Facebook requires that its members be at least 13 years old, yet millions of tweens are joining the social networking site. Of the 20 million minors who actively used the site in the past year, 7.5 million–or more than one-third–were younger than 13, according to a Consumer Reports Survey.

Of the parents surveyed, 84 percent said they were aware of their child’s illicit account and 64 percent said they helped their child join the site. The researchers found that parents’ awareness and involvement generally decreased with an increase in age.  While 95% of parents were aware their 10-year-olds had an account, only 82% of parents surveyed knew their 12-year-olds were Facebook members. And 78% of parents helped their 10 year-olds create the account while 76% of parents with 12 years were involved.

This is a dangerous trend. While it is very important for parents to be involved in their children’s social networking activities, parent involvement should be focused on ensuring children are participating in a safe environment. As Facebook has stated many times, their age requirement is in place to protect kids, because Facebook was not designed to be safe for kids under 13.

Check out how we approach safe social networking at WhatsWhat.me.

This month’s new cycles have been abuzz with stories around Internet safety and social networking. Here are a select important few:

Parents Using Social Media To Keep An Eye On Their Kids - According to a new survey by Laptop Magazine, 55 percent of parents are using social media to keep an eye on their kids’ online activities, with 11 percent using it purely to do so. Of the 2,000 parents polled, 15 percent have send Friend Requests to their kids and 4 percent of those requests were rejected. Another 13 percent logged on to friends’ accounts in order to check out what their child is posting on the social networks.

Teachers targeted by cyberbullying pupils and parents - School teachers have been subjected to online abuse and cyberbullying by pupils and parents, a study has found. Parents were responsible for about 25% of the online abuse suffered by teachers, the study found. Research carried out by the University of Plymouth found parents were responsible for a quarter of the abuse suffered by teachers. Nearly 400 teachers nationwide, both primary and secondary, were surveyed for Prof Andy Phippen’s study.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for June 22, 2011

1) Internet Safety Month: A Guide for Educating Kids, Parents – some practical advice for using the news as a means to a conversation with kids about Internet Safety.  Also note the paragraphs near the bottom regarding the Facebook mobile settings.

2) Even tots need to be cyber-savvy: report – From our friends “down under”, Australia researcher recommends providing cyber safety education in pre-schools and kindergarten. It also calls for a student mentoring program in schools.

3) Why some dissatisfied users are shunning Facebook – Amid some stats indicating that Facebook active users numbers are down, could there be some “Facebook fatigue” setting in?

4) What Are Kids Up To Online – a nice summary of a real world circumstance when a teen felt an adult crossed the line. The key was that through an established open dialog, the kid understood to call attention to it.

5) Social network sites fail to protect kids online – Kids’ safety is not just a US based issue. European Commissioner Neelie Kroes has tested the privacy settings on some of the sites developed over there, and has questioned the default settings of the social networks.
We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

This week on the This is What’s What podcast, we are joined for a second time by the Founder and CEO of The Lorenzi Group, Rob Fitzgerald.  Rob joined us for a previous episode discussing the importance of developing strong passwords.

Katie Greer will be back on next week’s episode.  She was spending some time preparing for her presentation at the Internet Safety Symposium, in conjunction with CE Week. We look forward to hearing Katie’s insights into this massive conference taking place in New York from June 20th through 25th.

While we had Rob on the podcast, we thought that it would be beneficial to take on a topic that tends to reside below the surface, but could expose families to huge risks. We discuss peer to peer networking and BitTorrents.

Peer to Peer Filesharing

If there is going to be one single outcome from this conversation with Rob Fitzgerald, it is to make parents aware of this type of activity, and to expose some names and terminology to listen out for.  If there is any hint of this activity taking place on their family computers, parents should investigate it completely.

Kids are attracted to the free digital media that they can acquire through file sharing such as songs, movies, video games, photos, software, anything that can be turned into bits.  The perception is that these items are free for the taking.

Unfortunately, the relationship between the computers that are connected via this arrangement grows exponentially. Once a computer becomes a client, it also becomes a host, providing access to anyone else interested in accessing bits of digital content.

An early program that had massive adoption was the music file sharing service called Napster. Many will remember this service as a target of the record industry for copyright infringement, as there was no control over the digital rights of the content.  It still remains in existence as a paid music subscription, but its initial roots were in distributing and sharing music with others on the web.

Another name that existed in this space was called Limewire, a peer to peer file sharing program that was shut down by court order in 2010.  From anecdotal evidence we learned many years ago that pornographic materials were easily accessible to children through sharing on this service.  Rob even points out that some of the files were given misleading file names to attract unsuspecting downloads. 

A technical aspect of Torrent file sharing, using Rob’s analogy, is that it is like a jigsaw puzzle.  For ease of downloading and bandwidth efficiency, a file is broken up into very tiny pieces and distributed to hosts throughout the massive network of the web. When a client using a torrent program seeks out that content, it gathers the tiny fragments of the content and reassembles them for the user.  A true danger of this scenario is that a family’s PC sitting in the living room, may unknowingly be in possession of a small portion of a very large file of pornographic (or other more dangerous) material.

This is not to say that all peer to peer file sharing and torrents are nefarious or criminal in nature, even the internet itself was built upon the very fundamental concepts of a network of computers sharing data. Large research and database manipulation is best performed when sharing in this matter. However, for most families exposing their children to the wonderful discoveries on the internet, using a P2P network program is probably not necessary.

Another dangerous aspect of using BitTorrent and other file sharing services is the introduction of malware, viruses and trojans onto a user’s computer. A small study indicated that 18% of all executable files found on BitTorrent contained an attached form of malware.

Extending that fact even further, 47% of all zero-day malware is distributed over a torrent. This is the most exploitable type of safety flaw in a computer, as the protection from the malware has yet to be determined.  Zero day refers to the fact that the security flaw has just been discovered, and on that very day it was discovered, bad guys start to take advantage of it to access unprotected computers.  From day zero until the security experts are able to create and distribute software patches to close the vulnerability, the attackers have access to these infected machines.

Rob suggests a great way for parents to determine if there are any peer to peer clients running on their home computer.  He suggests going to the list of programs on the machine, and if you do not know what the program does, simply Google the name for an explanation.

Internet Safety Tip

We did not want to let our weekly tradition of an Internet Safety Tip disappear in Katie’s absence, so we asked Rob to provide a good bit of advice for parents.

He follows on a topic that we linked to in our weekly blog post called Cybersafety in the News.  In the June 15, 2011 post, we linked to an article about job hunting scams and how the promise of finding employment might just be a phishing attack for personal information.

Rob’s advice is for parents of kids who are taking summer jobs. He asks parents to remind their kids not to use the computers at the place of work for personal reasons. Not only is posting to Facebook or MySpace, or accessing personal emails and messaging platforms against company policies, the personal information that gets posted through these corporate networks might get compromised as well. So it is a two way problem that is best avoided entirely.

Great point Rob!

You can find out more information about Rob’s company at TheLorenziGroup.com. He recently has rolled out a very exciting service that can identify hacking anomalies in real time, which could help provide some protection from the major database breaches that have recently been in the headlines.

Finally, we stumble upon a topic that might be of interest to the next generation of computer forensics scientists and engineers.  With the rise of internet connectivity, especially as we become more mobile, the hacking and data security challenges will become even more prevalent. There are opportunities for bright young students to focus on a career path in the computer security fields.

Rob recently heard that one of the “hottest” job titles in the world today is a Data Scientist.  Having the need to analyze and research data is no longer just for the large corporations, it has filtered down to even small to medium sized businesses, so therefore demand for the skills has increased.  Having the knowledge to conduct the analysis and then interpret the data would be a great choice of profession.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Or subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish in between the recordings of the podcast.

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for June 15, 2011

1) CIA Chief Leon Panetta: Cyberattack Could Be ‘Next Pearl Harbor’ – It is unfortunate that this is an accurate assessment made during his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense.

2) Why We Shouldn’t Focus on Students’ “Behaviors” - A thoughtful essay by Alfie Kohn on the difference between molding children through behaviors versus helping children to discover themselves as individuals. Rewarding for positive behaviors diminishes actually their humanness.

3) Negative Online Data Can Be Challenged, at a Price – Most people do not generate enough positive content to push the negative content down in the search results. Firms are now managing the process of cleaning up reputations that have been damaged online.

4) Tech Trends: Danah Boyd Urges Tech Companies to Take On Sexting – When Danah boyd speaks we listen.  She put the challenge out to tech companies as a major NYC conference ..  what happens if you develop a hot new app that gets used for teen sexting?  Probably made a few entrepreneurs squirm in their seats.

5) Online job-hunting scams – As recent graduates pursue that first position, or high school students attempt to grow their savings account with a summer job, phishing scams are chasing them down. Make sure that your kids are not exposing personal information on fake application sites.

We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

A visitor to the Parent’s Resource Center has asked our expert on Internet safety, Katie L. Greer, a specific question regarding WhatsWhat.me protection against adults posing as children, attempting to gain access to the site.

We invite all questions regarding Internet safety, kids social networking, mobile technologies, or any other concern that you might have. Answers will be posted in the PRC so that this important information can be shared.

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What about adults who pretend to be a child (on WhatsWhat.me), and are not . How can you stop them? I want my child to be safe ,and even though this is very safe, just consider the actions.

-Nichole

Nichole,
Welcome to WhatsWhat.me, what a great question and we completely understand your concerns.

WhatsWhat.me is a site for kids ages 7-13 ONLY, and we do not allow any adults on here under any circumstances. There are many other sites out there that claim to be “just for kids” but there’s really no way to tell if an adult is pretending to be a kid or not.

The way we can ensure that no adults are on the site is by our unique log-in process, where we use facial recognition software. What happens is that kids take their pictures with a webcam to log into the site, and have to match it at every log in. If it doesn’t match up (or if an adult is trying to get on as the child), the site will not let them log in.

We have added a 2nd layer of protection as well, by having trained human moderators look at every single log in. So, if an adult should happen to get by the technology, our moderators will catch this, and immediately block them from the site.

With this double-layer of protection, we can ensure that absolutely NO adults are on WhatsWhat.me.

Great question!
Katie Greer

We wanted to share a great comment we received from the mother of a WhatsWhat.me member ….

I think that it is GREAT that you guys have such good security for our children! I only wish that i would’ve known about this site a lot sooner that i did! Thank you so much for keeping our children safe!!!

Sincerely,

Samantha S.

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for June 8, 2011

1) Putting 21st Century Skills to Action – Another post from what is quickly becoming a favorite blog. Things like resourcefulness, collaboration, technology and problem solving are becoming a natural part of student’s lives.

2) Facebook Comments Boot Student From Graduation – St. Augustine College in Raleigh North Carolina got themselves in some hot water recently when they banned a student from participating in graduation, after he wrote on the College’s Facebook page encouraging students to attend a public rally.

3) Man stole nude photos from hacked e-mail accounts – A phishing scam set up by a guy targeting acquaintances. He would get them to divulge email passwords and then scour their files for racy or nude photos.  Beware the phishing scam, and never forget the vulnerabilities of online technology.

4) FaceNiff Hijacks Facebookers Via Android – We have suggested setting profile settings in Facebook to allow access via secure HTTPS access only. Here is a video demonstrating how the FaceNiff application can see anyone’s session via public wifi and an unsecured connection.

5) Smiles Everyone! Facebook Knows What’s Best For You! – We talked about Facial Recognition in a recent This is What’s What podcast, you may find this has been enabled as a default setting for your profile.  Visit your Facebook profile settings to review how you would like this to be used.  This was a feature only available in North America previously, but for our global readers, you may find this has recently been activated.

We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

We take our advice to heart this week on This is What’s What podcast and run through the best practices for setting up a family computer. On the heels of our conversation last week about kids having more time to get online during the summer months, it might be a good time to take stock of the computer situation in every household, making sure that things are safe and supervised.

There is a little bit of self promotion and a look forward to the week ahead, as we consider this episode to be like one giant Internet Safety Tip from Katie Greer, the Director of Internet Safety for What’s What.me.

National Cyber Security Alliance

In case you missed the most recent episode of What’s News, we were privileged to be joined by Aimee Larsen Kirkpatrick. What’s News is a podcast where we conduct interviews with guests about their opinions on raising our kids in a digital age. Aimee is the Director of Communication and Outreach for the National Cyber Security Alliance, an organization dedicated to education and empowerment of digital citizens.

Please give a listen to the podcast, and for more information about the NCSA, visit their web site at http://www.staysafeonline.org.

National PTA Convention

We’re taking a break from podcasting next week, as Katie will be in attendance at the National PTA Convention in Orlando Florida.  She is looking forward to connecting with these vital volunteers who continue to help their school systems fund many of the important initiatives today .. including Internet Safety programs.

The theme of volunteerism is an echo from the conversation with Aimee Kirkpatrick. She mentioned part of their efforts are to develop tools and resources that they can pass off to volunteers, so that they themselves might become valuable resources to their communities. It is highly likely that the person who finds themselves in that volunteer IT role is also a member of the PTA.

Internet Safety Tip

It’s one long safety tip this week, as we take on a project of setting up a computer system specifically for a 5 and almost 3 year old girls.  There is a Dell PC ready to be dedicated solely for the purpose of allowing the girls to get hands on experience interacting with this computing technology. They have had some great experience using an iPad with a touchscreen interface, and the wonderful apps that are available for their age range on the device, but it would not be right to hand off the pc without going through a safety diagnosis with Katie first.

1) The PC is already connected to the household wifi network with password protection.  Katie always advises to contact your ISP for assistance on setting up the secure network.

2) The setup is getting moved out of the office and put into the living room (turns out it has gone into the dining room for even better oversight), so that we can keep an eye on what they are doing, help them with instructions or navigation issues in any way possible, and to immediately set the expectation that they will be using the computer in a very public environment.

3) Set up User Accounts, one for the adults as Admins and one of the girls.  This can be found in the control panel under User Accounts and Family Safety. This provides access to Parental Controls. These controls let you set time limits on computer operations, control over access to games based upon age-ratings, and block access to specific programs.

Here are the links to the About.com parental control tutorials that Katie mentions – Mac Users and for Windows 7 Users.

4) For anti-virus and anti-malware protection this machine has the free version of AVG software. According to PC Magazine, AVG is giving away their $19.95 version of the software for a $0.99 cent donation to the American Red Cross.

