Safe Child Network

Having a 6 month old means I am in the midst of the baby food jungle.. starting to introduce cereals and purees, which he is really loving and doing so well on them. I’d love to say I carve time out of my day to make all my own baby food but realistically, we all [...] Related posts:

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Scroll down to watch full program online.

Here is a link to my CNET review of PBS Frontline special Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier which airs on PBS stations Tuesday at 9:00 PM and now on the web.

But don’t just take my word that this is an important and provocative program.  Two other respected Internet safety experts and youth advocates have weighed in with their thoughtful analysis of the show.

Read Anne Collier and Stephen Balkam’s reviews not just to help you decide whether to watch the film but for their own perspectives on the important issues that the film brings to light. Anne Collier’s NetFamilyNews post is titled “PBS Frontline’s ‘Digital Nation’: Presenting our generation with a crucial choice. FOSI CEO Stephen Balkam’ wrote Are We (Virtually) There yet? for the Huffington Post.

Anne picked up on one of the things the show taught us about how children learn by quoting the show’s interview with James Paul Gee who, in Anne’s words, “told of how, in virtual worlds and multiplayer games, young people function in teams in which “everybody is an expert in something but they know how to integrate their expertise with everybody else’s; they know how to understand the other person’s expertise so they can pull off an action together in a complicated world’”?

Balkam notes that “the real battle grounds fought over in this film include the future of education and how we raise our kids. The recent Kaiser Family Foundation research found that kids were consuming 7.5 hours of media per day. Add in multi-tasking — texting while watching TV while listening to music, for instance, and the figure reaches an amazing 11 hours.”  My own analysis of the Kaiser study is here.

On a related topic, also see Are you an Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology’s impact on Society by Adam Thierer. Thierer does an excellent job summarizing how different people view the social and technology changes over past three decades concluding “On balance, I believe the optimists generally have the better of the argument today. But pessimists make many fair points that deserve to be taken seriously; they just need a more reasonable articulation of (some of) those concerns.”

You now can watch the full program online.

We’ve covered the basics of flame retardants in the past.  But new studies show that Flame Retardants may reduce Fertility. Epidemiologists from the University of California at Berkeley studied 223 pregnant women in California’s Salinas Valley, an agricultural community with predominantly low-income, Mexican immigrants. More than 97 percent of the women had PBDEs in their blood, [...] Related posts:

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Security companies are warning consumers and Web site operators to be wary of iPad-related search scams.

“This is just the kind of opportunity fraudsters like to exploit by poisoning search terms,” said Symantec’s Candid Wueest. Wueest also warned about “iPad-related spam and phishing attacks hitting consumers hard over the coming weeks.”

Don Debolt, CA’s director of threat research, warned about “black hat search optimization”–a scam whereby hackers take advantage of security flaws in blogs and other sites that use PHP scripting language to embed popular search terms like iPad to trick search engines into directing people to compromised legitimate sites that may have nothing to with the subject matter at hand. If people click on the link to a page on that infected site, they are then redirected to a malicious site that can implant malware on their machine or tempt them to install a rogue security product.

It has nothing to do with the iPad itself. Similar techniques have exploited other popular searches such as the Haitian earthquake and the death of Michael Jackson. Google has a trends page that shows hot topics and hot searches. On Thursday afternoon, the iPad was represented four times on the Top 10 list. “Obama State of the Union” led the list.

The entire process is automated, said Debolt. “We found that it’s a very systematic and programmatic process right now.” The attackers, he said, are using software to query search engines to find out the popular search topics and then “feeding that information into compromised Web sites so that those compromised sites and the content they put on those sites get indexed by the search engine bots.” To the end user it looks as if those sites have relevant content, but when you click on those pages, you are immediately taken to another site that has the malware.

Debolt warns people to be careful if a search engine points to a site where “the root domain of the URL doesn’t have any type of affiliation to the topic or is not an information portal you’re familiar with.” He warns site operators, especially those with a content management system that uses PHP, including Joomla, WordPress, and Droopa, to be sure they are using the latest version of their Web software.

I have a bit of experience with injected code. I operate a number of WordPress blogs including SafeKids.com which, a few years ago started serving up Google ads for Viagra and other male enhancement products. These were far from appropriate context-sensitive ads for an Internet safety site and when I took a look at my site’s code, I discovered that there were hundreds of links and terms that had been injected to my site as a result of a security flaw in my WordPress template. I replaced the template and updated the WordPress software and the problem went away. Now I’m careful to make sure I’m always running the latest version of WordPress.

As usual, people are cautioned to make sure they are using up-to-date security software and that both their operating system and browser are up to date.

This column originally appeared on CNET News.com

Well hello there!  I know I’ve kind of slacked off on writing anything.   And like Kathy so kindly pointed out, we’ve been kind of going through a learning curve being new moms of two.  I’ll tell you, I don’t know how people have more than two children.  You all are saints! That said, I’m really [...] Related posts:

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Ten years ago childrens’ entertainer Daffy Dave recorded the SafeKids Online Song exclusively for SafeKids.com.  We haven’t promoted that song for quite awhile and thought that this would be a good time to bring it back.

As with much of the advice on SafeKids.com, this song is aimed at younger children, not teenagers.

