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Should Parents Shun Toys That Track Their Kids? (cbsnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CBS News:
Parents are realizing that it's not just Santa who's keeping tabs on their kids. Many popular high-tech gadgets that may end up being given as holiday presents can actually track, monitor and record children. Because of that, there are some gifts Felicity and Alden Eute won't have under their Christmas tree. Their mother, Emily, has banned all tech gifts this season. "My husband and I both agree kids don't really need to be on technology or on social media," Emily said. "None of these extra gadgets that just expose you to things kids shouldn't be exposed to at their age."
While federal law requires a parent's permission to track and collect data on children under 13, a Federal Trade Commission complaint filed this week alleges widespread violations through apps that "send persistent identifiers to third parties without giving direct notice to parents." That means things like location data, phone numbers and contact information could be exposed, according to Serge Engleman of the International Computer Science Institute. The institute's surveillance system, under the direction of Engleman, collected evidence that is now before the Federal Trade Commission.... It's not only apps where there are potential violations. "Any kind of interconnected robot-type toys...interactive games that you may play online are collecting data," said Scott Pink, a privacy and cybersecurity specialist.
While federal law requires a parent's permission to track and collect data on children under 13, a Federal Trade Commission complaint filed this week alleges widespread violations through apps that "send persistent identifiers to third parties without giving direct notice to parents." That means things like location data, phone numbers and contact information could be exposed, according to Serge Engleman of the International Computer Science Institute. The institute's surveillance system, under the direction of Engleman, collected evidence that is now before the Federal Trade Commission.... It's not only apps where there are potential violations. "Any kind of interconnected robot-type toys...interactive games that you may play online are collecting data," said Scott Pink, a privacy and cybersecurity specialist.
You haven't learned to like Big Brother yet... you likely use a cellphone, right? Why care about other toys?
If you think it's okay for a soulless corporation to have as much information as possible about your child (which they will sell and exploit to the fullest extent) then go ahead and buy them the spy toys. If you think this is abhorrent behavior that should not be supported in any way shape or form then you should not only shun them but condemn them and ensure your friends and relatives understand the problems with these toys.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
and there is not one actual example. Not one.
I mean, fear mongering is fine. But seriously could you not find even ONE example of the abuse of privacy for a kids tech toy?!?!?!?!?! FFS.
Pick up your game click bait shite.
Yes, they should shut them. That is not even the discussion. Nor up for it.
The discussion is, how long the company execs who sell such products should go to prison.
(Or rather, I 'd prefer them getting the choice between a therapy to cure their psychopathy, or them getting expelled from our society. As that's more fair.)
The message format for GPS pings is public knowledge. As is the frequency band.
The issue is that (IIRC?) it is illegal to broadcast on that frequency range.
Make it legal to do that, with some sensible power transmission rate (like, say .01W max) so that any such broadcast is restricted to just a few meters, and incorporate it into some little coin cell powered tags-- and booya, bob's your uncle.
If it's your kid to play with it, then it's a "toy".
If it's it can play with your kids (and your family), then it's not.
A computer (or a smatphone) disguised as a toy with full networking ISN'T A TOY! ... you name it.
It's a computer on the internet with microphones, cameras, GPS, wifi
Go buy dolls, Lego bricks, books (from dead trees), card games and the likes.
Your kids won't feel "different from the others".
It's you that who thinks you kids could feel different.
They are kids, they need real friends, runs and scraped knees.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Fake location data (for testing purposes! Or COURSE!) is incorporated into pretty much every android phone as a developer option. (sadly, you have to push the magic button a bunch of times to turn it on...)
That does not help with IoT devices though.
Thankfully, most IoT devices are in actuality-- just VERY poorly secured Linux boxes, and often times you can get root console access. A little poking, and you can make those things do Whatever the Fuck You Want. Want them to routinely tell the mothership that it should go fuck itself? Sure-- set up a recurring cron job that does exactly that. Black-hole the device right at its interface with a local hosts entry/DNSMasq/Bind9 config? Sure. You can do that too.
The fundamental problem is that you cannot get a defective end user (A user that cannot be made to understand the gravity or consequences of operating a shitty IoT gadget) to stop being a defective end user.
Actually it cited their own article right there in the first paragraph:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-will-stop-selling-connected-toy-filled-with-security-issues/
Which listed a few.
"But in 2017, hackers were able to access CloudPets' database, containing email addresses, passwords and voice recordings from children, "
OK.
We nerds have spent the better part of 20 years TRYING to do exactly that.
The problem, is that what is interesting (and thus obvious) to *US*, is NOT interesting (nor obvious) to THEM.
There is no way to MAKE them interested. Thus, there is NO WAY to "Fix" them.
There are sufficient numbers of them, that like PT Barnum put it, "One is born every minute", and the same business calculus can apply.
So like a smartphone? The one that everyone caries with them today anyway? Truly a horrifying future for the mankind.
Yes, There is more than enough snooping going on already
J Williamson
If the toy can do anything as sophisticated as tracking people, then it is not a toy. Give the kid something that will actually stimulate their minds instead of yet another over-hyped, pre-built, can't-take-apart boring piece of crap.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
As the bishop said to the actress.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Any other questions?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Walk tall, keep your eye on the ball, stick your chest out and always carry a torch.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yes, but also question why they want to do it in the first time.
On the other hand - imagine how fun it would be to hack that system and inject a lot of weird data. "90% of the kids using this toy loves Stalin."
