Slashdot Mirror
Watching Kids Via Mobile Phone
Joe the Lesser writes "This BBC article says how parents could soon keep a much closer eye on what children are up to on their way to and from school thanks to a mobile monitoring system. It will send text alerts to their mobile phone if the child deviates too far from that route or takes too long getting there."
Like this won't be hard to fool. Give your phone to a friend that *is* going to the school event. Or any number of a million different ways. Kids are very innovative.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now everyone panic about the 'privacy' of 6 year olds being violated by their parents.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Big Mother is watching you...
The expression is "I could NOT care less." Think about it.
Why not use the cameras in so many to provide live video feeds too?
To keep them from deviating too close to the refrigerator? Sign me up!
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
No need to put the chip in my body, I have one in my cell phone.
I guess I cant cheat on my wife anymore!
A.G. John Ashcroft requires all citizens to carry mobile monitoring system. "Stop whining, be patriotic and recognize that this is for your own good. Now bend over."
It's a very small step from branding kids with these tracking units to implanting tracking units in every citizen. Though such a move would no doubt improve the ability of the police to track down criminals, I worry that it could be used in such a way to discriminate against certain groups.
This is a bad usage of this kind of technology.
I have been pwned because my
What the fuck are you talking about? Not everything is related to war, dipshit.
In soviet russia the fifth post watches you!
the calls are coming from INSIDE the house!
It will only work if the phone is switched on and is being carried by the child.
So, the kid turns the phone off, leaves it at a friend's house, whatever.
--------
Free your mind.
Was world war II fought so that we could enjoy the freedoms we don't want our children to?
Like the freedom to get snatched while walking to school? As with any information utensil, it's only as invasive as you make it. Something like this appeals to me as a father of a young daughter. I wouldn't use it to track where she's going, only to alert me if something "went wrong". What they fought for in WWII is to allow me the freedom to utilize this tool if I think it necessary.
A quick googling found a CNN story from August, 2002.
I know there were products on the market a year ago that offered the same service, but can't remember the company name off the top of my head.
Anyone find an older reference?
Well, My first post-laptop purchase was a lock. It connects to my laptop via the convienent hole on the left side. It was not however, XP Certified. For that matter, neither was my USB keyboard light. Yet another stupid policy, and another reason to buy from independent chains.
paul reinheimer
I think that policing your children like this is going to sow more distrust than anything else. And, by teenage thinking, as long as they are going to get blamed for stuff they are not doing (distrust=blame in teenland), then they may as well do it. You would be, in effect, reinforcing the cycle of poor choices.
I realize that the article expressly states that the system is designed for 8-12 year olds, but it would most likely see application in the teen area as well. Further, if you start at the 8 year old range, won't the same effects occur later on? Only, this time the teen can point to distrust over the preceding 4+ years.
On a side note, I wonder if this technology will be picked up by somone of the blog type crowd. We'll have web pages with continous updates of the site owners location. Always something to look forward too...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
And the guy that stole it so I could beat him to within inches of his life, let him recover, then beat him all over again.
Didn't steal my car yet, just want to be ready.
I don't want to pay Lojack a wooden nickle. I want to put something in my car, then be able to home in on it on my own without paying any ridiculous fees, or alerting anyone that I'm about to beat someone senseless.
Really these people need to stop watching SouthPark for ideas of new products. What next.. are they going to bug them as well to listen in.. just in case they are talking to a bad person.. or using language they dont like? Doesnt this show complete lack of trust in your children.. and when the parent doesnt trust the child will the child ever trust the parent? I mean wont they belive all rules and such are in place to control the child and not protect? Bah, if a parent buys this they should save the money.. and just buy the lotech version.. I think its call a CAGE.
Yes off-topic, but that first link is a pretty good story. I was wondering if anyone would get around to mentioning what a bleeding hypocrite Rumsfield is being with his blustering about the Geneva Conventions.
El riesgo vive siempre!
"Some good parenting = trust ! facist paranoia."
... leaving your phone at home, or turning your phone off. Now perhaps people will say that since they are kids, and most kids are irresponsible, this is a good thing to do. However:
I never had this problem with my parents. They always trusted me, I'm pleased to say, however, I'm not here to discuss me. There are a million ways to get around this, such as
"Rules are meant to be broken"
-Some wise soul
I take for example spy software that my best friend's mother put on his computer. He wasn't computer savvy enough to bypass it, however, if I had had such software on my computer:
1. I would hate my parents, and feel resentful towards them.
2. I would do my best to bypass this with things that are available here.
Don't people realize that spying on your kids will only make them want to break the rules? If I knew that my parents were the type that would spy on me while I'm at school, then I would refuse to have a cell phone.
This seems to me to be something for overly paranoid and protective parents that think they can't trust their kids, and need to know at what second of the day their kids are doing anything.
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
They have similar devices already. Usually they are attached to the ankles of Inmates who are under house confinement. You want your children to grow up in fear, strap one of these phones to them and teach your children to be afraid of the consequences of deviating from the defined path. Why not proactively teach them the right way to conduct themselves through positive reinforcement rather than by making them paranoid?
An average one mile walk will have around 10 checkpoints but the parent can have fewer if they wish.
Maybe by the time my children get around to having children we'll have mobile phones that can completely rob our children of free will. Hell, since we're already starting to design them from birth maybe phone triggered on(wake)/off(sleep) switches as well. Anything to keep us from actually having to waste our precious time or assume any sort of responsibility for our kids - that's what technology and the government are for!
