To: turet@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: K12 Personal Security Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy In-Reply-To: <comp-privacy4.52.6@cs.uwm.edu> In article <comp-privacy4.52.6@cs.uwm.edu> you write:
Dear Netters:
I recently have become involved in a project to implement Internet feeds to some elementary/high schools. Actually, they already have the feeds and the hardware, we're putting together a science/math curriculum, also using Mosaic. I recently (re-)started looking at the k12 newsgroups, which I haven't done in a few years, since my kids were small. It struck me that there could be a possibility for abuse of the system, for example in the 'chat' or 'pen-pals' groups and access to names/addresses/phone #'s by those with less than salutory intentions.
Does anyone else have any thoughts or experiences with this, and is this an appropriate newgroup for this discussion? I hope I'm simply being parental (fatherly) and not paranoid.
I would like something like this to be a long thread, since I want to explore this aspect of things before we just go head-long into the network with the little kids and expose them to potential problems later on.
--Phil Turet >> turet@pmel.noaa.gov
Funny you should ask this. I had a conversation just yesterday with a relatively new parent who is really scared about the Internet because it leaves kids exposed to wierdos. Rather than ask for elimination of anonymity for weirdos, he was asking for anonymity for the kids -- not just the e-mail address hiding of various remailers but also an automatic filter on postings to remove (or translate) names, addresses and phone numbers. I know of no one who has done anything beyond hiding e-mail addresses but that software exists, at least. (I've cc:'ed them here.) Perhaps some will have thoughts on the rest of the problem. - Carl -- Carl M. Ellison cme@sw.stratus.com RIPEM MD5OfPublicKey: 39D9860686A9F075A9A83D49589C677A Stratus Computer Inc. TEL: (508)460-2783 55 Fairbanks Boulevard ; Marlborough MA 01752-1298 FAX: (508)624-7488