UT Dallas Professor Captures the Mobile Interactions of 175 Texas Teens

nonprofiteer writes "A University of Texas-Dallas developmental psychology professor has used a $3.4 million NIH grant to purchase Blackberries for 175 Texas teens, capturing every text message, email, photo, and IM they've sent over the past 4 years.Half a million new messages pour into the database every month. The researchers don't 'directly ask' the teens about privacy issues because they don't want to remind them they're being monitored. So many legal and ethical issues here. I can't believe this is IRB-approved. Teens sending nude photos alone could make that database legally toxic. And then there's the ethical issue of monitoring those who have not consented to be part of the study, but are friends with those who have. When a friend texted one participant about selling drugs, he responded, 'Hey, be careful, the BlackBerry people are watching, but don't worry, they won't tell anyone.'" This sounds like an American version of the "Seven Up" series.

Comments

Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

If he spent 3.4 million on 175 blackberries I've got to ask - are they gold-plated with diamond keys?

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Mr2cents]

Also, with the help of a calculator, I got 98 messages per day per teen. That's like what I send in a busy year.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[LanMan04]

lso, with the help of a calculator, I got 98 messages per day per teen. That's like what I send in a busy year.

If you're using it in a back-and-forth, "Instant Message" way, it's pretty easy to rack up that many messages.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that you have no friends. Gotcha.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Mitchell314]

Grant money also goes to help paying salaries, student tuition, equipment, and additional workers. Don't forget about the money for the database, db administrators/developers, computers, and all the other technical work involved for four years. Also, the school also takes out a large chunk, ours tacks up to 50% extra on top of the subtotal.

You'd be surprised how expensive research can get. Not that I'm justifying that it should be that expensive, just saying there's a lot involved in the budget. Not everybody has access to cheap, available undergrads capable of doing the work. :p

Re:Expensive blackberries

[mehrotra.akash]

On some days I cross 200, so 98/teen/day does not seem too high

Re:Expensive blackberries

[KarrdeSW]

Well they're on sprint... So about $70/month for unlimited text and data = 840 per year.

Over the last four years that's $3,360 per teen.

For 175 Teens that's $588,000.

Then you have the monitoring software, the backend database. Half a million messages per month? Over four years that's 24,000,000 messages in an uknown number of tables. You might want to pay a person to make sure that thing stays running and do daily backups to make sure there are no gaps in your data if stuff breaks.

Then you have the army of grad students who are probably funded through that grant who are either sifting through the data themselves, or coding up machine learning applications to draw conclusions from it.

And this research project also existed before they started using blackberries (since 2003). So this $3.4 million seems to have gone a long way.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[SJHillman]

That's roughly what I figured it to as well. But you have to remember that a lot of teens replace what used to be normal face-to-face interaction with text messaging and each message approximates one sentence (often less) in a verbal conversation. Also, I assume it counts both sent and received messages, so figure them sending roughly half of that.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

But I have a question, I'm 15 years old, and I have a blackberry that can send picture I take to myself as an email attachment.

I took a lot of picture of me naked, then sent them to myself using this feature, can I sue the email provider for storing them ?

Re:Expensive blackberries

[hawkinspeter]

Doesn't that make you a producer of CP? You'd probably get into more trouble as you're intentionally taking the photos, whereas your ISP is only accidentally storing them.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[TheRaven64]

You can be arrested for distributing child pornography if you are in the USA. See Slashdot back stories for a specific example...

Re:Expensive blackberries

[cpu6502]

>>> "Instant Message" way, it's pretty easy to rack up that many messages.

Indeed. 100 a day is easy. I'm disappointed Virgin Mobile got rid of its Texter's Delight for $15 (~500 minutes but unlimited texts). They've really gone downhill since Sprint acquired them.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

So all the kids who take pictures of themselve are pedophiles according to the US laws ?

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Hadlock]

My friend works for that research group. They upgrade the teen's phones every year to the newest "flagship" phone. Keep in mind that the kids opting in to this need a reason to continue with the project. That means a new iPhone2, iPhone 3, iPhone 3S, iphone4, iPhone4s etc. I think most of the kids switched off blackberries a long time ago.
 
I'm not sure how big the research team is, but there's at least 4 full time non-students in the group. They don't keep an archive of all the data, interestingly. Probably for privacy reasons. They do classify the data in to positive/negative text messages, and identify who in the group are the alphas, betas, etc.
 
I honestly wouldn't worry about the kid's data privacy/rights, knowing who works in that group, they're all a really good group of people and outstanding citizens overall.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't confuse "adding" with "replacing". What you meant to say was that teens have ADDED additional text based communications on top of the existing social interactions they naturally do every day. The only thing social situation it "replaces" are 1 minute phone calls that we now do via email or IM.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why would the professor be in trouble because some kids take pictures of themselves ?

Re:Expensive blackberries

[JustSomeProgrammer]

Yep. Won't someone think of the children and protect them from being exploited by... themselves?

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

My point exactly, I must be one hell of a pedophile for touching myself every night. Stupid law is you ask me...