...about these things !
I can just imagine, "Honey, stop by the grovery store, and the cleaners, and gas station, oh, and I'll be monitoring your progress so don't get 'lost' on the way..."
[shivvvvvers]
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Presumably, the reason parents aren't able to maintain a close trust-building connection to their kids its that they are too busy.
Yet...they have time to program their Sprint "Orwell's Friends and family" plan and change the parameters every time their kid goes to the mall.
<free advice> Invest the time in your kids rather than their phones! </free advice>
(sig on loan to Smithsonian)
e following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Whatever (Score:4, Insightful)
by jhunsake (81920) on Monday March 24, @05:54PM
Like this won't be hard to fool. Give your phone to a friend that *is* going to the school event. Or any number of a million different ways. Kids are very innovative.
[ Reply to This ]
The next step... (Score:2)
by bahwi (43111) on Monday March 24, @06:00PM (#5586906)
(http://www.josephguhlin.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 16, @02:07PM)
In 2005 we'll see this slashdot post (emphasis added ):
"This BBC article says how governments could soon keep a much closer eye on what their citizens are up to thanks to a mobile monitoring system. It will alert law enforcement officials if the person deviates too far from the government approved route or takes too long getting there."
No, I'm not a paranoid/delusional freak. I just thought it's something to think about. I highly doubt that will actually happen, but hey, technology is improving. Let's see where it will take us, and let's see when we can log onto the net and see where it is taking us (literally).
[ Reply to This ]
What about X Cams? (Score:1)
by vasqzr (619165) on Monday March 24, @06:01PM (#5586911)
X [x10.com] cams.
[ Reply to This ]
Re:Cheat on wife (Score:1)
by CyberBill (526285) on Monday March 24, @05:59PM (#5586895)
I guess I cant cheat on my wife anymore!
You are a horrible person. And its FRIGGIN SWEET!! LOL!!!
-Bill
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
# 6 replies beneath your current threshold.
in short, no.
Or did anyone else read this as:
"Screwing kids at a young age makes them more likely to bend over and take it when they get older"
If you are screwing young kids, I sure as hell don't want to know about it!
"Was world war II fought so that we could enjoy the freedoms we don't want our children to?"
Um what freedom's being taken away? It's not a mandatory service.
Here's a tip for everybody: If it's optional, then it's not a rights or privacy problem.
this isn't too bad of an idea assuming that the kid keeps the phone on, keeps the phone with them, that no one else can track it/identify who has the phone, etc etc...seeing as how the parents are legally responsibile for what the kid does & in some states the parent can be fined if the kid doesn't goto school, but phones aren't usually allowed to be on during school, etc etc...but those are a lot of assumptions & as other people have pointed out the kids will figure out a way around it...again assuming the kid knows about the feature on the phone....but as with all technology there are ups & downs & all technology can be abused no matter how well meaning it is....also don't most phones now have some sort of gps unit on it?...i've called the cops to report an accident & they knew where i was before i told them....
There have been a number of articles on location monitoring. Some of the technologies that are capable of doing this in real time are:
cell phones - as mentioned, you are always pinpointed by cell
credit cards - purchases link you to a database in real time
ATM - smile, they get your picture, too!
wireless networking - your MAC address is a unique ignature
The interesting part will be to find out who is getting exempted from the databases. For example, the US Congress has a history of exempting themselves from oversight that applies to everyone else.
Hush, my baby. Baby, don't you cry.
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you.
Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
What we do to our kids, they will eventually turn around and do it to us.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Yeah, that's reassuring. Do we just assume the kids has been blown up if the signal drops out.
Does it send the good signal when you are not near a bomb or when you are near a cell tower that is guaranteed not to be near any known suicide bomber targets.
As for kids on the way to school, why not develop a long distance kid race like they have for their kids and dogs in the back yard. You know, the light chain on a wire guide so they can play anywhere in the yard but can't get over or under the fence.
If you had one of those all the way to the school you would know for sure where they were.
And any kid not attached to the wire in school transit time during a yellow or higher alert state would be swept up in the regular anti-truancy/terror patrols.
For their own protection of course.
It's more a security thing for littler kids who are at risk of abduction -- when they have to walk to and from school, for example, or run errands, or go outside to a friend's house. I can see this being a big seller for parents with the money to spare and who want to make sure their kids can enjoy a reasonable amount of freedom without watching them every single hour.
That really sucks the fun out of childhood. It's bad enough that they've replaced all the cool playground equipment with lame tupperware.
Two reasons: .01) if you don't trust your kids, you're not a good parent. if your kids really are bad and something just went wrong, playing big brother won't help the situation. .02) how does the crypto work? is it really secure? what if a pedophile figures out how to exploit the system to track his favorite child?
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
'ta
Triangulation.
Normally I would say this is a stupid idea, but my boss would love this and use it...
He has about a 2 hour each way commute to work and currently has a webcam set up at his home to watch his wife and kids while at the office. This way he can see his child grow up and communicate via IM also...
Ave Molech Setting
ear tagging. Just watch out which ear you tag or they'll catch a lot of flack at school.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I know that legally colonial serfs had more rights than I do as a minor in the USA, but I wouldn't take shit like this.