With the appropriate settings, this software also protects against pop-ups taking kids off into other directions while they are surfing around.

On another note, for Mac users, the days of feeling completely safe from viruses may be over.  Apple has released a new update to the OS X with instructions on how to remove the Mac Defender malware from your computer.  It was once considered a feature of the Apple operating system that it was safer than other operating systems, but it might just be that the user base was not worthy of the bad guy’s attention.  It seems that we might be coming to a point when any machine is susceptible to poor safety habits.

5) Katie recommends monitoring and filtering software to go above and beyond the typical parental controls of the operating system.  To add the monitoring functionality to the machine, Net Nanny is a good option currently at $39.99.

6) Following on Katie’s Internet Safety tip from last week’s episode of This is What’s What, the Chrome browser bookmark bar will contain all of the girls favorite places to visit so that they can easily access the sites that are most appropriate.

It might also be something to test the size of the browser font setting for easier visuals across the room.

7) The last but most important bit of advice Katie comes with is to have a conversation with the kids. She equates it to the book she is reading about teaching babies how to sleep through the night, it is a deliberate and consistent process. It is not going to happen all at once, but over time, the consistency of message and actions will take hold.

Teachable moments will arise.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Or subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish in between the recordings of the podcast.

A visitor to the Parent’s Resource Center has asked our expert on Internet safety, Katie L. Greer, a specific question regarding WhatsWhat.me use of facial recognition software for authentication purposes.

We invite all questions regarding Internet safety, kids social networking, mobile technologies, or any other concern that you might have. Answers will be posted in the PRC so that this important information can be shared.

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Do you have to put yourself up for a profile picture? I don’t want my kids being seen!

-Annie

Annie,

Thank you for your question! On WhatsWhat.me, we make sure that kids have a bunch of options so that they feel as safe as possible on the site. For profile pictures, kids can choose the following: a.) Not to have one at all (where a default shadow-head is used); b.) Use one of the many cartoon avatars we have available for profile pictures; or c.) Select a picture of themselves to use. We understand that not all kids (and parents) feel comfortable using pictures of themselves on these sites, so we give our members plenty of other options so they don’t have to use them.

In this episode of the What’s News podcast, we are joined by the Communication and Outreach Director for the National Cyber Security Alliance, Aimee Larsen Kirkpatrick. We are very appreciative of Aimee taking the time from her busy schedule to speak about the extraordinary efforts of the NCSA, and about the results of their latest survey.

The NCSA’s mission is “to educate and therefore empower a digital society to use the Internet safely and securely at home, work, and school, protecting the technology individuals’ use, the networks they connect to, and our shared digital assets.”

The organization sees the need for education on the security and protection of our digital assets, but also the need to provide a solid foundation for our children. Kids need to understand how to use this great technology at their disposal, with the end result of producing exemplary digital citizens and workforce contributors. There is a great cultural change required to find the resources, train the teachers and develop the curriculum that is going to help our kids succeed in this new global community.

Teaching safe online behavior cannot be completed delegated to the school systems however, parents are responsible for holding up some part of the bargain.  We discuss this very issue on many episodes of the This is What’s What podcast series, however there are many households in the country that do not have parents who are capable of helping their children navigate these challenging shifts.  The NCSA is helping to provide the tools, lesson plans and teaching materials to integrate into the classroom.

The C-SAVE Program extends beyond providing materials to teachers in the classroom, and reaches out to IT professionals who are acutely aware of the need for preparing our entire population for engaging in online activity. The Cyber Security Awareness Volunteer Education Program establishes that volunteer as a great resource for the community and helps promote corporate responsibility at the grassroots level. 

We invited Aimee to join us to discuss the specific results that were determined by the recently completed survey titled - The State of K-12 Cyberethics, Cybersafety and Cybersecurity Curriculum in the United States.

The categorization of the issue has provided a great framework for the conversation since many distinct elements can be lumped under the common heading of “cyber security”. The NCSA has received great feedback globally on guiding the dialog within these categories.

Cyber Ethics includes elements such as plagiarism, piracy, privacy, hate speech and other aspects of Internet usage that have a somewhat moral component.

Cyber Safety might include social networking, sharing of personal information, predators, location based applications and sexting.

Cyber Security speaks to concerns related to malware, viruses, password protection, identify theft and even National Security.

Certainly, each of these categories can be cross pollinated by specific examples, but it helps to focus attention and guide the conversation when addressing the big picture topic in this way.  We applaud this approach and plan to adopt the language in our own discussions.

A significant result of the survey is the difference of opinion regarding who owns the primary responsibility for teaching these skills.  The teachers and administrators who were surveyed believe that it is the parent’s role, while IT coordinators felt that the school should be responsible.  Aimee believes this stems from the IT coordinator’s total immersion and understanding of the complexity of the safety concerns, and that they are aware of the lack of skill on the part of the household to handle primary responsibility.

There is some tension in the classroom in that teachers are achieving maximum bandwidth already, with all of the targets and mandatory curriculum topics taking up a full work day. Adding more duties, and the training required to effectively teach these new (and fluid) topics, dictates adjustment. Teachers understand the need for incorporating this into the classroom, but are looking for assistance in achieving the goal.

Aimee identifies the fact that the true cultural change will take place as the very youngest students, those who are growing up with this technology completely integrated into their lives, learn and incorporate these behaviors and habits on a consistent basis.  This 21st Century skill set will be hard wired into their consciousness.

This is a global issue, and many countries are looking at the U.S. for guidance since we have been leaders in this technology. We have the opportunity to join with countries as diverse as Egypt, Malaysia and those throughout Europe and the African Continent on a singular mission of making the internet safer for our children. We should not be myopic on this, rather, we should embrace the successes that are achieved elsewhere and expand the dialog to include all concerned global citizens.

Where do we go from here?  Aimee and the NCSA want to reinforce that this must be advanced in an holistic manner, through many efforts including grassroots, professional development, political discourse, and funding, not just through one or two specific initiatives.  If we just take the approach of responding to the “headlines of the moment”, we will end up spinning our wheels and not addressing the issue in a methodically efficient manner.

For access to great resources for parents, teachers, and businesses, visit the website of the National Cyber Security Alliance at StaySafeOnline.org.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

Please subscribe to our This is Whats What podcast via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode, and please give us a rating so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

… or finally, subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish in between the recordings of each podcast.

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for June 2, 2011

1) Online Safety Tips For Kids From Kids – It is encouraging to see some of the answers from these 10 and 11 year olds regarding safety on the Internet.  It is interesting (and obvious) that their most common problem is stumbling upon something when they were searching.

2) The need for an Alternative to Facebook – A lengthy manifesto on why Altly is building a more secure alternative to Facebook.  Altly correctly believes strongly in the right to privacy, personal data control and data portability.

3) ‘Do no harm’: Message to educators, parents — Great, great take from Anne Collier. The Do No Harm meme has been prevalent this past week, but this approach to dealing with technology really rings true.  We have been trying to avoid having a barrage of negative discussions on This is What’s What, so that we don’t push parents into a shell. This article helps reorient the parent / technology dynamic.

4) In their shoes: teachers get taste of cyberbullying – A story out of Australia highlighting a simulation program for educators, who can experience cyberbullying as a way to understand what students are experiencing. Developed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the program called Connect.ed is available to all Australian primary and secondary education teacher.

We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

On this episode of This is What’s What, we talk with Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, Katie Greer, about the recent announcement that Facebook is using PhotoDNA technology that Microsoft has developed in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

On the doorstep of National Internet Safety Month, we talk about more children getting online during the summer recess, plus some clarifying remarks from Mark Zuckerberg regarding kids under 13 on Facebook.

We will also hear a great summer themed Internet Safety Tip from Katie.

Photo DNA

During a Facebook DC Live event, partners from Microsoft, NCMEC and Dartmouth College gathered to promote the fact that Facebook would now be using this sophisticated technology on their photo databases. In 2009, Microsoft Research teamed with Professor Hany Farid from Dartmouth College to develop PhotoDNA, a technology to help identify and remove pornographic images of children from the Internet.

The growth of the Internet has contributed to the ease at which exploitative images can be copied and distributed to other parties. Removing the original source image does nothing to combat the thousands of copied versions still in circulation. Katie relates the story of a woman who had been victimized years ago calling the Attorney’s General office where Katie worked, looking for some resolution to finding and removing images.  At the time there was no solution other than coming across them through investigations. Now there is a technological way to make the daunting task more realistic. This PhotoDNA technology breaks the circle of re-victimizing the children over and over again as the images are circulated on the web.

The technology extracts a “digital signature”, or using the genetics theme a strand of DNA, from the original image and can compare other photographs to determine the likelihood of a match.  Once a match has been identified, the image can be removed and the matter can be turned over to law enforcement professionals.

The technology was donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which since 2002 has reviewed and analyzed over 49 million photographs and videos of child pornography. Microsoft has tested and deployed the technology on Bing, Skydrive and Hotmail, and now can include Facebook, one of the leading photo sharing services in the world.

NOTE: During the podcast recording, we were unclear based upon the documentation whether the statistics quoted were discoveries of images found on Facebook or other resources.  We now have clarification that Microsoft has uncovered 1,000 matches on Skydrive and 1,500 through Bing’s Image Search that would have been undiscovered without the PhotoDNA technology.

The long range goal is to get many more photo sharing services to incorporate this technology, in an attempt to eradicate these heinous images of children that exploit their victims over and over again.

School’s Out

The technology is everywhere, mobility allows for greater connectivity, and the bad guys don’t take the summer off. The use of computers and the internet will most likely rise across the country while the kids are spending time outside of the classroom in the coming months.  Make sure that there have been ground rules set for how computers will be used by each member of the household.

Also, if the family is on the road for a vacation and accessing the internet from free wifi spots along the way, make sure to be connecting to sites via HTTPS settings whenever possible.  Without that secure connection authentication can be intercepted by anyone using that same hotspot.  Here is a good article with more detailed advice for staying safe on public wifi access.

Katie likes to reinforce the “Buddy System” for cross promoting safe internet practices among families. Parents could get together to discuss the expectations for their kids as they visit from house to house, so the computer in one home is not used for disallowed activities at another.  This will also simply generate the conversation that we so often advise. It’s never too early to begin discussing the use of computers and the Internet.

Zuck Wants Kids Under 13

It came as a very big surprise last week when the Founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg was interpreted to have said that he wanted to have kids under 13 years of age allowed to have accounts on his social network.  This of course sent a shockwave through the online safety community, COPPA advocates, and any other concerned citizen who understands the challenges of keeping kids safe on social networks.

However, at the eG8 Conference in France, he was able to clarify his statements and reiterate his point that education is going to be greatly influenced by online social networking, and that children at a young age should be given instruction on how to interact with these tools.  It is not his intention right now to have kids under 13 join Facebook.

Internet Safety Tip

Katie suggests that parents bookmark all of the websites that are appropriate for their kids.  On the household computer that is placed in the living room area, (so that it can be used safely under the watchful eye of careful adults – right?), kids should be able to quickly access the websites that have been agreed upon through browser bookmarks.  As Katie points out, the less need for them to be searching and trying to find things on their own, the less likelihood of stumbling across something they shouldn’t.

Excellent tip!

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Or subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish in between the recordings of the podcast.

A visitor to the Parent’s Resource Center has asked our expert on Internet safety, Katie L. Greer, a specific question regarding monitoring his kids’ cell phone text messaging.

We invite all questions regarding Internet safety, kids social networking, mobile technologies, or any other concern that you might have.  Answers will be posted in the PRC so that this important information can be shared.

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Is there any way to monitor our children’s cell phone texts?  What do you suggest?

– Charles B.

Charles,
It’s really interesting to note how much technology has changed in the past few years, isn’t it? Previously I’d only talk to parents about their Internet and making their home computers safe, now I’ve moved on to talking about monitoring things like cell phones and iPods. I’m happy you asked this question, as I think monitoring your child’s cell phone activity is equally important as monitoring their home computer usage.Depending on the type of cell phone and cell phone service you have, there are certainly ways to do this – some companies and cell phone manufacturers just make it a little easier than others. Depending on the type of phone your child has, there are certain apps that allow you to track your child’s activity on their phone. This includes things like their text messages and Internet usage. If their cell phone offers such an app, I would highly recommend purchasing it. Other phones have settings that allow you to control what they’re allowed to do and block what they’re not allowed to do. For phones that do not have these apps, there is certain software that you can purchase that will do a lot of these things for you; however, this software doesn’t work on all types of phones/models, so it’s important that you do your research. I know the iPhone has really great apps for parents to monitor their child’s activity, along with set parental controls. So while you may not think it’s necessary that your child have an expensive smartphone, it may benefit the both of you for the aforementioned reasons.Secondly, you pay a lot of money a month for your cell phone bills (and your child’s), so call them up and ask what they can do to help make your child’s cell phone use safe. Many companies offer tracking services for a nominal fee, which are well worth it in my opinion. While most companies won’t print you a list of all text messages, you can ask for a detailed bill which will show you text messaging activity (times, numbers). This can also be valuable information to have. For the money I pay a month to these companies, I’d call them up and simply ask them, “My child has a cell phone and I want to make sure they’re safe. What can YOUR company do to help me achieve this?” If they can’t offer anything, switch cell phone companies. There are a lot out there that have very parent-friendly phones and parent-friendly options, so give your money to a business that can help you keep your kids safe.

Great question, thank you!

-Katie Greer

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for May 25, 2011

1) How Well Are Schools Teaching Cyber Safety and Ethics? – Digging deeper into the survey conducted by the National Cyber Safety Alliance, there is a disparity between administrators and teachers as to how well cybersafety is being taught in school.

2) Educators Lack Training; Don’t Teach Online Safety – Related to the same NCSA survey, a terrific infographic demonstrating the need for further training in schools.

3) Facebook DC Live Announcement on Photo DNA partnership – An announcement of the partnership that include NCMEC, Microsoft and Facebook. The outcome will be to scour the photo databases of partner organizations with this sophisticated software, to eliminate child pornography circulated on the web.

4) Sony Reports Another Hacker Attack – It just keeps on happening to Sony.  Services in Greece, Thailand and Indonesia have been compromised, just as the company has begun trying to earn back the trust of its users.