Re:Expensive blackberries

[SJHillman]

Do you spend much time around teens? Although it has added a little, it has replaced a lot. In terms of total time communicating compared to ten years ago, my personal experience is that teens spend far fewer minutes per day talking face to face, even if the overall time spent communicating is greater. The logical conclusion is that the facetime has been replaced moreso than added to.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Sir_Sri]

Um... 3.4 million for a blackberry enterprise server, phone plans, 175 phones, SEC approved monitoring equipment (monitoring them as though they were employees) and graduate student salaries. Paying the participants for yearly meetings, data hosting and backups.

And remember, this was on phone plans set up several years ago too.

Sure, that works out to about 5000 dollars per phone per year for 4 years. But it's hard to know just how many people are being paid on the backend for all of these things, what percentage the university takes, if they have to pay even one professor level person out of this for 4 years you're sucking up a LOT of cash on that, and as it even says, they have to hand process all of the texts (or even machine edit, you still need to pay for that software).

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he doesn't have expensive lawyers or political connections to defend him.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

Its very stupid. It shows just how powerful stupid people are in America. Most of them are not even good breeding stock.

Try striking down the low such that it makes sense and these same stupid people will happily proclaim you're a pedophile attempting to help other pedophiles. As such, no one will touch the stupidity which is most laws on the books these days.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[netsavior]

the 4+ people who work on the project aren't the ones who own the data, the university is.

that's the issue with privacy... we trust the people who we willingly give our privacy up to, but it is the people who come after them that we have to worry about.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[amicusNYCL]

The paper said that both girls and boys were roughly the same, averaging at sending about 110 messages per day.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[fahrbot-bot]

I honestly wouldn't worry about the kid's data privacy/rights, knowing who works in that group, they're all a really good group of people and outstanding citizens overall.

Yes, yes. That sentiment has never gone wrong.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[geekoid]

they don't archive it? interesting, and a shame.

I would just assumed they would blind the data by assigning users a random number to identify text streams in the archived database.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Nidi62]

So all the kids who take pictures of themselve are pedophiles according to the US laws ?

Yep. What's even better is that they are charged as adults for creating child pornography of themselves.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[CanHasDIY]

Don't confuse "adding" with "replacing". What you meant to say was that teens have ADDED additional text based communications on top of the existing social interactions they naturally do every day.

No, I'm pretty sure they meant what they said, and considering every adolescent I run across these days is forehead-deep in some sort of communication device, I'm inclined to agree.

Which leads me to ask - if these kids had the option to bypass their verbal 'social interactions,' as you put it, with textual ones, would they become mutes?

The only thing social situation it "replaces" are 1 minute phone calls that we now take 10 minutes to do via email or IM.

FTFY, while simultaneously pointing out the irony of referring to time consuming textual communication as "instant."

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Mister Whirly]

You want to get rid of the pictures before you are 18. As soon as you turn 18, you are an adult in possession of child pornography. Doesn't even matter if the subject is yourself. I know, it is silly that the law makes no exceptions for pictures of yourself, but then again a lot of laws are silly.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[KarrdeSW]

They don't keep an archive of all the data, interestingly. Probably for privacy reasons. They do classify the data in to positive/negative text messages, and identify who in the group are the alphas, betas, etc.

Is this to say they don't keep the full text? Even anonymized or just identified as 'student 1..2...3'? I find that to be a bit of a shame, as a conversational dataset this large would be quite helpful for many types of research.

At least that would strike a decent balance between privacy and usability, at least for the active research project.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Those outstanding citizens can be subpoenaed, for example by a divorce lawyer trying to show that a parent was unfit

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

undergrads capable of doing the work

Whaaaaa?

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you read your parent? He just got done saying that never ever happens.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Matheus]

I'd say the answer to your first question would have to be no to have that complete lack of understanding current communication amongst the youngins. I'm 35 but I spend a vast majority of my time hanging around 20 somethings (club music biz). Even they pretty much do all of their communicating via text. Calling someone is almost considered rude. The next crop coming out of HS are even worse (better?). I find myself somewhere in the middle. Minimum 500/month but usually closer to 1500-2000.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

.. textual communication as "instant."

The written message is usually, instantly delivered to the recipient, not sitting in the post-office. Even telegrams had to be hand-delivered.

But I agree, we have gone from 1 minute of high-fidelity audio interaction, to 1 second of one-way message-speak that takes a minute to write.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Matheus]

Is there an echo in here?

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Archangel Michael]

It isn't surprising that they ditched the archival of actual txt messages. My view is that even if one were to anonymize the data one could go back and with statistics and other informational gathering techniques end up being somewhere between 85% to 99% accurate as to who said what to who. No, the only way to make this secure is the delete the data but keep the metadata, and even that might end up problematic.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Pence128]

At this point, I'm hoping the sane people in the US will move away and the crazies will "how do I supported modern society?" themselves to death.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Fjandr]

It doesn't even require the sane ones to move away. The crazies outbreed the sane ones, so the downward spiral gets faster every year.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure, send me the pics pls so I can assess.

