Child-Suitable Alternatives To Passwords? 895
An anonymous reader writes "Two months ago I donated my old PC to my little sister, who is 7 — I had promised she would get her own computer as soon as she can read and write properly. I then proceeded to answer her questions about how it works, as far as she inquired, and tried to let her make some choices when installing Debian (she can already use GNOME). As I explained password protection and encryption to her, I was pleasantly surprised when she insisted on protection measures being as strong as possible, so that no one else can screw with her computer. She knows that my younger brother has to endure strict parental control software that was installed on his machine without his consent. The significant problem is that she cannot permanently memorize abstract passwords, even if they are her own creation. I talked with a teacher who assured me that this is common at her age. My parents would probably be able to guess non-abstract passwords. What mechanism of identifying herself does the Slashdot crowd suggest?"
Fingerprint Reader? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fingerprint? (Score:3, Insightful)
A fingerprint seems like a reasonable idea. If she's just trying to keep other family members off of it, rubber-hose cryptanalysis is unlikely to become a problem, and she's highly unlikely to forget her fingers anywhere.
Shape (Score:5, Insightful)
Have her make a pattern on the keyboard that she can remember. I've actually had a number of PIN codes that I didn't actually remember apart from the pattern they make on the numeric keypad.
None (Score:4, Insightful)
at age 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents guessing the password of a seven year old is ridiculous, is this a serious question ?
Re:Strange quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, quit undermining your parents and let them raise your sister. You can contribute if you want by teaching her about computers, but do it in assistance to your parents, not in opposition.
Why keep her parents off exactly ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have two daughters around the same age. They share a computer that we gave them for xmas. They have their own accounts, with their own passwords and my wife and I maintain the Administrator account. I could not fathom them having an Internet-accessible computer without us having full control over it.
Am I missing the point ? Because when I read:
"My parents would probably be able to guess non-abstract passwords"
it sounds to me like you're trying to keep a 7 year-old's parents off of a computer she uses when they have every right (and reason / responsibility in this day in age) to know what their young child is doing on a computer.
Of course I am all for teaching kids how to be security conscious and protect their private data. But it's a fine balance. Parents need to keep themselves in the loop in order to, you know, be effective parents.
Use a book (Score:4, Insightful)
Have her take a favorite book, start at a random page (or first page if she only needs to keep family members off.) Read the first letter of each page for 10 pages.
On a different topic, you said one thing that shocked me:
She's 7. I don't know how old your younger brother is, but at some age, it is a reasonable thing for a parent to do. It cannot suppliment for parenting, but it can be handy to insist on a website whitelist, or 2-hour cutoff.
Seven-year-olds shouldn't have the full rights of adults.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you trying to undermine your parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
To Deal With Size Limitations (Variant on Phrase) (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance, in high school I listened to Tomorrow Never Knows off of the Revolver record by The Beatles nonstop. Since I know every lyric [lyriki.com] of that song, I might pick the opening line:
Dysfunctional Family Favourites (Score:2, Insightful)
The idea that it is reasonable to provide for a seven year old a computer to which no responsible adult has access is simply insane. If my nine year old floated that idea to me the MAC address would be barred on the home router in about two seconds, and all access offsite would be transparently proxied into squid as soon as I brought the appropriate instance on air. Anyone who permits a child that young to have unfettered access to the Internet should be sterilised, and anyone who aids and abets them should be treated equally harshly.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, my son is 8 and he's only allowed to use the computer in the living room, and we can easily see what he's doing on it at all times. Kids are already going to obsess about keeping things from their parents when they're teenagers, there's no reason to start building that barrier when they're only 7.
Keyboard patterns (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:passphrase (Score:3, Insightful)
mybigbrotherissuchageek
or
nowicantalktocreepsonlinewithoutmyparentsknowing
?
Why on earth does a kid of this age need a secure password?
Re:Fingerprint Reader? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Strange quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the parents need to be kept out, and why the AC thinks that any password will keep out parents who presumably have physical access to the system.
If the parents are taking an interest in keeping young children safe, then by all means let 'em.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hide it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:at age 7 (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with the sentiment, but am appalled by the logic. Privacy is an inherit human right, not a privledge. However, we allow parents to exercise those rights on behalf of the child, because the child cannot be trusted to do so yet. It has nothing to do with the costs of food/shelter/clothing, and a 20-year-old unable to secure funds (e.g. all their money was going to tuition) would certainly have an expectation of privacy.