This is just begging for waterproof-testing, dogbiteproof-testing, bullyproof-testing, backingcaroverproof-testing, and fireproof-testing. I can understand the acceptability for much younger children, but by the time we get a single friend with a driver's license the "leash" idea is dead in the water.
You celebrate that the government doesn't have the right to put a radio collar on you, yet you jump at the oppurtunity to put one on your own child!
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Chief Wiggum: "We can use this new techology console thingy here to track the exact whereabout of your vehicle."
Automated voice from console: "Car gone. Car gone."
Wiggum: "Sheesh, we KNOW it's gone, now where is it?"
Automated voice (louder,faster): "CAR GONE! CAR GONE! CAR GONE!"
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Why stop there? Can we also program the phone to release a small but unpleasant electric charge into junior if they get too close to the refrigerator? How about that for negative reinforcement!
You break all the laws of physics and you seriously think there wouldn't be a price?
But any intelligent criminal (even if they aren't technically savvy) knows that the location of
mobile phones can be tracked.
Your assertion that WWII was fought to allow you "the freedom to utilize the tool if I
think it necessary", is both ludicrous and myopic. The _main_ reason the USA entered
WWII was because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. Any other grand ideals
were secondary.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
You have to love the bit about targeting countries at increased risk of terrorism... "Son, I'm very happy you weren't at the site of the bombing this afternoon but then I received this text page... we need to talk..."
...is written for 12-year olds?
And why call this a "rights online" issue?
Children don't have the same rights as adults. Adults are responsible for their kids' behavior. If a parent has reason to believe a child is going somewhere and doing something he/she isn't allowed to go, this phone gizmo makes a lot more sense than tieing a long string on the kid.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The Economist, 17 August, 2002, an article called "Something to watch over you".
Some really scary stuff in there... for example, quoting directly from the article:
"Next month Wherify, of Redwood Shores, California, plans to start selling a lockable bracelet designed, it says, for children up to the age of 12. This will allow a child's parents to use the web to see a recent satellite photograph of their offspring's location. Parents will also be able to track their child's recent movements, and set up an alert system so that they will know if he does not turn up somewhere he is expected"
There's also a few paragraphs about a company called Advanced Digital Solutions:
"there is now the prospect that parts of tracking devices could be inplanted in the body. Indeed, ADS already produces a device the size of a grain of rice that can be inserted beneath the skin, and nine volunteers are trying it out."
I would hardly equate liberating Europe after a sneak attack by the Japanese with parents wanting to know where their kids are. Or perhaps you think child accountability and genocide are about the same thing.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Why not just attatch a GPS tracking system into them or something? Then when your daughter turns 16 and you're worried about young Billy going to second base with her you can make sure they really are going to the library and not MakeOut-Point. Maybe it can set off a proximity alert if his hands get to close to her bra?
;)
Remember, folks, Big Brother begins at home
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
What did people do before cell phones? Cars? Things are worse since 9/11. If people continue to need more and more constant input to make sure "nothing went wrong," they'll grow dependent on it. That's where trust comes into play; it won't exist. We will continue to bury ourselves in our homes and offices, continue to subconsiously fear and mistrust strangers, and watch walls go up between everyone. It's quite sad if you ask me.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
if they stray to far away from their destination in their car, parents send a text message and child plows into oncoming car while reading thier parents message
There's no "I" in Linux.. err..
is that? I mean, give the kids some freedom. I can see how it might have advantages in that it'll immediatly alert you if your child is kidnapped, but other than that, it's just another unneeded restriction.
From the article, the thing works only if the phone is turned on. So that means two things:
1. Good side: it is not to track your kids, but to allow them to alert if something goes wrong. They just turn the phone on and woops, the parents are alerted and know where the kid is.
2. Downside: The kid can't make a phone call without notifying his parent of where he is...
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Whatever happenned to the family values: you know the types where mothers, fathers, siblings, relatives, and even friends play a constructive role in a child's development? The most important element "TRUST" seems to be missing in many of the gadgets, be it net filters, stricter schools, or tough "wars" on anything that the parents feel threatening.
All this mind you, when the most popular shows on television are disguistingly vouyeristic (be it just sexual -- a lot of it these days revolving around who someone with have sex with, or even some extreme things like who would eat a baby duck to qualify for the final round). I have no complaints about such shows. I just have a complaint about parents that watch such stuff and expect the kids to never stray.
There is a popular saying (I don't know who said it) that goes like, "Despite the best efforts of the parents, the kids will end up emulating the parents".
A lot of discipline needs to come from within. If Junior is watching too much TV, try to find something that is more meaningful and try to get Junior into that (gradually). Just like if Junior wants to eat Pizza every day, you just have to put in some effort in cooking something that is both tasty and delicious. You can't just shoot down some shit down his throat while you gulp champagne.
S
(Disclaimer: there may be serious extenuating circumstances I do not know about here, blah blah blah)
That's seriously fucked up. If your boss feels that his job/commute is causing him to miss out on his children growing up, then maybe he should, oh I don't know, get a new job! Priorities suck sometimes, but such is life.
[sarcasm] hey wow! i have one of these nifty cell phones and i don't EVER have to talk to my kids! i used to have to tell them "come home right after school!" and "be home by 9!" whenever they'd leave for hours on end, but now i can just sleep through the whole process. [/sarcasm]
what's next, a cell phone that makes lunches too?
[ check out my ruby book @ http://ww
Since life is inherently risky, those that want to should not take measures to mitigate that risk? Get real.
