Major update on teen tech use

Were we this nuanced as teenage communicators?! I learned from the just-released study of "Teens and Technology" by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that, for today's 12-to-17-year-olds…

* Email is adults' communications tool, so it's more for communicating with them, not peers - and maybe "a way to convey lengthy and detailed information to large groups."
* Instant-messaging is for everyday casual conversation with friends; and it's "efficient." (One high school girl told Pew that, with IM, "if you only have like an hour and a half to spend on the Internet, then you could talk to like maybe 10 people. Whereas you can only talk to three people if you were going to call.")
* The phone, unlike IM, is for serious conversations, and "the landline phone remains the most dominant communication medium in teens' everyday life" (51% "usually choose" it when they want to talk with friends, as opposed to 24% who usually choose IM and 12% cellphone).
* Away/not online messages in IM - customized, when one's IM service allows, with jokes, coded messages, quotations, etc. - are to maintain "presence" in one's social group even when not in the conversation of the moment. IM is an outlet for personal expression - screennames, profiles, avatars, skins, emoticons, and away messages.
* Face-to-face still rules (an average 12-to-17-year-old spends 10.3 hours a week socializing with friends in person and 7.8 hours/wk socializing via phone, IM, email, or phone-texting).

For more highlights, please click to my newsletter this week.

Email from summer camp

And your distant camper doesn't need a laptop! According to United Press International, s/he hand-writes a letter and hands it to the bunkhouse counselor who goes to the office and faxes the letter to a toll-free number at a company called Bunk1, which emails the note to the parents. Sounds more complicated than sending a letter! But there are other ways kids and parents stay in touch, UPI reports. "Many camps offer their own email service to campers. They charge the parents upwards of a $1 per message for the privilege of communicating daily, while still allowing the kids to experience nature." Video emails may be next (at a slightly higher fee)!

Bloggers vulnerable to hacks

Here's a good reason for bloggers to make sure only people on their blogs' friends or buddy lists can email or instant-message them. This might be a good discussion point for parents and teen bloggers: CNET flags a warning from security firm Websense saying that "cybercriminals are increasingly using blog sites and other free online services to spread malicious code." The criminals lure people to malicious sites with "enticing emails and instant messages." When bloggers click to the sites, their computers become infected. "In one case, a greeting card was displayed and a tune played in the background while spyware was being installed on the compromised PC." It's all about good privacy practices while blogging. Different services - MySpace.com, Xanga.com, LiveJournal.com, Blurty.com, etc. - have different privacy features (e.g., only designated friends can read profiles, posts, etc. or only friends can reply to posts or send IMs and emails). If you have a very young blogger at your house, you might go through those features together (your child will know where they are). For more on this, take a look at "A dad on kids' blogs: How father & [12-year-old] daughter worked through the issues."

Ratings confusion

What the controversy surrounding GTA: San Andreas really highlights is confusion over all the ratings - of movies, music, and TV as well as videogames. USATODAY reports that "a cry has gone out" to fix the game ratings system, in fact all the ratings systems. "Even though TV programs, movies, music and video games all carry labels denoting age-appropriateness, parents groups and politicians say the systems aren't working" (USATODAY thoughtfully provides a page of ratings charts that's about as clear as it can be). Critics cited are the Parents Television Council and the National Institute on Media and the Family. David Walsh, head of the latter organization, told USATODAY that universal ratings need to revisited because of the media convergence we're experiencing - the ability to hop from music video to TV show to game all on one device. Patricia Vance, head of the game industry's Entertainment Software Rating Board, said the system's fine - San Andreas was an "isolated incident." It would be great to hear these experts discuss the pros and cons of a universal rating system, which undoubtedly would be complicated (here's 2001 testimony in the US Senate, about why it's "unworkable," by Douglas Lowenstein, head of the video and PC game industry's trade association). USATODAY cites a number of examples of commercial and nonprofit services that are tackling the convergence problem by putting reviews of multiple child-targeting media in one place (the article should've included California-based CommoneSenseMedia.org), but raising parents' awareness of these services is a costly challenge.

Kid exposure to porn on phones: Study

A new study on kids' exposure to online pornography warns that wireless technology "opens the door for more unsupervised access by minors to online pornography," Wireless Week reports. "The Porn Standard: Children and Pornography on the Internet," released this week by "liberal think tank Third Way" and cited on NBC's Today show Wednesday, found that "one-third of children 11-17 have their own cell phones today," half will have them in the next couple of years; "pornography already constitutes half of the multimedia traffic carried by US wireless carriers outside of their own portals"; and revenues from pornography delivered via mobile devices are projected to increase by more than 50% this year, and "perhaps triple by 2009." For some of those numbers it cited other studies. The Today show picked up on these surprising figures in the report: "The largest group of consumers of adult material on the Internet was 12-17 years old" and "57% of 9-to-19-year-olds with Internet access have accessed online porn." Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) of Arkansas unveiled the study when she announced she'll be introducing a bill called the "Internet Safety and Child Protection Act of 2005." The bill includes a 25% federal tax on Net pornography and "new requirements for adult Web sites to help prevent children from looking at them," the Associated Press reports. (Senator Lincoln is listed as honorary co-chair on Third Way's Web site, according to the Wireless Week report.) Parental controls for cellphones are in the works in the US - for that story, see my 5/6 issue.

