Safety Mode on YouTube

YouTube has some wonderful heart warming videos on it and kids love to watch the antics of animals and other kids, but up until now it has been way too easy to stray into not so savory stuff for kids to be on YouTube without constant supervision. Recently, though, Google announced Safety Mode, an optional setting that can help block potentially objectionable content and keyword searches for violent and less than savory videos. While no filter is 100% reliable, it is a step in the right direction by Google. Thanks to the guys and gals at Google for making cyberspace just a little bit better for kids. 

Australia Tries to Censor the Web

The Australian government is intending to propose legislation that would block the access of certain Web sites. The blacklist includes sites thought to carry content like child pornography, bestiality, rape and other sexual violence, or detailed instructions on how to commit certain crimes. Critics say it will not prevent determined users from sharing such content, and could lead to unwarranted censorship by overzealous officials. They are also concerned that the reasons for blacklisting sites would be kept secret, opening the possibility that legitimate sites might be censored.

What are some other outlooks on this issue? Countries such as Egypt and Iran impose strict Internet controls, and bloggers have been imprisoned. China has a pervasive filtering system. Canada, Sweden and Britain have filters, but they are voluntary. In the United States, Pennsylvania briefly imposed requirements for service providers to block child pornography sites, but a federal court struck down the law because the filters also blocked legitimate sites.

Texting at Work: Policy Change in the Wind?

The US Supreme Court is going to hear a case that could change text message policies in companies around the country. The case, City of Ontario v. Quon, revolves around the question of whether the Ontario, Calif., police force had the right to read text messages sent by its employees, including sexually explicit messages that were clearly not part of police business -- and whether Arch Wireless, then the city's telco provider, violated the employees' rights by revealing their messages. The case made its way to the 9th Circuit, which held that the police department violated one employee’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

PhotoDNA Donated by Microsoft

Children whose sexual abuse has been circulated in photos online could get some relief from new software that makes it easier to remove child pornography from the Internet.

Microsoft, which developed the PhotoDNA software, donated it recently to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a non-profit group that will use it to protect the abused children. The center reviews 250,000 images of child pornography every week and sends what it considers the most egregious to online service providers to be removed. Way to go Microsoft!

A Quick Tip for Safely Closing Pop-Up Windows

Seems like even getting rid of stuff on your computer can be dangerous these days. Concerned about pop-up windows and what malware they may be trying to deposit on your computer? No? Well apparently you should be. The Editors at C/net have a safety tip for you. Take a look at this video if you are a Windows user.

Report From the Prime Minister: Parents, the Internet and Perspective

Last September, British prime minister Gordon Brown commissioned clinical psychologist Tanya Byron to conduct a comprehensive review of potential digital threats faced by young people, both online and via video games. The result is a report asking parents and schools to put the relative threat of online predators in perspective, while at the same time noting that they must not make assumptions about children's sophisticated use or ease with technology, but instead act to give students the media literacy skills required to use the Internet responsibly. A 226-page report came out of these efforts and you can read it for yourself at the Byron Review. This confirms the attitude of this blog and site, eh? Stay tuned for more help in staying current with technology and your children.

Phishing and the IRS

'Phishing,' Internet-based schemes of tricking people into revealing confidential financial information, topped the Internal Revenue Service's annual list of scams that taxpayers should be aware of. The IRS recently also warned people not to fall for predators posing as IRS representatives who tell them they must reveal personal information to obtain the economic stimulus payment. That payment goes out automatically to anyone who files a tax return.

PII

Ok, so here is another technology acronym for you that you may want to get tuned in on as it is going to be vitally more important in the future. PII stands for "Personally Identifiable information" and there is a reason it is in the news right now. It seems that the European Union wants to get settled with Google, who is trying acquire a new company in Europe, whether your IP address - in other words, the call numbers by which other computers identify your computer  - is public or private information. Google, of course, wants it to stay public information because that's how they do all those geography specific searches - like find me the closest Chinese restaurants. Or here are your search results ...and by the way here are all the closest local suppliers of that particular item who have paid us advertising bucks to be listed here.

How did this all get started? Privacy advocates began pushing to include IP addresses in the formal definition of "personally identifiable information" when the Recording Industry Association of America began subpoenaing Internet Service Providers for user information in its quest to shut down peer-to-peer music Web sites. But so far in the courts it has been ruled that an IP addresses does not identify a person -- they identify a device. If you follow that logic then, an IP address is not personally identifiable information.  That's also why police need to subpoena Internet service providers to find out the account that belongs to a specific IP address. It all gets pretty complicated pretty quickly, but what this comes down to is that people are now looking at ways to disguise IP addresses, which will also make it harder to track down cybercrooks and cyberbullies. Sounds like a no win situation to me.

Saudi Blogger Jailed

Most of us take our online freedom for granted so it's important to point out to kids that it doesn't exist everywhere in the world. Journalists who write stories contrary to the viewpoints of the ruling family in Saudi Arabia over the years have been banned and even forced to leave their country, but now the government has taken the unprecedented step of jailing a blogger for his dissident views. Fouad al-Farhan , 32, who blogged under his own name in the cause of "searching for freedom, dignity, justice, equality, public participation and other lost Islamic values,"was recently arrested and jailed for the content of his blog. His arrest sent shock waves through the blogging community in Saudi Arabia where this unfettered form of communication has been booming.

Internet Safety Rules for Kids, By Kids

Take a look at this brief and basic list of digital safety rules written for kids, by kids. While Internet safety starts with parents and kids talking together about the "real" world online, it never hurts for kids to read it from a kids' point of view.