Really because I'm picky: Japanese didn't attack Europe, Germans and Italians did.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Adam Osborne, Portable Computer Pioneer, Dead at 64 even if you didn't like him you must ackowledge the impact he has had...a true icon in the portable computer industry...he will be missed no it's not a troll you idiot its a real story http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=5 81&e=2&cid=581&u=/nm/20030324/tc_nm/tech_osborne_d c
and they make up the vast minority of parents by doing so.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Oppression always shows its strongest form on children. There is an enormous amount of power in the hands of the parents.
Parents do things to children that would be unconscionable on ordinary citizens, or even the worst criminals.
Think about it. Think of the uproar that would occur if the government:
- Drugged undesirables with adult 'ritalin'.
- Tracked our movements to make sure we were in the right place at the right time.
- Removed the right to free speech like they do at schools. (even though the supreme court ruled that the right to free speech did not end when students and teachers entered the school doors)
Just something to think about.
Eventually, the monitoring system will be combined with GPS data so that parents can track the location of their precious children at all times.
This leads to some interesting possibilities for teenage pranksters. Imagine the look on Mom's and Dad's faces when, just before leaving on his three-day camping trip, little Johnny sends his cellphone to China by FedEx.
There seems to be a lot of knee jerkism going on around here. You are all right this can be easily defeated blah blah blah. But perhaps some kids would feel safer knowing that someone will know if something bad happens to them, from getting in a car accident to the far less likely kidnapping scenario. Things can happen and keeping the folks you care about in the loop as to your whereabouts (if you choose) isn't such a bad thing.
Like the freedom to get snatched while walking to school?
Well, most abductions are done by people the kid knows, like a dad in the midst of a nasty divorce, so that won't help. This may help with your random sicko, provided he doesn't have the presence of mind to look for bugs, but random sickos don't account for a whole lot of risk. That said, I think this stuff is fine until the kid turns 7 or 8 - provided the kid knows why it's there. I can't imagine subjecting a high-schooler to this sort of treatment.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I hate to break it to you, but part of life is risk. It seems that technology has dulled our capacity to accept risk, but with that comes a lessened capacity to experience life. See what I mean?
Totally. We rely way too much on this kind of crap. Just take some reponsibility for yourself, and don't expect that you can be safe 100% of the time or rescued if something goes wrong. If we used more common sense and self-reliance we wouldn't need to be resuced half the time anyway.
Risk is good. It makes you feel alive.
It's quite sad if you ask me.
Amen.
-Craig.
I am certain that no one, not even the cellular services, will use this to their advantage...
::walking downtown::
::Text message beeps::
Two years later...
I open it and it says,
"Why not try a tasty burger from 'Flinging Freddy's' only 2 blocks away."
Call my cynical,
--Joey
... if can it tell that you're smoking crack with the highschool crackwhore (or if you are the crackwhore).
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
It was never intended that adults should have to deal with the scourge of free-range children. This is a modern aberration created by selfish baby boomers. It was intended that children would remain in their pods until adulthood. If god didn't want children to live in pods of nutritive fluid, why would he have placed those port holes along the spine?
Protect them first from themselves: http://www.infernosoft.com/investments/viriguard/i ndex.shtml
Viriguard will protect them from themselves! Did you know that all medical conditions come from self abuse? Well, this is the perfect solution that they can't get out of.
"Watching Kids Via Mobile Phone" is another good method that we now have available.
But for more invasive methods we have conspired with aliens to produce undetectable alien implants for your kids - as a special extra we have the matching parent implant to telepathically sense where your little buggers are and what they are doing.
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
He never said they did. Now learn to read.
I'll be sure to forward that to Elizabeth Smart's parents.
Wouldn't it be more useful to have something more akin to lojack for kids? This would be a device which would _only_ have applicability if the child was in trouble, rather than an intrusive device which they will inevitably reject somewhere around age 10. It would also be more useful for tracking a kidnapping victim since the kidnapper wouldn't nessasarially know it existed (unlike the cell phone that distracted the kid while the villian snuck up on them). It could also be potentially much smaller since it wouldn't need external controls, maybe in the form of a keychain fob?
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
Life is risky. There's a lot of stuff you can do to decrease that risk, but we've gone too far.
Monitoring your kids like mental patients on a walk in the park for the day is just wrong. It also tells them they're not to be trusted, they belong on a leash, and that you're not willing to give them a chance to prove that they can handle responsibility. I say, give them that chance, even punish them for failing, but don't punish them (and that's what this is) without cause.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I'm not suggesting a legal remedy, nor am I saying that parenting should be restricted by the government. I am saying that placing such restrictions on children is a bad idea and is rarely in their best interest.
I care because I read George Orwell's 1984, and I saw that as a possible future.
No one gives a shit about parent and child relationships so long as they aren't physically or sexually abusive. In 15 months, is it likely that I won't give a shit either? Do any of us care about the plight of other human beings that we can't directly relate to?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
WARNING: Timmy is leaving the sceduled path deserters will be shot! there is a viable alternative for this device. actualy WALKING WITH your child to school. but of course if thats too much you can have your robot drug your child and have him shipped to school via fed ex.
www.goatse.cx, my phone cam
IM the Goatse Guy!! My AIM screenname is GoatsexGuy
Allright, allright, you're pickier than I am!!!
and I need some sleep!
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Oh, sorry, this isn't FARK.com.
