether or not downloading copyrighted material is wrong (29%). This is according to a just- released Harris Interactive survey sponsored by the Business Software Alliance, which has a particular concern about copyright theft. Eighty percent of US 8-to- 18-year-olds "understand the definition of copyright, and yet more than half download music, 32% download games, and 22% download commercial software illegally," the BSA's press release says, adding: "As youth grow up, their knowledge about copyright increases, but their illegal downloading habits do, too." Home is where the downloading is: 55% of tweens and teens download free music, software, movies, and games on a family computer, 52% on their own PC, 34% at a friend's house, and 13% and 8% at a public library or somewhere else, respectively. More TV ads about piracy may be in the works, because the BSA found that kids learn "respect for copyrighted works" first from TV (59%), then parents (44%), the Internet (44%), friends (30%), and finally at school (18%). And their downloading prefs? Not surprisingly, music first (53%), then games (32%), software (22%), and movies (17%). Here's the Washington Post's coverage.

  4. Kids 'n' phones: Scan for more info

    Picture this: There's a bar code on a child's backpack or school uniform. A camera phone scans the bar code (like taking a picture), and up on the phone's screen pops the child's Web page with real-time information about him or her. As any parent can visualize, there's a definite darkside to this scenario, described in a Wired News article about this new bar code technology, called "Semacode" (here's their Web site). "This week, the art group etoy will issue Semacoded uniforms to 500 children participating in its "etoy.Day-Care-2 project at the Nieuwe Domeinen arts and architecture festival in Amsterdam," Wired News reports. It's technology that will probably catch on ("businesspeople could put Semacodes on their business cards to link to constantly updated contact information"; "museums could tag exhibits with Semacodes to provide information in multiple languages"), so - if your kid's school someday thinks this is a cool idea - be ready with another perspective. Just for the purposes of discussion: This neat technology could also get into the wrong hands.

  5. Kids exposed to porn spam at school

    British schoolchildren as young as five "are being sent hundreds of pornographic emails every week," The Guardian reports. A study, by British filtering firm Email Systems, found that 85% of the "thousands of emails received every day to school email addresses" are spam, and 52% of those contain pornographic content. The article doesn't say how many of those emails actually reach students, and presumably many schools have spam filtering in place, a project this company is working on for 2,700 London schools, but this points to questions parents may have about email access at their children's schools. Email Systems told The Guardian schools are an easy target for spammers because their email addresses are easy to guess and available on the Web.

  6. Michigan State turns over file-sharers

    Parents might want to tell music fans heading off to school this fall that universities don't necessarily protect them from anti-piracy lawsuits. "A federal judge has ordered Michigan State University to produce the identities of nine people accused of using the campus computer system to illegally make music available to others via the Internet," the DetroitFree Press reports, and MSU has made no objection to the request. The RIAA (recording industry trade association) has particularly targeted file-sharing at universities in it legal action recently. The latest round of RIAA lawsuits targeted 477 file-sharers at 14 universities across the US (see this issue of the my newsletter for details.) The way it works is, the RIAA identifies the IP addresses of very active file-sharers (those who not only download music via P2P services like Kazaa.com, but also make as many - or more than - a thousand songs on their hard drives available to others) and deliver those IP addresses to a judge with the request that the judge order an Internet service provider or university to reveal the names of the people who own the computers of those IP addresses. The university is one of several nationwide where people have been targeted by lawsuits in the recording industry's effort to stop online piracy.

  7. Australia: Barring kid access to phone porn

    This is a sign of things to come in the US, as more and more children use cell phones. The Australian government is tightening regs so that porn won't reach children using mobile phones, Australian IT reports. The FCC's counterpart in Australia, the Australian Communication Authority, will now regulate access to content on the new 3G (3rd- generation) phones with high-speed Net access (to all of it - text, images, sound, video). "The new access controls will cover text messages deemed to be 'of an adult nature' on new phones ... and other audiovisual content with MA or R ratings. Content classified X or which is refused classification will be banned from the premium mobile phone services."

  8. Easier PC recycling to come?

    Dell and Hewlett-Packard say they want to take more of the financial burden for recycling computers off the shoulders of consumers and local governments, the New York Times reports. The companies' messages were "timed to the release Wednesday of an annual 'report card' of corporate environmental behavior by the Computer Takeback Campaign, a project of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an environmental research group based in San Jose, Calif." Dell got poor grades in last year's report, while HP received the Campaign's highest rating.

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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Anne Collier, Editor

Net Family News


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