Critics of kid phones

A group of child advocates "including the singer Raffi, Harvard child psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, and conservative political operative Phyllis Schlafly" are calling on Congress to investigate the marketing and sale of mobile phones to children, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. In letters to the commerce committees of both houses of Congress, they're protesting the creation of the 8-12 market niche whereby marketers can bypass parents and "talk" directly to kids. They're also asking lawmakers to look into whether "adults other than parents could contact children by phone, and whether individuals other than parents could track the physical location of the child's phone." The letters register concerns about classroom disruptions, billing practices, and whether it's healthy for kids to use cellphones. The Sun-Times quotes the letters as citing Disney's soon-to-launched kids' phone service (in partnership with Sprint - see this at NFN); it's not clear if the writers mention others. But the Sun-Times adds some of the latest developments in this niche: "Firefly Mobile has signed up 100,000 users under age 12 since March. Firefly phones connect with parent-programmed phone numbers at the touch of one button…. Coming soon: child-targeted phone service from Enfora for children as young as 6, Global Positioning System through Wherify, a Barbie brand mobile phone from Mattel and one from Hasbro called 'Chat Now'."

Grandmother sues GTA makers

Upset that she bought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for her 14-year-old grandson without knowing it included hidden X-rated content, a grandmother in New York this week is suing Rockstar Games and its parent Take Two Interactive, the Associated Press reports. Filing her lawsuit in a federal court in Manhattan, Florence Cohen is seeking "unspecified damages on behalf of herself and all consumers nationwide, saying the company should give up its profits from the game for what amounted to false advertising, consumer deception and unfair business practices." Meanwhile, The Sims is facing fallout. "An anti-game crusader" and attorney in Florida is pressuring Electronic Arts to take action against people who modify The Sims 2 in a way that "unblurs" naked characters in that game, the San Jose Mercury News reports. The attorney, Jack Thompson, "who has tangled often with the makers of video games," says Sims 2 should be "next on the list to be re-rated as an 'adults only' game." EA responded that this was "nonsense," since even when the mod's in place, the "naked" characters look like store mannequins - they're not anatomically correct. For perspective, the Wall Street Journal reports that mods and "Easter eggs" are nothing new, and most aren't nearly as risqué as the "Hot Coffee" mod (for GTA: San Andreas) that sparked all the controversy. [Mods are bits of code circulating the Net that gamers can download to modify games, Easter eggs are hidden content within games and DVDs that are "unlocked" by mods or found in a kind of treasure hunt done with a remote or controller. Many parents have heard of a third kind of game tweak or add-on called "cheats," which are codes gamers get on the Web to enhance a character's powers, go to the next level, etc.]

Tunes on phones

In no time at all, digital music shops like iTunes will be on phones as well as the Web. "For years, wireless companies have watched with envy as Apple Computer's iPod became the best-loved pocket device in America, a role filled virtually everywhere else in the world by the cell phone. Now, they're getting ready to do something about it," CNET reports. Verizon and Sprint are leading the charge, planning on unveiling their own music services "as early as the end of this year." CNET adds, though, that all the major cellphone companies have announced phones that will store and play music. But watch out, tunes on phones are expected to be as much as three times as expensive as on computers.

Christian gamemakers' big plans

From Christian rock to Christian videogames. "A small but growing number of game developers are creating titles for Christian gamers," reports Reuters in an article pegged to the fourth-annual Christian Game Developers Conference in Portland, Ore., this week. One such gamemaker, N'Lightning Software, says half of videogamers are Christian. Some of these games are overtly edutainment, others don't sound much different from non-Christian games about medieval conquests, knights and vikings. N'Lightning's Catechumen, according to the company's Web site, is about navigating the catacombs of ancient Rome to free "brethren captured by the demon-possessed Roman soldiers." Then there are apocalyptic games (e.g., one called Left Behind: Eternal Forces, based on Left Behind books said to have a reader base of 10 million) and "The Bible Game," a trivia game with 1,500 questions for PlayStation 2 and a trivia-questions-plus-adventure game for Game Boy Advance. CNET says "Christian games traditionally have been the domain of the PC, which allows many developers to sell games online to their target audience. But with the first console game coming out, the industry will be reaching the mass-market audience that shops at Wal-Mart." Anybody know of good games about other religions?!

More anti-Grand Theft Auto pressure

The US House of Representatives this week joined Sen. Hillary Clinton in asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The resolution calling for the investigation passed 355-21, the Associated Press reports. Lawmakers apparently were concerned about whether San Andreas's producer Rockstar Games and its parent Take Two Interactive intended to deceive the Entertainment Software Rating Board by concealing the X-rated content in the game. "Take Two initially said the scenes were not part of the retail version of the game, but were created by third parties. Later the company admitted the scenes were contained in its version," the AP explains. Here's the BBC's coverage. For more background see my main feature last week. At the state level, meanwhile, "a new Illinois law restricting the sale of violent video games to minors is unconstitutional, software makers and resellers asserted in a lawsuit" filed in a federal court in Chicago on Monday," CNET reports.

Hackers focus on desktop software

Apparently, Microsoft is doing a good job of fixing flaws in its Windows operating systems, because malicious hackers are no longer that interested in the OS. They're "now focusing on desktop software, like Web browsers and media players, that might not get fixed as frequently," Reuters reports, referring to a new report from the SANS Institute. "Many of the new flaws were found on products popular with home users," according to Reuters. "Flaws in media players like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes and RealNetworks Inc.'s RealPlayer could enable a hacker to get into a user's computer through a poisoned MP3 file. Users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser could be compromised simply by visiting a malicious Web site, SANS said. Even the open-source Mozilla and Firefox Web browser, which has gained in popularity thanks to security concerns, had flaws as well." Make a point of checking often for updates to FireFox and RealNetworks software. Apple and Microsoft issue fairly frequent updates for their desktop software.

Meanwhile this week, Microsoft will continue to provide security patches for all Windows users, but all other updates and add-ons to the operating system will now require verification (that one's copy of the operating system is "legit"), CNET reports. "Regardless of whether a system passes the test, security updates will be available to all Windows users via either manual download or automatic update. The Microsoft Update and Windows Update utilities, which provide notifications of new patches, will require validation." CNET goes on to say that this is part of Microsoft's "stepped up effort" to increase the number of users who are actually paying for its software. The company says about a third of Windows copies worldwide are pirated.