Treat a child like a criminal, and he will act like one.
Because everyone knows there's no difference between kids and criminals. Or is that kids and property?
Bumper sticker: My junenile delinquent is screwing your honor roll student.
Fair enough, you don't want your daught to be kidnapped on the way to school. But seeing as this technology could also be used to make sure that she does go to school, wouldn't you feel that you might as well take advantage of that?
At this point, however, your daughters freedom is restricted... Ok, she should go to school, but you should trust her to go to school, and anything which forces her, takes away from her resposibility.
It seems to me that this is the begining of a slippery slope, where using the technology in a slightly more restrictive way, in the interest of safety, could eventually lead to a very restrictive environment for children.
Of course, I'm sure most parents would use a technology like this sensibly, but you know there are some that wouldn't...
--
Hollywood representatives have publicly stated that skipping commercials is "stealing."
There is a difference between me saying that you shouldn't track your kid and me saying that you shouldn't have the right to track your kid.
You should wear your seatbelt, but as Libertarians I hope we agree that you shouldn't be forced to wear your seatbelt.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I recently got a spam that offered a remove URL at
http://www.1verio.com/rm/rm.html.
I started poking around looking for a way to complain and found an unprotected directory that has collected 8.7 mbs of March email addresses from the poor bastards' who don't know not to respond.
There is also an additional 38 mbs of addresses collected in January & February. The people collecting the info sent me a spam for cheap diplomas, but the root doc is selling miracle cures. You might be onto a big one here.
http://www.1verio.com/rm/remove.txt
The server is running Apache/1.3.27. I don't know how to do it, but I understand that it's not that difficult to break into a www dir and possibly rescue these people before they get dumped on again. I would never suggest that any of you take this on, but perhaps you know someone who will. Usually I am an atheist, but I'm sure this would be doing god's work.
Best of luck
This American study seems to suggest that a) abductions by strangers are rare, and b) teenagers are much more likely to be abducted than younger children.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I concur.
I think that this is perfectly fair to kids. But when those same kids grow up and go off to college, they should be allowed to use the same technology to track their parents, to be forewarned of any "surprise visits."
Bort.
Free, Anonymous surfing: Pagewash.com.
Your kid could call home drunk with a cell phone. A radio tracker would not be necessary.
As a tip, get you kid hooked on caffeine(as I am) and they won't touch a drop of beer for fear that it will negate the good stuff(caffeine).
"Beer, the nector of the imbicile.", Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
this is seriously completely outrageous, and is a potential infringement on human rights. Take the many children with abusive parents who could utilize this device to seal an even tighter noose around their neck. I know if I was a kid with one of these, it would make me really resentful towards my parents and cause unneeded rebellion which would most likely lead to a bad situation. Although I still wouldn't agree with it, a straight up alarm device that could be activated in times of trouble would be just as affective if thats really all its for.
I would love this as a tool for my employees. It would be useful in cases where employees are providing support services through out a city to determine who is closest to respond to an emergency with out dozens of calls. I also see a use for me to be able to prove that, "Joe was in your office at 2:45 Mr. C-level". Not to mention it would help with, "Joe did you have an unscheduled call this afternoon at the Kit-Kat Club"?
But it is he who will be affected by this, not you. It will be him who will have restrictions placed on him uneccesarily, not you. And in general I think someone who is a lot closer to the age (or at least remembers how it was at that age) will be able to decide if something is unwanted and undisirable, a lot better than a parent who has the 'parental instinct' to deal with.
This is like a harness in a stroller. It's a good idea to keep the child from falling out, but there are certain parents who strap them in so tightly that they can't move at all, and sometimes it even gives them trouble breathing. I've seen it, and the parents wonder why the child is crying...
So just like in my example, you need to give children some movement space, and breathing room.
I'm on the computer day and night, albeit with programming rather than video games. I am at a desk with 4 monitors, one of which constantly has the tv going. Thanks to a fubar metabolism I eat as much (junk) food as is humanly possible without gaining a pound or having tooth decay.
I'm not judging you as a parent, or telling you what to do. Just so long as people realize there are two sides to the parent/child arrangement they shouldn't have any trouble.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Big Mama is watching you..
Corporate america liking the idea soo much. they implement it in their office. a cell phone that tracks where you are in the office. so you don't have to worry about power or loosing it, its got a neat little pick proof collar. and a 3 foot extension cord, no batteries required. oh yea and just to protect you from yourself if you unplug it between 9 - 5 well dock you an hour pay.
This does raise the issue, couldn't the "snatchers" just hack the recievers and use it to track all 6 year olds walking home alone in the next couple square miles? Wonder what the parents will say about this system once their child got snatched by someone who just reverse engineered the system...
Picture a child, who...
Was this you when you were young? Would you really be a better person if you had done these things? Would you be happier? My vote is NO, as I spent all of high school doing most of these things and was ready to kill myself freshman year of college, when I was given an ID card, a room key and told to fend for myself.
My mind drifts to Jonbenet Ramsey as I wonder why American parents have such sterilized, plastic-molded ideals for their children.
...does Ashcroft have the decency to give a reacharound?
1 tequila 2 tequila 3 tequila floor
Your assertion that WWII was fought to allow you "the freedom to utilize the tool if I think it necessary", is both ludicrous and myopic.