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
They prepare children early for the upcoming and partially already established surveillance society where the only privacy you have is in your head. Well, until they crack that, they are already hard at work on it. The earlier the kids learn that privacy, freedom, individuality and such things are a historic aberration that does not and cannot last and that they need to hide who they are at all times, the better their chances in life.
Yes, this new wave of upcoming authoritarianism and fascism is utterly horrible but so many completely stupid people are cheering it onward that it very likely cannot be stopped. Just as before when such catastrophes happened.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yes.
Perhaps the information collected on children isn't of much interest or value to their parents. If something has no value to you personally then what do you care if someone "exploits" it?
I do think it's problematic that there is little to no disclosure on these tracking schemes, what is done with the date, who it is sold to, or how to get your data permanently removed from the data set. Consumers are unable to make an informed choice right now because of a totally unregulated market for data collection.
Finally, is all this data collection even necessary? Does big data marketing tactics benefit our society in any way? I can't imagine a scenario where it does. If we had no marketing of any kind would people still buy toys? Yes, and that's easily proven. We can make laws to remove behaviors in our society that we find disruptive, harmful, or pointless.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The answer is always the same: It's up to the parent, and regardless of what you may think of them for that decision, it's still their right, until the kid is old enough to be making his or her own money and buying stuff for themselves that they want.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Sorry, the other users have other specialties that *YOU* are poor at. It takes a lot of time and energy to master a specialty, and nobody can master even a large fragment of them. Can you chip a flint arrowhead and bind it to a stick straight enough to fire from a bow? (Using materials that you didn't buy.) That's a relatively simple one that I got close to at one point, but the arrowhead kept cutting the binding. I would have needed to search out some tar or fresh pine resin...which wasn't available where I was. These days even the proper stone isn't available locally (then I used discarded milk bottles, but they don't work anymore since they changed what the bottles are made of).
In the medieval period a blacksmith was expected to grade his own ore, make his own charcoal, and purify his own iron. Can you do that? How about just designing your own CPU? Be detailed enough so that you can tell the chip foundry what to do.
Educating the users is tempting solution, but it's not one that could plausibly work.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
So are you saying that, like me, you don't have a smartphone and refuse to own one under any circumstances? If so then I applaud you, sir, and 100% support you in that. Spread the word, get people off smartphones, encourge them to take back their privacy.
The research shows that children should spend more time with other children being properly socialized and less time paying attention to technology and I for one wholeheartedly agree with that. We seem to have more and more 'awkward penguins' in the world who end up as adults with 'social anxiety' problems and are 'socially avoidant', prefering to stare at a screen instead of seeking out the companionship of other people. So-called 'social media' is not a substitute for being 'actually social'; texting someone on your phone is not a substitute for looking at them across the table from you and having an actual conversation. Children should be running and playing with other children, not staring at screens playing pointless games. Medical research has even shown that childrens brains don't develop properly if they spend too much time interacting with video screens. Do yourselves and your kids a favor, parents: buy your kids toys and games that are oriented towards playing and interacting with other children live and in-person, and not the toy or game itself.
The question should be:
Should anyone be allowed to incorporate tracking / metrics hardware into devices of any kind without full disclosure that is not buried under fifty pages of legalese ?
The answer is no.
Don't follow leaders, a-watch the parking meters.
If you can't separate the technology from how it's being misused/abused, then you have to choose to either be taken advantage of, or discontinue use of the technology in question. Since it is literally impossible to secure a smartphone against the sort of abuses that wireless companies/ISPs, corporations, and governments perpetrate upon them, then you must choose: continue owning/using smartphones, or get rid of it and use something simpler that cannot so easily be exploited. Not that someone like you can understand what I'm talking about, it appears to be beyond your understanding.
Not all of us have a smart phone.. So your statement of "everyone" is false. I actually know a few people who have flip phones. Some of us decided that smart phones aren't a good trade for privacy. Although to be perfectly honest, I never got to the point where I rejected a smart phone for privacy reasons.. I just didn't want to be one of the idiots who act as if their phone is glued to their hand.
I've known more people fired over excessive phone usage at work than people fired for all other reasons combined. It's.. disturbing how many people can't put a phone down long enough to save their job.. And I'm not talking about unreasonable firings over trivial usage.. I'm talking about people fired because by 10:00am they're still fucking around on the phone versus doing any work...
More power to you but get real... Smartphones aren't the problem... Big brother and the companies that do its dirty work are the problem..
Bullshit... Spying/tracking issues aside, I'm seeing people being fired because they can't put those fucking phones down and do some goddamn work. I haven't run any studies or conducted any polls so I have no authority to claim any stats, but I can see what I can see with my own eyes and it's disturbing..
All I can do right now is make some assumptions based on what I read / see and I think a good chunk of the population is highly susceptible to.. I dunno wtf to call it.. Maybe entertainment addiction? They can't go more than 5 minutes without checking facebook or twitter or.. whatever the fuck they are going but the behavior is exactly like I've seen with junkies... It's not a small amount either.. I don't have stats.. But if I had to GUESS off the top of my head.. It's upper 20% or maybe low 30% of the population..
I actually watched a girl get fired when her boss told her put her phone down, finish up her work and .. blah blah blah fuck around on the phone at lunch on her own time.. She picked her phone up before he was finished speaking.. And honestly, I don't think she even realized she was doing it... It was so habitual...
..buy those gadgets exactly _because_ of that feature.
They _want_ to spy on their kids.
Where the fuck are my mod points when I really need them?
Mod this AC up!
Do we need an "Obvious" moderation category?