Spyware: We are not alone

It's *somewhat* comforting to know that even the experts struggle over the definition of spyware. Part of the problem is that there are conflicting interests - like advertisers vs. regulators - involved in coming up with a definition, and adware and spyware are "kissing cousins," as the Baltimore Sun put it. But key parties to the discussion, the AntiSpyware Coalition, have been working hard on a definition. The result is a 13-page report that doesn't exactly make for summer reading, but will help lawmakers draft anti-spyware legislation that actually sticks. The Coalition, which "includes small software specialists such as Tenebril and Webroot, Web giants such as Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online, and Internet activist groups such as the Center for Democracy and Technology," is seeking public comment on the report until August 12. Here's the Washington Post's Brian Krebs, who illustrates some of the confusion (with spyware issues at his in-laws' house), then clears some of it up. As for the numbers, ClickZStats illustrates the spyware problem, and USATODAY quantifies our confusion. And what does all this spell? Buying new computers, apparently, because more and more people are just junking their spyware-ridden PCs and starting fresh, the New York Times reports.

Teen vlogs?!

Well, our teenagers are blogging. Pretty soon they'll be vlogging - some undoubtedly already are. Vlogs are video blogs, sort of the ultimate reality TV, only more amateur and, in some cases, a lot more yuck, since there's almost nothing vloggers aren't recording. I didn't even want to pass along to you all the examples the New York Times provides in its article on this today, but here are some: "Village Girl has posted a video of her 2-year-old dancing with a friend. Josh Leo taped himself browsing through his old baby pictures and art projects. (The first book he wrote as a child, 'No,' is excellent.) Fat Girl From Ohio is a man blogging largely about his wife's pregnancy." Most are adults, but the Times mentions one dad of two little girls, both of whom have vlogs ("Dylan plays with Neopets.com and talks about a boy who can't get her name right"). "At this point the video blogging world is still small enough that all vloggers appear to know one another and show up in one another's work." So we don't yet really have to worry about our teenagers' party vlogs, but - when you start wondering - talk to yours and for goodness sake make sure s/he's sure no last names are associated with the footage in those vlogs!

The mod that triggered a turning point

The sexually explicit "Hot Coffee" mini-game that was "unlocked" by a mod (a computer-code modification) written and put on the Net by a "modder" in the Netherlands was indeed in the game itself, the Entertainment Software Rating Board announced this week, as it upped San Andreas's rating from "M" (for Mature/17+) to "AO" (Adults Only/18+). That led to 1) giant retailers Wal-Mart (its biggest outlet), Target, and Best Buy pulling the game from their shelves, 2) San Andreas's creator Rockstar Games promising to "secure" and reissue the game so it could get that M rating (and shelf space) back, 3) parent company Take Two Interactive's shares dropping 11%, 4) and thousands of news articles about all this in mainstream and online media outlets all over the world. For the view of a dad, MD, and software CEO on all this, please click to my newsletter this week.

Legal music downloads tripled

...in the first half of this year, over the same period in 2004, according to the London-based International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI, the umbrella for the Recording Industry Association of America and other such organizations). That's 180 million legal tunes downloaded, up from 57 million the year before, the Associated Press reports. The reason the IFPI gives? Broadband - the rapidly increasing number of people accessing the Net with high-speed connections. Meanwhile, file-sharing's down. The IFPI said there was "just a 3 percent increase in illegal file-sharing to 900 million in July, from 870 million at the start of the year." The IFPI also reports that there are now more than 300 digital sites available worldwide, "three times the number a year ago, and 2.2 million people now subscribe to digital services, compared to 1.5 million in January." See also "File-sharing realities for families."

'iTunes' AIM worm

It's unlikely to turn the family PC into a zombie, but it's the kind of malware that can. CNET describes "a new instant messaging worm that masquerades as Apple Computer's iTunes application and drops adware on infected Windows PCs has been found." It comes as a link in a message that reads: "This picture never gets old." If you click on it, it looks like you're installing "itunes.exe." What it really does is download and install four adware applications - "software that displays pop-up advertising on a computer screen," CNET explains. It's not spreading that rapidly, so nothing to lose sleep over, but a good reminder for everyone in the family never to click on a link, even if it appears to be from a friend, without first opening a new window and asking that friend if s/he sent it. Also, keep that anti-virus software up-to-date! See also "Tips from a tech-savvy dad: IM precautions."

IM 'popularity contest'

Heard of AIMFight.com? Your favorite teenager probably has (especially if s/he's an AIM user). It's billed as such, but it's hardly a real personality contest. It's a Web site on top of a bunch of techie algorithms that bascially look at how many AIM buddy lists you're on (so you can still be popular and use MSN or Yahoo Messenger, for Pete's sake!). Here's how AIMFight describes itself. The Washington Post, though calling it a "self-esteem check," does provide some context: "Instant messaging, you will know, is the way tens of millions of Americans connect with their buddies faster than email. Beginning this week, the 50 million users of AIM, America Online's version of instant messaging - including nearly half of all Americans between the ages of 13 and 25 - could perform a self-esteem check by visiting AimFight.com." The "fight" part is just a traffic-raising way to get the visitor to type his or her screenname into one box and that of a friend or rival into another, click, and find out who's on more buddy lists. It's good fun, but let's hope teenagers (or adults) don't read to much into the results!

