US study shows teen sexting scare overblown

video: teen sexting rate drops*

from smh: One in 10 American children aged between 10 and 17 has used a mobile phone to send or receive sexually suggestive images, but only 1 in 100 has sent images considered graphic enough to violate US child pornography laws, a new study has found. The results of the study, published on Monday in the US medical journal Pediatrics, are based on detailed telephone interviews with 1560 children across the country. It is one of the largest surveys to look at the prevalence of sexting among minors, a phenomenon that has drawn concern from schools and law enforcement and that has prompted nationwide legislation trying to curb it. An earlier, often-cited study had estimated that as many as one in five teenagers engaged in sexting, but it included 18- and 19-year-olds, most likely increasing the overall prevalence.

google collected part of kids' social security numbers for art contest

from business insider: Google asked parents to enter the last four digits of their children's Social Security Numbers, as well as their city of birth and age, as a condition to enter a Google-sponsored art contest. As movie director Bob Bowdon points out on the Huffington Post, Google could easily have guessed the remainder of the numbers from the other information they collected. This data could be extremely valuable to marketers. Some of the people who tipped Bowdon off about the story sent an email to the FTC on February 17 wondering if it was even legal to solicit kids' Social Security Numbers. The next day, Google updated its consent form, removing the space for the SSNs. There's no evidence that Google actually did anything with the information, but it's certainly a weird set of data to collect for a kids' contest. Google has come under fire several times for having a seemingly cavalier attitude toward privacy, and this doesn't help matters.

generation net: do youngsters prefer virtual lives to real world?

from daily mail: Children are often happier with their online lives than they are with reality, a survey has revealed. They say they can be exactly who they want to be – and as soon as something is no longer fun they can simply hit the quit button.

The study also shows that, despite concerns about online safety, one in eight young people is in contact with strangers when on the web and often lies about their appearance, age and background. Researchers for children's charity Kidscape assessed the online activities of 2,300 11- to 18-year-olds from across the UK and found that 45% said they were sometimes happier online than in their real lives.

The report – "Virtual Lives: It is more than a game, it is your life" – lays bare the attitudes of children today to the internet and includes revealing insights into how they feel when they are on the web.

One told researchers: "It’s easier to be who you want to be, because nobody knows you and if you don’t like the situation you can just exit and it is over." Another said: "You can say anything online. You can talk to people that you don’t normally speak to and you can edit your pictures so you look better. It is as if you are a completely different person."

flashback: growing up digital, wired for distraction

video barbie: camera streams download to computer

FBI warns 'Barbie Video Girl', a doll with camera in necklace and LCD on her back, can be used for child porn! A Mail Online article, "FBI issues warning over Barbie 'Video Girl' which could be used by paedophiles to make child pornography", supplies the details. Wow! "Video Girl can capture up to 30 minutes of footage and the video can be downloaded and streamed live to a computer. There is no indication it can be streamed directly to the internet." There is nothing to see here please move along!

growing up digital, wired for distraction

from nytimes: On the eve of a pivotal academic year in Vishal Singh’s life, he faces a stark choice on his bedroom desk: book or computer? By all rights, Vishal, a bright 17-year-old, should already have finished the book, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle,” his summer reading assignment. But he has managed 43 pages in two months.

He typically favors Facebook, YouTube and making digital videos. That is the case this August afternoon. Bypassing Vonnegut, he clicks over to YouTube, meaning that tomorrow he will enter his senior year of high school hoping to see an improvement in his grades, but without having completed his only summer homework.

On YouTube, “you can get a whole story in six minutes,” he explains. “A book takes so long. I prefer the immediate gratification.” Students have always faced distractions and time-wasters. But computers and cellphones, and the constant stream of stimuli they offer, pose a profound new challenge to focusing and learning.

cyberpervs peeping on schoolgirls

Thomas Floss, a data protection advisor, discovered cases while visiting schools for presentations on data protection and sensible behavior on internet. The Local reported, "on examining one of the computers, Floss discovered a so-called Trojan computer program which was being used to control the equipment, and which had been spread via the chat service ICQ." Hacker traced and when police arrived several live feeds to bedrooms were on individual's computer. Floss adds there is at least one student at each school, after visiting 50-60 schools, who report light doesn't turn off as it should when webcam is off--a possible indication a Trojan program is in control.

nsa's newest recruiters

Danger Room reports newest recruiters for NSA reside on their kids page. Yes, there exists a kids page. The article "NSA's Newest Recruiters: Cartoon-Leopard Twins," relates how the "...surveillance and cryptology crew at NSA has the right online companions for you: Cy and Cyndi, a pair of anthropomorphic snow leopards now kickin' it with the CryptoKids, the Puzzle Palace's team of cartoon animal hackers...". Cy and Cyndi are known as the Cybertwins wear gaming headgear, talk into hands-free mobile devices and teach youth about proper online hygiene. This would just seem squirrelly if this kind of youth campaign weren't so scary?