5) Anonymous Assaults: One Family’s Battle With Tween Social Networking Site Formspring – The author explains the near “addiction” that one young girl has with Formspring.  As a teenager with a compelling desire to know what people think, she kept going behind her parent’s back to activate the site.
We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

For this episode of the This is What’s What podcast, we discuss the proposed California legislation SB 242, which contains some provisions dealing with the privacy settings of social networks as well as parent’s rights to oversee the profiles of minors.

We take a look at the pros and cons of using facial recognition software, and how the former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, recently told a London audience that it was a service that Google was “unlikely” to create.

Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, Katie Greer, leaves us with an Internet Safety Tip that addresses establishing some best practices for tagging pictures of family and friends on social networks.

California SB 242

Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett has introduced a bill as the Social Network Privacy Act. The bill addresses two significant issues that we have discussed on this podcast in the past, the difficulty users encounter when trying to set proper privacy controls and the responsibility of parents overseeing their children’s profiles.

The very first aspect of the bill establishes that a new user to a site should have all of the information collected during the registration process default to a setting of private, rather than the current default of public.  It is a common complaint, even from the most informed user of social networks, that it is difficult to understand all of the ramification of the privacy settings.  The bill also insists that the information be presented in “plain language”.

The San Fransisco Chronicle is reporting strong opposition from internet companies. Opposition that includes complaints that the requirements are unworkable. This would be a legitimate complaint for parts of the bill, however as we discuss in the podcast, the change to the default privacy settings is certainly not one of them.

The true challenging aspect of the legislation comes from the portion that attempts to provide some control to parents over the networking actions of their children.  The bill gives parents the right to request the removal of any personally identifiable information, and to have the removal take place within 48 hours.  Failure to knowingly comply would result in a $10,000 fine in each case.

There are so many reasons why this proposal would be considered unworkable, that it calls into question its ability to pass the State Senate General Assembly.  Katie points out the fact that Facebook for example does not have the most responsive customer support system for users (although she mentions that they are quick to respond when contacted in an official capacity from law enforcement). Simultaneous to this bill making headlines, Facebook and others were testifying to the United States Congress on privacy concerns and what came to light is that there are only 100 staff members at Facebook who monitor these types of activities. This does not bode well for 48 hour response.  More importantly, how would Facebook determine exactly who has the right to request takedowns?  Without any form of authentication process in the first place, determining this authority from a broken home or a parent outside the jurisdiction of California would make implementation of this portion of the privacy bill unachievable.

This is an initial volley in the ongoing struggle for consumer protections and the social networks. These companies are built on the basis of mining personal information for economic gain, and in some cases can take advantage of the mass populous’ lack of understanding of the privacy policies.  There needs to be some corporate responsibility as we are now living in an environment where there can be actual harm caused due to lax privacy controls, but where the government oversight comes in is still to be determined.

Facial Recognition Software

We felt that it was a good idea to respond to the use of facial recognition software, particularly as it is used as an authentication feature for WhatsWhat.me, in response to Eric Schmidt’s recent discussion of its capability. His belief, and his previously stated belief, is that it is so accurate it could be used in ways that cross the line of privacy.

WhatsWhat.me uses the accuracy and validity of the software to ensure those who are signing on to the platform are indeed the users who set up the original MeKey for the account.  This provides safety for members, keeps adults from impersonating kids, and is the strongest authentication among social networks vying to be the “Facebook for Kids”.

Facebook and the many photo sharing sites use facial recognition as a feature for tagging and identifying others in the photos you are uploading.  It has become common to get a message with a picture crop asking for the name of that individual.  When that information is entered, the site will comb through its entire database, not just yours, to attempt to attach that name to a face.

A real differentiating factor between other companies using facial recognition and how WhatsWhat.me uses facial recognition is how the pictures are stored and how they are shared.  Under COPPA regulations, personally identifiable information including most certainly pictures, may not be shared with any third parties.

Internet Safety Tip

Katie wants to make sure that you have conversations with your immediate family about how you would like to deal with photo tagging on Facebook.  Do you want your kids names to appear connected to any pictures? If not, an easy solution is to have your family tag an adults name to a kids picture.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Or subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish in between the recordings of the podcast.

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for May 18, 2011

1) Understand The Apps You Use – Facebook has responded to more security leaks from applications using the platform, by developing a Quick Tip sidebar to notify members about the ways in which their applications are using personal data. This sidebar tool appears occasionally as you use the site.

2) Some are proposing ways to “lock down” the internet in Making the Internet Safe for Kids. Services such as Privo age verification and other technological protections such as bio-metric facial recognition, could be considered.  We must also take mobile technologies into account.

3)  Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Applauds New Electronic Privacy Bill – We have discussed on previous issues of This is What’s What podcast that many pieces of legislation need updating to accommodate current technologies. Senator Patrick Leahy has introduced legislation to update the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986.

4) Hawk Drama (& Human Drama) in the Digital Age – An interesting analogy from Anne Collier about the impact of the “observer effect” as it relates to living under the digital microscope.

5) California Bill Would Let Parents Prune Their Kids Facebook Pages – This one will get some future discussion in a podcast, but California is looking to put some strong privacy responsibilities on the backs of social networks and in the hands of parents of minors.

We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

After we get some commentary regarding the Sony Playstation situation out of the way, on this episode of This is What’s What we focus our attention on some noteworthy stories in the Massachusetts area.

Katie discusses her reaction to the announcement that plea deals had been made with the accused bullies in the Phoebe Prince case. There are no judicial guidelines to follow in these “cyber crimes” and we must evaluate and consider the wishes of those directly involved.

We also discuss the latest report regarding underage Facebook users, as well as a judgement against student athletes posting photos to their social networking profiles.

And of course, we get our weekly Internet Safety Tip from Katie Greer, Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me.

Phoebe Prince

The story of Phoebe Prince, a teenager who had recently immigrated from Ireland, received massive news coverage after committing suicide as a result of enduring bullying at the hands of six classmates.  The attention has hopefully come to a close for the family, and mother who has had to suffer.

Since there is no direct precedent for sentencing in these cases, all of the defendants plead guilty to the reduced charges of harassment and were given one year probation and 100 hours of community service. Unfortunately as a society, this is an ambiguous decision when weighing the loss of life versus the punishment received.  In this particular case we have to defer to the wishes of the mother who wanted to avoid the additional trauma of a trial.

Katie senses emotional conflicts ranging from anger that the punishment was not harsh enough, to the realization that these kids will be living with the burden of guilt for the rest of their lives, regardless of the judicial system’s declarations. Hopefully, the overall outcome that is achieved is rehabilitation of the teenagers, and maybe even direct them towards a greater contribution to society.  Phoebe’s mother, and the rest of the prosecution team, hope that this will be the direction that each of the defendants takes.

The other outcome will be to look at legislation for cases of cyberbullying, sexting and even other laws that have not kept up to date with the advent of these types of technology.

Katie’s colleague is heading towards a new position at South Hadley high school where these students attended, and will be inviting her to speak to the student body in the near future.  In trying to speculate on an approach to take with a school that has been closely impacted by cyberbullying, we decided that it is similar to the challenge of preventing drinking and driving.  These students will need to have the message repeated over and over again that cyberbullying must be prevented.

Facebook Age Restriction

Without belaboring the point too many times, we decided that it is important for us, and others like us, to continue pointing out that there are underage children using Facebook on a regular basis.  With or without parent’s consent, over 7.5 million kids under the age of 13 have an account, and of that group 5 million are under the age of 10.

We will continue to beat the drum because the Consumer Reports article, points out that over one million children report being “harassed, threatened or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on the site in the past year.”

The report makes some valuable recommendations for parents on how to deal with this phenomenon, but there must also be some form of general educational messaging that is developed.  There are probably two essential groups of parents, the “I don’t care” if my child is underage and using the social network and the “I don’t understand” social networking and how my child might be hurt.

Constant discussion and education must take place, while also providing alternative solutions. Finally, Facebook must take some responsibility in this campaign.  They can no longer just claim that their simple authentication provides some type of protection or excuses them from a corporate responsibility to monitor the age of users.

Athletes Suspended

A Boston Globe story reports that at Melrose High School, 11 student athletes were suspended from play when Facebook photos were discovered with them in possession of alcohol and tobacco.  This is the second time that photos of students partaking in illegal actions off campus have been presented to school officials.  In the first case, officials could not determine the time frame of the pictures. In this case the students were wearing apparel that had only recently been issued, therefore the offenses unquestionably occurred during a time period (athletic season) when they are governed by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association bylaws.

Are these students being unfairly treated because they are athletes?

Internet Safety Tip

This week, Katie addresses the fact that even good kids can make bad decisions.  It is simply a matter of the maturation process when the brain doesn’t process decision making logically.  Her advice is for parents to get kids comfortable with talking about it at the dinner table.

The fear of “missing out” is keeping kids awake a night while they sneak peaks at their social networks. Schools are asking for parents to put some form of limitation on the hours when computer and phone usage is acceptable because it is literally disrupting sleep.  Schools believe many students are too exhausted to perform well in class.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Or subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish in between the recordings of the podcast.

A visitor to the Parent’s Resource Center has asked our expert on Internet safety, Katie L. Greer, a specific question regarding live communications during online gaming.

We invite all questions regarding Internet safety, kids social networking, mobile technologies, or any other concern that you might have.  Answers will be posted in the PRC so that this important information can be shared.

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We are concerned about our son’s playing video games and talking live with his opponents, whom we don’t know. Are these games safe?

– Hugh S.

Hugh,

You raise a really great question, and I get asked this all the time when presenting. With video games being so popular right now – especially interactive video games – there are a lot of concerns I have when it comes to playing live against other people, while being able to communicate with them. There are games where you can play other people live, which I have no problems with, as long as they are not able to communicate live as well. I always encourage kids to only communicate with people they personally know, and with absolutely no restrictions on this live communicating while playing games, I get extremely nervous about their safety. While some games let you invite people you personally know, most games don’t allow you to keep this network private, so anyone can join in at any time. I’ve been at houses before where these games are being played, and the language that is often used is not at all appropriate for some adults, let alone children. Additionally, it’s very easy for kids to get so caught up in the game they’re playing, that they’ll forget some basic Internet safety rules like protecting personal information, and even good manners. My solution to this is that there are millions of games available out there for kids to play, the majority of which don’t require live communication in order for them to be played. Stick with these games instead. If your child tells you that they can’t play certain games without being able to chat live with their friends, then ask them to play another game. I’m happy with them playing against their friends, but not keen on them communicating live while doing so.

I hope this helps!

-Katie Greer

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for May 10, 2011

1) Brooklyn father sues Facebook for using son’s name in ads – Facebook can integrate the “Like” function of a Page with the ad network presenting clickable marketing messages in the sidebar.  Images of your friends can appear in these ads, which demonstrates the power of the social graph, but does it go too far when younger Facebook members are shown?

2) TalkTalk HomeSafe Blocks BitTorrent Sites – As Katie has mentioned during one of her Internet Safety Tips on This is What’s What, there are tools available at the ISP level that can help to maintain safe connectivity into the home.  This service in the U.K. also blocks BitTorrent sites.

3) Brains work a lot better after rest – No surprise, but our always connected lifestyles are contributing to a lack of sleep in children, and studies indicate it has a negative effect on school work and development.

4) ALERT: Facebook Chat Hijackers Keep Attacking – Beware of who might really be lurking behind that popup chat window on Facebook, and certainly do not click on any links presented there.

We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

We are joined by a special guest on this episode of This is What’s What. Rob Fitzgerald is the President of The Lorenzi Group, a digital forensics and computer security compliance firm.  Katie and I look for his input on the continuing situation regarding the Sony Playstation Network intrusion, which advances into its third week.

We put the situation in the context of families protecting themselves on line, what it means for future adoption on transaction based activities on the web, and how the password protection process should be handled.

As always, we get an Internet Safety Tip from the Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, Katie Greer.

Sony Playstation Hack

The Sony Playstation blog is being used to keep consumers aware of the activities the company is taking to uncover the events that took place on April 19, 2011, and informed about the vulnerability of personal information obtained during the intrusion.

On May 5, Howard Stringer, Sony Corporation Chairman and CEO posted a letter of apology and a statement of confidence that the credit card information that was on file has not been misused, according to their monitoring.  In all of the Sony communications, they have indicated that they acquired the services of multiple digital security firms, so we asked our own computer forensics expert to provide some insights.

As we invite Rob Fitzgerald into the conversation, we warn about the dangers of phishing attacks and “spear-phishing“, preying upon concerned parents determined to find information about the safety of their online accounts.  Sony, and many other major companies clearly state that they will not request user account information and passwords directly through an email.  If this type of request is being made, there is a high risk that it is an attempt to trick recipients into giving up that personal data.

With many major newsworthy events taking place simultaneously, there is a high likelihood that scammers will be using this tactic to pass viruses, trojans and phish for personal information.  Rob points out that Simon Cowell had a security breach that made the news as well. It is a wide ranging issue.

We discuss the disclosure that Sony made regarding a note found inserted into the database, implicating the hacker group Anonymous. The group’s response has been swift and to the point, “Sony is incompetent and we don’t steal credit cards“.

From the proactive side of the scenario, The Lorenzi Group focuses on data security from an internal corporate perspective.  They are seeing many more breaches of security from inside the company firewalls than from external intrusions.   This fits in precisely with the admissions directly from Sony that the vulnerabilities to their Networks were known within the company, and some have speculated that the intrusion is an inside job.

Strong Passwords

The most practical advice from the exposure of this hacking activity is to maintain a proper password regimen in the household.  It is a parent’s responsibility to have an ongoing conversation about password safety, and to not allow the perception of “set it and forget it” to creep in.

One solution that we discussed in our last episode of This is What’s What, Last Pass, coincidentally announced they had their own problems this past week.  One very big distinction is that Last Pass was monitoring their database traffic to the extent that they could see a larger volume moving away from their databases, than the inbound traffic would warrant.  This allowed them the ability to proactively respond, and to “not take any chances”.

We want to try to help the public understand some of the internet terminology that these companies use so that there is a better understanding of exactly what they mean.  In some cases, the technical terminology might be used to blur the reality of a situation in order to provide a false sense of security to the public.  We asked Rob to describe the difference in the terminology that these companies are using, between hashed passwords and encrypted passwords.