Sincerely, Pete O'Phile.

Re:Expensive blackberries

[metlin]

I average about a third of that a day, between work and colleagues as well as friends and family. And if you include quick emails I send out (if it weren't for accountability, they would be text messages), I will probably be up to at least half that number.

Now, understandably, they are teenagers, so that number seems extremely reasonable. I'd have been surprised if it were averaging ~300-500 messages a day, but less than a hundred? Meh. I've sent that many on a busy day.

How is this better...

[Anonymous Coward]

Than keeping people in space?

Re:How is this better...

[Roachie]

Vacuum isn't that interesting.

I have a better idea

[PastBlast]

How about a $3.4M grant researching how universities and colleges abuse the privacy of teens and students?

Re:I have a better idea

[John Napkintosh]

It doesn't take $3.4M to say "their parents consented to it".

Re:I have a better idea

[DanTheStone]

Abuse how? They know what they're getting into. They received the phones with the express condition of the monitoring. And it requires the parents' consent as well as the children's.

Re:I have a better idea

[stephanruby]

And then there's the ethical issue of monitoring those who have not consented to be part of the study, but are friends with those who have.

That's the same issue that most people already have with texts and emails.

If I text you or email you something, I have no idea if you're going to download that message unto your work cell phone, or your work laptop, and besides even if you do own your own cell phone and your own account, I have no guarantee that you won't forward my texts or my emails to others anyway.

Re:I have a better idea

[macwhizkid]

You do know that R01 grants aren't exactly done on a secret handshake agreement, right? There are so many hoops academic researchers have to jump through to get federal funding. And I say that as someone who almost lost his job the day after landing a big grant, because I accidentally kept someone out of the loop. Your grant proposal gets reviewed by your department people, by the IRB committee, by the university's office of research, and by internal counsel (if needed) BEFORE it ever leaves campus. And then it gets reviewed by program officers, and many impartial and often vicious grant reviewers. And let's not forget that NIH grant success rates in many institutes are approaching 10%, so likely it won't matter at all because you won't get funded.

And, shockingly, the grant description has been available at NIH.gov since at least 2009: "An important innovation of this phase of the longitudinal study will be careful assessment of social aggression in online communication by providing adolescents with handheld devices and recording and coding the content of their text messaging, Instant Messaging, and email communication."

You personally may disagree with the decision that the project is ethical, but you can't argue that they weren't honest with everyone about what they set out to do.

Re:I have a better idea

[Sir_Sri]

LIkely this went through layers of reviews of what exactly can and can't be done with and to the data, and explicitly spelling out to the people getting the phones just what they've agreed to.

You can't get this kind of data without 'violating' privacy in some way or another (I use quotes because as long as they've spelled out what exactly they're doing it's not technically a violate0. But that's also what makes it valuable research, you can't know what people are actually using the devices for without asking them to fully tell you. That real information about how devices are actually use is tremendously valuable to all sorts of different groups of people, from the technical side of things to the sociology and history people.

From TFA they seemed to have based their data gathering on SEC rules for gathering data on employee communications and use the same technology. Essentially the students are being given cell phones the way your employer would give you one, and monitored and data aggregated accordingly. They are yearly paid 50 bucks for visits, sign yearly consent forms and are fully aware of what exactly is being tracked, which, admittedly, produces certain biases in the data. They know they're being monitored and that data will be stored forever, but they may not be entirely aware of what that means, but I guess that's the tricky balance, the data isn't any good if they don't behave normally, but then they might not behave normally if you for every text message you insert one reminding them this call is all being recorded.

As per TFA "Underwood got a Federal Certificate of Confidentiality from the NIH, exempting the researchers from having to report any discussion of crimes to authorities. But her team is required to monitor the database for talk of suicide or abuse. On a weekly basis, they do a search with a long list of words, including rape, kill myself, or older man. They’ve had to intervene fewer than 5 times, says Underwood."

Now obviously the researcher in question is a bit naive about just what a public dump of the data could reveal, but then you'd never know any of the stuff this data can tell you without being able to get it.

Re:I have a better idea

[networkBoy]

In which case I see no issue.
I see it in the same light as my typing this reply on my work provided notebook over my work provided network connection on my lunch break. My employer is entitled to:
* look at my browser cache
* look at the proxy logs
* instruct the proxy to cache all content to/from my machine on the net
etc.

These phones are no different. The teens were employed by the study, payment was in the form of an unlimited phone for the duration of employment. The only difference in this case is the whole reason for employment in this case was to allow snooping, as opposed to my employment being to surf the web and look for security related stuff, then apply what I see/learn to our latest products as an attack, and document my success/failure with said attacks.
-nB

Re:I have a better idea

[macwhizkid]

Damn, pasted wrong URL. Hate it when I do that.

http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=8070026&icde=12211723

Re:I have a better idea

[crazyjj]

Or a $3.4 million grant to study how federal grant money is wasted on useless studies.

Re:I have a better idea

[fafaforza]

Doesn't the summary say they weren't exactly told their activity would be monitored?