Whoa, put the coffee down and take a look at the bigger picture. Please, do you honestly think that I think that WWII was fought to allow me to use tools. That would indeed be amusing. The original poster talked about wars being fought for freedoms, I was just reminding him that I was also exercising a freedom (which if you go by his original statement, the war was also being fought for).
that i will be able to sit in front of my computer all day to monitor where my kid is going.. awesome.. i was getting bored of that whole web thingy...
Am i glad we, carefull parents, are going to waste^H^H^H^H^Hspend some time monitoring our kids instead of entertaining them properly...
Ho well..
Monitoring your kids like mental patients on a walk in the park for the day is just wrong. It also tells them they're not to be trusted, they belong on a leash, and that you're not willing to give them a chance to prove that they can handle responsibility.
Again, this is about DEGREES. If my kid walked to school every day then I'd feel safer if they had a device like this. This is because the repetitive nature and the known destination makes such activities more prone to something negative happening. Would I force my kids to wear it EVERYWHERE they go, no. Would I "check up" on them to see where they went if I "knew" that they were "safe", no. It's not the tool, it's all in how it's applied.
say, give them that chance, even punish them for failing, but don't punish them (and that's what this is) without cause.
That's assuming the "failing" part isn't when they are stuffed into the back of a van. At that point I don't think punishment is foremost on your mind.
Totally. We rely way too much on this kind of crap. Just take some reponsibility for yourself, and don't expect that you can be safe 100% of the time or rescued if something goes wrong.
A) we're not talking about YOURSELF, we're talking about a minor (and I'm not referring to 17yo's) that YOU are legally, morally, and ethically responsible for. ANOTHER life that you want to make safe as much as REASONABLY possible. What's reasonable, well that's up to the individual.
If we used more common sense and self-reliance we wouldn't need to be resuced half the time anyway.
Again, we're not talking about ME. We're talking about a 10yo, or 12yo who we know lack a great deal of common sense, esp when it concerns safety. Much of this common sense comes with age and experience and they have not had the time to gain that experience yet.
I agree about the age thing (see my myriad other posts). I also have a novel idea with relationship with the teen, how about talking to them about it. I would hope that my teen would have the presence of mind that if we talked about what it's purpose was and layed ground rules for what I could use it for as a parent, that they could understand (yeah a long shot I know, but sometimes kids surprise you and do smart things, if you treat them that way).
The real selling point for the technology isn't that it lets parents oppress their kids. The technology will give parents the ability to relive their childhood through their children. The parent will watch every moment of their child's life, giving clues and reliving the moments. Parents will hook up an entire audio-visual and remote control system on their kids so that they can go through school a second time on their terms. The outlook is unlikely to be a safer world. You will probably find as many dads coaxing their sons to put their hands on Susie's knee as those who are trying to stop little Johnny from acting on hormones.
Kids with phones are very vulnerable to bigger kids who steal the phones Phone Crime.
So maybe the phone monitoring may prevent or slow down phone theft?
Anyway is this so very different to offices that have card access systems where you have to swipe your card at every doorway (including the toilet). So very very annoying.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
As has been pointed out several times already, this wouldn't be too hard for someone to get around if they really want to...
I mean, it's not as if they're surgically implanting RFID tags in the kids.
Again, we're not talking about ME. We're talking about a 10yo, or 12yo who we know lack a great deal of common sense, esp when it concerns safety. Much of this common sense comes with age and experience and they have not had the time to gain that experience yet.
No, I have a feeling we ARE talking about you.
Child-tracking technology exists to satisfy parents and give them piece of mind. It job is to satisfy a parent's need to feel secure and risk-free in an insecure and risky world. Surveilance in no way prevents attacks or abductions. Its only purpose is to make parents feel better.
I'm not saying the technology is bad or useless--the technology may indeed play a small role in saving a life. But let's at least be truthful about whose unrealistic expectations about the world it is REALLY meant to satisfy!
Bet you dollars to donuts that by the time the little deviants get to college, we'll have some sort of electronic leash just waiting for them.
Furthermore, the kids will be so used to the idea, they will see nothing wrong with it, in fact quite the reverse, they will feel uncomfortable without it.
Anyone who mods this as funny just doesn't get it.
Infuriate left and right
And what does the kidnapper do first thing? He tosses the tracer. Which nullifies any percieved benefit, and leaves only the disadvantage that your kid feels 'watched' at all times. That kind of parental control is way too tight, and causes scars.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
No, I have a feeling we ARE talking about you.
Well obviously your right about the fact that it is designed to give the parent peace of mind (well, more than what they might without it anyway). We're not talking prevention here, we're talking about a technology that if an abduction occurs, could potentially help.
I'm not saying the technology is bad or useless--the technology may indeed play a small role in saving a life. But let's at least be truthful about whose unrealistic expectations about the world it is REALLY meant to satisfy!
You contradict yourself. If it's useful (even in a small way) then how is it satisfying unrealistic expectations? And what expectiations are those? If I think that it may one day save my kids life, is that unrealistic? And if it is, then maybe, just maybe I am smart enough to understand that and decide not to utilize the technology? I know parents that don't use car seats or even buckle their kids in. Am I unrealistic to think that their car seat might save their life? Is the technology that's designed to save kids lives or to make their parents feel better when they drive their kids. If it achieves both, then does it matter?
