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Rethinking IM Privacy For Kids
mackles writes, "Now that the world has read the despicable instant messages from Rep. Foley, should parents take a second look at monitoring their kids' IMs? After all, it was IM logging that exposed the scandal; would we have found out otherwise? Cost is not an issue, there are free monitoring tools. Should parents tell their kids before they monitor? Parents and their tech-savvy kids are at odds on the topic. From the article: 'As many as 94 percent of parents polled this summer by the research firm Harris Interactive said they've turned to Web content filters, monitoring software, or advice from an adult friend to keep electronic tabs on their children.' The article quotes one 18-year-old as saying, 'A lot of kids are smarter than adults think.'"
My kids are smart enough to check what's running on their PC. Can I install a logger on my WRT54G (running hyperWRT + Thibor 15c firmware)?
So I'm not a parent yet, but having had parents who did a kick ass job raising my sister and myself, what if parents just, you know, talked to their kids once in a while? A parent that genuinely listens and cares about their children is going to be much better received - and far more trusted - by their kids than one who tries to become the FBI and wiretap everything their kids do. It just seems like common sense to me.
I know, I know, think of the children, blah blah blah. I hate election years.
'Nuff said.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
And most kids are not as smart as they think they are. News at 11.
we should outfit them with a camera, GPS device and listening post. Never know what those kids are up to. We should rigidly protect them from all outside evils real and imaginary and then at age 18 turn the poor unsuspecting souls loose. See what happens.
-- No Sig is a Good Sig
Wah? Huh? If you're going to do this kind of thing of COURSE you should tell your kids... cos yeah, ignorance is always the best option. Imagine if they found out?
Kid: Mom, Dad, have you been spying on me?
Mom: Why yes, yes we have Johnny.
Kid: Lock and load...
Come on, I thought the era of parenting/managing by stealth was long since dead and buried. Surely open communication, cooperation and engaging with kids (or employees for that matter - it's the same deal really) makes better sense?
Or is there still a group out there that thinks education is bad, mkay? Don't teach our kids about sexual health because (GASP) they might become sexually active! OMG STFU WTF.
Hint: they're going to anyway, surely it's better for them to learn properly than from some xxx website.
I am a leaf on the wind
But they should talk to their children and explain why they think it's necessary. Not tell them "I'm doing this for your own good." Talk to them about the dangers. Like when you want to know where they're going out that night.
Because if the child thinks you're monitoring them because you don't trust them, or they find out you were monitoring them because you didn't trust them, that can do more damage to the parent-child relationship than anything else. Trust is important.
Besides, if they don't agree, they'll just circumvent you anyway, especially if they think you don't know they know you're monitoring them. Lose-lose.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
Simple... create an account that's only for the kids. Lock down the administrative account with a good password. And install silent monitoring uitilites. Anytime you alert a child to a lock, that's when they aim to defeat it.
When you get into their teens, you're mainly an advisor. They will do what they want to do, you just need to be able to protect them. And obviously... Children really DON'T have a right to privacy. Sure, I give mine all the privacy I can, but if I'm responsible for you, privacy is a Priveledge.
Just my 2cents.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
"When I was 14, my parents were the most ignorant people in the world. When I turned 21, I was amazed at how much they had learned in the last 7 years."
-- Mark Twain
For some reason, my 9 year can never figure out how I know when he gets out of bed at night. I'll never tel him the floorboards scream every time he shifts his weight. :)
and they are aware that at anytime I can audit their chat sessions. Do I do it every day? No - but I find that if I occasionally audit them most (not all) of the time they've kept things clean and on the up and up. Asking kids to follow boundries without accountability is an idle threat (be good or else!). When I've discovered they've been inappropriate - they lose 'net/cell phone access for a while and believe me - that can sting for a teenage girl...
Um, preaching to the choir probably, but shouldn't parents be monitoring their kids' online activities anyway?
Back in my day our parents knew what kind of neghborhoods we played outside in, why wouldn't parents of today be any different WRT to online neighborhoods?
When mine are old enough to start unsupervised web use (currently oldest is 5) I will definitely be logging everything they do, not to snoop and evesdrop but just so I can spot check and see what they are doing every once in awhile.
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
Clearly this shows we should be monitoring politicians and not the kids.
