As widely discussed here, Joe Sixpack just doesn't use crypto enough. But as Joe spies on his kids, his kids will learn the value of spending a little time to learn the tech. Private diaries, correspondence, browsing. Even non-deliquent teens crave privacy. And Joe *does* spy on his kids, as this irritating article shows: ................................................................................... http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19PARE.html July 19, 2001 Looking For Clues In Junior's Keystrokes By LISA GUERNSEY T was in the spring of last year when a divorced mother of two teenagers in Livingston, N.J., realized that her 14-year-old son's online habits called for drastic steps. For months he had been glued to the family computer at all hours, getting into online quarrels. His grades were sinking, and letters from America Online were piling up, citing violations of its policy against vulgar language in its forums. His mother tried parental-control software, but he circumvented it within minutes. She tried closing the family's America Online account several times; feigning her voice, he had it reopened. She installed hardware requiring a password to be entered to start the computer; he reconfigured the circuitry to get back in. One night, in desperation, she slept with the power cord under her pillow. So the mother — who asked not to be identified for this article out of concern that her son's activities could affect custody arrangements — took the computer away. For seven months she hid the computer tower in the trunk of her car, covered with blankets. In August, she said, "he got it back, with the explicit understanding that I have the passwords to all his screen names." Since then she has been vigilant in inspecting the cache of Web sites he has visited, checking the Recycle Bin for signs of trouble. "He certainly improved my computer skills," she said. Teenagers, the moment you have been dreading has arrived: Parents are starting to get a clue about the Internet, and they are more and more determined to gain control of where you go, what you read, whom you talk to and how you behave online. The Internet age is ushering in a new mode of parental oversight, one in which Mom and Dad draw Web-based boundaries, issue computer curfews and worry about whether their hack-happy youngsters are making trouble. Granted, many parents would still not know a motherboard from Mother Hubbard, but that doesn't mean they are not trying. In a recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit research center, more than 60 percent of parents reported that they checked to see which Web sites their teenagers had visited. About 60 percent of the 754 parents surveyed also said that they had set time limits for Internet use. In a survey of 774 parents conducted for Disney Online, 71 percent said they had set rules about what kinds of content their children could see online, and 88 percent said they had forbidden Internet access in the bedroom (a rule that the mother in Livingston swears by). In interviews for this article, some parents said they had no qualms about reading their children's e-mail by logging in under their screen names. Others reported that they had learned to distinguish between the pause-laden typing patterns that signal that their children are doing homework and the frenetic tap-tap-tap of instant messaging. It is the modern equivalent of listening furtively at the bathroom door after the teenager drags the phone in there for a private conversation. Roni Murillo, a mother in Syosset, N.Y., said she has "sneak-in times" when she tries to read the instant messages sent and received by her 15-year-old son, who once received a citation from AOL for posting a note containing profanity in a professional- wrestling forum. "I have to do it," she said, though abashedly. "I've seen other kids answer him with all these curses. There is no way to monitor that unless you are right there." The snooping, needless to say, does not sit well with those snooped upon. Checking e- mail In boxes is considered the most flagrant privacy violation. "That's just wrong," said Freddie Alvarez, a 16-year-old from Islip, N.Y., who said he bought his own computer so he can use it whenever he wants. Other teenagers liken the e-mail box to a diary in arguing for their right to privacy. Jen Albanese, 16, from Bergenfield, N.J., uses command keys to minimize her instant-messaging screen whenever her mother walks into the room. "She'll be like over my shoulder, saying: `Jen what are you doing? Why did you put that screen down?' " she said. The primary threats driving them to set rules, many parents say, are online pornography and child predators. But 45 percent of the parents surveyed by Pew said they also worried that their children might be the instigators of misbehavior like online threats or hacking. For some reason, many parents report, the boys seem more inclined than the girls to get into trouble. Recent surveys may validate their concerns. In an online poll conducted by Scholastic News Zone, an educational Web site, almost half of the 47,235 respondents, in grades one through eight, said they did not consider hacking a crime, even though unauthorized entry into computer networks is illegal. In Pew's study, about 9 percent of boys ages 15 to 17 reported that they had sent prank e-mail or an "e-mail bomb," which clogs people's e-mail In boxes with dozens or hundreds of copies of the same message. Even when their teenagers seem to have no inclination toward computer mischief, parents have another concern: the sheer amount of time the children spend online. Robert and Marilyn Pohn of Chicago require their 15-year-old daughter and 12- year-old son to seek permission before going online and constantly check to ensure that they are using the computer only for schoolwork. Lauren, their daughter, seems resigned to the restrictions, remarking that the situation could be worse: "I have a friend who has an hour on Fridays. That's it. She's not happy." David Blair, a software programmer and father of two teenagers in Fairfield, Iowa, decided that rules were not enough. He designed a shareware program called TooMuchPC that enables parents to set an automated timer that shuts down the computer at specific times or after a specified number of hours. In his house, where the computer is in the family office, a little window pops up on the screen when one of his children has been on the machine for an hour, to signal that it is the sibling's turn. His daughter, he said, "is addicted to ICQ," the instant-messaging tool, and used to fight over the computer with her brother, who wanted to play Soldier of Fortune. Now harmony reigns. "It is great," he said. "It eliminated all those arguments." <more>