Re:I have a better idea

[geekoid]

no. It says they aren't reminded.

And that makes sense, you want to trap as natural flow of information as possible.

Re:I have a better idea

[holmedog]

It's a great way to farm karm, though. Unlike this post.

Re:I have a better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Abuse how? They know what they're getting into. They received the phones with the express condition of the monitoring.

As opposed to the rest of us, who receive phones without the "express" condition of monitoring.

Re:I have a better idea

[skine]

How often are you reminded about the terms of the contract that you've signed with you ISP, credit card companies, cell phone provider, Facebook, /., etc.?

These students were reminded annually, which makes the study more upfront than practically any other signed contract.

Poor kids!

[Sensi]

They have to be the coolest kids in school still using an 8730e.

After this study the RIM marketshare is going to drop immensely.

US Government response

[geekmux]

US Government response to their measly $3.4 million dollar program monitoring a tiny fraction of the entire country, as they fire up their $3.4 trillion dollar system...

"Amateurs. You call THAT monitoring? Please..."

It's really amazing the things that can be built when someone else is paying for it...

Re:US Government response

[SJHillman]

Assuming costs increase proportional to the number of people being monitored, $3.4 trillion would pay for monitoring 175 million people - it's also probably safe to assume that even though it's the government, the scale is large enough that the cost per person would go down somewhat. So in the end, your $3.4 trillion estimation is probably spot on for a government monitoring program of the United States' roughly 310 million citizens (including the too young, the too old and the too ill).

Re:US Government response

[XiaoMing]

Well, no.

Economies of scale aside (which would imply order of magnitude 10x gains rather than a 2x gain for the population of this country), you also have to keep in mind that the U.S. Government isn't supplying all of us with top of the line (Remember: 4 years ago, and teens have to be willing to use them) cell phones for 4 years.

And even then, if you do the math, it was a pretty big waste of money just for these 175 teens.

In short, the bigger you go, the more money you blow when it comes to the government and how it does its funding.

And I thought the Blackberry was a leash before...

[SuperKendall]

I used to always think of the Blackberry as a leash watching co-workers that had them. But this takes it to the next level:

When teens have run away from home, the researchers have contacted them on their Blackberries at the behest of their parents, reminding them that "continued access to the Blackberry depends on their parents' continuing to give consent" All runaways have returned home."

Whoa!

It makes you wonder if phase 2 would be something like "we also have the ability to send every SMS from the last two months to your parents".

Don't worry?

[WhatAreYouDoingHere]

When a friend texted one participant about selling drugs, he responded, 'Hey, be careful, the BlackBerry people are watching, but don't worry, they won't tell anyone.'"

Um.. looks like that one slipped out, somehow.

Re:Don't worry?

[geekoid]

It's simple,. why don't people understand it?
YOu ahve the researcher and the database

You have teen A with one of the devices.
You have teen B with a different device
teen B sends a text to Teen A about drugs.

Teen A responds with the watch out message.

The researchers never replied. They didn't tell anyone.

Re:Don't worry?

[Anonymous Coward]

The researchers never replied. They didn't tell anyone.

If the researcher never told anyone, how do we know about it? Also, I'm pretty sure Teen B didn't consent to being monitored. Or more importantly Teen B's parent. Also, it seems that under current law if there's any creativity in Teen B's text (unlikely), then this researcher is violating copyright law.

I'm surprised this passed an ethics review.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not without their knowledge. According to TFA, they meet back up to sign thorough consent forms with their parents each year. It's just not in the front of their minds all the time. (Or, at least, that's the hope.)

Blackberry photo logging?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious how they did that, the native software from Research In Motion doesn't have an option to log photos.

I presume it's with some spyware, but I'd like to know which.

Ha ha ha, privacy.

[LoudMusic]

Ha ha ha, privacy.

That's really all I have to say. Slashdot wanted more text though so here it is.

Obviously they are telling people

[harl]

When a friend texted one participant about selling drugs, he responded, 'Hey, be careful, the BlackBerry people are watching, but don't worry, they won't tell anyone.'"

That proves they are telling people.

Re:Obviously they are telling people

[geekoid]

no, that proves that the person reply to the text told someone.

there are zero

[nimbius]

legal or ethical issues here. corporations do not "directly" ask customers about privacy issues either, instead they just bury them in a sarcophagus of TOS, EULA, Third-Party Licensing egreements, and that long triplicate contract we all sign for cellphone endentured servitude. telecommunications corporations lathed and lacquered the bed upon which customers get fucked, quite some time ago. reacting with consternation to any "violations" you may experience at this point should be a laughable endeavor worthy of public shaming.

Re:there are zero

[Anonymous Coward]

Some states require that both parties be away of any wiretap/recoding being done on a communication. If that law applies to text messages, there are potential legal issues here.

I wonder what the kids will think after all the data gets leaked sometime after the study ends and the researchers start distributing the data for others to study.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a multi-million dollar lawsuit in their future. Spying on people's private data w/o their knowledge sounds like a wet dream for a civil class-action lawyer.