I can see that conversation:
kid:"So I'm supposed to have that with me at all the time?"
you:"Yeah, son. That way I'll know where you are at all times."
kid:"All the time? Even when I'm in the toilet? Or at a party? Or when I'm talking to Terry?"
you:"No, I'll only use it when you're out of my sight."
kid:"So when I go to the arcade, you'll see it when I got to the park afterwards?"
you:"Sure, son."
kid (who actually sneaks into the planetarium after going to the arcade):"Well, then I don't wanna have it!"
you:"but it's for your own protection!"
kid:"I still don't wanna! You'll see whatever I do! Always! Even if I go to Stevies place [where he gets sex-ed from Stevies dad's pr0n collection]!"
you:"Well, I won't use it when you go to the toilet or go to Stevies place..."
kid:"But how will I know that?"
you:"Well, you'll just have to trust me on that"
Even a kid will get the irony of that last statement. They're often much smarter than what most people give them credit for.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Come on, people. You don't trust your own kids? That's pretty sad. Look, I'm not saying there are never any incidences, but for christs sake, let the kids be kids and let them make some mistakes and LEARN from them. Stop shoving probes up their asses, remember, they will (we hope) take care of us when we are old.
We live in a time where our civil liberties are in great peril, and it seems that so very few people seem to care (present company excepted, of course). Are we raising a generation of kids that have been so tightly supervised by parents that they see nothing amiss when government takes over the same supervisory role as they mature to adulthood? Sometimes I wonder...
perhaps since I was very low maintenance as a child I don't see too much of a problem with this. But your comment really makes me laugh, either way
Yea, but we were fine up to now without this. I mean look at how many kids survive without their parents watching them 24/7! ;) What I'm trying to say is that the posible positive outweight the negative effects by far. Heck, wouldn't you as parent hate it if you got a message every 10 min because Billy walked off the sidewalk for a while.
Also, it would worsen relationships between parents and their children greatly. I would hate to have a parent call me everytime I went to my friends house after school without telling my mom. I mean up to now I'd (maybe) call my mom when I got there, but now I'd have to content with a hysterical mom calling me from her mobile phone because she's already heading my way in her car because I turned left into [insert name of bad neighborhood]. It just creates inconvinience for everyone.
To conclude: If the child comes to the point where you let them go outside on their own, then they should be just that, alone. You, as a parent, should have taught them enough about the outside world so that they can manage any situations they come across on their own. If you don't think they can handle them, then just accompany them.
And the whole system they propose is faulty, unless you implant it into them somewhere, they will get rid of it somehow. This is for 8-12 year olds, old enough to handle themselves "out in the big world."
Wouldn't it be easier to put your kids in handcuffs and home school them? Then you don't even need to pay for the cell phone.
Wasn't this last weeks episode of The Guardian?
They'll just develop the Matrix tool for bug extraction. Wait...isn't that what this thing is? ;-)
Setting aside for the moment whether this is a good idea or not, what happens when it's hacked?
Prosecutor: Members of the Jury, the defendent used the 13-year old girl's tracking phone to determine the best time and place to abduct her...
Another case of technology being used to solve one problem, only to create one that's worse.
They seem unbothered by monitoring. They just assume that everything is recorded somewhere, and that's the way things work. They'd like to be able to track their friends via their cellphones. They spend a lot of time updating each other on where they are, and think it would be easier if they didn't have to call to ask.
This gives you a sense of where things are going. Location as a public record.
My favorite is using that roar from Godzilla. At Three AM
Wardrive it and see which lights suddenly come on.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I goto school and it seems that the education system basicly is there to train children at a young age into money grabbing assholes. And they will bring up more children to do the same thing and so on.
I think the education system needs to be reviewed.
.... or what better incentive can you think of for a kid to get to know the technology and circumvent it? (I think that "NetNanny" et all are great for the same reason)
Finally practical security concerns get tought to our kids from the verry start!
cu Martin
Instead of policing your kids, a better location based service, if your concern is kidnapping, would be to alert the parents in the following situations:
1. Phone is turned off in a place other than home and other than school. Maybe somebody forced the kid to turn it off, or crushed it.
2. Phone has not moved for X hours/minutes in a place other than home/school. This may indicate that the phone was dropped or thrown away. This is a little more tricky, as your kid may just be hanging out someplace...
Just strap one of those electric dog collars,
the invisible fense kind onto the little tykes.
run the wire loop all over the neighborhood
and around the school. If they cross
the boundry.... zzzZZZZZAAAAP!
I recommend replacing the collar with a steel
reenforced belt and a heavy duty padlock or two.
(I wonder if the GPS watch, the lockable one
will have this as an upgrade)
Good side: it is not to track your kids, but to allow them to alert if something goes wrong
Depending on how detailed the parents can make the "expected" route, the distinction you make does not exist.
Downside: The kid can't make a phone call without notifying his parent of where he is...
Ever heard of a land-line? How about a friend's phone?
All the paranoid-parent BS aside, this strikes me as just one more scam to give parents a false sense of security in technology watching their kids, rather than the parents doing the FIRST job, acting as parents.
I do, however, agree with those who point out that acting like a jailor to your kids WILL make them hate you. Remember the commercials last year about "Mom and Dad, I used to hate you when you, blah, blah, blah. Thank you"? Well, end before the "thank you", and don't make any of it past-tense, and you have the right idea.
No, you don't need to act as your kids' "friend". That doesn't excuse you from basic respect and human decency.