Re:Fingerprint Reader? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fingerprint will be the same, but scaled up so all proximity will be lost.
Re:passphrase (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:passphrase (Score:3, Insightful)
Every login account on an internet-connected computer needs a secure password.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
That judgement is learned, generally through the parents. And yes, you'll see lots of adults using their parents' poor judgement.
The second reason is that it helps prevent parent ignorance. If the parents participate in her "computer experience" they will become experienced, too. The younger kid had to endure safe-surf software because the parents didn't want to surf with the kid.
What gets me is that a 7-yo actually feels the need to hide things from her parents. This can be from watching her brother and deciding his frustration was bad, or it could be because she doesn't trust them so much.
Anonymous Child? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:failure at parenting (Score:3, Insightful)
But then still, a child may need privacy, but the parents need to have a way to access it. Whether they should do it or not, that is another discussion. You are talking about a seven-year-old here. They need parental supervision, and a certain degree of control. Clear limits within where to operate. Keeping things secret as a child from their parents is one thing; completely undermining parents' controls is another. And with that I am not talking about the software based "parental controls".
Surely as the computer in question will be exposed to the internet, a decent password is required. But why all the effort of keeping everything inaccessible to the parents? That is going too far.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Unable to grasp how to admin a computer" doesn't necessarily mean "incompetent to raise a child".
Most kids have a much better understanding of modern technology than their parents (and I suspect that has always held true). She may legitimately worry that, in their laughable attempts to snoop on her activity, they'll actually cause some damage. The very fact that the FP involves her brother giving her a computer rather than her parents would tend to support this view.
quit undermining your parents and let them raise your sister.
I can tell by your tone that you won't agree with this, but like it or not, kids have a right to privacy. You can either honor that and perhaps they'll come to you when they have a real problem, or you can have them do the same things behind your back and consider you the "enemy" and the last person to go to when in trouble.
It always amazes me how selectively people forget their own childhood when they become parents - They seem to remember all the crap they pulled and want to lock the little bastards in their rooms until age 18, without remembering that when their own parents tried to do so, it provided the motivation to learn to pick locks.
Bad parent in the making (Score:4, Insightful)
When you have a 7-year-old, feel free to lock yourself out of their PC.
Re:Fingerprint Reader? (Score:3, Insightful)
The fingerprint will be the same, but scaled up so all proximity will be lost.
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, I think as a primary corollary to your first question, one really needs to ask whether this is a decision that the submitter should be making with his sister. It seems to me, that with all of the talk on Slashdot about 'we must blame the parents who do not take care of their children', this is a decision the parents need to make with their daughter (or that she needs to make alone and can then argue with them afterwards about).
It seems like a ripe situation for family conflict when the (brother, presumably) interposes himself as he is doing here.
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
As a parent, there's no way in a hell a 7 year old will have a lock down to keep mom and dad out, no responsible parent will allow such a thing, and the machine gets taken away if such a practice is put into place.
When your 18, go right ahead and make the 53 ch4R@ct3R password to lock your machine up, until then, accept the fact that you are the child and we are the parent, and you don't get root access or personal and private encryption, you ask the IT department (dad).
Cheers.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than trying to find ways around parental involvement, I think that the original poster needs to work _with_ his parents. Help them to set up the Linux computer for his sister and let them know how it is not susceptible to the same issues as a Windows box. Also, show them how to safely check up on the things that they are probably concerned about (eg; browser history, email addresses, etc.). This way _all_ of you can come out ahead and there is much more trust in the family.
Secure from creeps but not parents (Score:2, Insightful)
"This is MINE" (Score:2, Insightful)
Ownership can be complicated when it comes to siblings, and sibling rivalry. I can totally understand her wanting to have her "space", in a sense, that only she can get to. Didn't you ever have a fort, and only let in friends who knew the secret password, or a lock with a secret combination? It implies ownership and control, and that's an age where you start to understand it and work with it.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Strange quote... (Score:2, Insightful)
And what exactly are you teaching your child? Might makes right? Parents don't respect their own kids? Kids' opinions and feelings don't matter? Powerful people have the right to control less powerful people?
Great lessons, those.
It's much harder to foster respect and open communications. It's called being a parent, not a bully and control freak.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it can just be for the same reason that kids like having a "secret hideout" or "secret clubs" or whatever. Like everyone else, they like space --whether physical or conceptual-- that is their own.