The fuck? I'll let you read THE SUMMARY again... And this time, pay close attention to:

When a friend texted one participant about selling drugs, he responded, 'Hey, be careful, the BlackBerry people are watching, but don't worry, they won't tell anyone.'

Yes. CLEARLY they have no idea the BlackBerry they got for free in exchange for being monitored is being monitored.

Also, check out 'one party consent'. KTHXBYE.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[FreshlyShornBalls]

I see a multi-million dollar lawsuit in their future. Spying on people's private data w/o their knowledge sounds like a wet dream for a civil class-action lawyer.

Did you read the article? Oh....wait....this is Slashdot. Anyway, the private data capturing was NOT w/o their knowledge. It was part of what they agreed to in order to receive a free phone, data plan and unlimited texting.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally, in Texas (where the study took place), only one party has to consent to the recording.

So long as a wire, oral, or electronic communication—including the radio portion of any cordless telephone call—is not recorded for a criminal or tortious purpose, anyone who is a party to the communication, or who has the consent of a party, can lawfully record the communication and disclose its contents.

Texas Penal Code 16.02.

Re:And I thought the Blackberry was a leash before

[JTsyo]

Why would they care if they had run away from home?

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[SJHillman]

Think less "without their knowledge" and more "without constantly reminding them what they were told in the beginning"

It's worth reading the article

[Anonymous Coward]

For gems such as this:

"I'm sure you could write at least 69 academic papers about sexual behavior based on sexts alone. But the academics have written just one paper thus far, mainly focused on their techniques."

Re:It's worth reading the article

[Un pobre guey]

I agree with the gist of the quote, this dataset is a vast goldmine. I assume you are tickled because you read it as:

I'm sure you could write academic "69" papers about sexual behavior based on sexts alone.

Sounds like you just won the stupid lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

With just a bit of Googling about the project and IRB approval, you would see that your statements are incredibly ridiculous and that there is no chance that lawsuit would be filed and allowed to proceed, provided the researchers conducting the study abide by the terms they put forward in the agreement with these minors/their parents and as long as they are not breaking the law, coercing them to continue, etc.

Does it bother anyone else?

[SecurityTheatre]

Does it bother anyone else that, they obtained a waiver to exempt them from reporting ALL illegal activity except for two keywords, which they decided they MUST search for to fulfil legal requirements.

Those keywords were "rape" and "older man".

Really? WTF?

Our society's priorities are fucked.

Re:Does it bother anyone else?

[MarkGriz]

That's your criteria for deciding our priorities are fucked?

How about wasting 3.4 million dollar to study this crap in the first place?

Re:Does it bother anyone else?

[wisnoskij]

Bad and sexist priorities.

Re:Does it bother anyone else?

[mosb1000]

Reporting "older man" is pretty silly, but reporting "rape" makes sense to me. 50% isn't bad when you're talking about the US legal system.

Re:Does it bother anyone else?

[chrismcb]

How about wasting 3.4 million dollar to study this crap in the first place?

Why do you think learning about how teenagers think and interact is a waste of money? There are a lot of bad projects out there, but I don't think this is one of them.

Re:Does it bother anyone else?

[chrismcb]

Does it bother anyone else that, they obtained a waiver to exempt them from reporting ALL illegal activity except for two keywords, which they decided they MUST search for to fulfil legal requirements.

Those keywords were "rape" and "older man".

Let us RTFA shall we?:

But her team is required to monitor the database for talk of suicide or abuse. On a weekly basis, they do a search with a long list of words, including rape, kill myself, or older man. They’ve had to intervene fewer than 5 times, says Underwood.

They search for more than 2 keyphrases, and they only use the phrases to look at the text more closely. How many teenagers do you know of who talk about an "older man?"

Re:Does it bother anyone else?

[MarkGriz]

Perhaps I should clarify. Spending 3.4 million dollars of private research money to study teenager interaction? Fine.
Spending 3.4 million of taxpayer money? Not fine. This should not be the role of government.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[EvilBudMan]

NOTHING is private anymore period. Just simple as that.

no privacy issues here

[Shooter6947]

I guess that I don't understand people's privacy objections here. Those people who got free BlackBerries are well aware of the monitoring. Legally, either party may record a conversation and save it and provide it to whomever they want (Though this varies by state). It's the responsibility of the BlackBerry owner to make sure that their friends know the situation -- and based on the last drug-text, they do.

The bigger question that should be in a /. poll soon, is: "I would give a researcher all of your phone data, text, and other information, in exchange for a free:

(1) dumb phone
(2) BlackBerry
(3) iPhone
(4) RAZR smart phone
(5) CowboyNeal "

Re:no privacy issues here

[SIR_Taco]

I think the problem lies with the headline for the article:
"UT Dallas Professor Captures the Mobile Interactions of 175 Texas Teens"

Makes it sound like the Professor built some sort of tower and/or monitoring device and took the information against the will/knowledge of the Blackberry recipient.

