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Scammers Target Neopets Users
An anonymous reader writes "If you have children that play on the popular virtual world game Neopets, you might want to warn them of a social engineering scam gleefully targeting 12-year-old kids. Neopets users looking for rare items are sent private messages from the scammers, who direct them to sites hosting keyloggers & trojans. They then use the infected PC as a means to get to data the parents might have stored there, be it credit card details, Paypal accounts or online banking. Seeing the screenshots of some of these people talking about putting these children into botnets is just unbelievable — if ever you wanted proof that people up to no good online will go to any lengths to get their hands on some money (or even just feel good about outsmarting a 12-year-old), here it is."
Probably already is one of these, but can we get a plugin for Firefox that dumbs down the browser for them.
I think one of the toy company's had a toy/software setup where kids could visit a limited amount of sites using a special controller. Something to keep them out of trouble.
I want to give my kid a login with just a link to firefox and this plugin on the desktop. They click it an are presented with a list of safe sites. Any attempt to go outside of the domain is blocked and the sound card goes crazy with ("hey mom and dad get your ass in here and watch your kid")....hell have it text me. If the domain is safe I simply type a password and it gets added.
Sure just surfing in Firefox will prevent some of this, but I don't want any chance of any sort of firefox bug getting exposed. Remember that even firefox can fall victim to some sort of buffer overflow.
A little offtopic, but I think a Live CD of Ubuntu that accomplishes this would be great. Just give my kid an older computer with no harddrive and the CD and let them go...
We could just get our kids real pets...
You may get your wish. In the 1920's and 30's when Eugenics was popular the Supreme Court ruled it was perfectly legal for states to sterilize people, take their kids and sterilize them.
This will probably be proposed as a way to cut costs for the penal and health care system.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
hell no, use an entirely different computer for important (financial) stuff. This other computer is then hands off.
The webkinz world is one in which children can have a limited interaction with other children (and not a few adults) while playing games and taking care of a cute virtual pet. My kids love it, they all have quite a few "friends" on Webkinz. They don't know the name, address or even gender of these friends, as the software doesn't even offer a way to ask. It is not designed for social networking or communication, it is simply a way for kids to go online and play, in a safe manner. Very little chatting goes on, the kids can play games against each other, and the chat options tend to be things like "nice move" and such. They can also send eachother virtual gifts, and include a greeting of sorts (here is a gift for your special day) but it is not a chat room.
They are more than welcome to search any of my devices for child porn and malware, with a proper warrant.
And they will do so at their facility downtown, and take 18 months to do it.
Yes, you are innocent until proven guilty. But the initial investigation would start with you and your home network.
And, after the case is dropped, the local newspaper might print a retraction, saying that Mr. PitaBred is not guilty of distributing child porn. Of course, after the initial flurry of press coverage, you've lost your job, your kid is taken away for a time by DSS, and your front window has been broken 3 times by angry vigilantes.