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Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 18:13:25 -0400
To: Philodox Clips List
From: "R. A. Hettinga"
Subject: [Clips] A Teenager's Tale
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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.
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R. A. Hettinga
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'
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R. A. Hettinga
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'