A better (truthful?) headline would have read:
"UT Dallas Professor Studies the Mobile Interactions of 175 Texas Teens"

Re:no privacy issues here

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

They were under 18. Some people that age can foresee consequences and make informed decisions. Many can't.

Their parents also signed the consent forms, but what do you think the odds are that the parents understood what the teens were sending and receiving?

Consent

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. For those of your worrying about this, the governemtn has been monitoring your activities for years without your consent. LOL

wow bad summary.

[Anonymous Coward]

These phones were given to 6th graders, with parental consent for a long term study to monitor the behavior of teens on phone as they age.
There is nothing dirty here. You give someone a black berry, tell them you are going to track everything about it and anonymize out PII (both phone users
AND people they are contacting)
Sounds like science experiment to me.

Re:wow bad summary.

[Un pobre guey]

Aw, you're spoiling it for all the shallow-thinking whiners who aren't paying attention. Frankly, I would love to have a copy of the dataset. Think of the AI chatbot you could build based on the texts alone...

Re:wow bad summary.

[CanHasDIY]

Think of the AI chatbot you could build based on the texts alone...

A chatbot based on the truncated simperings of adolescent narcissists? That's not curious, it's terrifying...

"So, like, OMG, like, I said, like, WTF, and he was all, like, LOL, so I was all like, TLDR, and he was all, like, BRB, so I was all, like, BTWIRLSK8BCDCRCTLA!!!!"


God help us...

Re:wow bad summary.

[Un pobre guey]

Think of it, though. A chatbot communicating with potentially millions of adolescents. Learning even more from them. Talking to them. Getting through to them like no adult could ever imagine. Convincing them of things. Leveraging them. Wielding them.

Re:wow bad summary.

[CanHasDIY]

Think of it, though. A chatbot communicating with potentially millions of adolescents. Learning even more from them. Talking to them. Getting through to them like no adult could ever imagine. Convincing them of things. Leveraging them. Wielding them.

You know, if you're trying to make it sound less terrifying, you're not doing a very good job...

On the other hand, you've given me a great idea for a short story...

Re:wow bad summary.

[Un pobre guey]

You mean like this one?

Re:wow bad summary.

[CanHasDIY]

Not exactly the direction I was thinking of, but interesting concept nonetheless...

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't apply to the Government or the Corporate CEOs who have bought it.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[skine]

Not only did he not read TFA.

GP didn't even read TFS.

Honestly, I don't see how this can be illegal. It's no worse than owning a credit card, being part of a shopping rewards program, or having a facebook profile.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Sir_Sri]

What's without their knowledge? Every year they have to discuss exactly how this goes, and they are using the tracking tools that are legally used on employees as per SEC rules. It's in TFA.

By the time they're in college...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Facebook will be passe'.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[cpu6502]

I didn't see any place in the summary where it said teens consent to having all their phone data recorded. Maybe I skimmed too fast.

Hmmm ...

[gstoddart]

Can a bunch of teenagers legally sign up for something like this?

They can't sign contracts, and they're legally too young to truly be able to consent to something like this. And who knows if their parents truly understand the ramifications of this.

This sounds like it might be in a very grey area, if not outright questionable. Definitely on the creepy side to me.

Re:Hmmm ...

[Un pobre guey]

• a) their parents consent since they are minors
• b) beware of aligning your creepiness criteria with commercial mass media standards

There are vastly creepier and more exploitative things going on than this. War, financial scams, commercially promoted diabetogenic eating habits, deceitful demagoguery for every political persuasion, etc.

Re:Hmmm ...

[chrismcb]

Can a bunch of teenagers legally sign up for something like this?

Considering that they were recruited as 9 year olds, no. Both the kids and their parents agreed to be part of the program.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[cpu6502]

Just re-read the summary. It says nowhere about the teens consenting to being recorded.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[EvilBudMan]

Of course not they are the ones with your private info.

Nice attampte

[geekoid]

at fear mongering and trying to create an issue.

The teen know they are being monitored,
And it's research so it's no legally in issue.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

When a friend texted one participant about selling drugs, he responded, 'Hey, be careful, the BlackBerry people are watching, but don't worry, they won't tell anyone.'

They know it's going on, at the very least, and they seem to be fine with it...

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are blind.

 

The researchers don't 'directly ask' the teens about privacy issues because they don't want to remind them they're being monitored.

Right there, "remind", as in bring up again. Or would you like to argue that the fact that the teens were informed about being monitored, yet still chose to use the phones, does not constitute consent?

Soon to be published ....

[PPH]

.... 175 ways of texting: "Titis or STFU".

Re:And I thought the Blackberry was a leash before

[mosb1000]

Most runaway teens eventually return home, so this isn't surprising at all.

The only issue I have is this:

[Red_Chaos1]

âoeWe look at conversations about sex but we donâ(TM)t open photos for obvious reasons. For all the texting, Iâ(TM)m not sure how much sex stuff theyâ(TM)re actually doing. But weâ(TM)ll ask them in interviews.â

Sticking your head in the sand does not protect you. The images are still there and as TFA brings up, creates the issue of having possible child porn in possession. I'd really like to know how they got around that, and what agreements were made to (presumably) bend the laws to allow it.