Hashed Password (from Webopedia) - An algorithm that turns messages or text into a fixed string of digits, usually for security or data management purposes. The “one way” means that it’s nearly impossible to derive the original text from the string. A one-way hash function is used to create digital signatures, which in turn identify and authenticate the sender and message of a digitally distributed message.

Encrypted Password (from Webopedia) - The translation of data into a secret code. To read an encrypted file, you must have access to a secret key or password that enables you to decrypt it. Unencrypted data is called plain text ; encrypted data is referred to as cipher text.

Internet Safety Tip

Since we have an invited guest on the podcast this week, we asked that Rob to join Katie in offering up a weekly Internet Safety Tip.

Rob believe the best thing for parents to do is to discuss these issues with their kids around the dinner table.  They should be warning their children about spear phishing and making sure that they are not opening emails that have .exe files or other infected attachments, and that they should never give up any personally identifiable information.

Katie suggests talking about the strengths and weaknesses of passwords and how to generate a strong one that will ensure maximum protection.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post.

For parents looking for a safe social networking environment for your kids, we encourage you to check out the serious safety features available as a member of WhatsWhat.me, a safe Facebook for Kids.

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Or subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish in between the recordings of the podcast.

In this episode of the What’s News podcast, we catch up with the Senior Vice President of Campaigns for The Ad Council, Heidi Arthur. This conversation corresponds to the recent announcement that WhatsWhat.me has joined with the Internet Safety Coalition to promote safe and responsible Internet usage.

The Coalition is made up of many of the giants in the internet space including AT&T, Google, IAB, Microsoft, The Wireless Foundation and other industry leaders in online safety.  This initiative is intended to raise kid’s awareness that online actions can have real consequences, by harnessing the collective communication reach of all of these member organizations.

Heidi provides us with some background on the history of the Ad Council, including insights into many of the public service campaigns that have become integral to our American lexicon.  Dating all the way back to the initial campaign to purchase U.S. Savings Bonds, through the Keep America Beautiful campaign, and up to present day messages raising awareness of domestic violence, the Ad Council has had a significant impact on our national conversation.

The Internet Safety Coalition was formed in 2010 as a means for distributing a very specific and targeted message that will speak directly to the growing population of children using the Internet.  The Ad Council is providing well researched direction and creative collateral to each of the Coalition member partners for inclusion in their own communication efforts.

The campaign is Beware What You Share, and is the result of research and testing by advertising agency Merkley+Partners, with creative support from GrapeVine Productions.

This campaign messaging is very consistent with the WhatsWhat.me platform, as the community reiterates the guideline of Think Before You Post throughout.   The Coalition videos and banners will feel right at home, integrated into the content that Members see throughout the platform.

The Coalition makes certain that results are carefully considered as part of the followup analysis of the effort, and have already established a tracking study on sentiments such as “do you think you have control over everything”, “what are the consequences of certain actions online”, “how private is your information” and an overall measure of how well kids understand social sharing.

For parents who are looking to get involved with this effort, Heidi’s advice echoes much of what has been offered by Katie Greer who is the Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me. No matter how difficult or foreign the technology, there is nothing preventing the parent from having conversations about proper values and acceptable social norms, which can then be transfered to the online world.  As Heidi so eloquently puts it, “they are just life’s lessons that are so relevant and applicable to the digital space”.

For more information about the Internet Safety Coalition or if you are interested in becoming a partner, visit the web site at http://www.internetsafetypartners.org/ and be sure to visit the YouTube Channel to see the Beware What You Share video.

For more information about the announcement regarding WhatsWhat.me participating in the Internet Safety Coalition, click on this News Release.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about our conversation, and any particular questions or comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

… and subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish regarding Internet safety and kids only social networking.

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for May 3, 2011

1) Playstation Network Security Update – The official blog for information pertaining to this massive security breach.  If you are one of the 70 million account holders trying to determine your risk, this is the site to watch for the word directly from Sony.

2) Playstation Network Hack Timeline – Here is a rundown on the release of information and disclosure regarding the hack. One key admission directly from the company CIO is that this was “a known vulnerability”.

3) New study finds that age restrictions on social networking sites are not effective – a large survey of 25,000 kids across Europe, shows that age restrictions on social networks are only partially effective.  Not only that, but 25% of the kids on social networks say they have their profiles set to public.

4) Crimeware Kit Emerges for Mac OS X – If you feel that you are protected from malware because you  have a household full of Macs running OS X …. Beware!  There are now reports that viruses, trojans, worms and other nasty bits of malware are getting easier to create via off the shelf “Kits”.

5) Teaching Our Children to be Digital Citizens – valuable thoughts on what it is going to mean to be good citizens of the world, from Director of Consumer Advocacy at AOL, Holly Hunter.

We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

In an effort to educate teens about how to be smart about what they post and share online, WhatsWhat.me – the safe, secure “kids-only” social network — has joined the Ad Council’s new collaborative initiative, the Internet Safety Coalition, to provide research-based messages to teens and their parents.

The collaboration will utilize the collective strengths of corporate marketers, the media, non-profit organizations and foundations to promote safe online and digital practices. Coalition members also include AOL, AT&T, Comcast, Google, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, IBM, Microsoft, MTV Networks, MySpace, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, The New York Times Company, Time Warner, Inc.,Verizon Wireless, The Wireless Foundation and Yahoo! Inc., as well as other leading cybersafety organizations.

Says WhatsWhat.me Founder and CEO, Vincent Cannistraro, “We are thrilled to partner in the Ad Council’s Internet Safety Coalition teaching teens about conscious online behavior. As the ‘kids-only’ social network for 7-13-year-olds – WhatsWhat.me is a natural fit as we created our social network specifically to protect and teach kids positive online behavior in a safe, secure, ‘no bullying allowed’ environment. We believe this coalition is exactly what’s needed to create wide spread awareness of the importance of youth cyber-safe behavior.” Based on quantitative research and feedback from teens, the Ad Council, WhatsWhat.me, and the Internet Safety Coalition members worked with Merkley + Partners to develop a program entitled “Beware What You Share,” which communicates to teens that posting information online isn’t private, and if they wouldn’t broadcast it in real life, then it’s not smart to share it online or digitally, where it can be passed on, and will remain forever.

Creative materials, developed by GrapeVine Productions, have been tested with teens and feature the tagline, “If you wouldn’t wear it, don’t share it.” Materials include online videos, Web banners, logo visuals, brochure templates and social media messaging.

“We know that targeted and consistent communications programs have the power to change attitudes and behaviors regarding a multitude of social issues,” said Peggy Conlon, President & CEO of The Advertising Council. “By providing a range of organizations with research-based messages, this effort will encourage teens to be smart about what they post, which will ultimately help keep our children safer.”

Members will incorporate these messages into their marketing and communications efforts, such as online content andcampaigns, advertising, social media channels, consumer promotions, grassroots programs, collateral materials and at conferences.

The Internet Safety Coalition is funded by AT&T, Google, Interactive Advertising Bureau, Microsoft, and the Wireless Foundation. The Coalition’s effectiveness will be measured by a tracking study and online audit conducted by the Ad Council. For more information about the coalition, visit www.internetsafetypartners.org.

On this episode of This is What’s What, we discuss the ramifications of the Sony Playstation Network security breach, and things that you might want to do to protect yourself if you are one of the 70+ million members of the network.   The suggestions are actually valuable to anyone looking for safe internet safety practices.

We also review a question that Katie has been hearing during her presentations to parents, how to set up household computers and networks to ensure safe surfing for kids.

And of course, we finish up with another relevant Internet Safety Tip of the week from Katie Greer, the Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me.

Playstation Network Breach

Amidst a news outbreak last week regarding some major web services including Reddit, Quora, and Foursquare going offline because of their use of Amazon’s cloud computing AWS Service, there was another web service that went dark as well, Sony’s Playstation Network (and sister service Qriocity). Unfortunately for Sony, it was not a vendor partner misdirecting some database traffic that pulled the plug. In their case, they had to take the network offline because of a detected security breach.

Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media, Patrick Seybold, continues to post updates to the blog about the progress of restoring the network.  At the time of this podcast recording, the company is still in an advisory mode as to ways in which members should be protecting their personal data, potentially extracted from the network.

As we discussed on the podcast, much of the information contained in the database was not encrypted and could therefore be used in criminal actions.   The intruders were able to extract personal information such as name, address, city, state, and security questions as well.  So far there has been no proof of credit card numbers stolen, but the email to all Playstation Members advised vigilance in checking for false charges.

Change your Passwords

If you are like many others on the Internet, you might be using the same UserID and Password combination for Playstation as you are for numerous other sites that you frequent.  It is time to change those passwords, as well as implement a stronger practice for creating and storing your password information.

We decided to take a look at our own options for managing passwords.  Katie is decidedly “old school” and keeps all of her information on paper, stored in a locked drawer.  This is the ultimate in protection from hacking, but makes it a bit more challenging to dream up the random password and making it efficient to access web sites.

I use a service called Last Pass.  This service provides a password “vault” that allows you to randomly generate passwords for every site that you access, store the site information in a secure cloud based application and lets you automatically fill that password from your vault.

There is nothing foolproof about secure passwords, but these practices are better than having some derivation of birthdays, kids names, pets names and sequential numbers.

Another added level of protection that we both use on our bank accounts is called Safepass. Safepass works along with a second level of authentication, like a key word and sitekey, but adds the ability to generate a text message with a random access code that has to be entered before gaining access to the account.

Parental Controls

During many of the speaking engagements that Katie conducts, a common question arises from the parents in the audience .. What is the best way to keep my kids from accessing inappropriate web sites?

Her answer comes in two parts, the first is to follow the step by step instructions for setting up the parental controls on each device in the house.  Here are tutorials on setting up a Mac and a Windows based machine.

Her second piece of advice concerns the Internet Service Provider (ISP) providing access to the house. In her area she is familiar with Comcast and Verizon FiOS and has had quality conversations with them regarding their practices.  In fact, she has walked through the setup with their customer service representatives, who are willing to take the time to make sure the setup is done properly.

Although these might not be the service providers that you have in your area, it makes good business sense for these companies to keep you informed about the protections you have available.  Contact your provider to see about the options on your service.

Internet Safety Tip

Katie’s internet safety tip of the week is to contact the ISP provider where you spend large amounts of money each month, and have them go through the controls that are available for limiting the accessibility of the web.  By using login accounts, parental controls and the ISP’s, each user in the house should have appropriate levels of access.

This does not replace the parental responsibilities, but it is a good way to ensure that some safeguards are in place.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Or subscribe via the RSS link, so that you receive all of the other terrific content that we publish in between the recordings of the podcast.

A visitor to the Parent’s Resource Center has asked our expert on Internet safety, Katie L. Greer, a specific question regarding keeping a laptop safe.

We invite all questions regarding Internet safety, kids social networking, mobile technologies, or any other concern that you might have.  Answers will be posted in the PRC so that this important information can be shared.

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The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for April 27, 2011:

1) Why Parents Should Both Monitor And Empower Kids Using Social Media – Parents need to understand that social media is not going away, so they need to monitor what their kids are doing online … but consider the fantastic opportunity for children to learn self-expression and to spark creativity!

2) In Online Games, a Path to Young Consumers – Details the deeper integration kid focused marketing has taken. We are beyond the barrage of cereal ads appearing on Saturday morning cartoons. On television there are some regulations that ensure a clear delineation between programming and commercial, online apps, games and web sites do not have that same barrier.

3) Facebook called to do more to prevent suicides signaled by users – Internet safety expert Hemu Nigam calls out Facebook for not having rapid response features in place for reporting “self harm” messages.  Facebook spokesperson Marian Heath explains a reporting functionality that I personally cannot locate on my Facebook wall.

4) Silicon Sisters Launches First iOS Game, Made By Women For Girls – Although gaming may be stereotypically considered a male dominated activity, statistics prove otherwise.  This developer is launching a game that is more focused on social activities than the standard role playing fare.

5) The Top 5 Safe Search Engines for Kids – Do you have different search engines for your kids? Or do you simply have Safe Search turned on at Google?

We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me, or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

On this episode of This is What’s What, we discuss a personal story about the picture hosting web service Flickr.  We discuss the “social” elements built into essentially every online web site, and try to determine the rationale behind Flickr friending.  We also discuss some photo recognition features that they have.

There was some big news about Apple mobile devices tracking user’s whereabouts in the news, and we couple that with some advice on using the Android marketplace.

Plus we can’t help but bring up the latest updates at Facebook, and as always, we get an Internet Safety tip from the Director of Internet Safety at WhatsWhat.me, Katie L. Greer.

Flickr.com

Based upon personal experience, we have discovered some interesting aspects of the photo sharing web site Flickr. Flickr was launched in 2004, and was acquired by Yahoo to much fanfare in 2005 for $35 million. To date, they claim to host more than 5 billion images.

The service offers an upgraded Pro account as a premium service to their free model.  The Pro option provides unlimited file storage for users with numerous photography and video files that they wish to upload.  Both services enable users to create contacts, join groups, and interact in ways similar to many social networks.

As we discovered, there is the usual need to correctly indicate privacy settings in the Account Preferences.  Since this service is being used for uploading family photos, it is imperative to keep kid’s images for only the intended audience, not the entire public community.

This personal project also brought out a recognition that Flickr uses some sort of filter or recognition software that will remove any photos containing nudity, even of the children of the account holder.  As many parents know, there are times when kids will be very excited to run around free of the burden of clothing, and it is a great moment to capture on film.  In the past, those photos might sit in a photo album only to appear at the most humiliating moment.  Currently, with photo storage services having to be extremely careful about child pornography and inappropriate content , they will use sophisticated software to identify and remove the photos.

Katie explains that it can be algorithmically based upon an identified percentage of visible skin. WhatsWhat.me prohibits photos with kids in bathing suits.

It is easy to understand the concerns that Flickr would have regarding this prohibition, there is no authentication of the account holder as the parent of the child appearing in the photo.  Uploading the photos to the site was an innocent mistake, and Katie assures that there are legal protections in place for parents who happen to have these types of images.

Apple Tracking

It was unveiled that researchers have discovered an unencrypted file on mobile Apple devices such as the iPhone and iPad 3G, that contains a list of all of the locations that the device has traveled since the launch of the iOS4 operating system last Spring.  The researchers built their own application as a way of demonstrating the power of the information contained in the file.

