CDR: Parents tracking kids - locations and transactions

George at Orwellian.Org George at Orwellian.Org
Tue Nov 7 15:04:33 PST 2000


If I ever have a daughter, I'm going to name her Nipples.

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http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973467133455018998.htm

November 6, 2000

It's Not Big Brother Invading Kids' Privacy, It's Mom and Dad

By ANDREA PETERSEN Staff Reporter, of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Lindsey Bargo, 15 years old, was triumphantly strolling out of
a Gap store with her new $149.99 black leather jacket when her
cell phone rang. It was her mother.

"A leather jacket? Are you sure this is what you need with your
money?" Julie Bargo recalls saying to her daughter.

Although Ms. Bargo was more than a hundred miles away in her
State College, Pa., office at AccuWeather, she still knew what
Lindsey was doing. Every time her daughter buys something with
her debit card, Ms. Bargo, an Internet executive, gets an instant
e-mail from PocketCard Inc. (www.pocketcard.com), with details
on how much Lindsey spent, where she spent it and the date and
time. Sometimes, as in this case, it even tells her what the
money was spent on. "I told her, 'You can't hide from me,' ''
Ms. Bargo says.

In the age-old battle between independence-seeking teenagers
and worried parents, the older generation is packing some new
weapons. Caller ID tells parents who is calling their kids.
Cell-phone bills detail every local number the kid has called.
EZ-Pass, the electronic toll-taker, records the exact time and
place that junior starts cruising along the New Jersey Turnpike,
and puts it all on statements. New computer programs track just
about everything -- every Web site visited, every e-mail sent
-- that a teenager does online.

And parental reconnaissance is going to get a lot more intense.
New technologies will soon allow parents to download live Web-cam
videos onto their cell phones, showing exactly what is going
on at home while they are away. Companies such as SnapTrack and
Trimble Navigation are launching technologies that will turn
cell phones into homing devices so parents will always know where
their kids are.

Daniel Rosen was brought down by an electronic version of a trail
of bread crumbs. While the 13-year-old from West Chester, Pa.,
has his own computer and access to America Online, his parents
use AOL's parental controls, which permit Daniel to go only to
those Web sites deemed appropriate for young teens. But that
wasn't enough to keep Daniel from wandering around the Web. While
his parents weren't looking, Daniel broke into his father's AOL
account and visited some X-rated Web sites. "He cracked my
password," says the boy's dad, Mike Rosen, who is the chief
executive of an Internet software company, 2Ce Inc., in King
of Prussia, Pa. "He just tried everything he could think of."
Daniel says it wasn't all that hard; the password had been saved
on the computer.

Mr. Rosen might never have known about the security breach, but
his son left electronic fingerprints. Mr. Rosen started getting
unsolicited e-mail messages from pornographic Web sites. Curious,
he looked at the browser cache on his computer -- the record
of sites visited -- and found addresses with risque names. Mr.
Rosen then checked his cookie file. The porn sites had sent a
number of cookies -- little computer programs that recognize
a returning visitor and track his movements -- onto Mr. Rosen's
hard drive. Daniel was in big trouble.

"I scared the hell out of him," Mr. Rosen says. "I told him he
could go to jail for going into somebody's computer."

Daniel fessed up. His punishment? A month without using the
computer for anything but homework. "I got busted," Daniel says
sheepishly. "I think my dad can see wherever I go."

Many parents can do exactly that. Norm Zurawski, a locksmith
in Schofield, Wis., and the father of three children, uses a
computer program called Spector to track everything his kids
do on the computer. The program takes frequent electronic
"snapshots" of the computer screen and lets Mr. Zurawski replay
the action later. The kids don't know how he sees what they are
doing.

Mr. Zurawksi's elder son, 17-year-old Nate, has felt the effects,
however. When Nate was caught visiting some pornographic Web
sites, his father forbade him to go online for a week. But after
Mr. Zurawski unplugged the family's high-speed DSL Internet
connection and went to sleep, Nate plugged his computer into
a dial-up phone line and got to the Internet using a friend's
AOL screen name. "I knew what was going on because I got these
AOL screen shots," Mr. Zurawksi says.

Circling the Posse

Even when kids aren't caught red-handed, their parents' technology
tools can cramp their style. Brandon Diamond, 16, got a pager
earlier this year, and most of his friends have cell phones.
The kids use them to stay in touch with one another -- and with
their parents -- during afternoons hanging out in the pool halls
and bowling alleys of Pace, Fla.

But Brandon says the cell phones and pagers have made it easier
for parents, who've got all their numbers, to keep track of
everybody in his posse. "It is like the parents' secret service,"
Brandon says. "All the parents check in with each other, so you've
got to be good and not act stupid." The pager does have one
advantage for Brandon. He isn't expected home at night now until
10:30 (his old curfew was 9:30) because, he says, his parents
feel more comfortable knowing they can always reach him.

But being in touch can ruin a tender teenage moment. Aaron
Fleishman, 16, was at his girlfriend Moira's house when his mother
called him on his cell phone to find out when he was coming home.
The young couple was busy making out and the call, Aaron says,
killed the mood. "My girlfriend was sort of upset," he says.
"It is kind of annoying that my parents can call me anytime."
Couldn't he have just turned off his cell phone? No, he says
-- he'd get a lecture from his parents.

Of course, for every new parental trick, there are kids figuring
out ways to thwart it. Zak Ellsworth's parents tried to keep
tabs on him by installing caller-ID on their home phone and
looking through the browser cache and cookie file on his computer.
"My parents keep me on a short leash," he says.

But they were no match for Zak, a 17-year-old high-school senior
in Reno, Nev., who maintains the computers for his school's Junior
ROTC program. After going online, Zak simply erases any tracks
by clearing the computer's browser cache ("There's a little button
in Internet Explorer that says 'erase history,' " he says.) He
also cleans out his computer's cookie file.

If teenagers think they have it bad, they should be thankful
they aren't in their little brother's and sister's shoes.
Companies are getting ready to unleash more powerful methods
of surveillance.

Xanboo Inc. (www.xanboo.com), in New York, plans to begin selling
a $179.95 home-surveillance system in January. It will include
a camera and a motion sensor, so worried parents can get an e-mail
at work telling them when the front door is opened. A camera
will beam live video of all who enter.

PacketVideo Corp. (www.packetvideo.com), in San Diego, Calif.,
is taking the idea even further. Early next year it expects to
offer technology that will send streaming video to a parent's
cell phone. "You'll be able to check on your kids from anywhere,"
says Jim Carol, PacketVideo's chief executive.

Kids on the Map

A number of companies are creating global-positioning system
technology to embed in cell phones and electronic personal
organizers. Qualcomm Inc. is already shipping chip sets with
built-in GPS technology to cell-phone hardware manufacturers.
They can be used for everything from beaming driving directions
to keeping track of elderly parents. "You could imagine logging
onto a Web site and typing in a cell-phone number, and a map
pops up to tell you where your teenage kid is," says Steve
Poizner, president of the company's SnapTrack subsidiary.

Applied Digital Solutions, in Palm Beach, Fla., is getting ready
to unveil Digital Angel, which it plans to put in everything
from cell phones to bracelets and luggage tags. Not only will
Digital Angel tell where a person wearing the device is located,
it can also record heart rate and body temperature. So the device
will suit cardiac patients and nervous parents alike. The company
has a patent for a device that can be surgically implanted beneath
the skin.





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