GTA: San Andreas now 'Adults Only'

The Entertainment Software Rating Board completed its investigation of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas's sexually explicit "Hot Coffee" content with the decision to change its rating from "M" (Mature/17+) to "AO" (Adults Only/18+), PC Magazine reports. The decision, which - according to the New York Times - was in response to pressure from Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman, effectively removed the game from the shelves of most major retail stores in the US. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that, following the re-rating, "Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart immediately moved to pull the game from their shelves." These developments "could signal the start of a crackdown on raunchy games," according to the Associated Press, which adds that GTA: San Andreas was last year's top console game, selling more than 5.1 million copies in the US, and last month launched Xbox and PC versions (before it ran on PlayStation 2). The game's developer, Rockstar Games, said it would stop making the current version, provide new labels to any retailer willing to keep selling it, and provide a downloadable patch to fix the sexual content in PC versions." It also said it was working on a new, "more secure" version that would win it back the more saleable M rating. This is probably the "tipping point" in a long struggle on the part of policymakers and children's advocates in at least a half dozen states, the District of Columbia, and Japan's Kanagawa Prefecture to protect kids from inappropriate content in videogames (see earlier coverage here, a gaming news roundup, and here, about where responsibility for protecting young gamers lies).

Legal tunes for Calif. students

Some 600,000 university students in California will soon be able to exercise the legal option for their on-campus movie and music consumption. The 13-campus University of California system and the 23-campus California State system announced an agreement with Englewood, Colo.-based Cdigix Inc. that gives administrators on all the campuses the opportunity to provide legal music and film downloading, the Los Angeles Times reports. It's "the largest [such agreement] since campuses across the country began searching two years ago for alternatives to the illegal peer-to-peer downloading that clogged their computer networks and put students in legal jeopardy." Cdigix charges $3/mo. for music and $5.99 for video programming. "Individual campuses will decide whether to subsidize the services through student fees, as is done at some schools," according to the Times. Across the Pacific, 60 Korean record labels are preparing to sue "4,000 Internet users who illegally distributed or used music files," the Korea Times reports. (Thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing this news out.) For more on legal vs. illegal digital music, see "File-sharing realities for families."

The Matthews family's Net rules

The rules for Net users in the household of commentator and single mom Laura Matthews are at the bottom of her piece in the Christian Science Monitor, and they're good and geared to age and responsibility levels. "The Internet is a virtual reference library, a 24/7 guidance counselor, and the most portable locker, backpack, and notebook imaginable," Laura writes, and all this outweighs the Net's risks, as far as she's concerned. Like any smart parent, she's big on teaching her children about taking responsibility for their actions, online or off, and has found this much more effective in keeping them and family privacy safe than scaring them. "I taught them that I'm using the computer for family record-keeping. When my kids realized they could harm the family with naive downloading or unguarded instant messaging, they more readily accepted that it's my responsibility to determine how the computer is used. This argument had more impact on them than cautioning about predators did." There's also some rare positive commentary on the impact of blogging on teenagers - don't miss it.

Dot-mobi: Web on phones

Further evidence the Net's soon to be more mobile than fixed: the new dot-mobi address. Soon we'll be able to tell what Web sites are specifically designed for cellphone screens, CNET reports, referring to ICANN's approval of the top-level domain (TLD) at its meeting in Luxembourg last week. "The first Web sites for mobile devices, which will be fit for a small screen and limited memory and bandwidth, will be ready in 2006. Mobile Web services will also use geographic information to take advantage of the changing location of a mobile device, for instance to find the nearest hospital," CNET adds. Other new TLDs include .eu, .travel, .jobs, and .xxx (for more on .xxx, see "Net to have red-light district").

9-year-old Pakistani a Microsoft pro

Now 10, Arfa Karim of Multan, Pakistan, was 9 when she became a "Microsoft Certified Professional," one of the world's youngest (Indian Mridul Seth was 8 when he was certified last November), CNET reports. Arfa "met with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last week - an experience she later described as second only to visiting Disneyland." Getting MS-certified means reaching proficiency in technologies such as .Net, Visual Studio 6.0, and Windows Server 2003, CNET adds. Apparently Arfa's dad bought her a computer so she could use email, and the rest was history. Watch out, America, ZDNET UK reports that various nations are vying "to come up with the youngest qualified computer specialist." In the US, technology teachers just formed the Computer Science Teachers Association and are calling on education departments and school districts to include technology in school curricula - see "Tech teachers: Help kids compete."

Teen blog fuels social debate

It seems to be teen-blog theme week again. This story led the New York Times's "Fashion & Styles" section yesterday. It's about 16-year-old Zach in Memphis, who wrote a few entries in his MySpace.com blog about being sent by his parents to "Refuge," the youth version of "Love in Action" - according to the Times, "one of 120 programs nationwide listed by Exodus International, which bills itself as the largest information and referral network for what is known among fundamentalist Christians as the 'ex-gay' movement." Zach's parents, he said in his blog, believed there was "something psychologically wrong with me" and they'd "raised him wrong." But what's pertinent to Net Family News is the impact of these few entries in a teenager's blog. Moving beyond his peers (his blog links to 213 friends' blogs), they "grabbed the attention of both gay activists and fundamentalist Christians around the world," the Times reports. They've been "forwarded on the Internet over and over, inspiring online debates, news articles, sidewalk protests and an investigation into Love in Action by the Tennessee Department of Children's Services in response to a child abuse allegation [later dropped because the allegation proved unfounded]." Not to mention 1,700 responses in Zach's blog to his last post before entering the program, the Times adds. Then there was this piece in the same Styles section (very) basically suggesting that nannies better be very careful about what they blog!