As many will recognize, mobile devices are constantly tracking their location and many of the great apps that are available are using GPS or cell tower triangulation as a way to pinpoint themselves. Why is this Apple revelation so astounding?  The location information contained on typical mobile devices is only available to law enforcement via subpoena to the cell phone providers.  The information that is collected in this file called consolidated.db can be extracted with some basic computer skills and can be available to a jealous spouse, crafty thief or other unwanted intruders.

The simplest protection is to encrypt the device backup and delete unencrypted files until Apple publicly addresses the concerns and provides additional advice.

Android Marketplace

We have talked quite a bit about mobile apps on This is What’s What, but we have failed to give enough attention to the difference between the Apple marketplace versus the Android marketplace.  Quite simply, the appearance of an application on the iTunes store means that it has gone through a vetting process that provides a bit of protection against malware.  The Android marketplace is an open source environment that provides no process for ensuring devices that download the application are safe.

It was recently released that the popular VOIP application Skype discovered a security risk that allowed third party apps to access contact information, profile and instant message histories.

These security concerns are legitimate for a global audience as it comes on the heels of projections that the Android operating system will power over 45% of smartphones by 2015 compared to just over 15% for the iOS in the iPhone.

Online Dating Web Sites

Although not exactly a safety concern for the K – 12 crowd that Katie speaks to on a regular basis, it is a social networking safety topic that has been in the news.  Match.com has seen some reports of sex offenders using the site to solicit potential targets, and they have recently announced that they will be doing more vigorous screening of members in the future.

Texas is proposing a law that would require online dating services to clearly disclose to customers whether they conduct criminal background checks on members before allowing them to contact others on the site.

Facebook Security Center

Using a Facebook Live event as a launching pad, the new Safety Center was unveiled. The Center contains tools and articles directed at parents, teens, teachers and even law enforcement officials. The initiative came about as a result of the Obama White House Conference on Cyberbullying Prevention.

A couple of key features from the announcement include a new Report It link now on Profiles. This is a welcome addition since the proliferation on Facebook of imposter profiles used for purposes of harrassment and cyberbullying. They also announced a two factor authentication process for an added layer of security on the site.

Internet Safety Tip

Take some time to inventory the social networking sites that you are using, learn their policies and determine the best methods for protecting your privacy.  If you have any particular questions regarding a specific site, submit a question via the Ask The Expert form on the PRC.WhatsWhat.me.

_________________________________________________________________________

We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

A visitor to the Parent’s Resource Center has asked our expert on Internet safety, Katie L. Greer, a specific question regarding how to handle possible late night text messaging.

We invite all questions regarding Internet safety, kids social networking, mobile technologies, or any other concern that you might have.  Answers will be posted in the PRC so that this important information can be shared.

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A visitor to the Parent’s Resource Center has asked our expert on Internet safety, Katie L. Greer, a specific question regarding how to handle possible late night text messaging.

We invite all questions regarding Internet safety, kids social networking, mobile technologies, or any other concern that you might have.  Answers will be posted in the PRC so that this important information can be shared.

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My 14-yr-old son insists on “charging” his cell phone in his room at night, and we are concerned that he’s texting with friends all night and not getting enough sleep.    What do you suggest?
– John W.

John,

This is definitely a concern I hear from parents all the time, so you’re not alone! My recommendation is keeping a charging station for your entire family in a common area for the reasons you mentioned – and more. I once spoke with a mother in Texas who was having the same issue, so she went out and bought a charging station that had multiple outlets for multiple phones. Her rule was that everybody in the house (including herself and her husband) had to leave their phones charging in this docking station after 9PM. This ensured that her kids weren’t on their phones texting/chatting until the wee hours of the morning, and also helped her and her husband leave answering work-related emails for the morning. She said she got some resistance at first, but made it clear that cell phones are a privilege, and with privileges sometimes come rules. After implementing this new rule in her house, she said she’s had happier kids that are more well rested, and she and her husband have benefitted too! Making it a family rule as opposed to just a rule for the kids can make enforcing it in your household much easier.

Good luck, and please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.
-Katie Greer

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for April 20, 2011:

1) Privacy, Facebook, politics and kids – The great Cory Doctorow with proper advice for securing privacy on the internet, don’t spy on them, teach them the value of privacy.

2) What are developing countries doing to help keep kids safe online? – This article details how the FOSI Global Resource and Information Directory (GRID) is “designed to create a single, factual and up-to-date source for governments, industry, lawyers, academics, educationalists and all those dedicated to making the Internet a safer and better place”.

3) With Court Order, FBI Hijacks ‘Coreflood’ Botnet, Sends Kill Signal – The Justice Department received permission from a federal judge to seize control of a criminal botnot and to send a disabling command to the infected machines.

4) The New 3 E’s of Education: Enabled, Engaged and Empowered How Today’s Students are Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Learning – the Project Tomorrow CEO presented this report to Congress, based upon findings from the Speak Up 2010 report and panel discussions.

5) ‘The right to disappear’: Future of privacy in Europe? – The EU tries to strengthen privacy policy even further, but where is the balance between privacy and freedom of speach?

We would love your feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Would you like to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me,  or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

We start out this episode of This is What’s What by putting Katie L. Greer, Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, to the test. After the recent article about the actions of school administrators at Old Saybrook High School in Connecticut, we get Katie to weigh in.

We break down the current definition of the term Cyberbullying, what it means to students and the general population as it is presented by the mass media.

And of course, we get a weekly Internet Safety Tip from Katie.

Old Saybrook High School

At this Connecticut High School, administrators wanted to make an impact by demonstrating the ability to easily find personal photos of students on the social networking giant, Facebook.  An assembly of freshman was gathered to hear about the concerns of privacy on the Internet, and ways to ensure online safety.  Once the presentation began, students were shocked to see pictures of themselves appearing on the big screens. The students became outraged and began to post their angry statements on Twitter and Facebook itself.

It is easy to side with the student’s feeling of being singled out for ridicule, especially at the sensitive age of high school freshmen, but as Katie points out during this podcast, the message becomes loud and clear when it pertains directly to them.  Many students consider hypothetical scenarios or even real cases from remote places as unrelated to their own situation.  It was this piece of advice early in her career that helped her pinpoint messaging that would hit home with students.

This situation reminded Katie of her experience on Martha’s Vineyard.  The small Massachusetts community was in an uproar over the local newspaper publishing student photos from Facebook.  The paper was using the same technique as Old Saybrook High School, they did nothing illegal and simply accessed the public photos available to the more than 600 million members of Facebook.  When Katie was brought into the panel discussion, she redirected the focus of the conversation away from the newspaper and towards the true issue, the fact that privacy settings were not in place to prevent these images from being discovered.

It would be interesting to determine some measurable impact of these types of presentations, real versus hypothetical, but Katie believes it is the best way to make sure students hear the realties of their digital footprints.

Cyberbullying

We have spent a number of episodes discussing cyberbullying in terms of new legislation, a White House Conference, and other aspects of the torture that kids, especially “tweens”, endure.  We have not however taken the time to really identify the components that make up cyberbullying nor defined what the term really means.

Unfortunately for Katie, she is somewhat stuck with using the label of cyberbullying because it is prevalent in society. It does however garner eye rolls from students as she introduces the topic.  ”Cyber” was a term that became a popular prefix in the 1980′s pertaining to computer related terminology or eventually the Internet, commonly referred to as “cyberspace“. The term was used in the William Gibson novel, Neuromancer but has subsequently become fairly hollow.

To define the enormous problem of Internet safety, which contains elements of criminal activity and privacy concerns, and can lead to even more nefarious activities, with one catchphrase of cyberbullying can be a pointless task. This is especially true if the targets of much (but not all) of that activity does not relate to the word.  Words are important, and we don’t have the answer, but we would love to have some dialog in the comments regarding better options for defining a more current and effective word for Cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying comes in some distinct classifications. There are the directed forms of attack, things like emails, instant messages, text messages, even phone calls.  The bully directly communicates with the intended target.   There is also the passive approach to bullying such as setting up a Facebook page to attract others to join, purposely re-distributing personal communications from the target throughout a school or community, or even impersonating the target and creating false controversies.  Cases of bullying can be traced to some of these forms of harassment.

The tools in use are no longer just the computer connected to the internet, ubiquitous use of mobile devices such as cell phones and tablets have opened up many more opportunities for this behavior.

There is a lot of dialog taking place in State Capitals across the country, which is good, and it is going to take much more dialog in the home to get to the root of this problem.

Internet Safety Tip

Make sure that all of the devices that are now in the hands of kids are considered as part of the cyberbullying problem. Keep them safe and secure, review the activity that is taking place on them and be well versed in how they are used.  Ignorance of the technology is not an option.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered in its entirety via traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for all kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for April 13, 2011:

1) What Do Kids Say is the Biggest Obstacle to Technology at School? – “Despite the national emphasis on increased use of digital tools and online learning, students say they continue to be frustrated by their access to technology at school. When a similar survey was undertaken five years ago, students’ number one complaint was the speed of Internet access at school. Now, they point instead to school filters and firewalls.”

2) Five Easy Pieces of Online Identity – this article from one of the founders of Twitter addresses a topic that we discussed in our last This is What’s What podcast, the issue of defining an authentic online profile and the companies interested in providing that authentication.

3) Old Saybrook High School makes privacy point – It might not be the recommended approach, but high school administrators accessed social networks to download and use actual student photos in an online safety presentation.

4) Starting a Conversation with Your Kids: Critical Thinking Online - Nancy Gifford, an attorney in the Center for Medicare Advocacy’s Connecticut office addresses a key learning outcome in children’s education, the ability to discern and validate facts.

5) Students Allay Parents’ Fears About Cyber Dangers – From Australia, these kids have it right.  Parents need to become more cyber savvy in order to fully understand the dangers of online activity.

Please give us some feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Did you want to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me,  or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

On this episode of This is What’s What, Katie Greer the Director of Internet Safety for WhatWhat.me reviews more web sites and mobile applications that pose levels of security risk.  This is a followup to the conversation last week when we discussed some of the more well known places.  These are some that you might not have heard about, but will find require some attention.

We top off the program with another one of Katie’s Internet Safety Tips.

Chatroulette

Chatroulette is a video chat service that allows users from around the globe to connect with one another.  There are no age restrictions, although their terms of service insist that you must be 18 years of age to access the site. Unfortunately, without any authentication procedures to determine if someone is of age, all it takes is a webcam and a browser to begin texting, chatting and even seeing others who are logged in.

Although the service might be designed to bring simple communications to a global market, the company is based outside of the U.S., and has very little control over the inappropriate content that appears on the site.

This is one of those Internet phenomenons that Katie pre-qualifies for her school presentations.  She will discuss Chatroulette with the parent’s group at every event, but if the school administrator believes that the service has not caught on yet, she will leave it out, fearing the students will run immediately to see the site.

The recommendation for all parents is to put it on the blacklist in any parental controls you may have.  This content on this site is not appropriate for any household with children.

Formspring

Formspring is a question and answer platform where kids are inadvertently opening themselves up to a variety of forms of bullying.  The site claims it is for letting you “share personal and interesting responses with people you know.”  The “people you know” part might be a little loose in interpretation as you can publicize a Formspring profile and invite anyone to participate, but in many cases the problem really does come from personal contacts.

In some cases users will use one of the innocent questions provided by the site, such as “who is the funniest person you know” but many times the user will seek out questions to answer from visitors.  Early after the launch of Formspring it was not uncommon to see a Twitter post that read “Ask me anything” with a link to a Formspring page.  It’s these open questions that lead to insults, bullying, even dragging other people into the conversation.  In many cases from Anonymous posters.

The site has a 13 year old requirement in the terms of service, and Katie recommends having a conversation about it at home if there is any hint that this service is being used.  The conversation should be along the lines of not giving out personal information, and that the answers being given might be trying to be hurtful on purpose.

Foursquare

There are many mobile services under the heading of location based applications.  These services include Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla and Google Latitude to name just the big players. These sites all use a form of gaming, rewards and incentives as an enticement for participating in their social network.

The most prominent one is Foursquare, with Facebook Places gaining traction quickly.  By checking-in to a place using Foursquare, the user is broadcasting their location to not only their Foursquare profile, but most likely their Facebook page and Twitter account.  This safety factor alone requires some parental supervision.  Here is one of many news reports regarding a burglary directly related to a Facebook status update.

Location based applications use badges and recognition to ensure that the users participate on a frequent basis, and offer discounts and coupons for increased interaction.  They also use GPS or cell tower triangulation to pinpoint the location of the mobile device and provide marketers with the ability to target nearby deals. This information can also be included in a status update.

Make sure to check the application settings for any of these services to that it must ask permission to use the device location.

Social Games

Social games have elevated beyond just gaming devices like XBox and PS3, nor are they simply the games you might encounter on Facebook, such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. These games are connecting players from around the world via computers, laptops and mobile devices.

The concern is simply to ensure an understanding of the information that is being collected during the use of the games, where the information is distributed, and how far into a user’s profile can these game developers access.  This is a major business for these companies, and providing a form of entertainment is not how they make their revenue.  The player is simply the product, not vice versa.  Demographic and psychographic data is compiled and analyzed for trends and opportunities.  Parental controls should be instituted to ensure that no personal data can be inadvertently captured.

Internet Safety Tip

Katie recommends taking a look at the privacy settings on applications in Facebook.  She personally blocks the games as well as invitations for games.  At the bottom of the Privacy settings page on your personal account, there is a link to Apps and Websites, which takes you to another page for customizing how every app interacts with your profile.

She also wants to make sure that you do not allow any Facebook Friends to check you in at a location through Facebook Places.  To find that setting, you must visit the Privacy Settings > Customized Settings page in your account.  Scroll down to the heading “Things Others Share” and find the line for Friends Can Check me Into Places.  This should be disabled.

We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is What’s What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

The Cyber Safety News Links that you should know about.  Cybersafety is a global issue that may not get covered entirely in traditional media sources, so some of these links might be to resources outside of the United States.  If we all engage in the dialog, we can ensure greater safety for our kids on the Internet.

Kids online safety news we have curated for April 6, 2011:

1) Research finds young people smarter and safer online than adults assume. The Australian YAW-CRC looks at what kids can show adults on the topic.