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The house, the phone line, the DSL service, and the computer are all in my name. I'm the one my kid puts at risk if he does something illegal. Can someone give me a good reason to *not* monitor what my kid does on the internet?
When kids shoot up schools, people ask "where were the parents? They should have known." When kids end up teenage parents, people ask "where were the parents? They should have taught them better." When kids get connected to the internet, people say "mind your own business! Privacy! Big Brother! OMG 1984!!!"
Pick one. Either kids have a right to privacy and the responsibilities that come with the lack of supervision, or they don't have that right, and the parents have to accept some responsibility if they don't know what their kids are doing.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
...my parents occasionally look at things like history (snicker). However, I was the most computer-savvy person in my house, and ran the router/server. Now, I go to sites/do things that they might not like, but it hasn't harmed me or warped me in any sort of way. I learned my morals from them, and make my own decisions.
Now, I know that I'm not most teens, and most are stupid and don't give a flying fsck about anything, but children (especially later teenagers) don't get nearly enough respect. Just the question that "should we tell them we're spying on them?" makes me want to throw up. Jeez, no wonder kids think their parents are stupid...
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
IMs are no different than invoking random people in conversation out in that scary world of our. Teach your kids about perverts and other dangerous people (like clowns) and there should be no need for excessive intrusion.
Dang.... that's exactly how my parents sounded when I was a kid.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Kids (even kids with good parents) do legally and morally wrong things all the goddamn time - that's why they don't have the same rights as adults. Some kids are more rebellious than others, that's just human nature. Some kids just need watching. The "oh, just talk with them and have a good relationship with them, that's all you need to do" crew are either childless or naive.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
If you have to tell your 16 year old boy that it's legally and morally wrong to exchange graphic sexual emails and IM's with a middle aged politician no amount of monitoring will help because you've already failed as a parent.
If you have to tell your middle aged politician that it's legally and morally wrong to exchange graphic sexual emails and IM's with a 16 year old boy, you've already failed as a voter.
I'm usually way out on the "pro privacy" side of these issues -- you know, YRO trumps all other considerations, etc. In the parent / kid context though, good communication is fantastic, but alone it's insufficient in a significant percent of cases.
One of the reasons we have a concept of "minors" (for whom parents are responsible) is that judgement takes time to acquire. Much as people would like, it's just not possible to *reliably* create kids with good judgement via good parenting. Kids are more susceptible to peer pressure, and they tend to go through phases where they're prone to concealing their activities from their parents. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way, but the "hard way" can carry an unacceptably high price in the online arena.
Different kids need different amounts of supervision and oversight in the physical world, and I don't see much difference between that & the online world. Most parents would't let their kid padlock their closet, nor would they agree never to search the child's bedroom under any circumstances. In the spirit of good communication, I would suggest telling the kid that you're monitoring & logging his/her conversations. That admittedly introduces some technical hurdles; ideally it should be done at the router or proxy level, which means disallowing encrypted protocols that can't be logged by an intermediate node.
If you log a child's surfing habits, you always have the option of not reading the logs unless/until you have reason to. But down the road if you have reason to suspect something (or heaven forbid something awful happens), you'll probably be glad you have the logs.
Pi Ran Out
Yeah. How are you going to padlock every single device your kid comes into contact with? The school and library administrators where I live frown on that sort of thing. Are you going to police your neighbor's system security too? Maybe set up a Skinner box? You'll need to keep your kids completely away from books and other children, after all, or they might learn to get around your blockades...
Alternatively, you could actually teach your children your values instead of trying to lock up their options.
Unless, of course, you prefer your kids to be stupid and helpless.
Actually, not really. I don't think they know much about technology, and I think they overreact, but I think that, in the vast majority of cases, they make the best possible choice. Even when I don't like it, I admit that it's what I probably would do myself.
And, if I do say so myself, I feel I have never "hated" my parents, nor think that they are stupid. I feel I have avoided that, unlike most of my peers.
I understand that people have always thought that their elders are less intelligent than they are. There's even a word for it, though I can't immediately remember it. I was merely reflecting upon the most pervasive thought, and suggesting that there seems to be more and more justification for it (think of the children!).