MySpace.com's new parent

MySpace, one of teenagers' favorite blogging services, is going corporate. News Corp., which is acquiring MySpace's parent, Intermix, will be folding the service "into its newly formed Fox Interactive Media unit," MarketWatch reports. "If next-generation media is about user-generated content, then MySpace.com may be the perfect centerpiece for tomorrow's media conglomerates. At least that seems to be the thinking behind News Corp.'s $580 million cash purchase of Intermix," according to another MarketWatch report. MySpace, the most prominent of Intermix's 30-odd Web sites, says it gets about 2 million registered users a month, and it targets 16-to-34-year-olds. What this may eventually mean to online families is better privacy protection for the underage segment of that target market - MySpace may eventually look more like MSN Spaces, AOL's RED Blogs, or Yahoo 360 in offering levels of privacy (for more on this, see "Do young bloggers care about privacy?" and this on RED Blogs).

Let's hope Xanga.com, also very popular among teens, somehow becomes more accountable. One family recently emailed me about how they'd tried to contact Xanga about getting some personal info removed from their 7th-grader's blog and simply couldn't get a response. Here's a recent thoughtful article in the York [Penn.] Daily Record on teen blogs.

What ID thieves actually do

USATODAY spent five months piecing together the process of how ID thieves exploit people's personal info online and off - how they recruit online "mules" to help them actually put those stolen identities, account numbers, etc. to use. "Mules serve two main functions," USATODAY reports: "They help keep goods flowing through a tightly run distribution system [by receiving gadgets and other products purchased with stolen credit card numbers and resending them overseas], and they insulate their employers from police detection." The article, which starts with the story of a one-time mule in California with the pseudonym of Karl, adds that last year "reshipping rings set up nearly 44,000 post office boxes and residential addresses in the USA as package-handling points, up from 5,000 in 2003. And they show no signs of slowing down." Here's a San Jose Mercury News column on recent congressional efforts to deal with ID theft and "Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You" in the New York Times. Further info and resources: the Washington Post on AOL's new data-protection services for subscribers; "Be a fierce guardian of your personal data" and the story of one who is; the FTC's Identity Theft Clearinghouse; and OnlineCreditReport.com. Be sure to enlist your online kids' help in protecting information on the family computer, including together making sure that nothing but media files are being shared if there are file-sharers at your house (see "File-sharing realities for families").

P2P software downloads unabated

Downloads of the noncommercial, open-source variety, at least. "Millions of people *a week* [emphasis mine] are downloading and using those independent [file-sharing] programs" like Azureus (a BitTorrent application that also runs on Macs) and Shareaza, reports CNET in an article today that surveys the scene since the US Supreme Court's MGM V. Grokster decision last month. "Azureus has been downloaded more than 78 million times, and more than 2.4 million times in the last week alone," CNET says. Meanwhile, commercial providers like LimeWire and MetaMachine (which markets eDonkey) are taking a hard look at their businesses.

Important Firefox & Mac updates

Anyone who has a Mac or uses the Firefox Web browser should get the latest updates available for both, the Washington Post's security blog reports. Writer Brian Krebs says the Firefox update fixes "at least a dozen serious flaws," and the update for Macs is "huge," including iTunes, iPhoto, iPod, and Mac OSX improvements "detailed in several pages worth of documented changes that I won't begin to list." Brian does detail how to get the updates.

Toward better content rating

The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) has a new system that makes it more convenient for Web publishers to indicate whether or not their sites are appropriate for children, VNUNET reports. Using technology developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, the system allows, for example, "clearer differentiation between medical and pornography sites and includes shortcuts to generate labels for pornography and gambling sites." The development is good for online families because 1) more Web sites are likely to be labeled (so, for example, porn can be detected and blocked by filters), 2) new parts of the Internet (such as blogs and RSS feeds) will be covered, and 3) the RDF technology in ICRA's system takes content rating into the future - it "forms a significant part of the Semantic Web being developed by [Web creator] Tim Berners-Lee." [RDF stands for "Resource Description Framework".] Here's ICRA's press release and more at UK.Builder.com.

Grand Theft Auto's X-rated content?

I put a question mark by that headline, because there's a discussion in the tech media about whether the sexually explicit material was in the "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" videogame to begin with (and "unlocked" with a "modder's" code that's circulating around the Net) or created by the modder. In any case, the US's game ratings body, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, is looking into whether it should change its "M" (17+) rating of the game to "AO" for Adults Only.

A Dutch fan of the game, Patrick Wildenborg, "unlocked mini-games in the PC version of San Andreas that allows players to make game characters perform sexually explicit acts," the BBC reports. The Boston Globe explains that Wildenborg is a "modder," a gamer who uses software tools to modify the look and feel of his favorite games." Gamemakers like modders because they tend to increase games' popularity and shelf life and often add tools to the games which make it easier to create modifications. "Inevitably," according to the Globe, "some modders have reprogrammed popular games to add explicit sexual content. The popular game The Sims has inspired some steamy mods.... But 'Hot Coffee,' an eye-popping [Grand Theft Auto] mod created by Wildenborg and some of his friends, goes a good deal further, with highly explicit images." Wildenborg claims that a million people have downloaded "Hot Coffee" since it was posted on the Internet a month ago. Here's the New York Times on this, and the latest from CNET. [Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is No. 2 on the latest "10 worst videogames" list - see my 11/26/04 issue.]

Get the new patches!

If you haven't yet upgraded the family PC to Microsoft Update - which patches Windows and other Microsoft software automatically - go to Update.Microsoft.com to get the two critical patches all family PC owners need. They fix two security flaws that are already being actively exploited by malicious hackers hijacking people's computers, CNET reports. They're using the flaws to download Trojan software onto computers that they can then control. The hackers add these infected PCs to "zombie networks" that they use to make money or launch denial-of-service attacks on large Web sites such as governments'. A separate CNET report has numbers showing that computer hijacking's way up so far this year. Here are Microsoft's instructions on how to turn on automatic security updates. For further help, see my "Fending of zombie-dom" and "What if our PC's a zombie?".