Really? BB?

[jimmerz28]

This study should have really been looking at the psychological impact of teens being forced to use BB devices and how they will end up being scarred for life from the ridicule and bullying for not using an iPhone or Android smartphone.

That large funding must really have helped a lot to bribe those teens to use a BlackBerry in the first place...

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[skine]

"The researchers don't 'directly ask' the teens about privacy issues because they don't want to remind them they're being monitored ."

"And then there's the ethical issue of monitoring those who have not consented to be part of the study, but are friends with those who have [consented]."

Emphasis and editing mine.

In the first quote, in order to remind them that they are being monitored, they first have to be informed that they're being monitored.

In the second quote, it makes it clear that the monitoring was done by consent.

Re:And I thought the Blackberry was a leash before

[SuperKendall]

Sure, the result isn't - but the attempt to use the free blackberry plan as a lure back is pretty novel.

I can only think of the SouthPark episode

[Rooked_One]

The Toilet Safety Administration... With the guy... and the lotion... squishahshiquisha... prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt ...... prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt .......... squishahshiquisha

That episode has made this story completely irrelevant to me as I can only think about a guy in that position... gross...

$3.4M here, $3.4M there

[cfulmer]

And pretty soon you're talking about real money. My kids are going to have to pay back $3.4M + interest for this study. Stupid.

Re:$3.4M here, $3.4M there

[Overzeetop]

Exactly. Google is doing this for millions of people on Google Voice, and they're getting ad revenue to boot.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[cpu6502]

The words "The researchers don't directly ask the teens about privacy issues" implies the researchers never asked permission or consent. And at NO point does the shitty summary say that they signed a contract.

So stop calling me an idiot.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[cpu6502]

>>>GP didn't even read TFS.

The words in the summary: "The researchers don't directly ask the teens about privacy issues" imply the researchers never asked permission or consent (kinda like how the police act under the Patriot Act). At no point does the shitty summary say that they signed a contract.

Monitoring friends?

[Anonymous Coward]

And then there's the ethical issue of monitoring those who have not consented to be part of the study, but are friends with those who have.

Thanks nonprofiteer, you've just described facebook.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

To get IRB approval I guarantee that the teens and parents signed a release that stated in no uncertain terms what they would be giving up. Part of the whole informed consent for this type of research.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Chase Husky]

You are an idiot since you apparently can't spend a few seconds Googling that just about every single research endeavor involving monitoring or experimenting with humans must be subject to IRB approval and hence continuous subject consent: http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/archive/irb/irb_chapter3.htm#e2

Re:And I thought the Blackberry was a leash before

[chrismcb]

It makes you wonder if phase 2 would be something like "we also have the ability to send every SMS from the last two months to your parents".

It is reward versus punishment (two sides to the same coin)
There is a difference between "you get to keep your free phone" and "we are going to tell your parents every bad thing you did."

Dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Facebook (and I presume other popular social networks, not to mention sites like pornhub) has a team of people dedicated to screening for child pornography. This is not even a scientific study and does not make for a pedophile, or even constitute a crime for viewing these images.

2) Yes this is probably a huge invasion of privacy, but maybe sometimes volunteering to have your privacy violated by scientists who promise not to tell your girlfriend about that girl you've been texting is ok. Maybe sometimes the name of science is enough to give up your obsession with nobody knowing the details of your stupid menial uninteresting life. Look somebody texted about drugs and didn't get arrested. Holy shit.

3) Fuck you. I opt-in to everything Google wants to know about me. Google has listened to every Voicemail I have received since I got my gv invite. Sure I can never apply for a job at google now but otherwise this has never harmed me and made my life better. Google transcribes my Voicemail and does such a good job that I rarely listen to messages. Sure if I was talking about kiddie porn and terrorism I would ne caught quickly bit then again I am very terrible at being a terrorist and pedophile for using this service in that case. Who loses here? Can anyone give me an example of journalistic freedom being violated? The potential for wrongdoing and wrongdoing are different. A gun has the potential to kill someone but that doesn't mean it will, or regularly does.

Btw sorry for misspellings or grammar, I am on my phone and autocorrect+touchscreen+long rant/=success.

Re:Sounds like the teens just won the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

The words "The researchers don't directly ask the teens about privacy issues" implies the researchers never asked permission or consent.

Jesus Christ, could you be any more of a quote miner? You are intentionally trying to mislead people by leaving off the key part of that sentence which states that it would be a reminder of being monitored.

So stop calling me an idiot.

skine did no such thing (in the above post at least).

Sovereign immunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Government funded research is under the wide umbrella of "sovereign immunity". As such the participants have an expectation to act normally to serve the needs of the research goal. Any abuse of that sovereign immunity should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and the oath of office.

Subject matter immunity to the subjects.

JJ

I worked there for four and a half years

[wolfgoesmoo]

...both before and after the Blackberries were added as part of the large grant. I'm not totally comfortable talking about all of it, but I will mention a couple things.