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
This is a message for all the kids living in any Theocracy, whether it happens to be in Iran or the USA:
Do you think your parents are spying on you and taking Draconian measures to mold you into a little puritan? Want to be free to learn about the real world and maybe even use your own body as you desire? Do you want to learn about evolution, but have fundie nut parents trying to censor your entire environment? Don't want to loose your legal home (which includes perhaps your only access to food, shelter, and healthcare?), and risk getting jailed for leaving it? If you are reading this, you probably have some place where you can access the Internet with minimal restrictions. Maybe you are lucky enough to be online at a friend's house or library. Maybe you hacked the filter at your public school or church. If you want to expand your access and keep your freedom, you will need to take some precautions. To get around any logging or filtering software running on a local machine, I suggest getting your own computer. Try ebay. If you can't afford a full computer, and just want to chat, I recommend the zipit, it runs Linux, so you can modify it and add features like encryption. If these are not viable options, you should use a Linux (or BSD, or OpenSolaris) bootable CD. If you suspect that there is network based monitoring, you should use gaim-otr or gaim-encryption for your chatting and gpg for your email. Learn to tunnel your network traffic through http, ssh, and other protocols. If you are using someone else's PC, you should also check for a hardware keylogger. Use the presumption of your ignorance to your advantage. Play the naïve little kid. If you get caught trying to circumvent censorship and spying, act like you have no idea what you are doing and just got lost. Act like the computer is broken and you are confused and frustrated.
A brief message to the parents: Kids like sex. Kids are curious. Remember back when you were a teenager? Wouldn't you have really liked a (select gender based on sexual preference) about ten years older than you (someone in their 20s), to fuck? As illegal and "wrong" as that is, it's what we've evolved to desire. You become sexually mature as a teen, and you want the most fit sexual partner. People older than you are probably the most fit. As you get older, people younger than you are probably the most fit. All the technology in the wold will not change this. It's human nature. Your irrational fear of pleasure is no excuse to stunt your offspring's intellectual growth. Do you really want to keep them from accessing the biggest store of human knowledge ever amassed, just because you don't like the idea that they might actually want to enjoy sex? Or...is it worse than that? Are you a religious asshole that wants to keep your kid from learning about science? If so, you are the reason why your nation is going to plunge deep into a second dark age of technological decay and theocratic war. Thanks a lot!
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Ya, it's easy to take care of all of this BS. Pull the plug on the computer. That'll get the boy's attention. And then if and when you ever plug it back in, put the damn thing in the living room. If you don't want us seeing what you're doing that's a good clue that you shouldn't be doing it. Don't like it? There's the door. Punk ass kid.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
One major difference: children are not adult workers entering into a consensual employee/employer relationship. Children are born into their families with no inherent rights except that to food, shelter, education and a decent upbringing to the best of their parents' ability. They do not have "rights" to privacy, speech, freedom of association or any of the basic civil rights adults enjoy. They live under the protection of their parents and therefore if the parents want to read their IM logs, that's their prerogative.
By that logic, citizens are born into their countries with no inherent rights besides whatever their government grants them at the time, and so long as they "choose" to live under the protection of that government (i.e. do not choose to uproot their entire lives and move somewhere else), it's the government's prerogative to meddle in the private affairs of it's citizens however it pleases. To anyone who supports the principles of liberty and constitutional democracy that most of the civilized world cherishes today, this is obviously wrong: people may have an obligation to obey their governments to some limited extent, but the governments conversely have an obligation to respect the rights and freedom of their citizens, and refrain from interfering except when absolutely necessary.
Our families are our models for government. The family is the most basic unit of society (i.e. the smallest and most primitive grouping of people). If we teach our kids that it's OK for their parents to monitor them constantly and meddle in their lives to whatever extent that they (the parents) see fit, then we're raising a generation of soon-to-be-adults who will not mind if their government does the same thing to them. If you wouldn't be happy with your government behaving a certain way toward you, you should seriously consider whether or not it's really OK for you to behave that way toward your kids. And vice versa: if it doesn't seem OK for a parent to do to their child, that raises some big red flags about whether it's OK for the government to do to it's citizens.