2) YouTube fame a double-edged sword. The Sunday Herald Sun wonders if it’s fame or infamy.

3) Apps let parents monitor teen driving.  Technology devices are helping to keep teen divers safe.

4) Texas legislators attempt to amend sexting laws. Texas joins 16 other states in introducing bills to address sexting by minors.

Please give us some feedback.  Do you have a story that we should have included?  Did you want to participate in the conversation?  Please drop us a note in the comments section, on our Facebook Page, email us at Feedback@whatswhat.me,  or send a brief message to our Twitter Profile.

A visitor to the Parent’s Resource Center of has asked our expert on Internet safety, Katie L. Greer, a specific question regarding the services of WhatsWhat.me.

We invite all questions regarding Internet safety, kids social networking, mobile technologies, or any other concern that you might have.  Answers will be posted in the PRC so that this important information can be shared.

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Can everybody see my childs profile or can my childs friends only see my childs profile?

-Melissa

On this episode of This is What’s What, we make sure to focus attention on some of the other social networks that are available to kids beyond Facebook. As current events and announcements have drawn our attention to the global giant, we felt that we should assist parents in understanding the other sites where kids are connecting online.

To be clear, we are not discussing kids’ social networks that are specifically targeting the younger audience, we are doing a rundown of the largest social networks where kids can set up profiles, and could possibly circumvent terms of service regarding age restrictions.

And as always, we get an Internet Safety Tip of the Week from Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, Katie L. Greer.

MySpace

Once the powerhouse of social networking for kids, MySpace has lost its prominence with the emergence of Facebook. Comscore has estimated that is has fallen from 95 million unique users to 63 million unique users over the last twelve months.  It currently has a very specific niche for bands and music discovery.

The site maintains similar terms of service as Facebook regarding underage profiles, but conducts no additional authentication for proof of age.  Privacy concerns exist in that personal information can be listed in a profile, then friending relationships could expose that data to strangers.

Twitter

Twitter is a simple communication platform that allows users to post updates in 140 characters or less. There are no restrictions or age verifications, and the service includes the ability to display location as part of the messages posted to the site.

For some measure of privacy, a user can select the option of protecting their tweets and approving all who wish to follow the account. A user can also actively block specific accounts from seeing their updates.  The standard default of public tweets means posts will be viewed by all who are following the account, as well as in the public stream.

Twitter has listed 175 million registered users on their About page, but analysts speculate that somewhere between 12 and 56 million accounts are truly active.  With 460,000 new accounts registered in the month of March.

Google Buzz

Google Buzz was launched by the search company as an attempt to capitalize on social networking aspects of the numerous services that they provide users.  Users could automatically integrate services such as GMail, Picasa, Google Reader and many others, with the intention of generating conversation.

Similar to Twitter, this service creates a stream of updates available to any followers.

When the service launched in 2010, some user’s contacts were inadvertently exposed to others on the service. Google has recently settled a grievance filed by the FTC, and must adhere to review of their privacy policies.  Also, the Terms of Service for Google stipulate that the account holder is “of legal age to form a binding contract with Google”.

YouTube

Ah, well as things happen quickly around the web, and we have to update our YouTube stat that we quoted in the podcast. Previously, the volume of video uploaded every minute to YouTube averaged out to 24 hours.  The Official YouTube blog has upped that statistic to reflect a new high of 35 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.

One of the concerns that parents should be aware of is the advertising that is embedded into videos. Although it might not stay posted for long, an innocent video with a kid-friendly subject may include embedded links to inappropriate content.  Viewers will also see “Suggested Videos” that are presented based upon an algorithmic calculation, which may or may not be a video that a parent would want their children to see.

There are privacy settings within the Account Profile page where information such as age, location and gender can be displayed as well as a setting to allow friends and others to locate the profile with only Gmail account information.

There is a setting for Safe Search that can be enabled for YouTube as well as any other Google property. App makers for the iPhone and other devices are also developing safer ways to browse the site.  A couple of apps for this functionality include TinyTube and Mobicip.

Other Global Social Networks

hi5 is a global social networking community most popular in Latin America.

Bebo is another US owned social network, with a wide audience particularly in the U.K.

Baidu is a Chinese language social network with over 100 million users

Qzone was once considered the world’s largest social network with over 200 million users

Internet Safety Tips

In keeping with our subject matter, this week’s Internet Safety Tip is to use Parental Controls to block the web sites that you do not want in your home.  Whether a Windows or a Mac computer, there are controls in the operating system which allow you to input specific web sites.

Another way to set restrictions on children accessing the internet is to contact your service provider.

Note that all of these tools are here to assist, and not replace the parent’s role in the

We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is What’s What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

On this latest edition of the This is What’s What podcast, we lay the foundation for any conversation about the internet, with a statistical snapshot of the current generation growing up with kids’ social networks.

Also, there is more news about the efforts taking place within Facebook regarding underage user accounts, and dive deeper into the impact of privacy settings on content posted to the global network.

And as always, we end with Katie’s Internet Safety Tip of the week.

Always Connected: The New Digital Media Habits of Young Children

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop has released their findings based upon studies from 2006 through 2010.  The report aims to analyze the digital media habits of the 50 million Americans age 11 and under. Although this report may not uncover any results that we don’t already intuitively understand, in an age when technology change is a constant, we must stay focused on the realities of our children’s environment.  This report helps to call attention to those realities.

Here are some findings of the report.

> “The data paints a picture of a generation whose early years are studded with gadgets and media technologies that are rapidly integrating into daily lives across the income spectrum.”

> Children shift their digital media habits at around the age of 8, from simply television to a world beyond that includes mobile devices, game consoles and videos.

> Each day, school aged children pack 8 hours of media exposure into 5.5 hours of time.

> The digital divide still exists, however web access is becoming more prevalent in all media devices and more available to lower income households.  Complicating the matter is the lack of parental supervision and guidance for lower income children, creating the possibility for exposure to dangerous situations.

To read the methodology and details of their findings, you can download the pdf document from the JoanGanzCooneyCenter.org web site.

Facebook Boots 20,000 Kids per Day

The Daily Telegraph in Australia has published an article quoting Mozelle Thompson, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Advisor, that 20,000 kids are kicked off the social network each day for lying about their age.  Thompson does admit to the Australian Parliament that the detection process is not perfect.

WhatsWhat.me Director of Internet Safety, Katie Greer, is somewhat dubious about the numbers being presented.  Without any authentication process in place at all, how does Facebook determine the ages presented in these profiles are inaccurate?  We recently applauded Facebook for updating the reporting functionality for others to elevate concerns, but to determine and expel 20,000 per day seems to be stretching the report button to the limit.

We spun the conversation in a direction concerning COPPA compliance. Although technically in compliance with COPPA by not allowing anyone under the age of 13 to have an account on Facebook, they are simply avoiding the verification and authentication responsibilities.

Katie relays that there are some sites on the web who claim to be COPPA compliant, but she has actually been able to set up profiles.  Also, there is a provision called “safe harbor” that recognizes operations that have met all of the guidelines and is established to help foster self-regulation in an industry.

Facebook Profile Settings

A complicated topic for a podcast, but better suited to links and text descriptions, we broached the subject of Facebook Profiles and the sometimes unknown results that can occur.  The fact that they are buried deep within account menus, and change on a rather inconsistent basis, has turned profile settings into a game of “Let’s see what happens!”.  It certainly has ramifications for teenagers who are setting up profiles and will not take the time to analyze the impact of a setting.

There are two pages to seek out in any profile, in order to determine the ways in which you want your content to appear on Facebook.

First is the “Sharing on Facebook” settings, that determine who among your Friends, Friends of Friends or Everyone gets to have access to the photos, posts, relationship status .. anything that is posted to a profile.

There is also the “Connecting on Facebook” settings that allow for searchers to find your profile, but nothing regarding the content until you have accepted the Friend Request.  Leaving these specific settings as “Everyone” still provides some measure of control over the most important pieces of information you have in your account.

Internet Safety Tip

For some great insight into the world of Facebook, whether a first timer trying to choose the proper settings on a profile page or a long time user of internet technologies, Katie’s Internet Tip of the Week is to subscribe to the web site AllFacebook.com.

All Facebook.com is full of tips, insights, analysis and statistics of all things Facebook. As things continue to grow and evolve around the social network, you can be sure to stay on top of the events by following the articles written at this site as well as future episodes of This is What’s What.

We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is What’s What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

One week after the White House Summit on Bullying Prevention, the New York Times ran a story about underage Facebook users.  The article exposed estimates that millions of children below the age of 13 are lying about their age to gain access to the social networking site, many with direct endorsement of parents.  On this episode of This is What’s What we hear Katie’s response to the article.

We follow that up with a look at steganography and how kids are posting coded messages in plain view. Plus of course this week’s Internet Safety Tip.

Fake ID’s

The New York Times article posted on March 11, 2011 incorporates a complete analysis of the issue, with insights from parents of young children, Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd, and the former head of security at MySpace, Hemanshu Nigam. The authors provide valuable perspectives to the story.

As per Katie’s personal experience, she believes that the the number of elementary school children who admit to having Facebook accounts will continue to rise.  Although the age restriction clearly states that the minimum age is 13, children are lying, while parents are endorsing the “fake id”.  This is an indicator that parents are unaware of the implications.

Children at these younger ages do not have the maturing levels to discern a real friend from a false friend, but they are easily enticed to accept these connection requests.  This article points to an 11 year old boy who thought he was getting a request from a classmate, when in fact it turned out to be an imposter who subsequently posted pictures of the boy.

Facebook, and any other social network, must have some responsibility in preventing underage children from creating accounts on their platforms.  Of course we have COPPA regulations that are designed to protect personally identifiable information from being collected from children under 13, but there should also be some expectations that can be placed on the doorstep of these technically savvy companies.

What is the proper enforcement responsibility for these social networks?  Do they face, as a lax liquor store would, crackdowns and fines, or some day possible licensing restrictions?

At the very least, we still have parental responsibility to not bend to peer pressure and we must enforce the policies in the home, for the sake of the kids.

One final element of this Fake ID story, is the fact that the system will not allow a kid to revert to their correct age and maintain the social profile that they have accumulated.  The options are either to remain at that fake age, and perpetuate that lie through college acceptance and job seeking, or to delete the entire account and start over with friending and connecting.  Neither are very good options.

Steganography?

A recent article in Wired magazine from the great technology writer Clive Thompson, exposes yet another twist in the social networking practices of the young members of our society.  He explains the ancient art of hiding one message inside another message to get past interceptors, and explores the secrets posted in plain view on places like Facebook.

Parents who are involved in their child’s online lives, and check in on postings to social networks, may find some innoquous statement that might easily be dismissed. However, closer inspection of friend’s comments that followup the post might tell a different tale.

It is impossible to decipher a true meaning to everything that is being posted, since these codes or memes are developed internally by the group.  These communications can be completely different based upon towns, schools, classrooms and cliques.

For parents, this is just one more thing to be aware of when monitoring online behavior.  An additional resource on the use of text messaging shorthand can also be found in the Glossary of the Parent’s Resource Center.

Internet Safety Tip

For this week’s internet safety tip of the week, Katie calls attention to the various software tools that are available to help keep track of what kids are doing on their computers and cell phones.  Parents cannot be over their shoulder 100% of the time, so these installations might help make things just a little easier.

Every household has different requirements, so here is a list of places to review available products:

Top Ten Reviews of various software products

Safety Web has a monitoring solution for iPhones and Android phones.

GoGoStat Parental Guidance for iPhones.

We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

As a graduate student, I was nominated by a professor to be a member of Alpha Phi Sigma, the National Criminal Justice Honors Society. After officially becoming a member in 2008, I was thrilled with the honor but didn’t really know what opportunities (if any) it would present down the line. Recently I received an invitation from the Alpha Phi Sigma National President to speak at the American Criminal Justice Sciences Conference in Toronto, Canada where my audience would be comprised of mostly undergraduate students. Having traveled the country speaking to students of all ages, this was my first encounter with college students. In preparation for this event, I struggled trying to make my presentation strike the right balance. It took me a while, as I went back and forth on material; I didn’t want to insult their intelligence by talking to them about general Internet safety. I didn’t want to lose their attention by discussing “stranger danger” and other related topics. So, what would I talk about to keep their attention and educate them at the same time? It wasn’t until I was actively presenting in front of all these college students did I realize the answer: when it comes to Internet and technology safety rules and responsibilities, age doesn’t matter.

When speaking with elementary school students (and I do believe educating them as young as 1st grade), I cover the basics: staying away from strangers online, protecting your personal information, and being nice to one another. Take it up a level to middle school students, and we’re covering the same issues, but with a slightly different twist: social networking rules and responsibilities, social networking privacy, digital footprints, and cyberbullying. With the high school students, again – it’s the same type of information with a few more case examples that include: how social networking can impact your future, cyberbullying consequences, appropriate versus inappropriate pictures, and the “what you put there stays there” message. With college students, I realized that when it came to these messages around Internet and technology safety, they needed to hear the same exact ones.

No matter what age – children, college students, and/or adults – we’re all making the same mistakes when it comes to the Internet and technology. Even I am guilty of violating some of the rules that I present, even though eat, sleep and breathe all things Internet safety. For instance, while at this conference I Tweeted about the jam-packed and energetic Toronto crowd without thinking twice about it. So, what’s the big deal? Later on, I realized that this piece of personal information (my current location) was something I strongly encouraged kids of all ages not to divulge online.

What does this mean? This means that educating people of all ages about Internet and technology safety can never stop. Here are some of the major (and basic) concepts to visit…and revisit…and revisit.

1. Digital footprints

This concept is lost on almost every age group I speak with. How do I know this? I get this perplexed/shocked look from all audience members when I discuss this topic. The idea that putting things online means you’re creating a digital footprint that will stay there forever isn’t lost upon younger kids because their brains aren’t developed enough to fully understand this concept; it’s lost on adults because they simply forget. Regardless, it’s something we have to be mindful of and check-up on incessantly. People of all ages are seeing constant backlash from things they previously posted online; whether it’s Congressman Christopher Lee who sent a racy photo of himself to a woman in 2009 (and resigned as a result) or the college student who approached me at the conference about an underage drinking party her parents found out about due to a picture posted on Facebook. It’s a sad story when I meet kids who missed out on a job opportunity, were denied access to their favorite school, or were even prosecuted (think sexting) as a result of something they posted without thinking. As long as we have the ability to instantly send, share and save things through various forms of technology, this message will need to be repeated to people of ALL ages.