Children, even that young, DO need a certain amount of privacy. But that's too young to be having privacy from parents in connection with her interactions with the outside world, and her interactions with the random & anonymous people that she'll meet there.
And being in her own room gives a very dangerous illusion of complete safety-- she would probably want parents present when wandering through a large, bustling crowd of unfamiliar grown-ups, but she's far less likely to recognize any danger when she's alone in her house with her parents in the next room.
If this computer is not connected to the internet, then sure, let her have a password that keeps her parents out of the computer. It's like having a room with a door that closes, or a diary that no one else is allowed to read.
But if it's attached to the Internet? That's another story. Her parents NEED to be involved.
Nuts. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a secret :) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I have a secret :) (Score:3, Insightful)
cat's in the cradle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pictures (Score:4, Insightful)
Children don't -get- privacy from their parents, unless the parents should choose to give it to them. A family is not a democracy--it is a dictatorship.
Re:Strange quote... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a slippery slope. A seven-year-old child should be entitled to the kind of privacy necessary to protect their dignity (in other words, the same privacy to which any human is entitled) and keep them safe. Sending the message that it's acceptable to do things on a computer that the parents won't know about (whether or not that is true) is extending far too much discretion to someone who lacks the maturity to make wise decisions.
A computer is a (potential) gateway into the worlds of people who would knowingly do harm to a child for their own gratification, and children often times lack the experience to know when they are being manipulated into compromising positions.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
If you're open about it, then the idea that there is automatic resentment is just bullshit. Seven-year-olds shouldn't get unresticted and expecially not unmonitored access to the internet. Should the kid be able to keep a private journal, sure. Electronically? Maybe, I don't know about that. Should the parents know who the kid is e-mailing, hell yes. Should the parent read e-mails to the friends, once they have been identified? Well, that's where you get into trust issues. When the kid is seven, yes. When the kid is sixteen, probably not.
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
A family is most definately *not* a dictatorship. It's a family, which has its own dynamic. Respecting the rights of the child (one of those rights is the right to privacy btw.) is fundamental to a healthy functioning family. In turn they should respect your wish to know what they're doing - but not every detail (and you will never find that out anyway).
Re:Fingerprint Reader? (Score:4, Insightful)
In kindergarten I had to memorize my phone number and address. A phone number is a fairly random 7 digit code. A zip code is 5 more random digits. There is no reason to assume she couldn't memorize a 7 character string; even 5 digits worth of numbers is far more than sufficient to stop any manual attempts to guess the password.
Furthermore, even if she uses a common thing plus 1 number the search space is sufficiently large that it is quite unlikely that the parents would guess it. Beyond this she could write it down on a slip of paper and hide it in a book. Not the most secure, but it'll still take a fair bit of effort to get it.
This excuses several things, such as..
1. The child shouldn't have such access to a computer. It's just not a smart idea.
2. The parents are parents. The child is a child. Passwords have little effect when they say "you can't use the computer until we have the password" or "no sweets unless we get the password." Seriously, in terms of challenges it's trivial on both sides - the parents either can't crack the password regardless of complexity, or they can crack any password because they have physical access to the machine and the knowhow. The child can't withhold the password if the parents get serious about it, or she can, but she loses the benefit of the computer entirely.
Re:Fingerprint Reader? (Score:4, Insightful)
Layne
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm shocked that anyone would even think that. A child with no freedom and no room to grow would turn out to be a basket case. I'd wager social services would get involved at some point.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, maybe.
And then at 27 they'll be calling you back up, realizing what an emotional idiot they were at 18. They'll be grateful for having responsible parents who took a concerned interest in them, and kept them out of serious trouble. And then they'll do the same thing for their own children.
I'm guessing you're a teenager, upset about all the restrictions on your life. We were all there. We thought the same thing. And, after having 10 or 20 years to look back on it, we realize it was a good thing.
bullshit indeed, reading comprehension much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Bullshit.
If you're open about it, then the idea that there is automatic resentment is just bullshit.
If you make yourself the dictator of the house, however...
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:5, Insightful)
"Ma'am, do you have any idea who might have kidnapped your daughter? Has she been talking to anyone new lately? Has she had any new friends come by the house?"
"*sob* I don't know! She uses blowfish!"
You're legally responsible for your children until they reach the age of majority, and the only way you can possibly do that is to have some clue what your children are doing.