The role of parents is to use force only when necessary to keep their kids from *seriously* screwing something else up (i.e. punishing them for starting fights, vandalism, etc etc), and *educating* them about things which are dangerous to themselves. If those things really are bad for themselves, the kids will learn that yeah, mom and/or dad were right, that was a bad idea. If parents show a good track record of indicating bad things that the kids can verify with their own first-hand experience in the short-term, the kids will (rightly) be more inclined to trust them about the longer-term hazards that it takes years of experience to learn first-hand. But if the parents are full of shit and over-controlling, prohibiting things that don't really cause any harm, and meddling with and prying into their kids lives all the time, the kids will be less inclined to trust them about anything. Same way that the citizenry will learn to disregard the law entirely when the law is frequently baseless and unjust, but if the law is just and well-founded it will have many supporters.
Needless to say, all of this is solely regarding "children" of a conscious, verbal level of development, i.e. basically young impulsive inexperienced adults. When dealing with infants or toddlers who are actually incapable of really understanding what you tell them - not just perhaps inclined to disregard it - then obviously the same rules don't apply.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Worse yet is if they don't go crazy when they get out, because they have become used to 24 hour surveillance, and feel that being spied on is for their own good.
The guy was in charge of anti-pedophile policy!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I grew up with very strict parents. It was so bad, they would listen in on conversations I had with my friends - especially, girls.
... freaks me out.
Yeah, our society's obsession with freaking out over every new invention
I had friends with parents like yours back when I was a kid. They would seriously listen to every phone conversation that took place in the house (had extra lines installed just for this purpose). One family, the dad was an electronics whiz, and even hooked up an automatic recording system for when the kids were home alone - not that they ever let that happen much! Parents get home from wherever, then spend the evening listening to their kids' phone calls. The kids were never allowed a closed door, nor to go out for more than a couple of hours without a chaperone.
The difference is, when I was a kid, parents like this were considered PARANOID KOOKS by other parents. For some reason when it comes to the Internet, these people are now just "cautions".
Coupla factoids for folks who aren't sure just where I'm going with this:
1. Actual cases of adult "predators" successfully soliciting minors through the Internet are exceedingly rare - there's a reason they make headline news when they happen.
2. Your child is 10-100x more likely to suffer abuse from you, or a close family member or trusted friend. All the Internet monitoring in the world isn't going to help the fact that Uncle Bob is the most likely abuser of your child.
3. Sick adults have been trying to pick up kids - and I know this will shock many here! - since before 1996. Back then, it was "hey Timmy, want to come into my white van and have some candy?". Did we follow our children around 24-7 with video cameras attached to their backs in the 1980s? No, we taught our children to NOT FUCKING TALK WITH STRANGE MEN AND WOMEN.
I dunno, maybe it's like phishing scams. If I went door-to-door and asked people to give me their credit card details, claiming I'm "from the bank", people would slap the door in my face. If I did it by email, I'd soon be rich. Maybe the average Joe thinks this extends to their children's behaviour online.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Look, I don't how many kids you've raised but the child/parent relationship is one you have to work at. It's not 'let the kids have their way or they'll kill you in your sleep' - if your kids are running around doing the things with computers that are suggested here, if you have parents who are wondering about routers and other ways of blocking what the kids are doing you've already completely failed as a parent. As the parent you are responsible, period. As the parent you are teaching, guiding, and helping your kids grow to adulthood. If you think that means letting your child have full and completely unguided access to computers and a car and the house and your credit cards then your kid might grow up alright but the chances for the big crash coming are greatly increased. If you choose to be a parent and guide them, directing them from a young age, teaching them right from wrong then this whole crap about kids going behind the backs of their parents isn't going to happen. Look, I hear from other parents who say to me, 'man, you are hard core on your kids - you have to let them be free.' - Well those parents who have said that to me have had to bail their kids out of jail, spend thousands of dollars on cleaning up their criminal records, begged their kids to go to college, have buried their kids and otherwise reaped the bitter harvest of their lack of parenting. And still they think they are right in their laizze faire attitude toward their kids. My son's close to graduating with a double E engineering degree, straight A, a good young man who knows right from wrong and who will be able to lead the kind of life he wants. If I let him do his own thing when he was younger he wouldn't have taken the hard classes, he wouldn't have had me over his shoulder pushing him to do his homework before anything else, reminding him that the choices he makes at twelve affect him when he's eighteen. Did I ever take his Playstation away, his computer away? Hell yes. It's called parenting. Belittle it all you want, be as witty and have as superior an attitude as you want but I've made the right choices in something that important to me and my family.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.