As far as the size of the grant - imagine paying a cell phone bill for 175 teens for four years and ask yourself where a big chunk of that went.

The participants themselves were made aware of the level of scrutiny their interactions received every year. In addition to gaining parent consent Every Single Year at a yearly data collection visit, we got student assent and made them aware that their stuff was being logged. Because they had already been involved for many years, they were used to the idea of being observed and were comfortable with it.

As far as privacy is concerned, access to raw data is tightly controlled. Before just about anyone got a look at the data, all the identifiers that the investigators could think of (including the identifiers for the teen participants themselves, who are guaranteed a certain amount of anonymity) were stripped from the logs. Although, yes, the communications of other teens who had neither given assent or consent were captured, any time it left the secure archive it was made anonymous. It might be creepy if we knew who they were, but anyone involved in working with the text didn't really have exposure to the teens themselves.

As far as the images are concerned, we didn't archive any multimedia, just the text, at least when I was involved. For precisely the legal reasons everyone has brought up.

Re:I worked there for four and a half years

[wolfgoesmoo]

Although, reading the article that was published, I guess I was wrong about not archiving photos?

The problem with the photos in the archive, if I remember correctly, was that we had hooked up with a company that deals with other companies that are very tightly monitored, so the act of removing anything from the archive is very, very difficult for obvious reasons. Don't want people tampering with the evidence. I know it was discussed, but knowing the PI the way I do, I'm sure the child porn angle was considered and covered legally.

Presumably most of the texts....

[trawg]

...are along the lines of "I wish I had an iPhone instead of this stupid Blackberry"?

Issues of privacy are secondary..

[sonamchauhan]

These are your tax dollars at work

lots of mis-understanding here, naivety even

[Anonymous Coward]

I’m imagining many a privacy scholar shaking his or her head in dismay given how difficult true anonymization is. “Maybe I’m naive,” says Underwood. “I think technology can do anything.”

-- I think she thinks that technology can be used to achieve effective anonymization. But that means *removing data*, which is a judgment question, and what technology is very good at is *defeating anonymization*. Technology is also good at facilitating *unintended uses* of the data, and (mis-)use of technology is also key to breaks-ins and leaks.

I hope she has good crypto and security. Really good.

Best line in the article

[Bigfishbowl]

"Iâ(TM)m sure you could write at least 69 academic papers about sexual behavior based on sexts alone." 6am, and already that made my day.

Blackberries?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Blackberries?

In a follow-up study, the professor plans to buy 175 Colecovisions to study teens' video game habits.

Re:Blackberries?

[Vrtigo1]

Remember this started four years ago. The iPhone had barely been available for a year and Blackberry was still a fairly "good" phone.

Informed Consent

[Anonymous Coward]

Read up on "informed consent".. Heck you can take a nice 2-3 hr online class from NIH that covers all the issues and you get a certificate when you pass all the tests. Such a certificate is typically a requirement for university research on human subjects (which this is). http://phrp.nihtraining.com/users/login.php

As it happens, there's a distinction between "consent" (when the subject grants it, knowing what's going on, risks/benefits/etc) and the combination of parent "permission" and child "assent" (both of which are needed). Example of latter: Parent gives permission to draw blood from toddler, toddler screams at the needle, you have permission but not asset, so you have to abort (or work on convincing the toddler to give assent).

Consent is NOT tied to a specific age.. it's tied more to intellectual capacity and legal constraints. For instance, if you are in a state where 16 year olds can purchase birth control without parental knowledge/permission, then you could set up an survey of birth control practices of 17year olds where all you need is informed consent from the 17 year old subjects, even though they are not adults in a contract law sense.

Is that how it's done now?

[almechist]

Wait, wait... So kids these days routinely take naked pictures of themselves and then send them to themselves??? That has got to be the most perverse method of masturbation I've ever heard of! I suppose sexting oneself could conceivably be seen as a natural outgrowth of the ever-more-pervasive role of the internet in modern sexuality, but still... I find the need to send oneself naughty pictures a bit strange. In fact, behavior like this deserves a name: "auto-erotic techno-narcissistic syndrome" or something. Jeez, in my day we just looked at girly mags.

Doing it wrong

[Vrtigo1]

Assuming an average cell phone plan runs them $75/month (taking into account estimated discounted pricing for an account w/ 175 phones), that's $630k for 4 years of service. If they just offered some type of app people could download to their phones which would allow them to be remotely monitored in exchange for $20/mo, I'm sure they'd get more than 175 people that would be willing to be monitored in exchange for the $20. Still, the same 175 people would only cost $168k over four years.

Better still, market the app to parents of teens and include functionality that would allow the parents to monitor their teens activity online for free. I'm sure you would get thousands upon thousands of parents that would consent to have their teens phone service monitored in exchange for being able to monitor it themselves. That would totally eliminate the cost of providing cell service and make the only costs be the development of the app and the hosting of the servers, so call the app $50k and call the servers $15k/year and then your four year cost is only $110k and you'd have data from thousands if not tens of thousands of teens instead of only 175.