The Wood Verdict

Victoria Leads the Way

2010-11-26T03:15:00.004+11:00

It's already election eve in Victoria and cyber-safety has had a prominent role in the campaign.

In September Victorian Premier John Brumby launched a new cyber-safety initiative for schools in Victoria.

At Fitzroy High School, with his Education and Respect Ministers Brownyn Pike and Justin Madden, and the Alannah and Madeline foundation CEO Judith Slocombe, he announced a full state-government funded roll-out of the Alannah and Madeline's eSmart schools framework in Victorian schools.

eSmart is a program developed by the Alannah and Madeline foundation which involves schools implementing policies and strategies to attain eSmart status.

$10.6 Million will be provided by the state government over the next 3 years with $2000 for every Victorian government school and 300 needy non-government schools to help implement the initiative.

But what exactly is involved in eSmart?

Well it isn't a single education program or advice sheet - rather a framework, system, guide, road map or set of tools supported by instructions and links to more external resources to improve cyber-safety in schools.

It's unique and theoretical nature makes it somewhat difficult to communicate simply - but I will try to as observationally as possible so you form a picture in your head.

It promotes a behaviour a social change approach similar to the SunSmart and Quit initiatives.

It is based on the positive use of ICT, involving the whole community, and is versatile so can be adapted by schools to suit their specific situation, and entered a multiple points.

For schools it is based around a website portal with cyber-safety strategies and resources, the ability to track and record progress, submit activity, collaborate with other participants and promote your activities, professional development, a dedicated help desk, tip sheets, newsletters, access to further supporting material, and regular audits to keep it up to date.

When you login to the website, it comes up with a summary of your progression through stages of the domains of the framework.

On the left it has latest bulletin board posts, general information on what an eSmart school is, the domains, cyber-safety as an issue, eSmart teaching and learning, latest research, and spotlights on schools running the program.

On the right it has the eSmart self-assessment tool, your activity log, submissions, details, case study submissions, a quick tour powerpoint, a toolkit, newsletters and FAQ's.

At the bottom it has six 'Quick Tip' links - 'Leaving a Trail', 'My Brand', 'Chatterbox', 'Flicks and Pics', 'Bodyguard', and 'Google It'.

The main component is the interactive self-assessment tool, where you access each domain, their 'Key Attributes', you can select stages of 'Planning', 'Implementing' and 'Evaluating, control your completion status of them, and in 'assess your current situation' view the details and requirements of each stage.

The eSmart toolkit contains a powerpoint breifing with various informatiom about cyber-safety in schools and a printable word school audit form with boxes to check on task completion, a technology in the classroom form with ideas and space to write what you're doing, and a document with quick links to the stages of the key attributes of the domains.

The framework has six domains, informed by a set of characteristics and values.

Each domain has multiple 'Key Attributes', broken up into stages of 'Planning', 'Implementing' and 'Evaluating'.

Each stage is supported and detailed with 'Key Questions', 'Actions and strategies', 'Evidence required' and 'Resources'.

The domains and some of their key attributes are:

Effective school organisation - including a school committee with various parties including kids to manage and drive the program
School plans, policies and procedures - with computer supervision, links to government policies and reporting protocols
Respectful and caring school community - with links to resources
Effective teacher practices - with links to resources
An eSmart curriculum - ensuring cyber-safety is embedded in the curriculum, with links to resources and the involvement of kids in the process
Partnerships with parents and the local community - with parents invited, involved with the program and resources provided to them

Here is an example of of the key attributes of a domain:

Domain 3 - A respectful and caring school community

A strong set of values guide behaviour
Staff modelling of respectful behaviours
Wide range of opportunities for cross-age interaction for all students in formal and informal ways

Here is an example of a stage of a key attribute of a domain:

Domain 5 - An eSmart curriculum

Key Attribute 2 - Teaching about cyber-risks and cyber-safe practices is evident in the curriculum

Stage 2 - Implementing

Key Questions

Has our school got a plan in place to ensure that teaching has been delivered to all students about cyber-risks and smart, safe and responsible practices?

Has professional learning been delivered to ensure the currency of teachers’ knowledge on cyber-risks and smart, safe and responsible practices?

Are there working protocols in place about ‘netiquette’ which teachers and students agree to and follow?

Actions and strategies

Develop and implement a plan to include up-to-date knowledge of cyber-risks and smart, safe and responsible practices in the curriculum.

Develop and implement a plan to support teacher knowledge and skills about cyber-risks and smart, safe and responsible practices.

Develop a survey to test whether protocols about ‘netiquette’ are working effectively.

Survey staff and student about ‘netiquette’.

Evidence required

Professional learning plan

Survey tool

Resources

www.cybersmart.gov.au/Schools.aspx

Student Education and skill levels

Schools>Cybersafety policies and procedures>Student technology audit

Protecting computers: e-security

Information about keeping your computer safe when using the internet and school responses to e-security issues

Schools>Common cybersafety issues> Protecting computers: e-security> Common e-security threats

Schools>Common cybersafety issues> Protecting computers: e-security> school responses to e-security issues

Schools>Common cybersafety issues>Protecting computers: e-security >Resources and links

Continued.

Getting help

www.cybersmart.gov.au/report.aspx

www.thinkuknow.org.au

www.kidshelp.com.au

www.bullyingnoway.com.au

http://au.reachout.com

www.beyondblue.org.au

www.bravehearts.org.au

Evidently the initiative draws heavily upon the resources of ACMA's Cybersmart schools portal, and those of other organisations.

Specifically the government has ensured:

A 4-student action team at every government school
Training for one staff member from each government school to become a eSmart coordinator
eSmart progress certificates for schools in the process of reaching full status
The requirement of re-application every 3 years to ensure full compliance and relevance

This comes on the back of a substantial pilot trial of the program at 159 schools, across demographics, denominations, sectors and locations, supported and funded by State and Federal governments, the Telstra Foundation and NAB, amongst others.

An independent evaluation of the program was conducted by the Edith Cowan University in WA and provided to the DEEWR, anecdotally reported to be successful, but is yet to be publicly released.

Although it can be very effective it very much depends on the effort schools put in.

Given the substantial financial government support for the program I think it would be important that complete compliance checks are undertaken, making sure school's are understanding and implementing the program and spending the money effectively.

As long as is disseminated practical advice about the issues facing kids online like privacy, addiction, bullying, security, illegality, inappropriate content and contact, and avenues for answers when problems arise, this will be a very effective program.

This is a big step in the realization of cyber-safety education in the curriculum of every school in the nation, and an example of good practice for other governmental and organisational jurisdictions in Australia and around the world. More eSmart frameworks are currently being developed for workplaces, libraries and community centres. I would suggest it would be sensible for the AMF to consider developing ones for higher education, and families as well.

The Coaltion has provided full support for the government's initiative, vowing to continue it in its entirety if they form government - and has gone one-step further - promising an extra $4 Million for general cyber-safety educative measures in Victoria.

When asked what the Coalition's vision for cyber-safety in Victoria was, Victorian Shadow Education Minister Martin Dixon told The Wood Verdict , "We believe that education and information for students, families and teachers is the crucial first step in starting to combat all types of bullying in our community."

The next largest parties fail to mention any relevant policy detail on their websites.

Recognition should go to the positive 'Don't Hurt' media campaign by Leader community newspapers in Melbourne to raise awareness, inform and advocate better cyber-safety measures. What influence this had on policy is hard to measure - but it can only have helped and possibly made a big difference - a great example of the power of positive use of media mediums.

Mention should also go to the good partially-state-government funded 'Digital Demons' school program supported by Kaspersky and the Melbourne Football Club, currently being piloted in 23 schools across the City of Casey.

The fact that the major political parties are not just giving significant attention to these issues in this election but actively competing for better policies is great for Aussie kids.

If only they can just go one step further and mandate it across all school sectors - the job would almost be done.

The End of a Downloading Era

2010-10-27T22:05:00.004+11:00

Limewire is dead.

The massive monopoly for downloading music for so long is gone - what was used by so many over so many years shut down so quickly.

In The Wood Verdict, US Federal judge Kimba M. Wood forced Limewire to disable “searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality” of its software, as it “intentionally encouraged infringement”, was used “overwhelmingly for infringement” and it knew about the “substantial infringement being committed” by its users.

Anti-piracy advocates and organisations in the US and Australia have lauded it a victory for anti-piracy, Sabiene Heindl, the General Manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations saying, "we're very optimistic that this court result today will mean that there will be a reduction in illegal file sharers" to the ABC's PM program.

But technology expert Mark Pesce was spot on on that program too to say that "you really have a cat and mouse game here, where neither side is really going to gain any sort of permanent long-term advantage over the other, but that gap is large enough for a lot of file sharing to take place."

More than anyone today is a victory for Frostwire, Limewire's fully free, open source sister.

The case will be back in the courts in January where after ruling in May that Limewire and its operator are liable for damages just how much they will have to pay will be decided - which will really depend on how tough Judge Wood wants to be, as the real cost would be many, many billions.

But as Marc Pesce says this result is just another move in this cat-and-mouse game and long-term advantage by either side will fail to result.

What I believe is needed is Guvera.

The file-sharing networks run by peers are practically unstoppable, enforcement options are erratic and impracticable.

Peter Coroneos, the CEO of the Internet Industry Association is right to say, "A better question to ask is how do you package paid services in a way that the convenience that they provide, perhaps that the security that they provide is such that it becomes a compelling proposition for people that they wouldn't feel any motivation to use unlawful means of accessing content."

Guvera is a free, advertising-supported music downloading service, that is legal - with enough content and convenience that it just may penetrate the establishment, avoid the tit-for-tat cat-and-mouse and take the higher moral and tangible ground.

Some people will always buy music because they think it's right.

Some will buy or contribute financially to those they really like.

Most, will not - and they will continue, to get it for free.

There will be no winners.

But if the music industry can invest the time and energy on perfecting and implementing models like Guvera where they can reach a point of equilibrium, making as much profit as they can while providing users a service they will use, this pointless game may just come to an end.

Don't Check in at Home!

2010-10-25T23:02:00.008+11:00

The era of location networking has just begun, largely thanks to the advent of Facebook Places, and GPS-capable devices like the iPhone.

This is a great logical next step for social networking that will really add it value - to share places out of interest, and crossovers into the real world to meet up with friends who might be close.

But this new era opens a can of worms in terms of privacy risks.

Obviously where you are is something you don't want everyone to know, so it's important you take extra precautions to make sure your privacy is kept safe.

Something many haven't done, personally observed by Facebook friends checking in at home.

But they're friends, so it doesn't really matter.

Wrong.

I tried to check in on my iPhone, and in 'Nearby Places' searched for 'home'.

What came up was a plethora of homes near me people had checked into, and if you clicked on them you could see their exact location!

Luckily by default Facebook doesn't let people who aren't your friends see where you have checked in on your profile or in places. But many people are friends with people they don't know that well, who wouldn't want following their every move.

All across Australia and around the world, people are letting their privacy guard down evidenced by just how many people are checking in at home.

This should be a wake up call to all the users, those with influence and the providers of these services to minimize the privacy risks it can present.

And if you can't not check in at home, at least don't add friends you don't know.

Election 2010

2010-08-16T01:50:00.016+10:00

3 Years ago Labor gained office with a progressive cyber-safety agenda.

Has Labor honored their commitments? What has changed in that time? Importantly, what difference has been made for kids? And what are the political parties offering as we move forward?

In this post I will be assessing the policies, and performance of political parties going into this Federal Election, and expressing what more needs to be done.

In November 2007 Labor released a 'Plan for Cyber-Safety' - outlining their policies going into the term that's coming to an end.