Re:Pictures (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, don't get me wrong, i don't monitor every email all the time, nor do I sniff their network traffic all the time. I DO trust them online, they have earned my trust (to get a myspace account, my daughter had to write a 2 page paper on internet stalkers and how to avoid them). However, if I see a change in behavior they don't care to discuss with me, I have EVERY right and the responsibility to find out what's wrong in any way that I need to.
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
"As a parent, there's no way in a hell a 7 year old will have a lock down to keep mom and dad out, no responsible parent will allow such a thing, and the machine gets taken away if such a practice is put into place."
I did not understand that point of view at 7, and I do not agree with it a 40-something.
It seems to go without saying that children are not entitled to privacy from their parents. I say it is up to the individual parent. Many parents DO respect their children enough to give them privacy. Some consider doing otherwise to be a form of abuse.
Re:Pictures (Score:3, Insightful)
I do agree that 7 years old is a bit young for that, but in my case, it's my computer, I paid for it, I can do what I want with it...as is the case here. It's her computer, let her do what she wants. How is she gonna learn anything if the whole system is locked down? I would not be a future computer science major if my parents controlled everything I did on the computer. The main reason I know as much as I do about computers (enough to let me take and easily pass 300 level college courses while still in high school) is from trying to get away from that kind of control.
Re:Pictures (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
Plug it in to the net, or notice little Bobby or Susy loading up stuff on it that you don't recognize from friends, then you bet it's time to want to know what's going on. Kids aren't adults, they don't get the same level of privacy from their parents that adults do, nor should they.
Parents need involvement in their kids lives, it's the way that they shape and mold their kids into functional balanced adults, as well as protect them from dangers the kid doesn't realize exist or doesn't believe in. It's the mark of a good parent, and it's something that's lacking in too many parents.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:bullshit indeed, reading comprehension much? (Score:1, Insightful)
The bottom line is, a person in a position of authority doesn't need to ask permission from who they have authority over in order to exorcise that authority. If the child is well behaved and trusted, this dictatorship is going to seem less severe. If they aren't then it will seem harsh. But the parent is the de facto dictator. Trying to reason with someone who's mental development has been shown not to be fully developed in the reasoning department until they are 19 or 20 in some cases isn't the way to go.
Sure it might suck for the kid, but so will their job when the employer monitors their email, or worse yet, the probations officer when they decide to ignore the rules and get arrested for something. IF they hate you as a parent, so what. They will hate life anyways because they have an overly broad idealized generalization about their expectations.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:5, Insightful)
Just thought I'd point out that your oversight in your title extends to your oversight in the importance of good parenting. Children need to earn privacy so they can respect the responsibilities it comes with later in life. Obviously you give them more and more privacy to practice with the older they get, but a seven year old cannot possibly be ready for that kind of responsibility yet.
In fact, the lack of structure you suggest will probably cause the exact thing you tried to avoid: a bratty kid who gets what he (she in this case) wants. I'm sure you are going to argue that you were referring to the extremeness of the GPs comment (i.e. no privacy at all until 18) but you know you'll be missing the point.
Re:I have a secret :) (Score:1, Insightful)
Sometimes our parents wouldn't let us watch certain shows, or they would limit our TV/Nintendo time. Some of us were able to visit friends with more liberal(or non-existent) parents so that we could sneak the occasional peek at a boob or perhaps a violent shoot-em-up(note that the issue is not only about sex, as there is also an awful lot of nightmare-inducing gore on the 'net).
Kids will be kids, and if kids have friends, then they'll find ways to get what they want. Locking down every friend your kid has is not an option.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:0, Insightful)
If he was going by emotional age, he'd be a pre-teen. Hell, my three year old girl has more maturity than that idiot did.
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
Either you're young enough that you're not a parent (i.e., that "computer when you were 3" was a Windows 95 machine) or you're old enough that the computer you had at home had no real user account control.
TODAY, with the internet everywhere, control of a household computer is as important as control of a household medicine cabinet or control of the family car. You might trust a teenager with it, but if you're stupid enough to trust a seven year old with it you should have your children taken away.
Re:Pictures (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course it does. Did you bother to think this through?
It does not make rational sense to hold someone legally accountable for something they cannot control. If the child breaks the law online, the parent is held legally accountable. Therefore, the parent must have control over what the child does online.
This applies to other aspects of life as well.