And, the kids who MOST need something like this to keep track of them will end up the first to find a way around it. If my own parents had pulled some crap like this, they'd end up getting daily reports about my trips to China, or Australia, or even off-planet if I could trick the thing out that much (possibly with a phone bill to prove it, if I felt particularly vindictive on a given day). Smart kids won't bother keeping it off - They'll make it seem so unreliable that their parents don't even read the reports, nevermind question their child about them.
No GPS. Just checking which receivers are picking-up your signal, and what that signal-strength is. Some simple calculations, and they know where you are in relation to those receivers. And, because thoe locations of those receivers are known, so is your position on the real world ....
I know of a startup that has already implemented such a system for PDAs. Wireless, location-based advertising.
Fortunately, the recession has left businesses unwilling to experiment with advertising, so the streets (and US cell phones) will be safe for a little while yet....
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Article 16
1. No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.
2. The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Of course, a decent justification for this is that you'd know immediately if your kid was snatched, however, how many false kidnapping calls would cops get over the course of a year? All because little Johnny decided to go to his friend Bobby's house after school? Sheesh.
Can technology please slow down while my sensibilities try to catch up?
Visit us at http://www.iblist.com!
I agree. If you read the article the system requires you to walk the intended route setting checkpoints & then specifying times to reach each one. This is a way for parents to make sure junior gets to/from school safely, not to track their every move. When my daughters are old enough I'll be happy to use some system like this, not because I don't trust them but because I'm concerned for their safety. In fact, a system like this might tip the balance in favor of more freedom, in that I would feel comfortable letting them do things by themselves where otherwise I would accompany them.
Now I'm only 18 years of age, so the memories of my youth are fresh in my mind.
I like to think that my parents did a good job of raising me. I'm quite well educated and behaved, polite and hopefully I come across as a well rounded individual.
Now I believe the reason for this being down to freedom I enjoyed as a child to discover my paths and make my own mistakes, albeit with the guiding hand of my mum and dad.
I used to love tearing down the streets on my bike, eventually flipping over and cutting my head open while trying stunts. I used to love making fires with my friends and doing dangerous stunts in the woods. When I would return home after many hours with a bleeding arm or scraped knee my parents never yelled at me for being so reckless, they just helped me tend my wounds.
My parents have never believed in _grounding_, not once have I ever been imprisoned in my home. Sure I've had the odd smack or two when I was younger.
However, I look at the trends of modern parenting and I wonder what the generation below me will be like when they are home leaving age. I believe that the kids of today are over mollcoddled, wrapped in a security blanket, tied to their mother's apron strings.
No, kids can't enjoy themselves today because there are murderers in every alley, paedophiles in every bush! Instead they sit their fat asses at home watching TV while their parents constantly feed them and give them what they want.
Todays parents are generally too afraid to say 'no!' to their kids when it comes to buying things for their children. The recently coined term 'Pester Power' highlights this observation.
'Oh no, I must by Johnny that £200 mobile phone because all his friends have them, and if I don't buy it then he'll yell and scream at me and he won't love me any more!'
Give me a fucking break you morons. I'm not saying you should regularly beat your child, but make them more responsible for their own actions, make them do more things for themselves, let them blow off steam in their free time and maybe they won't shout at you so much.
Imagine if in a few years time there was a major conflict and conscription was reintroduced.
'Oooh no mummy I don't want to go to war and fight for my country, I want to stay here and play on my Playstation 6, mummy won't you ring up the army man on the phone and tell him I don't want to fight?'
Just a little rant of mine....
Treat people like sheep, and they will respond as sheep. You absolutely must trust your kids at school or they will not be trustworthy. If my parents had done this, my first thought would be that I could now make sure that my cell phone went to the right place at the right time and I'd have proof that I was there. My parents had no reason not to trust me. I was allowed to wander all day, and you know what? I stayed out of trouble. The kids with strict parents were the ones who got caught doing stupid things. I didn't care about doing stupid things, because I could do whatever I wanted and I knew that *I* would be responsible for the consequences.
Same thing applies to gun control, DRM, employee productivity...
I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
Has anyone considered abusive parents? Not all parents are reasonable, or even *sane*.
"What the f*ck were you doing behind the 7-11? You were screwing a boy, weren't you? I know you were. Don't lie to me, you tramp."
"I spilled a coke on my pants, mom. I was trying to get the coke off. There's a stain here, see?"
"Oh, very clever. You're a good liar. But then, you've been practising for a long time."
I think children should have some right to privacy here. Perhaps anytime the parent checks on the child it is recorded, and the child can take that information to a social worker. "Look, she checks on my every ten minutes. I have no freedom. Here are recordings of the calls she's given me to come home. Listen to the vitriol in this voice."
If I knew that my parents were the type that would spy on me while I'm at school, then I would refuse to have a cell phone.
I guess you have pretty liberal parents then. But don't forget that generally parents who spy on their kids also do other fucked-up stuff.
Such parents generally have, through other protective behavior, convinced their kids that they are incapable of being safe. Kids that have been subjected to this kind of parenting are more likely to accept the cellphone.
But this will lead to more problems down the road, as the kids (as teenagers) rebel and try to use their underdeveloped judgement to make "adult" decisions - like when to use drugs, or contraceptives.
You're clearly very mature. But you're in the minority.
Oh, and "Rules were meant to be broken" was originally discovered by Napoleonic troops on the Rosetta stone, scrawled in a corner in Arabic.
Sigmentation fault - core dumped