'Web-proofing your kids'

I wished I had the numbers in front of me when CBS tech correspondent and SafeKids.com publisher Larry Magid interviewed me about a University of New Hampshire study on online exploitation of kids, but here's the piece with the numbers. And here's Larry's CBSNews.com article today on smart parenting of online kids during the summer, when they have a lot more time on their hands. Parents of younger teens especially would benefit from some key misconceptions about "stranger danger" that the UNH Crimes Against Children Research Center clears up in this study (if you read nothing else, see just the first paragraph of "Net-related crimes against kids"). This was a survey of law-enforcement agencies nationwide. The Center will be issuing its second milestone survey of online kids themselves, "Youth Internet Safety Survey," in a few months, Janis Wolak, one of its authors, tells me. The first, quoted globally to have found that one in five online kids in the US had been sexually solicited online, was published in June 2000. It'll be very interesting to see what in the online experiences of tweens and teens has changed.

'Push' for Net music fans

Have your kids installed this software yet? Maybe if they're music fans. The Los Angeles Times describes two programs, Indy and iRate, which are like the music version of the PointCast-style "push" technology of the '90s and could be huge for garage bands. What's improved since that ancient "dark age" is faster Net connections and "more powerful technology for tailoring programs to the audience." How it works: The software downloads to your computer "a number of songs that artists have agreed to distribute for free online. Each time the programs run, they download more songs for users to play and rate on a scale from one to five stars." The really interesting part is "collaborative filtering," which is more about humans than technology but uses both. "The ratings help the software match each user to others who have parallel likes and dislikes. Once a match has been made, the software sends people songs that others with similar tastes have rated highly." Indy is a noncommercial project whose goal is not to compete with, say, iTunes, but to help people discover new music. The software, at indy.tv, "is like a radio that takes no requests." Check out the L.A. Times article to see what that means. [Tip for parents: Ask your kid(s) if the computer can handle all the music being downloaded. Maybe they'd like to try this *instead* of file-sharing? It's more reliably legal.]

Phone use & driving don't mix

This story was in headlines everywhere this morning, but the teenagers in our lives need to hear it too: Drivers are four times more likely to crash when talking on cellphones. That's "four times as likely to get into a crash that can cause injuries serious enough to send them to the hospital," the Associated Press reports, *and* it includes drivers using headsets, talking hands-free, the BBC reports. The findings were in a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety published in the British Medical Journal. Some California legislators are proposing banning mobile phone use by young "provisional drivers," the Los Angeles Times reports, leading with the story of a 17-year-old who died in a crash caused by speeding while talking on the phone (she also was not wearing a seatbelt). "Legislators in California and a growing number of other states say something has to be done to curtail such tragedies," according to the Times. "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that the number of US motor-vehicle fatalities involving 16-to-20-year-olds rose to 7,405 last year, up from 7,353 the previous year."

High school ditches textbooks

Though in eliminating textbooks from its classrooms, the Vail, Ariz., high school's goal isn't to teach students that all the information they need is online or at least on computers. Instead, the district's superintendent says, the move "gets teachers away from the habit of simply marching through a textbook each year," the Associated Press reports. Vail High School will be "the state's first all-wireless, all-laptop public school this fall."

Blogging's risks

High school and college yearbooks would be cherished and/or laughed over for a few weeks or months, then be revisited occasionally years later, but mainly just gathered dust in some basement or attic. They allowed us all to move on and mature. Blogs and Web sites where similarly personal thoughts are entered *and* expanded on, on the other hand, might be archived and available to anyone googling our names for years to come. On the Web, personal thoughts take on a life of their own that, usually, we can no longer control. These publicized personal thoughts can affect children's academic and professional careers, not to mention their parents'. Take for example Maya Marcel-Keyes, daughter of conservative politician Alan Keyes, who at 19 "discovered the trickiness of providing personal details online when her discussions on her blog about being a lesbian became an issue during her father's recent run for a US Senate seat in Illinois (he made anti-gay statements during the campaign)," the Associated Press reports. Nearly a fifth of teens with Net access have their own blogs; "38% of teens say they read other people's blogs"; and "79% of teens agreed that people their age aren't careful enough when giving out information about themselves online," the AP cites Pew Internet & American Life research as finding. Probably, more and more will use blogging services' privacy features like LiveJournal.com's "friends lock" so the public at large can't get to their innermost thoughts! But meanwhile, until their inner "risk analyst" chimes in (with post-teen frontal lobe development), their parents can promote those privacy features (the AP cites one uncle who heard his niece, a college student, was looking for a job; after googling her and finding her blog, "The Drunken Musings of...," he wrote her to suggest she take it down).

Teen worm writer convicted

The teenage writer of the 2004 Sasser worm has been found guilty by a German court this but given a suspended sentence because he was (barely) a minor when he wrote it, VNUNET reports. Sven Jaschan "was caught following a tip-off to police after Microsoft offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the worm's creator." He testified that he'd intended to "create a virus that would combat the Mydoom and Bagle viruses and remove them from infected computers. This led him to develop the Netsky virus further, and to modify it to create Sasser." The worm accounted for 70% of all infections during the first half of 2004, according to VNUNET. New York Times columnist John Tierney muses about what Sven's sentence really *should* have been - e.g., make him "spend 16 hours a day fielding help-desk inquiries in an AOL chat room for computer novices. Force him to do this with a user name at least as uncool as KoolDude and to work on a vintage IBM PC with a 2400-baud dial-up connection." ;-)

Disney's family phone plan

Disney is out to capture the family cellphone market with its very own wireless service, Disney Mobile, the Wall Street Journal reports (as well as sports fans with ESPN Wireless). This is not a kids' *phone*
like the Firefly (see the San Jose Mercury News), but a kid-targeted phone service. Yes, Verizon, Sprint, etc. have family phone-add-on plans, but Disney (using Sprint's network) plans the first service to appeal to children (who just might try to influence Mom or Dad's choice of carrier). It will appeal to parents with "features specifically designed ... to ensure the safety of their kids and to keep in contact with them," but Disney wouldn't elaborate, the Journal reports. Certainly it will include Disney content. For kids in Europe more interested in art, there's Etch-a-Sketch on your mobile (no, you can't
erase by shaking the phone), if you use Orange's service, the Washington Post reports. For info on phone parental controls, see my 5/6/05 and 5/7/04 issues.