Furthermore...from any realistic perspective...freedom requires competence. Children are not "free" to drink alcohol because they are too emotionally and intellectually immature to make wise decisions about alcohol consumption. Their brains are not developed enough, and they do not have enough life experiences yet. They are simply too stupid to know how much is too much. So they don't get any. Once they have grown up a bit that isn't a problem any more, so they become free.
A wise parent won't make the cut off at a specific age, but it is outright obvious that a 7 year old is too immature to roam about unmonitored in an Internet full of predators of every type. Perhaps a 16 year old is. Perhaps that will vary from child to child. In either case the parent is still legally responsible, so the parent is within his/her rights to give as much or as little privacy as he/she deems appropriate.
Let me ask you this....whenever the government tries to pass laws to "protect the children" on the Internet, do you start insisting that keeping kids safe is the parents responsibility? I sure hope so, because it is. People who spout the sort of tripe you are spouting give the government the justification it needs to keep passing these laws...obviously....parents like you aren't doing their job.
Get real.
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying I would use that access. I'm suggesting that 7 is too young to need it.
Side note--I thought we all agreed 5 years ago that 'boxen' was stupid.
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
I neither know or care anything about rising children. I will learn if I ever have any. I simply answered the question "why the parents need to be kept out"; since the summary gave me the impression that the it is the child who wants a "parent-proof" PC, I took this question to mean "why would a child want to keep its parents out".
You are seeing moral judgements where there is none, merely an attempt to see the world through someone elses - the kids, in this case - eyes while attempting to solve an interesting problem: how to secure a computer against an attacker who has physical access to both it and the onwer. Since the rest of your post proceeds from this flawed assumption, commenting on it further would be pointless.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:5, Insightful)
An unplugged box is fine.
Load up a few games. Show them how to use a Paint-like program and a word processor.
Teach them the value of money by giving allowance that they can chose to spend on a new game (and which one to pick!) or something else they may like.
Teach them the value of caring for things by waiting a bit to fix whatever they (potentially) break.
With the amount of educational software, and the fact that innate computer skills are already a requirement in the workforce (let alone 15 years from now when this girl will begin her career), a computer can be a valuable tool for a child.
Re:bullshit indeed, reading comprehension much? (Score:4, Insightful)
He comprehended you just fine. My question is, what color is the sky on your world?
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it would be oh so horrible and the baby jesus would cry if they kissed or god forbid, had sex? I'm sorry to tell you this but your arbitrary moral standards don't apply to everyone.
Also, my parents rarely set boundaries for me as a kid, instead they told me why it was a bad idea to do whatever it was I wanted to do, after the age of 13 or so they would just tell me I could do whatever I wanted but if I did something they had taught me not to do then I was on my own, but maybe raising your children to take responsibility isn't very popular these days?
/Mikael
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no reason a seven-year-old needs absolute privacy from her parents combined with internet access; to the contrary, it's a dangerous and potentially harmful scenario, and it is a parent's primary job to deal with such things. (And no, I'm not advocating a 'padded room' solution to childcare.)
Let's be clear here: privacy for dependents is not absolute. (In fact, privacy is seldom an absolute for anyone, but that's another issue.) Privacy for a seven-year-old should NOT be the same as it is for a 16-year-old or a college student. If your seven-year-old says "I'm going out for a while.", do you ask them where? With who? What time they'll be home? Do you let them go? When they're 16, you can expect different degrees of answer from them, and correspondingly give them more freedom (=privacy). When they're 21, your questions are less of a protective nature, and more concern/interest.
Explaining why they don't have absolute freedom and privacy is a big part of the challenge of being a parent. Kids can be raised (more or less) rationally, and if your reasoning is rational, they'll often go along (although not always, and not always without complaining). Unfortunately, making good decisions for good adult reasons doesn't always translate well to the age of the child. Explaining to a seven-year -old about online pedophiles, credit scams, phishing, and so forth is tough when she hasn't reached puberty or had a net worth more than ten bucks. You can simplify a fair bit, but there are some explanations that ultimately have to wait until she's older. "Because I said so" can actually be the right answer sometimes.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:3, Insightful)
Or they were just very careful about it.
To borrow some phrasing... anybody can snoop. To snoop without anybody knowing they were snooped on, THAT'S the goal.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, with physical access to the computer, a parent can simply boot into single user mode, unless there is also a BIOS, LILO, or GRUB password.
