--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: clips@philodox.com Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 18:13:25 -0400 To: Philodox Clips List <clips@philodox.com> From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> Subject: [Clips] A Teenager's Tale Reply-To: rah@philodox.com Sender: clips-bounces@philodox.com <http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB114434417735419002.html> The Wall Street Journal April 10, 2006 REAL TIME By JASON FRY A Teenager's Tale The Net Makes It Harder to Know Where Your Children Really Are April 10, 2006 Last week a House subcommittee listened to the tale of Justin Berry, the 19-year-old whose five years as a "camwhore" were chronicled by the New York Times, offering a window into a frightening world in which Webcams, IM, online-payment services and e-commerce wish lists are the tools online sexual predators use to lure impressionable teens and younger children into child porn. Mr. Berry and Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald testified, as did a number of experts in protecting kids online -- and even for those familiar with Mr. Eichenwald's scarifying story, it was headline-making stuff. The sexual exploitation of children online was estimated as a $20 billion industry, and Mr. Berry said in his prepared remarks that "[w]ithin each of your Congressional districts I guarantee there are children who have used their Webcams to appear naked, and I guarantee you there are also children in your district on the Internet right now being contacted and seduced online by sexual predators." Frightening enough, but there was an undercurrent to the stories told by Mr. Berry and the other witnesses that was spookier still: the fact that the teens could be exploited in their own homes, and despite having involved, caring parents. "I was an honor student, I was class president," Mr. Berry said. "My mom used all the latest child protective software. She checked what was happening in my room." She did -- and yet in some ways she didn't. Because she couldn't. And that's the dark side of the Net, a fundamental disconnect in our experience that we will have grave trouble getting used to, if we ever can: You can no longer tell who's in the room with your child, with your spouse, with your employee -- or where that person is. It wasn't so long ago that people doing things they shouldn't do needed privacy to go astray -- if you were in the same room as your child or spouse or employee, you could see what they were doing, could hear one side of any conversations, could expect to know if something were amiss. Husbands didn't call their mistresses in the living room while their wives balanced the checkbook, employees didn't hand company secrets to rivals who blithely dropped by their desk, and children certainly didn't have mysterious talks with a stranger on the phone or at the door. Repeated absences had to explained, not to mention strange things on bank and credit-card statements. Now, things are different. Sure, that person -- he or she needn't be a child -- is sitting right there in the room with you. But are they really there, the way you assume they are? In a very real way they may not be. Email and instant messaging can let that person have a secret conversation right under your nose, with no trace but the anonymous tap-tap of keys. Meanwhile, where has the screen they're looking at so intently taken them? Nearly everyone has found something unsettling or repellent on their computer screen after clicking on a Web link sent by someone who shouldn't have shared it, following a bizarre search result out of curiosity, or receiving strange spam. Pressing the Delete key or closing the browser will usually put things right, but a queasy sense of violation remains: Those thoughts/pictures/sounds were right here, in my living room or bedroom or workplace, where I normally feel safe. But for most of us, such experiences are exceptions. And our usual feeling of safety, of being in control, can get us to lower our defenses. It can keep us from worrying about what the person across the room at the computer is doing -- and leave kids susceptible to online predators with practice at role-playing and social engineering. As Mr. Eichenwald put it, kids "are not being approached by a predator in the park. Rather, they are in their own homes, feeling safe. They feel comfortable on the Internet, in ways we may not recognize. There is no one else there, just a small, silent device nearby. There is a level of unreality about it, a simple lack of comprehension." Throw in Webcams, and you have a potentially toxic mix. (Here's hoping Mr. Berry's testimony has led to a tidal wave of parents tearing Webcams out of kids' rooms.) There are undoubtedly other factors that leave children like Mr. Berry vulnerable -- a pop culture that applauds calculated displays of toughness, vulgarity and exhibitionism; a reality-show-fueled belief that seeking attention can make you a star; changing mores among teens who are sexually precocious without the necessary emotional underpinnings; and of course the age-old desire to shock one's parents while basking in the invulnerability of youth. But that said, the level of unreality Mr. Eichenwald describes is one many of us share, to one degree or another -- we simply haven't had time to accustom ourselves to the Internet's mix of anonymity and its ability to erase distance, or to the fact that the tool we love in one context can be put to frightening use in another. We marvel at how the Net lets small, far-flung groups get together -- but what works for woodworkers, toy collectors or parents of children with disabilities also works for terrorists and child predators. It's important, when we're scared and wondering whether it might not be better just to pull the plug, to remember that the Internet isn't all darkness: As Parry Aftab of WiredSafety.org told the subcommittee, "[t]oo often blamed for everything from the Black Plague to the sinking of the Titanic, the Internet is a wonderful tool for learning, communication and entertainment. It levels the playing field between the haves and the have-nots. All children look alike online. No one is classified by their race, ethnic origin, religion, accent or physical ability. Online they are all just children." But of course they're not all just children -- some of them are just pretending. As Mr. Berry noted, when he was 13 he set up his Webcam (sent free for signing up with EarthLink) in hopes that it "would help me meet other teenagers online, maybe even find a few girls my age. That never happened. No teenager outside of those in the Webcam pornography business ever contacted me. But, I did hear from many child predators." Ms. Aftab's reminder of the Internet's marvels shouldn't be forgotten. But it isn't the whole story -- her testimony went on to discuss the mix of good advice, education and technical solutions needed to let kids take advantage of the Net's wonders without falling prey to its dangers. It's a struggle that's new to us, but one that from now on will always be with us. Online, the good and the bad are inextricably bound together; to put an ugly twist on the old joke, on the Internet nobody knows you're a child molester -- and the dark places of the world are only a mouse click away. Drop me a line at realtime@wsj.com7 -- comments will be posted periodically in Real Time. If you don't want your comments considered for Real Time, please make that clear. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _______________________________________________ Clips mailing list Clips@philodox.com http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'