It involved:

Requiring ISP's to offer a filtered internet service, using an expanded ACMA blacklist
Supporting and providing educative resources
Overhauling and making the government's cyber-safety website relevant and effective (now http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/),
Making a dedicated site for kids
Providing an online helpline (chatline) where kids can access experts to help with problems confidentially and in real time
Ensuring student teachers are trained in cyber-safety from 2009
Ensuring existing teachers are trained in these areas
Expanding the terms of reference for the Consultative Working Group from online predators to cyber-safety in general
Establishing a 'Youth Advisory Group' on Cyber-Safety, to report to the Working Group
Support research into cyber-safety
Establishing a Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on Cyber-Safety
Funding for the Federal Police, DPP, ACMA and the DBCDE

Since then, there have been some changes and additions to the policy:

The filter policy has been specified to not just require the offering of filtering by ISP's, but making filtering of RC content on the ACMA blacklist mandatory
The Youth Advisory Group involves hundreds of kids from many schools, rather than a small specialized committee
A Sub-Committee on Cyber-Bullying has been established as part of the Consultative Working Group
$17 Million more funding has been added to ACMA's Outreach program
There has been an announcement of a 'Teachers and Parents Advisory Group' to operate similarly to the Youth Advisory Group

In terms of implementation of these policies;

After lengthy trials, the filter policy still lies in limbo after a lengthy review of filtered content takes place, possibly involving expanding the ACMA blacklist
The NetAlert website was overhauled into a better, more effective, age and party-relevant website called CyberSmart, launched in July 2009. In terms of content however, it could still be organized more efficiently, completely and with more effectiveness. Some good smaller initiatives have been launched such as the innovative Cybersmart Heroes program earlier this year, video's and brochures
Personalized assistance for kids has been taken over by the Kids Helpline, both on the phone and confidentially as chat on the internet. However I'm not sure it has been promoted enough and if Kids Helpline staff have been supported with enough training
The ACMA education initiative Outreach program with experts speaking at schools has been continued and been provided more funding
Training programs for existing and trainee teachers have been developed, their reach and whether they're mandatory I am not sure
The Consultative Working Group has been expanded
A Cyber-Bullying Sub-Committee have been made
The Youth Advisory Committee was made, now involving 30 schools, substantial online and physical interaction. Their input has been taken in developing a downloadable help button
A Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee has not been made, rather a Select Committee, that has been running this year, the difference of I'm not sure
Research was commissioned and funding provided to the leading Professor Donna Cross at Edith Cowan University in Perth, and another project by the Illawarra Regional Information Service and Australian Council for Educational Research. I believe there should have been more time and funding given and support for original local research. And the responses to research recommendations has been less than adequate.
$3 Million to an Alannah and Madeline Foundation Pilot Program for Schools which is good
A new ISP Code of Practice was recently established
The AFP and DPP have received funding for their continued important roles

In this election, the coalition if offering:

Scrapping the ISP-Filter
Providing $60 Million for PC-based filtering
Providing $30 Million more to ACMA's Outreach program
Empowering Principals and provide $10.5 Million for a new national anti-cyber-bullying campaign
Establishing a Ministerial Advisory Committee on Social Networking

I expect the coalition to support most of the good general educative and collaborative programs that have run in this term. However I think the $60 Million for PC-based filtering is excessive and unnecessary, given their limited value, previously low take up rates, availability of free ones such as K9, and money that could spent on education. The proposed expansion of the Outreach program is good, as well as funding for a new campaign, however I think it should be more general than just cyber-bullying. I'm not sure exactly how Ministerial Advisory Committee's work, but it's probably good, but should be more general too - not just social networking.

I would expect the smaller parties to support the the general education services too with Family First for filtering and The Greens and Sex Party strictly against it.

I believe the performance of the current government in regards to cyber-safety has been moderately good. I probably expected too much and now realize without the involvement of state governments, making cyber-safety education compulsory in classroom curriculum's is practically impossible.

Australian kids still face considerable issues online, including; addiction, privacy, harassment, security, inappropriate content, contact and illegality.

What more I would like to see the Federal Government do about it is:

Seek out, provide more funding and allow more time for original, local research
Be more responsive to research recommendations
Have better coordination between government departments to remove large inefficiencies
Continue engaging young people and ensure responsiveness to their ideas
Ensure there is adequate training for all people working with young people, including principals, health professionals (counselors, chaplains, psychologists), librarians and authorities
More awareness and training for parents
Support for community and private programs such as the video 'Photograph', movie 'Best Enemies', Project Rockit, I could go on...
Promote and provide more training to helpline operators
Collaborate with State Government's, to help provide resources, and apply pressure for education to be compulsory in curriculum's
Keep things up-to-date as the landscape changes

In terms of filtering, for the limited value ISP filtering would have, complications and opposition, I don't think it's worth it. Ensuring parents have access to PC-based filters, for younger kids, as long as not too much is spent, is sensible.

But what's imperative now is that education gets in and is made compulsory in classroom curriculum's, and for that it's time for State Government's to take action.

Otherwise, sorry I haven't posted for so long. I've finished school and am taking time off to decide what direction I and this site will go in. Hopefully, that will be the end of the year.

Regards

Tom

Cyber-Bad < Cyber-Good

2008-07-11T19:10:00.008+10:00

I've just realized way too much of cyber-safety's attention has been on minimizing negativity - whilst not enough has been given to harnessing positivity.

Courtney Martin, a columnist for The American Prospect Online, has just posted an article about how it's humans, not technology, that cause most cyber-problems - and as humans, can do a lot of cyber-good as well - link - "But, as with all technology, we must recognize that it is not the tool that produces the mistreatment, it's the wounded humans using that tool. And just as so many have managed to manipulate the Internet, many can also be inspired to use it for good." She argues we should put effort into promoting 'cyber-compassion'.

Courtney cites some examples of this so called 'cyber-compassion,' and pleads, "We must resist the inclination to brand all of the Internet as dangerous, evil, or dissident, and instead recognize it for what it is – one more communication revolution in need of intentional and inspired leadership. "

Senator-until-a-few-weeks ago Natasha Stott Despoja's recent youth poll found 22% of teens have experienced cyber-bullying (or as I'll be calling it now, Internet Bullying). On the surface that sounds pretty bad. But subtract that from the total and you'll soon realize that 78% of teens have not experienced cyber-bullying. Their time online has been fine - and that can only be a good thing. I've said for a long time it is important that technology isn't demonized in efforts of goodwill - rather accepted as an overwhelming force for good - with a few bad elements.

Whatever you want to call it, Courtney's point is clear, and very pertinent - that instead of dwelling on negativity - recognizing, and harnessing the positivity of the cyber-world is just as, if not more important.

It's easy to dismiss this as a typical shot for positivity when it's not really that helpful to the cause - but if you actually look into some of the examples she highlights - you'll see her message is quite practical as well.

A message that should resonate with us all.

The evolution of iBullying

2008-07-03T19:28:00.006+10:00

Back in January it was Corey Corey Corey.

Now it's iPhone iPhone iPhone.

On the tip of every tech-teen's tongue.

And it will take Cyberia into its next era.

The era of: The Smartphone.

--

Voice, then text communication have been the core functions of mobiles since they rose to prominence in the late 90's.

But only in the last few years has other, more exciting functions been widely incorporated, such as cameras, video reordering and calling, Bluetooth transfer, picture transfer (MMS), and the internet.

Mobiles have already had their fair share of cyber-issues - text bullying - text addiction - fake sender id's, scams, the spreading of party details, the production and access of inappropriate content, and theft to name a few.

But their focus, in general, thus far, has still been on talking and texting.
And that's all about to change.

Smartphones have been around for years. But they haven’t really taken to kids yet - rather their prominence is in the business community.

And because the focus of mobiles so far hasn't been their extra features - such as internet - the negative effects of such things on mobiles hasn't been that big, pretty minimal.

But the focus of Smartphones is just the opposite - the internet, camera's and all the like - to make them as useful as possible.

The Nielsen Online Australian Internet + Technology report 2007 looked at the difference between features of mobiles, and the use of them. The biggest difference was to do with mobile internet. The report found that although about 66% of mobiles had internet functionality - only about 27% of people who had it, used it - so less than half who have it use it.

I think the 2 main reasons why the mobile internet hasn't been embraced by kids are; 1) It is very expensive to use and a lot of the time kids are worried because they're not sure what the cost will be and 2) The sheer effort of visiting, navigating and using the web on tiny little screens is so inconvenient kids just can't be bothered to.

And that wasn't making businesses money. So Apple came up with a cunning plan - to address these issues – creating a mobile with internet that people will love to use. So they firstly put in wireless internet - so when you have access to that, which in many places there is - the internet will be completely free - and make it much easier to use, to navigate, to type in addresses, have multiple pages sites, click on links, zoom in and out and all the like. Essentially, to make mobile internet use as convenient as pyshically possible.

And make it cheap. Very cheap.

Through Apple's own research, they found the main reason people didn't buy the original iPhone was that it cost just too much. I was expecting it to be near $1000 when it came out in Australia. So they cut it right down into a really competitive contention, around $250 for the smaller model - and with some phone plans - free at first.

Sounds very profitable - that's why we're soon going to see a flood of other, similar devices coming onto the Aussie market soon - such as the HTC Diamond, Nokia N96, Blackberry Bold, Samsung Omnia and the LG Secret.

Don't have any doubt though - none of them will conquer the iPhone. Apple just has that invinsible X-factor.

So say goodbye to mobiles. Welcome to the rise of the smartphone - the iPhone perhaps being the catalyst of this rise.
--

So how does this associate with the main cyber-safety issues of: Bullying, Addiction, Privacy, Security and Inappropriate Content?

Firstly, the simple increase of time kids spend on the net - on social networking sites and MSN, that smartphones will result in, will obviously increase the internet-bullying that goes on.

And if there is wireless internet in a school - expect kids to be looking down under their desks all day - as instead of doing maths, they'll be on MySpace. And they won't have to worry about the cost - wireless internet is free of course.

It'll increase the amount of coordinated technological harassment taking place - groups of kids will sit around planning their cyber-attacks on social networking sites and MSN - more cyber-gangs, if you like.

Kids will film, and take photos of other kids secretly, or knowingly but without consent - manipulating them and doing whatever they want, embarrassing and humiliating them via visual means.

So it will increase and intensify internet-bullying quite a bit.

Then comes addiction.

Now it's easy for parents to take a physically grounded PC out of a kids room and put it in an open family area to help prevent internet addiction. It's a little harder for kids to smuggle laptops into their rooms and be on the internet wirelessly under their covers throughout the night - but it is happening.

And mobiles aren't as much of an issue - text addiction is just not as common.

But the pure portability of smartphones, not much bigger than credit cards - detached from all but kids hips pockets, will change this all. If you have wireless internet at home - or your neighbours have open networks, which many do - then kids will be able to go on the internet as much as they want throughout the night - possibly without their parents having a clue. Chatting on MSN - Social Networking in the dark hours – what could be better?

Addiction, and the time kids spend online, will get out of control. And it'll be extremely hard to stop.

Privacy shouldn't be inflicted upon that much.

Security will a bit - more bluetooth connections to hack, and a lot of valuable material to steal.

And it will be an inappropriate content nightmare.

Girls, and fewer boys, already take pictures of their nude bodies and send them to certain people on mobiles - and often, for many different reasons, they are forwarded on and spread around and around until everyone's seen them. They feel destroyed. Just this week statistics were released revealing that 32 Victorian teens were charged with the production of child pornography over this sort of thing in 2007! - link - Obviously that is just the tip of the ice berg, but none-the-less, this will be happening much, much more.

And such a portable, and personal device will open up access to porn like never before - again with wireless internet behind closed bedroom doors at night - and with their hefty hard drives a whole load will be able to be saved to watch whenever they desire.

--

So what can be done?

As always, educate - but no matter what the impact won't be able to be controlled as effectively as in the past. That’s because of the portability.

Parents will have to understand that giving kids these portable, multifunctional devices is giving them the ability to look up any material whenever they want, as long as they have wireless internet. So essentially parents would be saying I have my full trust in you, have this. And many kids are trustworthy - so as long as they are, and don't show risk factors, then that may well be ok.

But at home wireless networks, if parents are concerned about addiction, should be turned off at night time. But sometimes that won't work because neighbours will have them... which really leaves no option - other than to ban the devices at night.

Schools as they always do can filter the internet at the source (installing a filter on the devise itself will be most likely disabled my a kid in minutes) - but I expect a range of proxy applications to soon be made that will help void any filters at the source anyway.

