Teach Your Children These Computer Ethics Tips

I saw this title in eWeek and groaned: Seven signs that your kid might be a hacker (Or how to tell if your kid might go to jail before getting into college.).

It’s pretty dopey and another example of how media picks up on buzz words and doesn’t know what they really mean. I wont bore you with the details of hacker vs phreaker, but it’s similar to the Trekkie vs Trekker argument.

What’s worse, I click through expecting an article about teens trading stolen credit card numbers or poking at secured servers. Instead it’s a ridiculous slide show of illustrations with dopey stereotypes like being a Star Trek fan.

So, I thought I’d share some useful advice instead. Here are Seven Tips:

• Teach your children right from wrong. Moral ambiguity and a sense of entitlement is why young people think it’s okay to trade music files and use Bit Torrents to download movies without paying. Support the artists when possible.
• Know what they’re doing online. Set limits. Have them explain what they’re doing and who they’re communicating with. Make agreements about what is acceptable. Enforce limits. It’s called parenting!
• Everything is traceable. Everything! Every Web site you visit has what’s called an IP address - a numeric representation of the site. Even the location you connect to the Internet from has an IP address. Every site you go to is logged somewhere, most likely by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or online services you use, like Google, which offers to keep a history of the pages you view, just like your Web browser. Even when you post a comment on a blog or forum, your IP address and other information is recorded. You can not absolutely cover your tracks.
• It is not acceptable to slander others online and think you can remain anonymous.
• It is not acceptable to trade the personally identifiable information of others for financial gain or bragging rights.
• Once you post information online, it’s out in the wild permanently. Content gets cached and stored on backup tapes, other servers or requoted/redistributed by other people online.
• It is not okay to sabotage someone’s computer system if you have a disagreement. When I was a teen, there were guys (yes, myself included) who stole apple pie slices from the fast food store we worked at because we thought we were entitled to it for the extra hours we put in. Now teens/twenty-somethings place logic bombs in payroll systems. Either way, it costs the employer money and potentially lost productivity.

Please share your thoughts.
Thanks.
-BD

Related Links:
What are your kids doing with the video camera?
Parental control software
Protect your privacy at home