2. You should only be communicating with people online that you know personally

This is another concept that I almost left out for this presentation to college students, as I felt the message was a bit too elementary. However, I asked how many of them had a Facebook network that included over 500 friends – most of the hands went up; over 700 friends – only a few hands dropped; over 1,000 friends – the majority of the students still had their hands up. This told me that I needed to dive into this conversation about strangers online, even though it’s one of the most basic Internet safety rules around. Unless I was presenting to a room full of college celebrities, it’s unlikely they knew all 1,000+ of the people they had befriended on Facebook – and they admitted as much. I shared the story (and share this at all age levels) of my best friend who used to have over 1,200 friends on Facebook. Although we often joked about the fact that this wasn’t a good idea, she continued accepting every friend request that was sent her way. It was easy for her to ignore the creepy messages she got from complete strangers she was friends with, but hard to ignore the cryptic calls in the middle of the night she began receiving. It took only a little work on my part to figure out that these calls were from random people she was friends with on Facebook. She wisely deactivated her profile and started anew. Today, she has a little over 200 friends (including family) and no longer receives those phone calls or disturbing messages. While staying away from strangers is a message we teach our kids at a VERY young age, it’s a concept that clearly needs to be repeated and revisited, and not just to the young ones.

3. There’s little privacy online

Finally, this concept shocks audience members across the board. For some reason, people think that because their email accounts and social networking accounts require passwords, their information is completely private. They fail to remember that there are currently over 500 million users on Facebook who, with the click of a button could find out things like: what they look like, where they live, their relationship status, religious beliefs, professional paths and phone number. While there are often privacy settings that help keep some of this information somewhat protected from the general public, it’s my experience that these settings aren’t even being used. Adults aren’t using these because they don’t know they exist (and quite frankly they can be pretty confusing) and kids aren’t using them because they don’t think anyone else would be interested in their information besides their friends. While presenting to a 4th grade class (the majority of whom had Facebook profiles, despite the age restriction of 13), I had a student tell me that they know there were privacy settings on Facebook but that they didn’t matter anyway, because “only my friends can see me on here anyway.” Scary stuff considering I know many people (including over 29,000 sex offenders who were removed from Facebook and MySpace in 2007 as part of a sting operation) who are searching for information about you and your children, whether you know it or not. Similarly, email, chat and texting are perceived to be one-to-one communication, but where do you think these messages go after they’re sent? They don’t disappear into the abyss (cell phone providers, email companies and Internet service providers are all required to have record retention policies) and ever hear of that nasty “FORWARD” function? Exactly. When we hit that send, share, or save button, there’s no longer guaranteed privacy – so let’s all be reminded to take a minute to think before we send.

I thought that I was going to educate students this past week about Internet and technology safety – and I think I was successful – but I also left with an education of my own. You’re never too old – or too young – to hear these messages. Not only that, but these messages need to be repeated, and kids and adults alike need to be reminded of these rules, no matter how many eye rolls we parents may get. Trust me, for the safety of you and your children it’s worth 5 minutes.

On this week’s episode of This is What’s What, we catch up with Katie Greer, the Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, to get her response to the recent White House Summit on bullying, hosted by the President and Mrs. Obama. The Summit also used some new media channels to help disseminate the information and present the topic to a broader audience.

This subject is very topical and timely for our podcast audience, so we stay focused on the White House Summit throughout the entire episode, except of course for Katie’s Internet Safety Tip of the Week.

White House Conference on Bullying Prevention

This first ever conference was an attempt to shed some light on the fact that bullying is pervasive in our children’s lives, and that it does not have to be considered a “right of passage”.  In this day and age when kids are connected via cell phone and computer technologies beyond the school building, this can be even more challenging.  As President Obama stated, it no longer resides just in the hallways of the school, but follows kids home to their cell phones and computer screens. He also pointed out that as a kid with big ears and a strange name, he was “not immune”.

On our fourth podcast, Michelle Obama Touches Off the Safe Social Networking Conversation we had made the point that the First Family should take the initiative, and lead the country in pulling together a strong group to focus attention on this topic.  Their efforts would help to educate and train adults, so that they can be cognizant of the signals and if necessary, to take appropriate action.

Facebook Social Reporting

To coincide with the White House initiative, Facebook announced the rollout of their Social Reporting functionality that expands upon the capabilities already in place.  The report feature will go beyond photos and wall posts, and extend to Profiles, Groups, Pages, and Events even.

Facebook needs to respond with these types of tools because it is in their own best interest.  They become the center of attention as these terrible stories come to the surface, and any impact that they can have on reducing the threats will be rewarded with more interaction on the site.

MTV – A THIN LINE

MTV launched their own campaign that is targeted directly at the kids who are most effected by the daily rituals of bullying.  They are using PSAs that they intersperse with their programming, including one spot that features a gay student being bullied, from the perspective of another student.  It is calling into question which is right, standing by or standing up?

Teen star Justin Beiber is involved and another effort called The Trevor Project,  with the cast of the television show Glee, have brought a new dimension to the conversation. Katie sees during her in-school presentations that these celebrities are able to communicate to the students more so than an adult.

Stop Bullying.gov

More information about this topic, including tips and tricks for parents to use to help draw out the conversation is available at the web site Stop Bullying.gov.  Clearly targeted content is available for Kids, Teens, Parents and Educators.

Internet Safety Tip

In the weekly Internet Safety Tip segment, Katie points out that although there are going to be tremendous resources made available through efforts like this Summit, it still comes down to parents having the conversations with their kids and having access to their email and Facebook profiles.  As Katie says, “it’s not snooping, it’s parenting”.

Specifically, she suggests using a “Buddy System” with other parents in the community.  As has been discovered many times, teens and adolescents don’t willingly share personal information about the day to day goings on, but some times they may mention specifics about others in their peer group.  If parents use typical communication tools to stay connected, such as an email list, important things may come to light.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Katie Greer, Director of Internet Safety at WhatsWhat.me headed north to Toronto this week to speak to a group of college aged students about aspects of life online.  What started out as a somewhat nerve wracking event eventually led Katie to a revelation .. that we are all in need, no matter what age, of an education regarding the hazards of publicly sharing on social networks.

Also on this week’s This is What’s What podcast, we get into some discussion about corporate responsibility regarding the use of social networks, Facebook’s new approach to writing their Privacy Policy, we go over an online tool that might help parents discuss digital footprints with a child, and of course we conclude with an Internet Safety tip of the week.

Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences

The Alpha Phi Sigma Chapter of the ACJS invited Katie, as a 2008 inductee, to speak at the 2011 Annual Meeting in Toronto. Katie mentions her anxiety in preparation for the talk, simply because of the experience that this age group has in using social networks, plus their overall maturity and social skills level in comparison to the elementary school aged students she also presents to.

Somewhere around the middle of the presentation she was struck by the fact that this group was no different than every other group.  Katie asked “How many people here have over 500 Facebook friends?”, and the entire room put up their hands.  In fact, somewhere between 75% – 80% of the people in the room had over 1000 friends on Facebook.  This trigger made Katie rearrange her presentation and focus on the potential dangers of talking to strangers on line.  There is no possible way that a group of students could personally maintain a stable social relationship with over 1000 people.  Somewhere in this group, the Dunbar Number comes into play, and opens the door to the potential problem of a “friend” seeing to much personal information via Facebook.

This revelation spotlights the fact that even older kids need some direction in their use of online networks, so parents still need to be involved in a bit of oversight and probing. This cannot be delegated to colleges and universities, nor can it be assumed that since they are more technically savvy that they are above potential hazards.

Facebook Privacy Policies

Facebook recently announced a changed to the way their privacy policy is written.  The original policy is still on the main portion of the site, but the revisions can be found here. The purpose of this revision was to craft the document in a more personal tone so that it could be better understood.  Gone are the legal terms and language that most of these documents are in, and now contains an easier to understand approach.

This might be a good thing for parents to look over, so that they may have a better understanding of the realities of what goes on within the walls of Facebook.  On a grander scale it may point out some common Internet practices that some may not be aware are so prevalent.

YourOpenBook.org

For anyone interested in seeing Facebook Status updates in real time, visit Openbook and type a search term into their query box.  It will return results from anyone with updates that are set to public status, and will show how easy it is to find posts that probably should not be broadcast to the world.

Parents can use this as a tool to teach their kids about “Think Before you Post”, and can demonstrate that future employers or university admissions counselors might also find unfortunate postings made on Facebook.

Corporate Responsibility

The children’s clothing line from Ralph Lauren uses a group called the RL Gang as a sort of fashion trendy, fictional group of characters that kids can to relate to. Each kid in the gang represents a certain “look” that comes complete with its own wardrobe.

Ralph Lauren is hosting a casting call via a Facebook contest that allows parents to upload photos of their children and then campaign for votes, so that they can be flown to New York and used in the promotion of this line of clothing.

Is it time that we expect a level of corporate responsibility and awareness that children and social networks are not a compatible match?  Although this campaign is targeted at parents it will certainly expose the children to posting and sharing of personal information about themselves.

Somewhere along the way, corporations learned that they had a responsibility to be good citizens and neighbors, that they were better off keeping the water clean and planting trees along side their employees.  Now it’s time that we ask them to start being better citizens of the web, and at the very least avoid using these tools in a way that might confuse the general population regarding the safety of children on line.

Internet Safety Tip

This week’s tip from Katie is that no person is too old or too young to receive messages about internet safety.  Just because someone heads off to college does not mean that they should no longer have some parental advice about what is safe practice for participating on the Internet.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Please subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of these conversations with Katie Greer, and please give us a rating there so that we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

On this episode of This is What’s What, the discussion centers around the online habits of 8 – 9 year olds.  Katie Greer takes us through the types of presentations that she makes when visiting with young children in school systems across the country. She lets us in on the activities that the kids partake in online, and the advice that she gives parents trying to maintain a safe environment.   And of course, we get our weekly Internet Safety Tip as a standard practice in every household.

Florida School System

Katie joins us from the sunny warmth of a Florida hotel room, having just finished attending a large work group for an area school system. This proactive school system was attempting to convene a group of interested parties ranging from the Parent Teachers Association to local law enforcement and school officials, with a mission of crafting policies to address concerns surrounding the growth of technology.

The round table discussions explored ways to implement “safe use” Internet policies. The school system allowed open discussion the night before to gauge all concerns, and then gathered to focus on everything from resources to response.

Internet Safety for 8 & 9 Year Olds

This week we focus on a specific segment of kid using the internet for entertainment, education and communication. Our discussion deals with the uses of the web, the hazards they may encounter and ways they can be avoided.

Katie is most likely to hear two responses to her question about what activities are taking place on line at this age. The first is email and the second is online games.

In many cases, schools are assigning 8 & 9 year olds an email address so that they can turn in homework assignments and communicate with their teachers. This use of technology requires a level of responsibility on the part of teachers and parents to ensure that the students are acting appropriately.

Yahoo Games, Mini Clip and other sites provide free online games for children and have very active communities participating.  If there are older kids in the house, early elementary school children are certainly exposed to multi-player games via Xbox Live and other gaming platforms.  On whatever platform they are using, these children are being exposed to massively multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs for short.

It is in these MMORPG environments that identity and intent can be hidden.  A barrier that Katie will break down for these kids is that the stranger in the online world is just a dangerous as the stranger met on the street.  Safety does not necessarily come from behind a computer screen.

A particular element of these online games that Katie wishes provided a safer way to participate is the built in live chatting and messaging platforms.  A significant attraction to an MMORPG is the chance to team up with other characters and take part in an activity.  Players will engage in a dialog in some fashion while participating, and it’s during these times that issues arise.

The hazards in these environments don’t necessarilty have to be the predatory type, kids are still exposed to the same problems of cyber-bullying and identity theft as any other social network.

There are some forms of parental control in these games and these systems, but even at eight and nine years old they can find ways to circumvent the settings to get what they want.  So what should a good parent do?

Some standard rules of safe computing should be applied:

• Keep the devices in a public place to keep an eye on activity.
• For younger children, keep the live chat and messaging functionalities turned off.
• If the decision has been made in the household to allow live communication, do not allow the use of gaming headsets and only use the system speakers as a way to monitor conversation.
• Establish ground rules in the household at an early age, and make sure that there are consequences for breaking the rules and stick by them.

Namespace and Identity Theft

Out of a minor attempt to reserve the online identities of our young children, we have reserved the twitter names and Gmail accounts for our daughters.  Katie brings to light a criminal ring that was watching birth announcements and immediately stealing the baby’s identity.  A simple Google search for a child’s name may actually uncover some sort of identity issues.

Internet Safety Tip

The Internet safety tip of the week is to set up a family email account, either as a shared account, or have all of the kids email addresses forwarded to the parent’s account. This practice will allow for monitoring, not snooping, for any activity that might be out of the ordinary.  Even as the kids get old enough for social networks or Facebook accounts, this practice will deliver the friending requests into an inbox that is distributed throughout the entire family.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of this important conversation, and please give us a rating so we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

First Lady Michelle Obama made an appearance on The Today Show to discuss a variety of topics including nutrition and childhood obesity. However, it was her statements about Facebook that seemed to garner a disproportionate amount of attention subsequent to the interview, and kicks off this week’s episode of This is What’s What.  Katie Greer and Joe Magennis provide their opinions on children Sasha and Malia’s age using social networks plus followup on the conversation from last week’s episode about New Jersey’s Sexting Bill.

First Lady Obama on Social Networking

At the very end of the 14 minute interview, the discussion turns towards whether the girls are on Facebook.  After a quick response regarding the obvious security ramifications and secret service concerns, Mrs. Obama states that she is not a “big fan” of young kids having Facebook.  ”It’s not something they need” seemed to be the statement that flamed the passions of many, and sparked the debate about the appropriate age for social networking.

Katie agrees that Facebook is no place for young children to be spending their time, and the positive aspect to be derived from this media dialog is that The Obamas were informed enough to have come to a decision about the kids using the social network.  During her travels, Katie finds that many parents do not have the information they need to make the best decision for their children.  In fact, many are not aware that the Terms of Service indicate that the minimum age for a profile is 13 years old.  With no age verification in place, Facebook has no way of knowing a true age.