To stop inside-class wagging schools could consider disabling access to wireless networks in certain classes, time's etc.

Clear cyber-safety policies backed up with effective education programs teaching clearly how to prevent/deal with any bullying should be implemented to ensure that is kept at a minimum.

This should also make kids vividly aware of the possible ramifications of sending inappropriate pics of oneself to others - and to stop porn being saved, spread ... well just like controlling neighbour network addiction ... will require someone much smarter than me to figure out how to fix.

--

All strategies of dealing with the Internet based problems that could be dealt due to the physically grounded nature of computers in a house will now become redundant.

The PC will really be in the pocket.

Apple, a company thats image is nothing less than cutting edge, is in a perfect position to consider and help address these issues through funding research and education programs themselves - but this will really show, whether behind their slick face, Apple is just in it for the money.

So unless, again I say, we get the education and strategies to all the parties involved - the rise of the smartphones will conquer us all too soon.

Cyber-Bullying's Image Problem

2008-06-20T16:54:00.005+10:00

Someone call Max Markson.

Last month I said, "the words ‘Cyber-Bullying’ have a humorous quality often exploited by teenagers, so use the words ‘Online Harassment’ instead."

And I just knew it was true - a lot of teenagers, especially older boys, tend to disregard online abuse when the term cyber-bullying is used. Bullying isn't funny. Cyber isn't funny. But when cyber is used in conjunction with something else, like bullying, for some, unexplainable reason, it is. It's not because kids think bullying people over the internet is funny - it's just something to do with the word. Maybe not 'funny' for some - but silly. It's not perceived like this because kids are bad - it's just a general thing to do with youth humor.

And this theory I think is proved today with some new research that has just come out of America - link. In a survey conducted by SAFE (Substance Abuse Free Environment) of 3,350 school students across multiple levels, 26.2 percent answered yes when asked if they had "received a threatening e-mail, text message or instant message". But when asked directly if they had "been a victim of cyber-bullying" only 10.9 responded yes.

Receiving threatening messages is, in essence, cyber-bullying, but less than half of those who had received threatening messages saw it that way. Why this strange and substantial difference?

It's because, put simply, Cyber-Bullying has a serious image problem amongst youth.

Also, because a lot of teenagers aren't sensitive, they tend to fob it off as, well, a non-problem. Usually the top of the social crop. And subsequently the collective school attitude follows.

But not all kids have a psyche of steel.

Using the term 'online harassment', or something else, instead of cyber-bullying, to contend the problem of cyber-bullying, would not help its reputation in terms of its severity as a problem, but it would remove any element of humor the word may project, which if anything, would help it be perceived seriously by kids. And it matters because if they don't take the concept seriously, because of a word, there is a lesser chance advice on the subject will achieve any traction in their minds.

So educators and the community must account for this in cyber-safety responses.

Words can make or brake something when it comes to kids. Cyber-Bullying, although well intended, just doesn't cut it.

What Classification?

2008-06-15T21:20:00.002+10:00

Recently my friend Michael Carr-Gregg blogged - link - about the new movie coming out called 'The Happening' - link. Not because of its deplorable critical reception, but its possibly devastating psychological connotations. It is a film about suicide - 'The Happening' referring to a phenomenon where people shoot, stab and plunge their way off rooftops to violent deaths.

Many psychological studies have found media that contains suicide methods may promote a 'werther effect' - copycat suicides - especially in young people.

So the Australian Psychological Society is arguing that this film, instead of being designated an MA ratings, should get an R rating - to be seen in the cinemas by people psychologically more developed - perhaps decreasing the chance it could have negative ramifications.

And so it should. Any measures to decrease its exposure should be taken. I've said once and I'll say it again - the best society is one where freedom is granted to an extent where people can't harm other people or themselves. This may promote people harming themselves.

But there is a huge dilemma. A huge dilemma not with just this movie, but all movies, games, and music. This affects the entire classification system. And as always, it's due to the digital age we live in.

Parents can no longer rest assure that these classifications will keep there kids eyes from this worrying material. Because the entire classification system is being fundamentally undermined. Because increasingly kids, especially older teens, are illegally downloading music, games and movies for free - voiding any classification system in the world. No laws apply.

So no matter what this film is rated - it may not really matter. Because kids will simply download it. Too easy. In fact, thousands of people are sharing it on sites like this right now - link.

Where classifications, guidelines and ratings for the media used to have almost complete control over what kids could watch - a lot of that control has been lost. The control now lies with the kids. And the parents, too. But ultimately it's too hard to regulate with this ramphant cyber-world.

The reccomendation that this movie should recieve an R ratings is a good one - because it can only be good. It will raise awareness as well. But unfortunely it's not foolproof. And there is really nothing much that can be done about it. Just another detriment of Cyberia...

$126 Million for Cyber-Safety in Budget - now time for IMPLEMENTATION

2008-05-13T20:32:00.004+10:00

Quote from - link

--

Cyber‑safety Plan

Expense ($m)
	2007‑08	2008‑09	2009‑10	2010‑11	2011‑12
Australian Federal Police	-	8.7	12.7	13.2	13.0
Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy	-	7.3	32.5	6.6	4.9
Australian Communications and Media Authority	-	5.5	3.0	2.8	2.8
Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions	-	2.8	2.8	2.8	2.9
Total	-	24.3	51.1	25.4	23.6
Related capital ($m)
Australian Federal Police	-	0.7	0.6	0.1	-

The Government will provide $125.8 million over four years to establish the Cyber‑safety Plan.

The Cyber‑safety Plan will provide a range of initiatives to combat online threats and protect children from inappropriate material on the internet, through activities such as an education program for teachers and the community, Internet Service Provider level filtering of an expanded Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist, examination of options to allow families to exclude other unwanted content, a Youth Advisory Group to assist the Government to formulate age‑appropriate measures to protect children, an expanded Consultative Working Group focused on cyber‑safety issues, a dedicated website for children and research projects on cyber‑safety issues.

From 2009‑10, Internet Service Providers will receive a one‑off subsidy towards the costs of installing Internet Service Providers filters. This funding will largely occur in 2009‑10 with funding in following years only for new providers.

This measure will continue funding for the Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for the investigation and prosecution relating to incidents of child sexual exploitation.

See also the related savings measure titled Protecting Australian Families Online in the Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy portfolio.

This measure delivers on the Government's election commitment.

Interestingly the 'related savings' contention is a bit misleading. The area of spending was simply renamed from 'Protecting Australian Families Online' to 'Cyber-safety plan' as shown here - link

Also, I'm sure the ISP filtering subsidy will attract much media interest - perhaps a positive incentive for specialized filtering ISP's to be established? A backup plan to provide some ISP-filtering in case the mandatory ISP-filtering doesn't work out?

Anyhow, in regards to Cyber-Safety, this budget will be judged on the response to promises made by the government, and its response to my recommendations.

They include - link

Funding for research - Yes.
Youth advisory group - Yes.
Expanded consultative working group - Yes.
An effective advice website setup - Yes.
Cyber-Safety education - Yes.

So far pretty good - the fundamentals are covered. But there are a few questions:

Online chatline - Not mentioned - Possibly a component of the website, however?
Joint Parliamentary Committee - Not mentioned?

Update: The Wood Verdict was contacted by the Minister's Office today and these questions have been confirmed to have been covered - very good:)

--

The former government provided $189 Million in funding for cyber-safety - which is much more. But the over-arching component of that was the National Filter Scheme - which, in my view, was not merited, and that policy lacked the fundamentals of youth-involvement and a strong focus on education. So overall, although the money is not as much - it should be much more effective.

--

The allocation for cyber-safety in this budget sets an adequate capital basis upon which, I think, an effective federal Cyber-Safety plan can be implemented, with of course, I hope, more refinement and possibly minor additions.

So all the focus should now be on one word - Delfin.
No, not that amusingly annoying ad.

Instead - Implementation.

Tom Wood's Guide to Stopping Cyber-Bullying

2008-04-13T12:52:00.063+10:00

"thank you soo much you don't know how much this has helped me" - Chelley, 16

Cyber-bullying is any harassment through technology.
It is unprovoked and unwarranted.
It affects at least 10% of Aussie kids*.
It can be 24/7, compounded by an audience watching, and can be viewed over and over again.
But this constructed world also offers unique possibility of evidence, and intervention.
The human motivations won’t change, but with action the damage, and behaviour can.

For Kids

Keep in mind, it is not your fault, and sometimes people don’t really mean what they say, sometimes things get lost in translation. Don’t let the emotion of the moment guide your actions, step back, think for a while, maybe give it a day, and work through the steps below to resolve the situation so you can use the computer happily again. Finally, if you see someone else being bullied online, don't be a silent bystander, but report the abuse yourself (but don't intervene in the argument!), and it might really help someone who might not know they can do that.

For Adults

Do not dare overreact or punish a child if they experience harassment online. 78% of kids are worried if they tell an adult; they will be disconnected from the computer, hence stopping them from sharing it. Kids also worry that it’ll complicate the situation, by having worried adults adding to the trauma and kids often think adults mightn’t be able to help. So firstly, don’t appear to be bothered (even if you are), and don’t disconnect a child. Let them know this. Let them know they haven’t done anything wrong, and you’ll talk to them about it, and work through the steps below to peacefully resolve the issue so they can use the computer happily again.

For Schools

Make a cyber-safety policy, and endeavour to implement student involved education programs with a cyber-bullying component comprised of something like my guide below. If students are cyber-bullied by other students, in school time or not, you have a legal duty to intervene, do whatever necessary to support the victim, deal the perpetrator, remove the content and contact authorities if necessary. Also, the terminology ‘Cyber-Bullying’ can be perceived as corny and not taken seriously, so perhaps use online/internet bullying/harassment instead.

To Prevent – Tips

• Be extra sensitive about what you say online - what you intend may be perceived differently
• Don’t incite abuse, by arguing, flaming or annoying someone
• Consider it might not mean what you think - things can be perceived not as they were meant online
• Don’t Share Passwords with friends – they fight!
• Make hard-to-guess secret questions so people can’t get into your accounts
• Turn on comment moderation to stop offensive comments from being published
• Tell your friends if a joke goes too far
• Only get Formspring profiles etc. if you can take abuse
• Ask them to stop harassing you, and if they don’t…

To Resolve – 5 Steps

1. Don’t respond AT ALL (It will make it worse)
2. Save the evidence for future reference (Instruction Below)
3. Block and Delete the perpetrator from the website or service (Instruction Below)
4. Report Abuse to the Admins of the website or service, to remove the content and punish the perpetrator (Instruction Below)
5. Tell People you Trust - friends, adults, teachers, parents to support you, and help deal resolve it, and police if necessary - especially if it's anonymous - as it can be a criminal offence

Saving the Evidence

Make a folder on your computer to save all the evidence in. To save text, highlight it (press Ctrl-A, or Apple-A on Macs to highlight it all), and copy it into a notepad or word document. To take a screenshot (a picture of your computer screen), search for the ‘snipping’ application. On Windows XP and older and press the print screen button (above the arrow keys, top right of the keyboard), then go into the start menu, programs, accessories, paint, press Ctrl-V (copy), and click file and save. On Macs you can press apple-shift-3 to save a screenshot to the desktop. To save an image on a webpage right click on it (or control-click on Macs) and select 'save image'. To save a YouTube video or other online video, visit - http://vixy.net/ - post the 'web address' of the video into the 'URL' box, and then click start. It will convert the video into the .avi file type that can play on Windows & Macs, and then let you download it onto your computer.

Deleting, Blocking and Reporting Abuse to the Administrator

Facebook

Log in, visit a profile and select ‘unfriend’ at the bottom left to remove a person. You can select ‘Report/Block This Person’ there too and follow the steps if you want to block them too. To report abuse, click ‘Report/Block This Person’, and follow the steps. Sometimes there are report links accompanying posts.