Net at libraries: High demand

Where Internet use is concerned, demand is exceeding supply in America's libraries, and this is where the digital divide is most apparent. The American Library Association recently surveyed US
libraries and found that 99.6% are now connected to the Net (up from 20.9% in 1994), but for the first time its survey asked libraries
about how they were doing with meeting demand," the Associated Press reports. "Seventy percent of libraries said there aren't enough computer terminals during peak periods, while another 16% said there's always a shortage." The solution is time limits. On the surface they make sense, but low-income patrons are the ones losing out. "Shortages are most common in high-poverty and urban areas, the study found." For example, "libraries in California's Fresno County impose a half-hour limit during peak periods, but one branch reported that patrons needed two hours or more of computer time just to fill out online job applications for a new Home Depot store."

More LAN party locations...

...is good news for videogamers, who like battling it out in person, in groups, and with unlimited bandwidth (provided by a LAN, or "local-area network," that connects them all for playing tournaments). Thus this logical new use for strip-mall space: gaming centers, where - for around $6/hour - gamers can have their LAN without having to mess with dragging in and setting up their own CPUs. One example is X30 centers in the Washington, D.C., area. The first such center opened in May. In it, "23 personal computers line sloping walls painted a deep blue and lime green. Couches and oversized beanbags provide resting spots for spectators, while the gamers sit in cushy executive-style chairs," the Washington Post reports
. "The goal was to create a distinct but easily replicable design ... referencing Starbucks, master of that concept. On a recent weekend, 40 teenage boys - and one girl - crammed in to compete in a marathon Counter-Strike tournament."

Porn on gamerplayers, phones

It's all about privacy, Newsweek's sources say. Making pornography portable (as in magazines maybe?!) is an easy way for a publisher or a device maker to expand its market because viewers like their privacy. "For the past 30 years, each of erotica's new formats - theater, VCR, PC, laptop - has proven more private than the last. And what's a pocket multiplex, say its proponents, if not the ultimate in privacy?" So, some parents will feel, it's a good thing Sony's PlayStation Portable has parental controls on it, since Japanese adult-DVD makers H.M.P. and GLAY'z just joined Playboy on the PSP. They're releasing "eight of their top-selling hardcore titles on Sony's Universal Media Discs - the 2-1/2-inch, plastic-encased 'DVDs' designed for exclusive use with [Sony's] hot new PlayStation Portable device. But that's not the only mobile-porn platform, Newsweek adds. "Some mobile porn is almost mainstream already. The most popular category in podcasting - downloadable digital audio - is erotic instruction and entertainment." Newsweek cites a recent study by Boston-based Strategy Analytics showing that pornographic cellphone content "raked in $400 million worldwide last year and could reach $5 billion by 2010. Vivid Entertainment Group, the world's largest adult-film 'studio,' already peddles cellular-phone erotica in 20 countries - and it's targeting the PSP next."

ID theft's upside?

It looks like all the news about identity theft has been good in one way: People are getting smarter about PC security. That's the conclusion Washington Post tech writer Robert MacMillan drew from the latest Pew Internet & American Life study. [Robert's article includes a "two-word glossary" of "spyware" and "adware."] Pew found that "91% of Internet users have changed their online behavior for fear of becoming victims" of spyware. Other key findings:

* 81% of Net users say they have stopped opening email attachments unless they're sure the docs are safe.
* 48% have stopped visiting particular Web sites they fear might install unwanted software on their PCs.
* 25% have stopped downloading music or video files from file-sharing networks to avoid getting unwanted software programs on their computers.
* 18% have started using a different Web browser to avoid spyware.

More Net on mobiles

The signs are everywhere that the Internet - with all its capabilities, pluses, and minuses - is about to arrive on a cellphone near you (including your child's). First, video: "To fill those awkward moments when no one is calling, texting, or emailing us," as Internet News put it, soon there will be "video snacks" on our cellphones. Two Minute Television, specializing in "entertainment for teensy attention spans" and very small screens, will soon be providing "a free, ad-supported mobile TV channel featuring shows like 'Adventures in Speed Dating' for mobiles. Users can subscribe directly via SmartVideo's video-programs catalog, but SmartVideo will also be doing deals with mobile phone companies, who may allow you to pay them as well. ;-) SmartVideo also offers ABC News, NBC Universal, Fox Sports and The Weather Channel, Internet News adds. Musicians, too, are "going mobile" to reach fans directly, the BBC reports. "Sony Ericsson is bringing out a range of Walkman-branded phones, while Motorola is working on an iTunes-compatible mobile with Apple." Here's the New York Times today on phonemakers' shift to music. In Europe, phone services are increasingly opening up to the wide-open spaces of the Net. T-Mobile, which used to restrict customers to the "T-zones walled garden ... is to offer subscribers full Internet access via Google," the BBC reports, and "rival Vodafone has joined forces with Microsoft to allow people to exchange instant messages between its messaging service and MSN Messenger." The BBC cites analysts as saying these are just further indicators that "the Net is becoming an integral part of mobiles." Here's more on the everywhere Net from Forbes.