SafeKids Online Song with Daffy Dave

Lyrics

The SafeKids Online Song

Now listen kids when you click on the web and you’re surfin’ for somethin’ to do;chattin’ in a Chattanooga chat room with a man named “Mr. Kazoo”;well, don’t give out your name and number or your address too!It ain’t safe to give it out, if you ain’t got a clue.

Now, I’m not sayin’ that strangers are bad or that you can’t make friends,I’m just sayin’ it’s smart to keep it safewhen your parents aren’t watchin’…(so) don’t give out your name and number or your address too!It ain’t safe to give it out if you ain’t got a clue.

(spoken): “That’s right, Kids! You don’t want to give out private information on the Internet. You don’t want to give out your phone number,the name of your school, your address, your password…and certainly not yourparents credit card numbers! Oh no! That’s just between you and yourparents!”

Now there’s good stuff on the Internet, but some things might make you upset:a picture or a word that’s bad…just tell your teacher, mom or dad! If you feel uncomfortable, just tell your parents now,then they will help you decide what to choose and how.

Now most folks on the Internet are nice to everyone,but some are mean like bullies who act nasty just for fun!So, don’t take it hard if someone says something real mean,just say “good-bye”, click-away, and keep your own nose clean.

It’s cool to be a good citizen of the world and when you go Online,you can tell jokes and read a funny story, but just keep this in mind:All those other clickers on the other side, it’s true,are human beings with hopes and dreams and feelings just like you.

Now if you’re Online and you can’t remember what to do,just click-on “The SafeKids Online Song” and it will get you through.You can still have lots of fun and be a safe kid too,just be polite and keep your private info. safe with you…you can still have lots of fun and be a safe kid too,just be polite and keep your private info. safe with you.

by “Daffy Dave” (aka Dave Mampel) and Larry Magid

(c) 2000 Larry Magid and Dave Mampel

Words by Dave Mampel and Larry Magid
Music by Dave Mampel

(c) 2000 Online Safety Project & Dave Mampel

by Larry Magid

A new Kaiser Family Foundation study about kids’ use of media has some startling implications.

It found that “entertainment media” use among children and teens is up dramatically from five years ago. It also found that about 70 percent of youth say their families have no rules about how much time they can spend with TV, video games or computers.

I have to admit I was a bit disturbed after poring through the 85-page report. But it’s important to put this study into a broader context of how kids use media and how kids manage risk.

Kids today spend an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes a day consuming what the report calls “entertainment media.” But it gets worse. If you consider that kids are multi-tasking, it’s actually closer to 11 hours. That’s nearly every minute of every day when kids aren’t in school or sleeping.

The report, “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds,” compares data from 2009 to similar studies done in 2004 and 1999.

The study found that kids who are heavy media users get lower grades. There was no cause and effect stated, but Kaiser found that 47 percent of heavy media users “say they usually get fair or poor grades (mostly Cs or lower),” compared to 23 percent of light users.

It also found that black and Hispanic youth spend far more time with media than white youth. Black and Hispanic children consume nearly 4½ hours more media daily (13 hours, compared to 8 hours and 36 minutes for whites). TV viewing accounts for a lot of the difference. Black children spend nearly 6 hours and Hispanics just under 5½ hours watching TV, compared to roughly 3½ hours a day for white youth, the report said.

Watching regular old TV actually declined by 25 minutes a day since 2004. But when you add in TV consumption online and on cell phones, it went up.

Not surprisingly, kids are spending more time using computers than they were five years ago — up to one hour and 29 minutes from one hour 2 minutes in 2004. Also no surprise, social networking is occupying more of their time.

“In a typical day,” said the report, “40 percent of young people will go to a social networking site, and those who do visit these sites will spend an average of almost an hour a day there. Fifty-three percent of 15- to 18-year-olds use social networking sites.

Mobile devices account for a lot of kids’ media use today. Sixty-six percent of 8- to 18-year-olds now have cell phones, compared to 39 percent five years ago. Seventy-six percent have iPods and other media players, up from 18 percent. Kids spend an average of 33 minutes a day talking on a cell phone, while 7th-to-12th graders spend an average of one hour and 35 minutes texting — that’s 118 messages per day.

While I have serious concerns about kids — and adults, for that matter — spending too much time using media, polishing their Facebook pages or texting with their friends, I don’t think it’s the same as the passive media consumption of previous generations.

Social networking and interaction with peers has lots of positive implications as well. We should compare this with how kids earlier spent time in malls, cafes and bowling alleys, and talking on landlines. Kids hang out online just as they used to hang out in these other venues. True, using a computer to access Facebook is a type of media consumption, but it’s really social interaction. Besides, it’s not just consumption. Kids are also producing media in the form of posts, photos and videos.

I’m in no way dismissing some of the disturbing findings about a generation of youth that is involved with media nearly every minute they’re awake and not in school. I think schools and parents need to put some thought into kids’ media diets.

But I know some incredibly bright and engaged kids who are growing up and thriving in this media environment. As anyone who spends time around teens will tell you — most of them are a joy to be around. And they’re media-savvy too.

This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on January 25, 2009

As requested in our recent “Help Us Help You” Suggestion Box I went ahead and weighed in on what we think of the Whole Foods brand of body care 365 Everyday Value over on LovelyMama!  If you aren’t familiar with LovelyMama.com, we opened it up to talk about and review safer skin care for the [...] Related posts:

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