YouTube

You need an account, to get one click 'Create Account' up the top right, and register. If you have a Google account you can sign in with that too. Login to your account, when watching any video click the flag icon, which will give you an option of selecting why you want to report it, probably ‘bullying’ under ‘Hateful and Abusive Content’, or otherwise if it’s something else, and click ‘Flag This Video’.

Formspring

To report people click ‘Help’ at the bottom, ‘Submit a Request’ at the top and fill in the details. To block a user
select ‘Block Their Name’ at the bottom right of their profile.
To make your Formspring private click ‘Settings’, ‘Privacy’, and select ‘Protect
My Account’. In the same section you can disallow anonymous questions from people who
aren’t logged in, or disallow anonymous questions completely.

MSN

Log in, right click on contact in your contact list and select ‘Delete contact’. When the dialogue box pops up, select ‘Also block this contact’ as well and click ok. Click the 'Help' menu (Alt-H if it doesn’t appear), and click 'Report abuse' – Type your name, email in – the bullies email – what type of abuse, and then paste the evidence in the box. You could also turn message history on to ensure the evidence is recorded. To do this, click ‘tools’, ‘options’, ‘messages’ and tick the box that says ‘automatically keep a history of my conversations’. If you want to, you can download Messenger Plus here – which has a function of recording your message history with password security.

Bebo

Login, click 'Friends', click the cross icon on the perpetrator to delete the perpetrator. Now visit the perpetrator’s profile, and click 'Block' and click 'Report Abuse', then click 'Report Abuse Only'. Make your profile private by clicking on 'Profile', 'Edit profile', ‘Privacy Settings’, select ‘My friends only’ and ‘Update Privacy Settings’.

MySpace

Log in, select ‘Friends’, select who you want to delete, and click ‘Delete’. Visit their profile, click on the arrow next to the clog wheel icon, and select ‘Block User’. To report abuse visit the perpetrators profile, click on the arrow next to the clog wheel icon, and select ‘Report Abuse’. Put in your name, email, type of abuse, detail the relevant evidence, provide links and click ‘Report’. To make your profile private, hover over ‘My Stuff’ up the top, select ‘Privacy Settings’ and selection ‘My Friends only’ and save the changes.

Email

Right click on message or open the options menu and click 'view source' or ‘headers’, and copy and save that. Block the perpetrator's address in settings if you can. Notify your ISP, notify the perpetrator's ISP if you want.

Games

Runescape, click the report abuse button down the bottom right. For others, Google search the games name and report abuse. Eg. Runescape report abuse.

Mobiles

Only some phones can block numbers, go into the settings and select block caller – put the perpetrators number in. Contact your service provider, report it to them. Contact the perpetrator's service provider (if known) and report it.

Random websites/forums

Click contact admin button, send them an email or message and most likely they will take action against the perpetrator. For services/website’s you’re not sure about visit abuse.net’s web lookup page to see if they have an email address, or try emailing it to abuse@thewebsite.com oradmin@thewebsite.com etc.

Finally, contact your local police if you need more help, or want to take it further.

New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
Northern Territory
Australian Capital Territory - 131444
Federal Police – 131444, (02) 6131 3000 in Victoria and Queensland

You can also call Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 or access web counselling if you want personalized support.

* http://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/cyberbullying-hits-1-in-10-australian-teenagers/story-e6frer7o-1225852147677

This guide may be reproduced free of charge as long as I am notified and author details are included.

Nixon... why are you hiding your cyber-report?

2008-04-13T11:00:00.004+10:00

Christine Nixon - link. Glowing in the generous media attention to her inspirational role of a woman in power one day, dead beat the next. In the aftermath of a week of allegations about the diabolical state of the Victorian Police Force, it's revealed she's a cyber-delinquent as well.

As Stephen Drill reports in today's Sunday Herald Sun - link

"A POLICE plan to combat cyber abuse is being ignored despite police receiving more than 20 complaints a week.

Police sources said there had been a significant increase in reports from parents and teens involving internet and mobile phone misuse, but results of a year-long probe into cyber safety was gathering dust.

The Cyber Safety Project's report was delivered to the Violence Against Women steering committee in November. Police are yet to reveal the findings.

The Sunday Herald Sun understands the report recommends police at every Victorian station be trained to deal with complaints.

It also recommends more education for schoolchildren about internet traps.

Victoria police media spokeswoman Chloe Jones confirmed the Cyber Safety Project had been disbanded.

Ms Jones said the police force would release its policy later this year."

And the report, in the possession of the Victorian Police for almost half a year now, cannot be released for reasons of ... could it be national security ???

Nixon : Release it now.

Unless, Media : FOI.

The amount of time, resources and effort put into this report would surely deem it to be of very high quality. A level of quality that if unveiled, could help not just the Victorian Police, but many other police forces, schools, governments and organizations around the world in improving their Cyber-Safety systems.

Police involvement is essential for any society that wants to tackle cyber-bullying effectively.

Nixon : Release it now, and ACT.

WA Gvnt shows some Cyber Cents

2008-03-10T12:00:00.005+11:00

link - "THE West Australian Government will spend $400,000 on a world-first five-year study into cyber-bullying, amid growing concern about the damaging effect on children being targeted by abusive text messages, emails and degrading digital photos."

"The study, to be headed by child behavior expert Donna Cross from Edith Cowan University, will examine the extent of the problem and ways in which children, parents and teachers can deal with it and even prevent it.

About 4000 children from 40 schools will be involved in the study, and while WA will be the main focus, children from Queensland and South Australia will also be contacted to ensure the results were consistent with other states."

Collaborative Cyber-Safety research involving kids. Exactly what we need.

Well done, WA Ed. Minister, Mark McGowan.

Lets see other states take up the challenge of funding some Cyber-Safety research projects, and not just on Cyber-Bullying, but on the other issues as well; Addiction, Privacy, Security, and a dynamic one that involves just listening to kids about whatever problems they are having with technology.

And the Federal Government? Well its Cyber-Safety policy states, "a Rudd Labor Government will support Australian research into the changing digital landscape, its effect on Australian children and the means to combat cyber-safety issues. Such research will help identify the scale of these issues in Australia and determine where to target future policy and funding in this area."

With the budget soon to be announced, I hope to soon see these research promises acted upon.

We have a plentiful supply of universities, researchers, schools and kids out there ready to be test mice.

These things the corporate world and governments are doing will get us to big places. Keep it up.

Instant Media Reaction, Lets build on the momentum.

2008-02-26T16:01:00.003+11:00

Wow.

In less than a day since my last post below (appealing to the media to run stories on how education is much more important than filtering in the realm of Cyber-Safety), the headline 'Education 'as effective as internet filtering' popped up on the front page of news.com.au

Cheers to the reporter, Andrew Ramadge. Read the report here - link

Now, would it be too much for me to ask for the News Limited network to get this in all there print papers in the next few days, and for Fairfax to do something similar? I think not. Lets build on the momentum.

6 Months on... and what have we learnt?

2008-02-25T22:01:00.004+11:00

Amazing. 6 Months. Gawd.

In this time, the landscape of Cyber-Safety in the nation, across organizations, companies, governments and indeed, in the minds of the people, has drastically shifted. Pro-youth involvement and pro-education is where we are, and should be.

But we still have a long way to go. Implementation is now the imperative.

And in this rapidly changing world, to never stop learning is another critical point. Just in the last couple of weeks has this point been as important as ever.

Whilst we here in Cyber-Safety central have been pushing the tune that filters are insignificant in comparison to education, we have misread the nation. We thought the nation put filters at the forefront of their minds on Cyber-Safety. We were wrong. The government was wrong.

As extraordinarily revealed last week in the Sun Herald - link - even though a comprehensive program of PC-based filtering was offered, with tens of millions going into saturation advertising, including a booklet to every household, after 6 months, only 29,000 are in use, less than 2% of the 2.5 Million expected, and indeed, less than 2% of applicable families in the nation.

So what does this signify? The instant conclusion is the failure of a program. But if you dig deeper, you see the program was not a failure, it was handled with great vigor, meeting full capacity potential. Rather, this was a failure of a concept. A misinterpretation on behalf of the nation and the ones with power. Even a misinterpretation by me.

I lied. In my post on ISP-Filters - link , I said, "Politics (usually) responds to societal demand. Here we have a largely uninformed public demanding filters, and politicians having to respond to that through policy. But should filtering be our focus? No, education should, and although the politicians may know this, they are still servants of the public, and unless we rapidly change our public demands, we will continue to walk down the wrong road." Now I will tell you why this was all wrong.

Reading the EFA's analysis of Labor's ISP-Filtering proposal a while ago - link - I stumbled across some ACMA research, of which I was instinctively skeptical of. Digressing from the common belief that cost and poor computer skills were the reasons for parents not having filters, it stated "Fifty per cent did not install filters because they trusted their child. Seventeen per cent of parents felt that installing software was redundant because of their use of other safeguards." In addition , “Software to filter inappropriate websites was reported to be used by 35 per cent of parents". This was in 2005. Adding the percentages up, you get 67% of parents not having a will to install a filter, whilst 35% already use them. Some percentage overlap must be taken into account, however, it still sends a clear message, that the vast majority of parents simply don't want filtering on grounds no other than they don't want filtering.

Instinctively Skeptical I was, until now. The correlation between this research and the outcome of the PC-Based filtering program is revelating. It all fits together. How can it be that we market a legitimate program into every ear in the nation, yet only have 29,000 in use? Simple, it is because, "the vast majority of parents simply don't want filtering on grounds no other than they don't want filtering!" We have all misread the demand for filtering, it is very small. I'm sure theres a lot of other research that I haven't seen that would also back this up. Send some through if you know of any.

Don't get me wrong, populist opinion is certainly not always the right opinion. Children should not be completely trusted with computers, having them in a public place is essential. But this lack of filtering support causes a vacuum for alternative Cyber-Safety mentalities.

This revelation should now resonate through our media to society, and send a clear message to the people in power, one that helps them read the public accurately. Parents don't want filters. But what do they want? Well, if the Herald Sun's issues survey 2008 is anything to go by, 86% of people don't think parents monitor there kids online enough. Fair enough for younger kids, but only minimally helpful for the ones who use it the most, teens. They need school based education. And there is a general, underlying theme, one not about technology, but humanity. Whilst parents shun technological aid, they embrace human responses. The best system would include both.

Our new government must carefully look at this program, and ask themselves why it failed. They must not repeat the same mistakes of the past, whilst working on ways to make it better for the future (I'm sounding awfully rhetorical in my old age!).

I emailed The Australian a month ago, expressing how (as they are the agenda-setters) need to run some articles on the importance of Cyber-Safety education. Much to my dismay, I didn't get a response. Conscious of not letting others run their agenda I guess is why. But they don't realize that this is really a message that will help the silent majority, most prominently, everyone associated with kids. I still love The Australian, none-the-less. I will edit it (at-large) one day (in my dreams!). But media (I know your reading), ring up some people from child safety organizations, talk to schools, psychologists, normal parents even, and get critical commentary on education initiatives from those who know kids and technology. Make the demands for this education clear.

Even have a read through ACMA's new 119 page report on Internet Safety measures - link , which states, "Education is a viable alternative or supplement to filtering in targeting risks associated with inappropriate content, particularly for older children who may endeavor to circumvent filtering that they perceive the be restrictive," - and that's just on the topic inappropriate content, not even mentioning the chapters of other Cyber-Safety education included within.

The results of the ABS's 'Time Use Survey' 2006 were released the other day, and it found over half of young people's leisure time involves the use of technology. Do I need to keep repeating myself on how widespread, important and urgent these issues are? Sort of, thats how to gain traction. So let me again exude, these issues are widespread, important and urgent ... with rapidly changing technology, and an exponential nature. Most of kids free time is on technology. Widespread.

On a final note, I must say I tried bypassing all the filters again today, to see if anything has changed, and I'm pleased to say, yes, some things have changed. Essentially they can all still be disabled, but two of them have been altered to make the process more difficult, which would decrease the chances of bypassing. Well done, but there are some more simple things they can do to make them near-foolproof. I'll elaborate later.

My inventory of ideas is almost big enough to start TWV going strong and steady in 2008. Sorry about the themeing delays, but trust me, it won't be too long.