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh ... wait. "Cybernanny" software for high schoolers, yeah, I can see where that's the wrong approach. But what's the problem installing it on a computer for a seven-year-old? There really is a lot of really foul stuff on the Web, and stumbling on it by accident isn't uncommon. Why allow the child's experience to be colored by that?
Re:bullshit indeed, reading comprehension much? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I say "2+2=4", and he replies "Bullshit, 2-3 does not equal 4...", he's neither understanding, nor participating in a meaningful way in the conversation. He's just making empty arguments for the sake of conflict.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was 7 or 8, I went into my room one day and closed the door, and didn't notice that the lock accidentally jiggled itself to locked. (The knobs were cheap junk and the locks were overly loose, so this happened occasionally.) My father tried to come into my room moments later, and flew into a rage when he found the door locked. He refused to believe me that I had not intentionally locked the door, and as punishment he removed the door from my bedroom - for two years.
I never forgave him for that. It was very traumatic for me. I couldn't bring myself to even speak to him for months afterward, and when he asked me to do any household chores my only reply was "when do I get my door back?". I felt nothing toward him but angry resentment for the next 10 or 12 years.
You are not in a position to judge another family's personal interactions with regard to privacy. You don't know the people involved or their histories or their opinions. If the kid, at age 7, is already sufficiently bothered by whatever her parents did to her young brother's computer, and her elder brother is sufficiently bothered by it to try to prevent his parents from doing it to hers, maybe they're actually unreasonable nutjobs. It's not our place to judge.
I spoke with a young woman once whose parents placed such draconian restrictions on her computer use in her teen years (severe time restrictions, IM buddy list restrictions, email restrictions, web filtering, and the software sends frequent reports to the parents with screenshots) that it actually interfered with her school work (the computer would lock her out before she could finish typing her homework), not to mention her social life (her friends had difficulty communicating with her, since her phone usage was highly restricted and parental monitored too). When they attempted to send her off to college with a laptop with their draconian control software still installed and just as restrictive as ever, she told them where to shove it and left. I'd be surprised if she ever speaks to them again.
If the parents in the situation this Slashdot discussion is about feel that their 7 year old shouldn't be using the computer the brother gave her, they can ask him to take it back, they can put it in storage, they can ask their daughter to show them her emails and buddy lists and web favorites now and then, or they can put it in a family room so they can see what their daughter is doing with it. If they don't do these things, that's their parenting choice.
Meanwhile, we could be having an interesting discussion of how to create decent passwords for people (like children) who are unable to remember arbitrary strings. I've met adults with the same problem, so it's not a moot question.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:3, Insightful)
Privacy for everyone (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:4, Insightful)
Me too....
Ma'am, we'd like to congratulate your child on helping us catch our 13th child predator this year. She's a real wizard with netstat, tcpdump, traceroute, and whois. We think she's very well equipped for the challenges she'll face in her very bright future.
*beaming with pride* And to think it all started with that Debian install, a little blowfish, and encouragement!
Obviously, when fabricating completely fictional scenarios, you're a glass half empty kind of person.
Go ahead and shelter your kids if you like. Mine will be no strangers to the knowledge and skills they'll need to be well rounded people. Rather than take responsibility away from them, I'll teach them how to handle it.
Re:cat's in the cradle (Score:3, Insightful)
When I was around 15-16 I met strangers off the internet. I never got raped, or taken advantage of. What's with all the paranoia against strangers? The world is dangerous but I'd hope your kid has enough judgement of character to judge people. The better they can take responsibility as kids, the better they can do it as adults.
The main stream media blows strangers up into big bad things, and label just about everyone as a rapist, or potential killer. Lay off the news.
Brutal Parenting (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude... She's 7 fer Chrissakes! (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyhoo, my 2 cents.
What kind of fscked up parent (Score:3, Insightful)
Parents: the internet is not a nanny.
How about getting the kid to play with playdough, building blocks etc. Studies show much more educational benefit for this playing with building blocks than on a computer.
Yeah, Parent Here (Score:2, Insightful)
Way to set up a lifelong family schism before she's even 10. They are the parents, older brother. You aren't. And no 7-year-old should have unfettered web access. Are you also going to take the time to explain the fisting video she stumbles upon when she misspells a URL and ends up at the wrong web site?
Of course, I think parents who rely on nanny software instead of their own parenting skills are lazy and clueless. But since older brother obviously feels that he will be a far better parent than his sister currently has, maybe his time would be better off spent actually having a kid of his own and re-evaluating that policy with his own kid.