Do-not-email-kids registries

Parents in Michigan and Utah will soon be able to put their children's email addresses on the two states' new do-not-email lists. "Send a raunchy email to a minor, and you may wind up in jail" is the gist of the states' new laws creating the registries, CNET reports. "Anyone who goes ahead and sends email deemed to be off-color or 'harmful to minors' could be imprisoned for up to three years." Sounds good on the surface, CNET says, but the legislation is poorly written (say civil rights organizations) and could soon be challenged in court on First Amendment grounds. The Federal Trade Commission rejected the idea of a do-not-spam registry in 2004 because it couldn't stop overseas or illegal spam. Another problem is that businesses that market (legitimately) via email don't know about the laws (which apply to anyone sending email *into* the two states) and, when they do, costs will mount ("the monthly fee would be $120 to keep a million-person mailing list scrubbed and current"), though that won't concern kids or parents. The FTC already addressed the issue about illegitimate businesses, and let's hope no malicious hackers gain access to the databases of children's email addresses. CNET explains the laws in greater detail, concluding that they "could become a harbinger for the rest of the nation." The Salt Lake Tribune later reported that Utah's anti-spam law, scheduled to go into effect July 1, was delayed two weeks. Here's the Detroit News and a somewhat sarcastic report from The Inquirer that would give all child advocates pause.

Tech teachers: Help kids compete

While motivated young techies in India, South Korea, and so many other countries compete for top tech jobs in the First World and their own developing "Silicon Valleys," US kids have to wait till college to learn anything about computer science. And the number of Americans majoring in the subject is declining. Technology teachers and coordinators say state education departments and school districts need to "embrace the idea of training sophisticated computer users at a younger age," the Associated Press reports. "States have few developed standards or required courses in computer science - a field that goes beyond basic literacy to encompass hardware and software design, real-world applications and computers' effect on society." It's a tough sell, the AP continues. "Computer science, like other subjects, is fighting for time on student schedules and a place on the political agenda, where reading and math dominate." [The AP talked to the newly formed Computer Science Teachers Association last week at the 143rd Annual Meeting of the National Education Association, the US's largest teachers' union.] Meanwhile, tech executives are telling Congress how much they're having to go overseas to find the tech skills their companies need.

P2P and media firms' eyes on Sweden

Even a law criminalizing file-sharing - Sweden's new one - isn't likely to put a serious dent in it. The Associated Press reports that "Swedes are among the most prolific file-sharers in the world. Industry groups estimate that about 10% of Sweden's 9 million residents freely swap music, games and movies on their computers." So, the AP continues, "unless Swedes have suddenly changed their habits, about one in 10 became a criminal on Friday." That's when Sweden's new law banning the sharing of copyrighted media (following an EU directive) took effect. The country's justice minister said, however, that chasing down file-sharers won't be a priority for Swedish police unless their file-swapping's egregious. Meanwhile, while BitTorrent and eDonkey users are swapping movies, pay-per-film sites - the film versions of iTunes and Napster - are set to take off, the New York Times reports. "The [film] studios will most likely make downloads available to a wide range of online distributors. Those that are preparing to offer the movies include Movielink, MSN, Sony's Connect service, Target.com, and CinemaNow, an online movie rental store." Prices will probably be similar to those of DVDs. See also the San Jose Mercury News on "file-sharing's new era" and the Los Angeles Times's "Big Labels Have Digital Trust Issues" about what paying customers can do with their MP3s. "The music is the same, and the sound quality is hard to distinguish. But there is a wide gap between what buyers can do with a CD and what they are allowed to do with a legal download."

Kids' cellphone costs

A little article in The Register cites a very big number for what UK kids spend on mobile phones: $1 billion pounds, or $1.77 billion, a year. It's not clear how old the children are, but presumably they're under 18. Parents surveyed said they "are so concerned about the spiralling cost of using mobiles, they want operators to do more to help them control their children's spending," according to a survey by mobile billing company Convergys, but 30% feel the phone companies "aren't interested in their concerns." A whopping 90% have opted for prepaid cellphone service "to try and keep a lid on their kids' spending." Half of those who don't have their kids using prepaid phones want to be alerted when their children's spending nears a designated limit. Meanwhile, 25% of parents say their kids have wasted money on premium rate services such as ringtones, and 16% feel they spend too much of their pocket money on their phone. The US has kid-phone-debt issues too - see "Cell-phone digital divide?" in my 3/4 issue and "Prepaid phone service: Getting hot."

FTC on P2P

While all eyes were on the Supreme Court's decision against file-sharing services in MGM v. Grokster this week, a lot of people missed a meaty report from the Federal Trade Commission: "Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Technology: Consumer Protection and Competition Issues" (in pdf format). Interestingly, the risks of file-sharing were only the fourth one down in the FTC's list of conclusions - after describing what P2P enables, the variety of its applications, and the fact that the technology "continues to evolve in response to market and legal forces." The report, with the latest thinking and data on this extremely popular use of the Net (that is not going to go away because of a Supreme Court decision), is the product of a two-day P2P summit last December that brought together P2P software makers, academics, entertainment industry executives, tech-research firms, and representatives of government agencies and consumer groups. For the highlights, please see this week's issue of my newsletter.

International crackdown on 'pirates'

The crackdown was probably not targeting any "amateur" file-sharers using family PCs. "Operation Site Down," conducted in 11 countries, was after high-level traffickers in first-run movies, video games, and other copyrighted materials, CNET reports. According to the BBC, the search and seizure operation, led by the FBI, "netted copyrighted material worth $50m and led to seven arrests," four in the US and three in The Netherlands. "Eight servers used to distribute the pirated goods to Net users and file-sharing networks were shut down." The operation was targeting the tough-to-penetrate, invitation-only "warez" groups "at the top of the pirating chain." Besides the US and Netherlands, the raids occurred in Canada, Israel, France, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, and Australia. For an in-depth look at these groups and the media-piracy "food chain," see Wired magazine's "The Shadow Internet."