For now, spread the word, and keep learning.

Good on Telstra!!!!

2008-02-04T18:45:00.000+11:00

The Telstra Foundation has just announced it will fund $2 Million worth of Cyber-Safety projects over the next 3 years, putting an imperative on collaborative projects involving youth, parents, the community, and a whole lot for research - link

Luckily, timeliness is an emphasized criteria, along with a holistic view, looking on building on the Cyber-Safety capacity of business and organizations.

Grants are up to a massive $75,000 a year - link

This is an AMAZING opportunity for Cyber-Safety in Australia, and we must all spread and make sure everyone knows about this. Schools, organizations, researchers, physiologists, teachers, businesses, governments etc. etc. etc. to make sure we don't miss out.

Grant applications will close on March 4th 2008. Apply for a grant here - link

ABC... 10:25PM, Monday 4th Feburary, 2008...

2008-02-02T20:32:00.002+11:00

A few promos will come on, the last being either one for the 7:30 report, or one of ABC's quirky idents.

A deafening silence will follow. In this silence, Australia, the World, and Universe will come to an abrupt halt. All time will cease momentarily. Time will cease, until one spoken word resonates throughout the nation ...

Tonight.

Video of the days topical news story will be shown, with painfully powerful voiceover by a man, until a subtle hint of base will emerge, quickly turning into a series of tone-ascending horns. Until ...

Bang.

The theme song will shake hearts, minds, and all, until a descending piano cord unravels one word graciously across the screen ...

Lateline.

--

My thoughts will encompass this hyperbolic delight at 10:25PM, tonight.

--

Like most kids in the nation, I will be truly dreading the return of school today, for my last 2 years of being educated about all things go ... preparing to be pushed into that big thing called the GDP machine.

But for all the inner pain and anxiety my brain loves to emphasize about the work involved upon my return (most of the work irrelevant for my GDP productivity!), the inner love and passion from my heart for one TV show completely overrules it. I have an unassailable devotion to this show. This show is called Lateline.

With a Walkley-less reporter out-of-sight, Lateline is the best show on TV, having the best host in the world, delivering the sharpest and most in-depth insight of the news/current affairs of the day, and setting the National agenda of the next.

Lateline does not follow a set of conventions, it does not follow the other networks, rather, it goes deeper to get the best reportage of events, with exclusive footage, and an elite intellectual flavor.

And that's not even mentioning the host and highlight of this nightly extravaganza, Tony Jones, and his trademark interviews.

--

I can't remember exactly how I discovered Lateline, but I remember it was around the time that the Howard government had announced its aboriginal intervention, in late June 2007.

I found myself watching this interview ... the most amazing and powerful thing I've ever seen, aboriginal leader Noel Pearson responding to the minority critics of the intervention. When asked about the political storm that had followed the announcement, he replied, "I'm amazed that anybody would put the protection of children (a heartened pause) secondary ... to anything". Words can't do it justice so please watch it here - link

From that moment on, I was hooked.

Everynight it delivered a shot of relaxation into my over-stimulated mind, taking it away from a state of self, to a state of absorption, to further put it in a worldly and rapid gear.

As the election loomed closer, the interviews and reports got better and better. You could feel the buzz in the air. And that's when I slowly established an addiction to Lateline's unbelievale host, Tony Jones. As Crikey puts it, an interviewer of "ferocious intelligence, polite calmness, dogged interrogator, deep political instincts, juggling the running agenda, a great sense of context." All so acutely accurate. And above all, he is a good, genuine guy.

Some nights would take you on an intellectual roller coaster, feeling the context sway from sides of the politicians to Tony Jones, with Tony mostly prevailing, only to be succumb by the likes of the almost arrogant (as a Lateline guest, that is) John Howard, and the scarily articulate (almost to an annoying level!), Julia Gillard.

Then there were the nights of incredible humor and vicious power, such as when Andrew Bolt attacked the Sydney Institutes's Gerard Henderson over his unfair electoral prediction journalistic practices (Golden, 5:15 - link) - and the grilling of Tony Abbot to finish of his sorrowful day of horror - link

And the many nights of gentle euphoria, such as when traditional opposing forces, former Liberal Leader, John Hewson, and Labor Pollster, Rod Cameron, joined brain forces to discuss political environment 8 days from the election - link

Finished off with the masterfully good political reportage, notably by Dana Robertson, Ben Worsley and Hayden Cooper. A highlight was the day following the much hyped leaders debate, where commercial news reports across the nation talked about Channel Nine's worm-cutting feed woes, but Lateline's Ben Worsley got the actual footage of the National Press Club yelling down the the phone Channel Nine, and footage of the previous Labor debate-leads and wittingly including Australian Idol and Kath & Kim in the report - link

Again, as Crikey puts it, "There are plenty of fine journalists in Australia, but who else elevates it to a nightly expose?" ... "melds together into an unmissable current affairs program that almost certainly creates more headlines in the next day's newspapers than any other TV show in the country. Lateline without Jones is a perfectly adequate late night news review; with Jones it is a world-class piece of television." - link

World class, indeed.

So if you want a 'fresh idea' for a new years resolution, or have the slightest interest in politics and good news, then give Lateline a try ... airing weeknights, usually at 10:30PM on ABC.

If nothing else, I hope this will mould me into a real GDP contender...

Now time to wait...

THE CYBERIAN FAMINE OF '08

2008-01-20T21:15:00.000+11:00

I Confess.

I am still psychologically addicted to the computer. Without the physical disconnection, I would be on it all the time.

And why am I?

For one simple reason, I LOVE IT.

As freakish as it may sound, I love my hundreds of Google searches a day - the world of information, and the latest news of every type from every source at my fingertips. The thousands of emails I get from a whole bunch of people every month.

After a while of going out, I loose interest in things, and just feel the computer pulling me towards it. The though of that satisfaction of opening my updated homepage with all the latest news and emails. MMMMMMMMM... it even smells good;)

But as I have contended before, wellbeing is above anything, and it is almost to the level where I feel I'm getting too involved again.

Thankfully I don't sleep with it anymore, but I still need to take a break.

And from Monday - Friday this week (21 - 25 Jan, 2008) I will not be going on the computer at all.

This might seem like an easy feat for most of you, but for someone who hasn't spent that long away from it in 4 years, it is not. The only time I've spent more than a day off is when I was on holidays, but never 5 days. And I'm scared.

I will be possessed by self-destructing thoughts of how much opportunity I loose from missing all my emails, how much technology news I will miss thus become obsolete. This are my serious thought-patterns, and this week, I hope to defy them.

I will resort to writing on physical paper of how it goes, how I feel, what I miss, what is bugging me, how other aspects of my life improved, and what I have gained, and this information will launch the next phase of The Wood Verdict very soon.

Goodbye Cyberia, Hello World.

Corey Continues to Rocket

2008-01-17T21:17:00.000+11:00

Another day in the crazy life of Corey.

An entire 'web portal' has been set up on news.com.au for Corey - link

The Australian has written an editorial including 3 of the fundamental concepts I talked about in my last post, exploitation of Corey, his limited liability, and the wider issue - link

Coincidence? Maybe. I guess The Australian and I are just metaphysically connected.

Commentators have labeled him a 'media genius' - link
- though I'm not sure if his media actions have been intentionally designed for more notoriety - but good news or bad, he has got it.

A pretty dodgy fansite has been setup at http://www.coreydelaney.com/
- while over 450,000 people have decided to slap him so far - http://www.slapcorey.com/

Kim Powell's news.com.au report has got it completely wrong - link - when it states Corey issued an invitation on MySpace to “trash the average-sized family house”. In fact, that was then 17-Year old UK student Rachael Bell in early 2007 - link

But from Corey, and everyones attitude so far - who cares.

Bizarre.

TWV on Corey Delaney/Worthington

2008-01-16T21:20:00.001+11:00

Corey Corey Corey.

Biggest name in the world - link

The mainstream media hates him, but youth and the web idolize him.

Numerous Facebook groups set up, days in a row commanding multiple top story positions across the News Limited and Fairfax online networks, in excess of 5500 Diggs, and a his interview on A Current Affair uploaded to break reaching almost a Million views in two days (update - passed 1 Million views!) - link

Critics and conservative adults hail that interview as an embarrassing highlight of immaturity, whilst the young and digitals see it as the opposite. The perception varies so widely depending on the viewer - where their dispositions lie.

And while media shuns him for wanting attention, its fair to guess there would be thousands of kids wanting attention. The media aren't complaining about them. Why? The Media are the ones actually giving him the attention, without their role of facilitation, Corey's attention would not quite be the same.

We can't completely blame the media, though, as like any business, they act on demand, and Australias largest media demand is for popular humour news, and only the highest tiers of journalism would avoid such.

But even though they should have highlighted the initial case, they have treated this young person shockingly in the last few days. Editorials from some of the nations most influential newspapers blaming him for almost everything - much of it wrongly. Usually I agree and love our national bureaus, but this has gone pear shaped from the day it started.

A spark from his party ignited this unstoppable flame. And from a quick listen to what Corey is actually saying, and putting a little bit thought into it, it is clear how thwarted this has been represented.

Although his arguments are delivered very simplistically and child-like, they are quite compelling.

Of course he shouldn't have had a party when his parents were trusting him from interstate - but he is neither responsible or should be held accountable for what followed on.

Most likely he put a bulletin (for those unacquainted, a little message to all your MySpace friends) from his MySpace here a few days ago - link

But as he has said, he only thought and intended a couple of hundred would come for a party, and I doubt his MySpace means were the cause. It played a part of how many people came, but wasn't the main factor. Firstly, a MySpace bulletin isn't held in the minds of youth as an 100% credible source anyway. The amount of phished account advertising posted and random jibber jabber brings it way down. Rather, texting, kids speaking to each other, with the knowledge that no adults were there, would've been the major cause.

As he has said, he only wanted and intended a few hundred for a harmless party, the rest were gate-crashers and uninvited guests. He never intended for damage to be caused. And for their behavior should he be held responsible? No, that would defy common sense. The people who actually caused the damage should be found and held responsible. As Corey has also contended, its just like anyone walking in the street - not him. This is confirmed by this report delivering opinions from Laywers - link

And for the medias continued contention that he showed no remorse - have they bothered to listen to what he has SAID at all? or have they decided to push their own, wrong story? Well, quite plainly the latter, as he has said on multiple occasions, including the National TV interview above, that he is sorry, and even though it may seem frankly insincere, those who get the teen-talk of today will understand its perfectly clear. He is sorry, but he still (and rightly so) says he cannot be held responsible for the actions of others in public.

And for his own, continued actions since the events?? Well that would fall back on the hypocritical attention-delivering media.

Anyway, how did this Fire Ignite?

The critical point was the Police Airwing Helicopter. Without that, the story would've possibly missed the headlines all together. That's not to put down the police, at all, they have done the right thing.

The helicopter was the spark, and the flame has been upheld by holiday medias vacuum.

And the way the media has handled this is appalling. They are the ones that should be apologizing for taking advantage of this yet-to-be-developed young person.

In the end, his fault was starting the party. His liability should rest at that.

And due to this huge attention the media has given him, we now have a web and youth idolizing him, and his unassailable influence must not be understated. I've spoken to tonnes of kids all over Melbourne, and in general, youth now love him. The situation will now be subject to an impressionable, non-conforming nation and world of youth looking for fun - and his party has set the benchmark.

I have no doubt that we will now see a spate of copy-parties, over Melbourne, Australia and possibly The World.

The story will be that they are copy ones, but as they probably won't have the rare critical point - the Police Airwing Helicopter, the won't command as much attention.

So where should have the media focused on?

Well, some did the right thing, focusing on the much more relevant issues of Alcohol and youth at the moment, and instead of focusing direct blame on Corey, looked at the societal and youth attitudes and standards, especially on the back of increased alcohol exposure reports such as this - link

They need to not put full blame on his means of invitation, because I can tell you that would not have caused the party to the extent, rather kids as they always do, speaking, would have caused it to that extent.