The timing of the question unfortunately meant a lost opportunity.  It would be very appropriate for the First Family to adopt safe social networking for children as a cause to take to the Nation.  From the White House, the issues of parent supervision and education, cyber-bullying, privacy and dangers would receive proper attention and help to ensure that the Internet is a safer place.

Parents Dealing with Sexting

During last week’s podcast, we discussed the aspects of the New Jersey Bill regarding sentencing recommendations for acts of sexting, and how the cases still typically fall under child pornography legislation on the books.  In order to spend more time exploring the topic from the point of view of the parent, we revisited the topic.

With harsh penalties for both the sender and recipient of these explicit images, we look to Katie for some advice on what the parent action should be upon discovering this behavior.

She suggests immediately going to the Police with the device. She warns against trying to delete the images, sending the images to another spouse, or even taking the evidence to someone at a school.  The police are typically the best trained authority on the subject, and will be able to determine the best course of action.  Katie has even become aware of cases when a school principal has exacerbated the situation by copying images to his own computer to maintain as part of a student’s file.

The District Attorney’s office and police detectives have discretion when looking at each case individually, but the most frequent publicity surrounding sexting is its criminal element, and it becomes a very hard decision for a parent who does not want a son or daughter to face the scrutiny or potential ramifications.

To complicate matters, proposed legislation in Texas is beginning to include parents in the disciplinary actions handed out to teens in sexting cases.  The bill attempts to raise awareness and responsibility of the parents, with parallel to the drinking and driving cases of parents who did not take action when underage drinking was taking place on their property.

Internet Safety Tip

For this week’s Internet Safety Tip, Katie brings advice when it comes to any act of posting or messaging via the web. Her advice – Always Think, before hitting the Send, Share, Save button ..

The impacts of putting something on the web can reverberate around the echo chamber, and the term “digital footprint” is a very clear analogy of what happens with each interaction we have.   Those footprints will be viewed by future educators, employers and even generations to come.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of this important conversation, and please give us a rating so we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

On this episode of This is What’s What, Katie Greer and Joe Magennis follow up their premiere edition of the podcast, with a deeper discussion about recent Sexting legislation, online resources for internet safety information and as always a weekly Internet Safety Tip.

Sexting Legislation

During the first podcast titled An Introduction, we made reference to recent legislation that cleared the Assembly Judiciary Committee in New Jersey, and is now awaiting for it to be introduced in the Senate.  The Bill would allow teenagers caught texting sexually explicit photos to complete a diversionary program rather than face arrest and prosecution.

According to the Newark Star-Ledger online, the attorney general’s office would create a program to teach teens about the criminal penalties and social consequences of sending or receiving nude or semi-nude images through their cell phones or computers.  The course would also discuss the connection between the consequences of these actions and cases of cyber-bullying.

Currently as the law stands, anyone caught sending these types of photographs falls under child pornography laws and could face jail time and be required to register as a sex offender.  If this bill is passed into law it would provide some discretion in the sentencing phase for first time offenders.

Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, Katie Greer weighs in with her opinions on the matter, as other states including Ohio, North Dakota and others are watching the precedence that could help them craft their own bills.

By taking a black and white view of a typical case of teenagers engaging in sexting, there is by definition the creation, the distribution and possession of child pornography.  Devoid of the context by which this content was created, current laws are clear as to the ramifications.  As the technol0gy has become more pervasive, and teenagers (even including sixth graders as Katie points out), have increased the volume of illicit photography being disseminated via the web, it has also increased the complexity by which these crimes must be dealt with.

Katie believes that the pro-active education portion of this bill should be the most prominent aspect of this legislation, not the post episode program for those who have been caught performing these illegal acts. In her experience, the kids that she speaks to are not aware of the criminal aspects of their acts and would benefit from an education program.

She also points out the psychological damage that can be inflicted, and cites the story of Jesse Logan who committed suicide after her former boyfriend had distributed her nude photos to other high schoolers.  Addressing and discussing the sexting issue in advance of these horrific consequences is really the best approach to curtailing this phenomenon.

Online Resources

Although the internet is a great source of content regarding any topic imaginable, and there are ways of tracking keywords to stay informed of posts and comments about those topics, such as Google Alerts, Twitter Search and simple RSS Subscriptions, it is a significant challenge to discern the authority voices from the echo chamber.

Unfortunately, at this time Katie does not have any insight into a definitive lists of places to visit.  The issues and commentary are changing at such as rapid pace, and the validity of the voices has not been truly vetted to the degree where she feels she can endorse them.  One of the top priorities of the PRC at WhatsWhat.me is to compile a list of valuable resources for parents, so watch that space as more information is added.

A source with significant backing from major companies that Katie is currently looking at is called Kinsa.net, a Toronto based initiative with a mission to protect, rescue and heal child victims of abuse whose images are shared on the Internet.

Internet Safety Tip

Cell phones are a great communication tool as long as the parent monitors and limits the use of the phone, with no age minimums.

However, some great protective advice is to disable the camera in the phone.  Every smartphone will have different features and capabilities, so a quick Google search and contacting the data plan provider of your phone will give you the information you need to remove this potentially dangerous device.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of this important conversation, and please give us a rating so we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

Welcome to the premiere edition of the This is What’s What podcast.  A conversation with the Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, Katie Greer.  On this episode, we introduce the regular participants and outline what listeners can expect each week as we explore the most relevant topics pertaining to online safety, and in particular kids online safety.

First and foremost we should establish the credentials of our expert, Katie Greer.  Katie joins What’s What from the Massachusetts Attorney’s General office.  While in the Corruption, Fraud and Computer Crimes Division she was introduced to the Chief Prosecutor for ICAC, The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. She suggested to Katie that she develop a proactive program that could be geared towards schools and educators to help teach online safety.

Katie has subsequently built these programs for the private sector, tailoring the presentation to accommodate the age-appropriate conversation for K-12 students, as well as parents and school administrators.  These speaking engagements and direct feedback from the target audience has directly contributed to the development of Internet safety features built into the What’s What.me platform.

Katie travels the country speaking on issues of technology and Internet safety education, and was featured in both CNN and in Vanity Fair Magazine.

Many of the topics that we address on the podcast will come straight from the current events headlines.  Katie will provide explanations, and voice her opinions on issues such as the recent passage of legislation in the New Jersey House of Representatives that will lessen the consequences for minors caught sexting who are first time offenders.

The challenge for legislators is that technology far out paces the ability of the courts and legislatures to address appropriate criminal actions.  This is What’s What will closely examine the specifics of the bills and bring to light some of the consequences of the laws.

More topics for the podcast will come directly from listeners, and specifically from the Ask The Expert section on the Parent’s Resource Center of WhatsWhat.me.

For those who are researching the topic of Internet safety, a common term that will appear is COPPA.  What is COPPA?  COPPA is the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act and addresses the collection of personal information for anyone under the age of 13 years old.

These Federal Regulations have established guidelines for collecting and storing personally identifiable information as well as informed parent consent, and has been a serious challenge for WhatsWhat.me regarding compliance combined with useability.

For parents looking for a quick tip on identifying the COPPA compliance of a site, Katie suggests looking at whether they are collecting the first and last name of the child.  If they are collecting that information then they MUST be in compliance and should state it in their Terms of Service.

Online Safety Issues

Katie believes that the biggest Internet safety issue facing children today is the fact that they do not understand the long term ramifications of posting something on the web.  As soon as something gets posted, there is a record that can be uncovered and accessed as digital footprints in the future.

She likes to provide parents with an analogy they can use when having a discussion about online safety at the kitchen table.  Katie describes a fictional tattoo that seemed so great as an 18 year old, but did not have the same appeal as it was viewed through her wedding dress.

These types of conversation starters are critical to the ongoing dialog helping parents ensure that the web is a safe place for their children.  The This is What’s What podcast will help uncover these valuable nuggets on a weekly basis!

Internet Safety Tip

Each week we will ask Katie to provide a small Internet Safety Tip as a takeaway from each episode.  This week she believes that they best advice is to remember that good old fashioned parenting rules still apply. Things do not change simply because of the technology. As in the past, a parent would want to know where a child is going and with whom, and the same should be applied to online interactions.  Check out the friends list on Facebook and look at cell phone records to see where calls have been going.  Just because the technology is new, does not change the need for adult supervision.

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We look forward to getting your feedback about the conversation, and your particular questions and comments about the topics we’ve discussed.  You can send an email to Feedback@whatswhat.me, or leave us a comment on this week’s post

Subscribe to This is Whats What via iTunes so that you do not miss a single episode of this important conversation, and please give us a rating so we can help reach more parents about this important topic.

“They said what?!?” That’s right! Kids are putting it ALL out there on-line; their personal information, YOUR personal information, all in the forms of videos, pictures, and comments! Have no fear, there are some basic rules that makes sharing information online a little bit safer.

1. THINK BEFORE YOU POST. This is a basic rule in Internet safety that kids need to be reminded of constantly. With social networking sites being so accessible and popular, kids often think that only their friends have access to their information. Not true! The Internet has made information sharing so early that kids are hitting the send or share button before thinking. It’s important to remind them that millions of people are online, and it’s very easy for their information to land in the wrong hands. Encourage them to think about what they’re sharing online or via text message/picture message – before they hit the send button.

2. What goes on – doesn’t come off. This is a super important message that kids and even some parents forget all of the time. The Internet is one of the most magnificent tools we have to date. Ever wonder why you can find things on the Internet that happened years ago? It’s because when it’s put online – it stays there forever. This can be a good thing, but can also be troublesome when people (kids mostly) share information that they may not want there in 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years. Of course information can be taken down or deleted, but it makes a digital footprint that doesn’t go away.

3. Losing the right to YOUR information. That’s right! When you or your kids post information on public sites (such as these popular social networking sites), they lose the right to any and all information (including pictures, posts, videos, etc.) posted. Ask them this: would you be comfortable if a college admissions office saw what you posted online? Would you be comfortable if your principal or teachers saw pictures, comments, videos or other information you post online? They do have the right to access this information, along with over 300 million other people participating on these sites!

Web Resources

Think Before You Post

Watch this short video to see the possible implications of posting information online. As a learning tool, this could be a very good (and appropriate) video to get the message across about the permanency of their content once it’s posted online.

Family Picture or Foreign Billboard?

Can you imagine taking a picture for your family holiday card, only to find that picture mysteriously popped up on a massive billboard as an advertisement – without your knowledge or permission?!? One family from the United States found out the hard way that their holiday card photo ended up on a billboard in Prague, without their consent!

Future Implications – Guess Who’s Looking!

Do you think you know who’s looking? You may have an idea, but your kids don’t usually think before they post! Kids are willing to share a TON of information because they think their friends are the only ones looking. However, schools, principals, teachers, along with current and future employees are looking at these sites for information constantly. If nothing else, this should be shared with kids to encourage them to think before posting.

What NOT to Share

There are ways that you and your kids can share information in a safe and controlled environment on-line. However, there are also things that you and your kids should definitely not share, and this article outlines some of those. So take a peek and perhaps share some of these guidelines with your kids.

Webster’s Word Of the Year – OVERSHARING!

You don’t believe us? Check this out! Webster’s made “oversharing” the word of the year. Check out their definition, and some interesting clips and comments pertaining to this new phenomenon known as “oversharing,” or divulging TMI (too much information) online.

Before text messaging, it was easy to listen to what your kids were up to. Now, you hear silence as they text away to all their friends! It’s a great tool, but there are also some free and simple tools that you can utilize to make sure that they’re safe while doing so. Also, there are some rules surrounding cell phone use that our experts think may help them get their noses out of their iPhones!

Text messaging can be a wonderful resource for you and your kids to use. Communication is instant and makes talking to mom or dad in front of friends – a good concept. However, it’s important to make some rules around text messaging.

1. Set some limits. There are certain times and places that text messaging is not appropriate. Make some rules for you family – ones that you can all abide by.

2. Turn off picture messaging. There are many serious dangers in picture messaging. Today, sexting (sending inappropriate images via picture messaging on cell phones) is one of the largest problems amongst teens and tweens. This is a very serious crime if committed by kids under the age of 18, and can be considered a form of child pornography. Want a quick solution to make sure your child isn’t a victim? Turn off the picture messaging capabilities!!

3. Turn of Internet access on cell phones. It’s hard enough making sure that are kids are following the rules while using the Internet in our own homes – nevermind giving them a portable one to walk around with 24/7! Most cell phones have extremely advanced Internet capabilities, which allow kids to access everything and anything – including sites that you banned. Recently, kids are using the Internet on their phones to bully other kids – thinking they won’t get in trouble. Do them a favor (and put some money back in your pocket!) – call your cell phone provider and ask them to restrict Internet access on your child’s phone.

Web Resources

Can’t Talk? Text Teens!

Phone calls – what are those? Kids are texting like crazy these days, and phone calls have become a thing of the past. Guess what, this isn’t necessarily bad news! You can use text messaging to open the lines of communication with your kids, on their level! It’s convenient, it’s quick, and kids are more likely to respond to you via text than with a phone call. Try it!

Texting Tips for Teens

Just like the Internet, it’s important that you establish some rules when it comes to your kids and their cell phone use – especially pertaining to text messaging. There are some basic rules that you should keep in mind, and some tips as to how to approach this subject with your kids.

Teens Texting = Lack of Sleep?

With the Internet, we recommend that you limit the amount of time that your kids are allowed access. Our WhatsWhat.me experts recommend the same when it comes to cell phone usage and texting. If you need more proof as to why limiting your child’s cell phone usage is a good idea, check out this study that suggests cell phones may be contributing to your child’s lack of sleep.

Sexting – What You Must Know

Although texting can be a great tool if used correctly, many kids are getting into very deep water due to this new social phenomenon known as “sexting.” If your kids have cell phones, this can not be ignored and needs to be discussed so that they’re aware of the implications – even though you may think: “my child would never!” This could be the case, but if their friends are doing it, they could unknowingly become involved. Learn about this serious crime, and talk to your kids about it. This site lists important information surrounding the issue. More questions? Ask our experts!

Texting Basics

Is texting brand new to you? If so, now is the time to learn how, why, and what rules you (and your kids) should follow when texting. Need step-by-step help? This is the place to look!