Most worryingly was listening to at least three separate cases where girls around 14 years old told similar stories of how someone unknown to them started chatting to them on MSN, and then started to ask to meet up. All believed they were of similar age and gender (”thats what they said”) and while none ever got to meeting up, the strongest form of protection was blocking them on Messenger (which, as an aside, seems to be a major form of social ostracism among teenagers!). No reports to teachers/police/whatever.

I wonder if CEOP has had more of an impact in schools in the SE? They seem to be doing some very positive things, but obviously have a limited resource. Or are their peer networks more effectively informed. It did seemed that most Internet awareness came from peers as they felt, on the whole, parents and teachers had less awareness than they did. And the GCSE and A-level curricula for ICT and Computing hardly touch on such subjects…

I’ll get off my hobby horse now…

——————————————————————————–

From: Andy Phippen
Sent: 29 June 2007 10:49
To: Matthew Phelan
Subject: Blindside posts

Hi Matthew

I thought I’d drop you a line about your comments to my comments on the Blindside on Tom’s top 23 topic. I thought I’d mail rather than post another comment because its a bit off topic.

I’m very interested in your comment about kids - especially regarding their awareness, as certainly in the dialogue we’ve had with schoolkids over the past year or so, the vast majority have little to no awareness of the potential problems using messanger (sp?) and social networking sites might have regarding stalking, issues of identity and future “life caching”! I’d be interested to hear about those you have mentored, and whether they share similar demography.

Best regards

Andy

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Hi Andy,

Nice to hear from you.

My opinions were formed from final year GCSE students that I have mentored over the last 2 years (A comprehensive school in Colchester) and lads aged 16-19 that I play football with.

The GCSE students are academically limited and predicted grades of E-D. The guys I know through football are academically a mixed bunch and spent a lot of their younger years concentrating on making it at clubs like Norwich, Ipswich and Colchester rather than being interested in education.

I made my comments due to the knowledge these guys have and all the information they pass on to me.

A few examples include;

I changed the date of birth on my yahoo account as this allowed hackers to easily access my email

I never state on Facebook that I am out of the house on a particular date because my IP address can give away my real address via 192.com

I never use my correct DOB on any networking site

I never email my bank details

I hope this helps and by the way it sounds like a really interesting subject.

All the best

Matt

It’s notable that these issues relate to various aspects of enforcement
(entitlement to services or welfare, establishing tax liability, criminal evidence, and so on). However, this represents only one possible
perspective on (citizen) identity data: the converse perspective, from
the citizen’s point of view, is characterised by two things:

1 - for non-discretionary “transactions” such as the law enforcement
ones above, how are the possible side-effects of compulsory data-sharing mitigated, technically and non-technically?

2 - for discretionary transactions (’joined-up government’ service
provision) how is the user’s consent established, protected, managed and revoked?

However, remarks that the C-Generation has “zero awareness of threats, damage or abuse that may result from the technologies they are using” are way off mark in terms of the C-Generation I have known and mentored.

In the words of the WHO “they’re alright. The kids are alright”

Communicating with the C-Generation on platforms that they understand is essential but I think Tom was correct with his first assumption.

an excellent initiative - i enjoyed a quick browse. if i find the time, i’ll try to come up with wider comments. for now just one and a half:

human rights isnt really a separate issue: many of the issues you list are directly human rights issues: from being tracked by CCTV cameras through childrens databases to e-voting, etc. i feel that making human rights a separate category actually undermines some of the overall effect.
better (i think) to say that “many, if not all, of the issues listed directly affect nationally and internationally protected human rights, such as the right to freedom from undue surveillance, freedom from arbitrary arrest, the right to a fair trial, non-discrimination, childrens rights, voting rights, etc. etc.”

>Convergence 3

Perhaps a clarification is in order …

> Rampancy: AI gone wrong 3

Perhaps add “data mining”

> - *Nano- 3

Nonarobotics, yes!

> APIs

Why?

> Ultraportable devices 2

Perhaps add “converting personal devices into computing devices” or something along those lines

> Bad sysadmin procedures 2

Along these lines I would add:

- Bad IT procurement processes (by government)

> Public sector databases on children 2

on anyone …

> Keyloggers 2

Viruses etc.

> Quantum Computing 2

I’d give this a 1 at best, it’s vastly over-hyped. Personally, I’d remove it from the list

And as a parting shot, I completely agree that the C-generation are an area of massive concern. In my experience, they are incredibly technically savvy in the use of ICTs, but have zero awareness of threats, damage or abuse that may result from the technologies they are using.

In all this what about the people who do not have access to a computer. Should we be writing about them or are they the placebo who live life untouched ?

Also I am not sure if there are emerging technologies in life sciences that mean artificial intelligence, or chips will be embedded in us. Perhaps a medic could assess the list for completeness ?