And while the ease and extent of teens getting alcohol is at an all-time high, the Chief Commissioner, Christine Nixon, is wildly unrealistic in her demands for parents not to supply alcohol to under-18's. They are going to get it no matter what, and if the parents don't, it ads extra levels of risk.

It should also bring a wake-up call for Cyber-Safety, on any part technology played in it, and how that can be incorporated into classroom education soon.

Overall - Lets go beyond the medias shock-reportage, listen to Corey's real words, and work out what will really help this situation in the future.

And parents must learn the fundamentals, don't go out of the state leaving your teens ... unless you want to get back to every news crew in the nation in your driveway....

FILTER FURORE!

2008-01-07T11:26:00.000+11:00

FILTERS. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH, CHINA. SLAM.

--

What a poor week for the nation. I will come to why, soon.

--

Introduction - Introduces the history of Labor's ISP-Filtering Policy, asks, and explains why it has had so much attention in the last week.

ISP-Filters - Expresses some things about the furore surrounding these filters recently.

The Real Issues - Mentions Speed, Cost, Privacy, Content, False-Positives and the want for porn.

How bad is porn - Explains the arguments against porn, the possible negative effects, but expresses, generally, it is not that harmful.

Inappropriate Material/Security - Explains the subjective nature of inappropriate material, the most common categories, that filters will never be full-proof, and the differences in security between PC-Based and ISP-Based filters.

A Sad Week - Explains how the nation has failed to realize, talk about and push for things that will really help kids online.

The only Filter, is between the ears - Expresses that the influencers need to help society understand what the issues are, and what will really help out, shows some case examples, and states the Cyber-Safety mission of 2008 - EDUCATION

--

Introduction

Firstly, on March 21, 2006, then Labor leader, Kim Beazley, announced Labor's new policy to implement ISP filtering (The Age - link - Google News Archives - link).

That policy has been re-iterated many times by Labor, notably in August 2007 - link - and in the roll up to the election - link.

With it being in the national pipeline for over a year, suddenly the media, and subsequently society, has decided to give it full-throttle attention.

The largest and most influential media have catapulted it to the top this week, all News Limited and Fairfax media have covered it, Aussie tech news websites, forums and the blogosphere have smashed it, and on Thursday it even warranted an editorial from the most powerful paper in the Nation, The Australian - link

This is simply not news. So why? Why suddenly all this attention?

It is due to the extreme lack of serious political interest across the Australian society. Across this board, policies are so superficially and weakly looked at by the electorate in opposition and government, which without a media lead in, nothing gets much attention and analysis at all.

Even sometimes with a fantastic media lead-in, such as when The Australian’s legendary George Megalogenis revealed that even though Labor’s ‘education revolution’ does have plenty of base, it really will not offer a ‘revolution’, rather, some major advances – link – the mainstream media, society and the national agenda didn’t really talk deeply about it. And why? Well, our society really isn’t one overly interested in politics, instinctively it is not a popular human activity, and thus creates big divides in most public/political interaction.

We also have a holiday fuelled lust of juicy beat-ups for media, and such lust has a beautiful dominance on our national agenda.

Australia would benefit from a nation more interested in politics, one that could see through interests and rhetoric, but the human unpopularity and the time-constraints such would concur, make this a near-impossible vision.

None-the-less, hope and continued pushes for a more intelligent and constructive media and society, should be employed by as many as possible.

Observations aside, time to tackle the content.

The ISP-Filters

It was, a while ago, announced that Labor will mandate ISP-filters, compromised from the ACMA blacklist, to all ISPs, with an opt-out function.

Achieving such a goal would obviously involve mammoth logistics, much consultation and organization, covering all side-effects and objections from certain parties to make sure it is done properly (and politically successfully).

And just last week, the vague information about the filters was cobbled with speculation, most of it negative, damming Labor to the max.

The majority of talk was speculation, a lot of it was simply wrong, and a lot would never happen.

Take China for instance.

In politics, politicians like to see their polling go up, not down. And for every political party that wants a half-baked chance getting in power, such concepts are fundamental. And this reason alone (along with a myriad of other things), would ensure our governments would not illegitimately censor the free medium of the internet.

You see, it would be political suicide to. Why? Well, we have a media and society obsessed with freedom. We have a very advanced global communications infrastructure.

In a situation of ISP-Filtering, we would have virtually the whole web being constantly cross-checked with unfiltered access, and as soon as a site would be illegitimately blocked, it would be found out. It would then become front page news across the nation and the world, embarrassing and punching a major blow to any government that was the subject. Their polling would unfortunately not go up.

Some forum-dwellers have already started cross-checking sites and raising alarm bells in the last few days! All of which were wrong (on this forum - link – the result on the next page - link). That is a slight glimpse of what would happen, if such filters were put in place.

And with the amount of pro-civil/tech organizations/people in the nation (not to mention opposing political forces), such a scenario would continue and get more extensive if filtering was employed.

So it is not only morally, but politically stupid to take such a risk, and whilst some may argue some politicians are technically stupid, that isn’t relevant to this, because above all, it comes down to commonsense politics, and that is Mr Rudd’s element.

Having one of the freest medias and people, having such global-links and having the third highest quality of life of any nation on earth, illegitimate censoring would simply never happen in Australia.

The same goes for accusations that ISP may filter on business interests – it’ll be too much of a strategic market risk, they’ll be found out, it will get publicized, people will change ISP, and the ISP will loose money. Money is a powerful thing.

The Real Issues

But down to the real issues, which are speed, privacy, cost, false-positives, how and what will be filtered, bypassing etc. etc. etc.

Each issue has conflicting evidence from many parties. All require comprehensive and measured analysis, of which I’m not going to go right into now.

But I will say, each issue must be very carefully looked at by the government, and a fundamental thing will be to make sure opting-out is a simple function that grants no privacy risk, and the result is completely unfiltered, full-speed access to the internet.

I would also mention that the Australian adult industry is worth $700 Million a year, with more than 30% of adult males watching x-rated films in the last year. 12% of the web is porn and 25% of online search requests involve porn. And if the USA is anything to go by, the largest adult male demographic for porn is in the 35-44 age group (according to Internet Pornography Statistics compiled by many sources – link).

The prime demand for porn is from adult males, and if nothing else, objecting to filtering on the grounds of China is probably covering up adults males real interests – anger that now they will have to either bypass, use other means, or have to ring up there ISP to access their porn again.

I heard a doctor recently say how sex is the strongest of human phenomena. Is there anything wrong with that? No, it is an unavoidable, human thing.

So if such filters were employed, maybe opt-out functions could be made as simple as a button on the ISP website – as many parents would just want to stop their kids, but not themselves.

And back to 3^rd party view, regardless of the smaller issues, the complexities of such a task are so gigantic, with so much of an uninformed public, organizational and corporate backlash, and with only a very minimal positive impact on Cyber-Safety, such filtering could quite possibly never happen.

And now, I intend to be neutral and let others concentrate on the filtering battle – my goal is to continue working on what I talk about below. All this filter-talk will work itself out, one way or another. All parties will push their sides and a balance will be found somewhere.

Filters have dominated the public debate on Cyber-Safety, and really, we still have a public ignoring what is really hurting kids in the online world.

How bad is porn?

What is the argument against porn? Well, other than an authoritative instinct to keep porn from the eyes of kids, how is porn hurting kids?

For generations such material has been common in humans, but now the medium such material is taking place on has moved from magazine to computer screen.

Though of course, you can’t simply relate Cyberia to the olden days, as where access was a struggle in the past, it is very simple now, and material that was in the past published by large companies with at least some connection to society, the new online world offers everything possibly imaginable. Every fetish and taboo roams freely in this world.

The first time kids see porn, the chemical epinephrine is secreted from the adrenal gland, which gives a powerful biochemical reaction, locking the material in their brains. This process is repeated each time porn viewing occurs, and can lead to addiction.

Leading studies conclude the negative effects of porn can be; the modelling and imitation of inappropriate behaviours; unhealthy interference with normal sexual development; emotional side effects (including nightmares, and residual feelings of shame, guilt, anxiety and confusion); stimulation of premature sexual activity; the development of misleading and potentially harmful attitudes toward sex and such symptoms as aggressive patterns of acting out sexually, the depersonalization of people, and an increased risk of poor social bonds as adults.

Some of these effects have been reiterated in reality recently, with such cases as 20 year old man being sentenced to 11 years jail for raping a woman after viewing hardcore porn - link

I was watching a show on ABC recently on a boy in the UK who needed to visit psychiatrists to help fix his porn addiction. It turns out he was bullied in the past and viewing such material remedied his physiological connotations.

There are many concerns about inappropriate content, many legitimate.

Although surely it is not a good thing, but there is a will to see it, and when there is a will, there is a way – and the vast majority of time, it is a harmless activity that has been running in humans for generations.

We know it is virtually standard in teenage boys, but the portion that is negatively affected by it, and that of such these filters may help, is very low.

Extract trivialism, emotion, and moral rhetoric from the argument, and you will find it’s not really hurting kids that much.

Inappropriate Material/Security

It all comes under the Cyber-Safety banner of inappropriate material. And with the subjective nature of such material, it is a complex task to decide what is what.

Of more concern than porn would be the material that leads to massive destruction of humanity, some of which I explain in my post ‘Massacring Cyberia’ below – link – which includes how inappropriate material has fuelled some suicides and mass-killings.

So Porn is commonplace, but hardly that bad. Violence-inciting websites on the other hand are not commonplace, but their effects can be much worse.

Other commonly mentioned things that come under the banner of ‘inappropriate material’ include: abortion, alcohol, chatting, cults, downloads, drugs, hacking, illegal material, nudity, pay sites, dating sites, political sites, religion and ones with any sexual connections.

Subjective indeed, and as has been expressed by some in the last week, it is really up to parents. PC-Based filters already being offered by the government have such fantastic capabilities that parents can select themselves what categories to block, and if I were to speculate, ISP-Based ones could possibly have those capabilities as well – where parents can select categories to block on a possible management function on their ISP's website.

Another important issue is the filter-security one.

Make no doubt, any filters that will be put in place, ever, will be able to be bypassed.

As the user has complete control over their PC, PC-Based filters can be disabled full stop – giving unfiltered and unaffected access to the internet. ISP-Based ones are different. The user (the child for example) would not have control over them. Circumvention methods would run rampant online, but as ISP-Filters won’t be able to be disabled (unless you opt-out as an adult), and any methods of accessing blocked content would subject the user to much higher levels of inconvenience. Continually finding proxy websites, servers, and different measures would be a hassle, each one invoking its own side-effects of slowness, more privacy issues etc.

A Sad Week

And I ask again, why a sad week?

It has highlighted, yet again, but in massive form, the massive divide of societies beliefs on what is hurting kids online, and what is really hurting kids online.

Whilst we have a few, serious cases of inappropriate content hurting kids, overall, the issue is simply very small, very insignificant compared to what is really hurting kids online.

Recent surveys reveal 42% of teenage girls are bullied online. If that is equated to girls in Australia aged 12 – 18, then that would mean over 390,000 have suffered online harassment.

Research at Adelaide Flinders University found that 30% of teenagers are addicted to the internet. And that, if equated to Australia’s 12 – 18 population, would equate to 575,000 Aussie kids being addicted to the net.

These are conclusive findings on things that are detrimentally affecting Aussie Kids online.

But the most shocking thing is, that over half, OVER HALF, do not know how to report abuse - highlighting how clueless kids are to get help when they need it, and suffering only because they don't know what to do - a lack of knowledge, a lack of education, and that is our fault.

Whilst these numbers roam in the hundreds of thousands, we are sitting still all talking about filters, which may all be talk down the drain.

The majority of kids who are suffering online harassment don’t know what to do – and from the huge response I’ve just got from girls reading my first Girlfriend Magazine column – they are shocked about online privacy, and many are taking action to rectify it.

The only filter, is between the ears

You see, the only real filter, are the ones between kids ears.

Although the battle for Cyber-Safety has come as far as incorporating better Federal Policies regarding Cyber-Safety Education, nothing extensive and effective has been rolled out in the past, and now, this is what needs urgent focus from government and society.