10/14 defcon: settlements, citizenship & commercial gain

school district pays $610k to settle webcam spying lawsuits*
dhs scoured social media sites during obama inauguration for 'items of interest'*
applying for citizenship? US citizenship & immigration wants to be your 'friend'*
iranian, chinese computers also hacked dc internet voting system*
comcast pushes bot alert program nationwide*
facebook is 'killing privacy for commercial gain'*
update: superbombs & secret jails:
what to look for in wikileaks' upcoming iraq docs*

9/16 defcon: tracking devices & small worlds

have cell phones become personal tracking devices?
what your phone could be telling the govt*
fired google engineer stalked teens, spied on chats*
mom obsessed with video game 'small worlds' neglects children, dogs starve to death*
chase's online bank service still facing problems*

childless uk couple build robot child companion

from dvice: Meet Aimec, the creation of Tony and Judie Ellis, a robot building couple from South-East England. Aimec follows them around their 18th century country home, cracking jokes, laughing, and searching online for interesting things to tell its parents, just like a real kid. Aimec is also adept at imitating vintage robot voices, and is said to do a mean C-3PO. It even snores when you put it to sleep, and wakes up with a little stretch. The couple runs a robotics company called Conceptioneering out of their house, and made their fortune with a game called Cube World. Tony expects Aimec could be on the market within a year or two, selling for an impossibly low sounding $300.

no charges in pennsylvania school's webcam spygate

related: young people will have to change their names to escape 'cyber past' warns google ceo
from threat level: Federal authorities announced Tuesday they will not prosecute administrators connected to a webcam spying scandal at a suburban Philadelphia school district. Prosecutors and the FBI opened an inquiry following a February privacy lawsuit accusing Lower Merion School District officials of spying on students with webcams on the 2,300 district-issued MacBooks. The lawyers who filed the lawsuit claim the district secretly snapped thousands of webcam images of students, including images of youths at home, in bed or even “partially dressed.” Zane David Memeger, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said he found no criminal intent in the alleged surveillance. “I have concluded that bringing criminal charges is not warranted in this matter,” Memeger said in a statement. “For the government to prosecute a criminal case, it must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person charged acted with criminal intent. We have not found evidence that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent.”

flashbacks: school spied on kids via webcams on school-supplied laptops & webcamgate expands as lawyers say 1000s of pictures taken

disney, warner bros. spied on children's web surfing habits

users profiles 'bought & sold on stock-market-like exchanges'
from raw story: A class-action lawsuit filed in a federal court last week alleges that Disney and other large corporations spied on visitors to their Web sites using "Flash cookies" installed on users' browsers.

The lawsuit, filed in a US District Court in California on behalf of a group of parents and their children, alleges that Clearpsring, a company contracted by Disney, Warner Bros. Records, Playlist.com and other Web site operators, used its AddThis Web page tool to install "Flash cookies" in computer browsers which would then track individual computer users.

According to a report at CNET, the lawsuit states these cookies can't be erased using the usual methods of erasing browser history because they are built on Flash technology. Additionally, SecPoint.com reports that these Flash cookies can even un-delete, or "re-spawn," regular cookies that were erased by the user.

Once installed, these small pieces of software tracked users "across numerous Web sites, even spotting and tracking users when they accessed the Web from different computers, at home and at work," the lawsuit alleges.

school spied on kids via webcams on school-supplied laptops

from pcworld: In case you haven't been following the plot of Webcamgate, starring the Lower Merion School District in Southeastern Pennsylvania and a cast of thousands, here's the skinny: Last week the Robbins family, whose son Blake attends LMSD's Harriton High, filed a class-action suit against the district alleging that it's been spying on its students via webcams on school-supplied MacBooks.

The suit came about after last November to discuss "Blake Robbins was called into the assistant principal Lindy Matsko's office last November to discuss "inappropriate behavior" he was displaying -- at home. The proof? A snapshot of him taken with his laptop's Webcam. Apparently Matsko thought Blake was popping pills. According to Robbins, he was merely eating candy: Mike-N-Ikes. (A classic gateway drug -- before you know it, he'll be deep into Good-N-Plenty and then totally hooked on Tic Tacs.)

The idea that the school could peer into the Robbins' home -- and by implication, the homes of nearly 2,400 other students in the district -- blew their minds. It also may have violated dozens of federal and state laws regarding privacy, wiretapping, and electronic communications, as alleged in their suit PDF.

The school district's response? Yes, we have the ability to activate students' webcams remotely, but it's strictly used for tracking lost or stolen laptops, says school superintendent Dr. Christopher W. McGinley. No, we didn't tell any of the students or their families about it. Oops. Our bad... Interestingly, while the district failed to inform parents about the technology, it did take time to create a video lauding the remote access features of the software, LANrev 4.6 (now Absolute Manage), which it created for MacEnterprise.org in June 2008.

update: school agrees to preserve evidence in 'laptopgate'

update2: webcamgate expands as lawyers say 1000s of pictures taken

defcon 1/21: outrage, infringement & inside jobs

proposed web video restrictions cause outrage in italy*
turkey blocking 3,700 websites, reform needed*
google probing possible inside help on attack*
google vs china: the chinese government reacts*
google attacks china as washington-beijing hostility deepens*
google: keep user data safe by letting us hoard it forever*
twitter joke led to terror act arrest & airport life ban*
oxford university anti-peer-to-peer policy hits legal music service spotify*
verizon terminating copyright infringers' internet access*
if your kids are awake, they're probably online*

defcon 1/14: rockefeller, crypto & the children of cyberspace

the children of cyberspace: old fogies by their 20s*
digital tv: mind control by the sound of silence*
google hackers targeted source code of more than 30 companies*
google flips default switch for always-on gmail crypto*
google turns on gmail encryption to protect wi-fi users*
law firm suing china hit by cyber attack*
iran vs. china in cyberwar*
facebook teams up with mcafee to prevent cyber hacking*
rockefeller ready with cybersecurity bill*
hailing google, US lawmakers seek internet law*