Before the F word is even mentioned, the E word needs to be fully planned and implemented.

I would rank education and services at about 95% importance, and filters at 5%.

Where has the huge public debate been regarding what would be the best way to educate kids? Where has been the critical analysis of websites already offering advice that could be implemented into the curriculum? Where have the pushes been to urgently get education up? Where has the anger been in relation to education-complacency in the past?

Even when I bypassed the filter, many thought of it as the failing of previous government Cyber-Safety programs. It was not. Such a foolproof feat cannot be expected from any filter. Rather, the failing was not educating kids adequately.

It has been a poor week for the nation, as we have failed as a society to address what is really hurting kids and their use of technology, and failed to talk about, and push for some things that will effectively help them.

And this is where we need to change.

Massive progress has been made in the last few months in getting the concept through that we must involve kids in issues surrounding technology, as it almost their exclusive world.

But now the influencers, the government, media and people of high rank, must strategize like political marketers - working on building traction on the instinctive human pro-education ideology, to enjoin the most urgent issues of bullying, privacy, addiction, security, illegality and even inappropriate content, in the minds of our society, to be the face of the negative side of the internet, and to make sure they understand that without education, we will get no-where.

And another thing. Politics (usually) responds to societal demand. Here we have a largely uninformed public demanding filters, and politicians having to respond to that through policy. But should filtering be our focus? No, education should, and although the politicians may know this, they are still servants of the public, and unless we rapidly change our public demands, we will continue to walk down the wrong road.

I look at my situation, harassed and addicted, how would’ve filters have helped me? – They wouldn’t have.

And just think of some scenarios.

Say, a 14 year-old girl had a fake MySpace put up demeaning her. It said she was a slut and that no-one liked her, even her family.

The girl knows about this, feels violated, anxious, horrible and is the laughing stock of her entire year level at school.

She suffers for months, until she finds someone that knows what to do.

They tell her to not respond to the bully, to not make it worse, to delete all the offenders, block them, and login to MySpace, scroll to the bottom of the fake profile, and the offenders ones, click report abuse and get it all deleted and the offenders prosecuted.

She does, and can have peace of mind again.

And such a circumstance is all too common. And would a filter have helped? No.

We need a situation in place where this girl would already known how to deal with it, to instantly take action once it happened, which would have stopped it from spreading and avoided months of hurt.

I’m not saying, however, that filters cannot help at all, they can.

But I still stand by what I said in my first media article (find link in my little intro at the top-right!), that filters simply don’t address the bigger issues.

All the issues here are fundamentally not with technology - but people.

Lets get the extensive and collaborative research, and the Youth Advisory Group up and running as soon as possible, lets work with our researching friends and all parties, to develop the age-targeted, self-interest provoking comprehensive education resources, and work with state counterparts to embed these into the curriculum in every year in every school in the nation.

Lets start looking at how we are going to implement the online cyber-chat-helpline, overhaul the advice, train all the teachers, and think about how we can run some meaningful community awareness campaigns.

Although we shouldn’t completely ignore filters, we need to assess our priorities in regards to kids in the digital world, and focus on what is most important.

Another legend of The Australian, Paul Kelly, recently said “Rudd is keen on process yet politics is about outcomes.” If 2007 was Cyber-Safety’s year of processes, then 2008 is its year of outcomes.

It is now up to YOU to make sure these outcomes are realized, that is, every kid in the nation being educated about online risks, how to prevent them, and how to deal with them if they occur.

So next time, any of you, here the F word, do not scream China, rather, sing, and we must all, in a common and powerful chorus: WHERE IS THE EDUCATION.

Collaboration Starts Here!

2007-12-14T11:40:00.000+11:00

I know how frustrating it is sitting in an audience, watching behind a screen knowing you have some great input, with no way to get your experiences out...

Being such an advocate of collaboration, it would be criminally hypocritical to not involve such concepts into my undertakings.

So this is a call-out - a call-out to anyone who has some experiences in Cyberia.... kids, if you have been distressed online by the behavior of other people, if you know kids who are addicted, if you have some thoughts re: Cyber-Safety, what should be done (or anything at all related to Cyberia) - I beg you to send me your story, even if it is a wrap-up of what you online, and how long you spend. This also applies to parents, teachers (possibly ask your kids or students and post what they say!) and anybody and everybody - involving you will be essential to my next phase...

tomwoodpublic@gmail.com - If you want to be featured on the soon-to-be launched TWV², then this is your chance! - time for your experiences and knowledge to get recognition and help some others...

Stall to posts

2007-11-27T21:23:00.001+11:00

Sorry nothing has been posted lately... I have just finished exams and have had a mammoth last week with the excitement of the election and all;)

I will be going into a brief 'Thinking' period prior to my next round of posts which will be shaking-the-nation in the New Year!

GOAL ACHIEVED!

2007-11-19T10:31:00.001+11:00

Link - Goal Achieved.

In a nutshell;

Federal Policy - Cyber Safety Australia

Support for on-going collaborative research projects to determine the scope and detail of all Cyber-Issues, which will help form responses
The establishment of a permanent joint parliamentary standing committee to investigate and report on Cyber-Safety in Australia. It will also help co-ordinate and manage all governmental/industry/organization measures to optimize a national Cyber-Safety Approach.
The establishment of a Federal Youth Advisory board containing the best tech-savvy kids aged 12-18 to help manage measures and make sure they're in-touch etc.
The extension of the Consultative Working group to report on Cyber-Safety in broad er terms.
The overhaul of the NetAlert Website and Hotline to bring it to a relevant, effective and age-targeted standard.
The establishment of an anonymous free online Chatline for kids to get customized assistance for any Cyber-Issues.
Age-targeted resources deployed that will eventually be used in every year level of every school in the nation to educate 100% of kids from the early ages to the end of school with everything they need to know on preventing many Cyber-Issues, and how to deal with them if they occur
Compulsory Cyber-Safety teacher training modules across the nation.
Extensive community awareness raising support that will be worked out in detail in due course.
Threat reporting/auditing functions with the ability to update all the advice/education/training resources with the latest threats to ensure it's in-touch and relevant with the rapidly-evolving world of Cyberia.

Unbelievable.

I would like to thank all of the readers of The Wood Verdict - without your support I would still be sitting here today with all my efforts leading nowhere - but they have, thanks to you.

Thanks to Natalie Connor from Symantec, Michael Carr-Gregg, Sophie Mitchell and Senator Stephen Conroy, and Robyn Treyvaud from CyberSafeKids.com.au

I've pushed enough - and my Cyber-Safety revolution is about to take place - being realised through Federal Labor - but I hope it is supported by all political parties and society - as it is the Cyber-Safety revolution we so urgently need.

Now it's just a matter of ensuring it's kept relevant, realistic, effective, collaborative, co-ordinated and holistic.

You can read my initial speech here - link

Thank You.

Tom Wood

ps. I would like to extend my support for the Liberal parties announcement of funding for 3 Annual youth forums a year as expressed in this media release last Friday - link

I would hope that it is treated with a good deal of seriousness from the policy makers if it were to go ahead.

Although this is a good measure, there would still need to be some fundamental changes to the NetAlert website and Hotline to get it relevant, in-touch and effective - and there would need to be the establishment of an online Chatline, compulsory education in all school's in the nation, teaching modules +awareness raising measures to make it worthwhile in a whole - as at the moment, it's inadequate nature is leading to 50% of teens having to endure Cyber-Harassment without knowing how to handle it, simply because they are not educated properly - which just tragic.

The Ultimate Wood Verdict

2007-11-17T17:21:00.000+11:00

Aussie Kids

30% Bullied

42% Addicted

49% Can be tracked down

50% Don't know what to do

Filters are reaching less than 5%

Current systems are virtually useless

We have an opportunity to educate 100%

It's time, It's it - It's either going to be now, or never...

The Battle of Holistics!

2007-11-15T20:13:00.000+11:00

Holistic

Looking at the whole system rather than just concentrating on individual components.

--

Not the most common word, I know.

But it is a word, none-the-less.

And one very special word.

Rare, but has exposed a lot more for its buck than you would expect!

--

On August 10, 2007 - (as I talk about in The Wood Verdict on Netalert below - link) the Minister of Communications, Senator Helen Coonan announced the 'ambitious initiative' (that has been around for years!) that the government was about to release in the league of Protecting Australian Families Online.

It was again re-iterated the next week with another media release - link

5 days later I was able to expose the shortcomings of the filter program, also bringing an opportunity to raise the message about Cyber-Safety - the sheer inadequacy of current measures, and what needs to be done.

Quote from an ABC report, "What really needs to happen is a lot of research done with kids and then education, compulsory in all levels of schooling, and awareness-raising for adults so we can get a more holistic approach and it'll be a lot more effective all over."

Holistic - that's what needs to be done, more than the current fundamental (and very out-of-touch) measures of only really a website and telephone hotline. I called for collaborative research leading to extensive compulsory education and community awareness, and the setup of more effective services + a lot more - to bring a truly holistic approach.

I was happy that I was able to say that, but what followed shocked me.

In the round the country launch of the Government's initiative in the following weeks, there was a few words added to the promotion of the initiatives. To the title of a section actually.

As you can read here - link - link - and - link - to the section titled Netalert, was formed into

"NetAlert – a holistic approach"

So without any changes at all to the initiative from when I commented about it, the words applying to the effect of a 'holistic approach' were added - words never used in promotional material preceding my calls for such actions to be taken.
--
I feel a bit betrayed that the government would take the measure of incorporating my wording in an attempt to really cover up some fundamental inadequacies that I exposed.

Just goes to show that not only the actual measures are ineffectual, but aspects of the promotional material is pretty fraudulent as well.

Keep this in mind - if you really want to know if measures will be effective and relevant, and notably holistic - do not listen to these government media releases, but rather the adults who really know who they're talking about.

These such adults are very rare. Not adults who just know technology, or just education, but the select few adults that extensively live their lives dealing with kids and how they use Cyberia as a social and personal world.

If you hear it from their lips - then you can maybe treat it with a bit more credibility than these media releases...

Cyberia - a bottomless pit of society...

2007-11-13T20:59:00.000+11:00

In Australian Society we have some very general but strong pre-set social standards.

We have a society that gives protection to those who cannot defend themselves, the disabled, the dead, the sick, ill and elderly.

Standards were brought over in colonial times, and mixed with time, the development of government and law- a special fabric has been created - one that we hold strong in society as a whole. Of course not everyone would support such things most of us apply to, but in a large society you will never get aggreeance on everything - but you do get some pretty major undercurrents.

Overall we respect all - and look down upon those who differ from these general social norms.

Each nation on earth has different social norms. Most developed nations are similar to Australia's - but when you cross into undeveloped nations, and some dominated by certain religions, there may be some pretty stark contrasts.

Mostly, countries with properly functioning governments and legal systems have what most of us would agree to be pretty acceptable standards in society.

But as it happens in undeveloped countries - you get some pretty different standards - some most of us would think very poorly of.

Cyberia is just that. Lawless and International. Having the capability to push every nation in the world together in one place. No laws to govern what's right. An uncontrolled mesh of all conflicting and different standards. And as it caters for such a vast quantity of humans - it caters for all aspects of humanity - which in a broad sense does mostly contain people with respectful and developed moral compasses, but as you would have in any society, many people without. And without proper transparency and law in place - such a situation opens the doors up for a reflection of what humanity is - above nation level, above an international level, but to a total level.

Most websites have their own, certain standards. Mainstream ones such as MySpace, YouTube etc. all have pretty proper ones that we would have in society. But then we have VampireFreaks - MyDeathSpace - and probably another hundred billion at the moment that wouldn't. Some imageboards have absolutely macabre humor - pictures of mutilated bodies - the depiction of disabled people as humorous. Nothing is protected - the standards really go down to nothing, none, nil. The creators of this land are the users - and the users control it.

Although parents in Australia once could have trust in society, in Cyberia they certainly cannot. Saying that though shouldn't stop it being used - as that will never happen.

What we need to do as a country is work on the human side of this. Work in early stages of schooling - developing moral compasses and training into kids ensuring Cyberian voyages are performed in an informed manner. Deliver this throughout school, in conjunction with the more practical preventative and post measures, services, and awareness to parents to bring it holistically.

I guess Cyberia is a social analysts dream - a platform to observe humanity at its rawest.

But as a nation - we need to understand that at its rawest - it can be a very dangerous place - thus making sure we take into account such concepts, incorporate them into possible measures, ensuring before we enter this true world of humanity - we have the resilience not to succumb to the dark side of it.

The Fizz on Facebook!

2007-11-11T19:28:00.000+11:00

MySpace has just passed 209 Million members.
Facebook has just passed 73 Million members.

Latest figures show MySpace is struggling and is loosing hits being down 5% in the ten week period preceding October 13, 2007 - Whereas Facebook grew in hits over 300% during that time.

I have absolutely no doubt (despite the best efforts of Google and MySpace) - that Facebook will soon takeover as the dominant and leading social networking website. The transgression has already taken place at the most technically orientated schools, such as Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne, who has over 630 members on their Facebook network - and I am just starting to observe the first signs of migration at some less-tech schools.

We have seen myriads of detrimental effects on society and kids involving MySpace - events of it being in the media... etc. etc. etc. - but soon it'll all happen with Facebook.

This brings about a great opportunity to learn what has happened with MySpace - so we can be pro-active for the next era in Social Networking.

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Fundamental Privacy Fault

Overall, Facebook has a far better model for user privacy. No matter what - if you are not on the Network of a friend of a member - you cannot view there profile. There is no setting that will let you.

Facebook has a network structure, that is, when you register, you must choose a network to join. Networks are commonly a location such as a country or city, a club, a fun random one, or a business - but for the vast majority of kids - it is their school. Luckily, to join a school network you require a school email address, or either be verified by a current member - so in that sense it is still quite safe.

Now, anyone who has an account on the website can search for members with either names or email addresses. If you are not permitted to view someone's profile - all you can see is their main profile picture - and what Network they are a member of.

So in most cases, if someone knows a kids name, and they are a member of Facebook, they can quickly search and can immediately see what school they go to. That gives a very crucial location identifier away - and opens up the stakes of privacy and tracking down soooo much - right down to surrounding suburbs - and if the child has a rare last name, searching surrounding suburbs of the school for that name on WhitePages is all that is needed to find where they live.

Further to that, any members can browse entire member directories of networks - so if they type 'Methodist Ladies College' in, they can view all girls from that school that are members - separated by year level.

So even though Facebook generally has far better privacy - it has a fundamental fault - that is, it reveals a very crucial location identifier for most kids, really debasing any lead in privacy.

Now, what should members do to keep safe? - Well, I would recommend at the moment joining with an alias, or twisting one of your names into something else.

But this is such a major concern that it really should prompt Facebook administration to ensure school networks remain completely confidential to all non-members - both on member searching and network browsing. - Then Facebook will truly reign supreme in the privacy stakes!

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Media Profiling

In The Wood Verdict on MySpace below - link - I talk about the scary MySpace media phenomenon that has happened very regularly in the last year, but has been talked about very little by anyone really. In a nutshell it is the exploitation of anyone who is in the media's MySpace profile - gaining information for media reports on it - never with consent, and commonly, containing what was believed to be private information.

But finally it has been acknowledged - but this time it wasn't on MySpace - it was on Facebook!

And the central reason for this acknowledgment is the extreme sensitivity of the circumstance.

As you can read in Media Watch's coverage - link - it reveals it is of the Australian Soldier, Trooper David Pearce, who was killed in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan last month.

In this initial media statement by the family of Trooper Pearce - link - it states, "The family has requested their privacy be respected and they will not be conducting any media interviews. "

But that didn't stop almost every media outlet in Australia blatantly raiding Trooper Pearce's Facebook profile - and publishing galleries of private family photo's on the front pages of papers nationwide, and on the leading stories on almost all TV news bulletins.

But the most extraordinary thing that Media Watch does reveal, is this sort of usage of profile information is not only unethical and simply a serious invasion of privacy, but it is most likely illegal.

Many different Print/TV networks were contacted by Media Watch about the case - and all replied with words to the effect of justifying their actions.

So we know that media does not give a care in the world about these certain social networking media-profiling and related privacy/ethical issues - even if it is brought into the public light.

So again, this needs to be stressed throughout society and in possible Cyber-Safety campaigns - to always be weary that the main predator in social networking - is most likely going to be media!

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Inadequateness of abuse reporting

Finally, to the inefficiency and bureaucracy involved in reporting abuse on Facebook. Whereas MySpace has a quick button on the bottom, Facebook involves clicking a myriad of different links, starting of the with the help link, privacy and security, then browsing to the 'how do I report abuse' - opening the AJAX tab and clicking a link at the bottom to finally get to the page.

In this circumstance, it is where Facebook needs to walk in the shadow of MySpace, and implement a quick, and simple button at the bottom of each page - directly linking to a report abuse form.

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Conclusion

Facebook will soon be number 1. MySpace will be history. All the negative media of MySpace will soon be on Facebook. But here we have an opportunity - to learn from the past consequences of certain cases involving MySpace - and be pro-active in helping optimize Facebook privacy, raise the media-profiling message and incorporating some better abuse-reporting functionalities.

1 & 3 are some quite simple and obvious steps, but the media profiling message will really need government support to be effective - and unless some there are again, some fundamental reforms to Cyber-Safety policy - that opportunity will be missed.

Massacring Cyberia...

2007-11-10T11:57:00.000+11:00

As the world recovers from the 'Pekka-Eric Auvinen' massacre in a Finland school last week, it has yet provoked another round of Cyber Philosophy. But why is there another round, why does it keep happening?

This is the 5th impact to humanity with an association to Cyberia that has made big media in the last year.

First was the Dawson College Shooting in Montreal, Canada on September 13th last year. 20 People were brutally shot and the murderer, Kimveer Gill (Wikipedia Article - link) had posted from his VampireFreaks profile (Named fatality666) 6 times that morning - link , up to two hours before his killing spree, and also on it was over 50 of photos of him pointing the gun at his head and acting out Nazi scenes [See pictures below]. He had a passionate hate for almost everything that was not dark, and loved violent video games and music. He had even fantisized a year before on his blog - link - that he would love to have a beautiful dawn morning - and then there would be "Disembowled bodies litter the streets. Some have been decapitated, others hung off bridges and over-passes. Yet, others still lie burning. Flames slowly eatting away at their putrid flesh. Glorious. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA They have paid this day, they truly have paid. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA"

Then we had Steph and Jodie's twisted profiles, the two 16 year old girls who hanged themselves to death earlier this year in Melbourne, after gaining a very substantial web presence, most notably on MySpace, and VampireFreaks. They had posted multiple odes to suicide, tonnes of pictures on DeviantArt of them playing around with macabre items, such as pitchforks in their mouths, and visited this 'humor' site which explains in depth how to hang yourself on - link. They posted their tragic final message of 'RIP Jodie and Steph' on their MySpaces before they undertook the act - link.

Next was the internet media fuelled massacre of 32 Virginia Tech students earlier this year by Seung-Hui Cho. He pre-prepared video and picture messages before the shootings [See Below].

Finally there was Seung-Hui Cho fuelled identity picked up by a year 12 student from Loretto College in Ballarat, Victoria - who idolised this man and posted threats to kill her classmates on VampireFreaks. Luckily this one was actually pro-actively picked up, and appropriate action was taken with this girl.

And now, after all this time, it happens again in Finland. 'Pekka-Eric Auvinen' posted direct video warnings on YouTube. Again this boy was obsessed with anti-social theology, as can be explicity observed from this copy of his YouTube profile - link.

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So from this we can see a recurring theme. Cyberias association with such blatant acts against humanity. But what role exactly did the Cyberia have to play in these situation?

In each situation it varied, but there is one common theme.

Unregulated Cyberia giving freedom of ideologies to spread, for anti-social identities to be found, and the harvestation of whom may be vulnerable to commit such acts.

But what has the problem been? - The problem is that they keep happening - many with the possibility of being intercepted.

It would be interesting to see statistics on how many events such as these are intercepted on the internet prior to them taking place, and how many aren't.

I would believe that the majority would not be. But it's our fault if we sit on the sidelines, talk about them a bit and do nothing.

Every negative occurance in life surely has a positive side - or at least something that can be taken from it.

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In these situations, you have a few people posting threats and information on websites. Some would be visited by people they know in real-life, which would heighten the chance of interception, but many, such as some of the vampirefreak ones, would surely be not.

But there is no doubt there would be many people, unrelated to the offenders, who would be viewing this material.

And I think it's about time this fact was harnessed.

Many of the viewers might be worried, but have no idea how to help out, letting these situations run right past.

But what if there was a widely known, world service that would make it easy for anyone to report threats posted online to, and then they could be delivered to the relevant parties through this service?

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There is no doubt Cyberia offers some of the most serious dangers of any medium that has passed through human hands. It has really de-based the structue of modern democratic society - therefore bringing some new threats. So we need to think of new ways to deal with such a world.

Although Cyberia can act as a catalyst for some of these terrible situations - it can also act as an aid to prevent them.

--

From these particular cases, I would recommend the implementation of an Interpol threat reporting service. It could be funded by relative world governments and provide an easy interface for threat reporting on the internet, and then the employees could manage the logistics of alerting relevant authorities and parties.

There would have been many people watching Pekka-Eric's videos on YouTube prior to the event - but obviously know-one acted.

If such a service was established, then there would be a chance that someone would have taken a little effort to report it, the service could then alert Finnish police and the school, and appropriate action could be taken.

Ofourse there would be abuse of such a service - and at the moment ofcourse there would be many unsubstantiated threats online. But it is far better to do something decisive that will possibly help out - rather than letting any action be hindered by people who supposedly care about these issues.

This also backs my pushing for better education and community awareness - in these cases, particularly by parents - who could get a better watch over what their kids are doing online - instead of letting them sit in a secluded room for hours on end.

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We must all apply a bit of thinking about this, work it out, and push for some positive things to come from it.

Without action I have no doubt we will be sitting here next year with another 6+ events in similar circumstances to talk about.

The Horror... of a Free Web.

2007-11-04T21:00:00.000+11:00

Freedom is good.

The Web is Free.

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No laws, no jurisdiction, no justice.

Freedom = Anarchy. Anarchy = Chaos. Chaos = The most powerful rule.

Cyberia = a world in Anarchy. A world with no rule.

Cyberia = a Metaphysical world. The most powerful are the ones with the metaphysical (mental power). The ones with the knowledge.

To the ones that don't - be prepared to suffer. Be prepared to suffer like know-one has suffered in the history of the world.

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That girl is 14. 14

She will now have thousands of thousands of people looking at her, taunting her, threatening her, with the humiliation of them all reading those comments in relation to her.

This was posted on a website yesterday.

The day before, another teenage girl was posted in similar circumstances. This one revealed the girls MSN, MySpace, Mobile and School - which was in Tasmania. With the whole world looking at her - with thousands of hurtful items being sent to her, random people ringing her - she may have not even had an idea why!

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There is this myth about freedom being a nice comfortable idea, well its not. Its annoying, appalling and infinitively more dangerous than the opposite.

In an ideal world (like Australia) the setup is; Freedom to the extent that does not harm anybody including yourself.

The web is not like this - the web is is completely free. In political terms, left to the max. Centre (Australia) is good. Too far right (North Korea) is bad. Too far left (The Internet) - can be just as bad.

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The nature of the internet is here to stay. There is no way it can be changed. So what do we do? What does this girl do?

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The ones with the mental power and knowledge rule. The ones without will suffer.

But, what if we can educate the ones who currently don't, to bring them to the same level?
Equip their minds with the information necessary to minimize potential harm online.
What if we can setup quick, relevant, effective and services for the unaware ones to use - to help them in their journey through Cyberia?

These actions would not only provide a nice service - but a service that is essential.

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The specific website these are posted on is 1) Hosted Internationally and 2) Gives its members a completely, and explicitly anonymous standing.

Theoretically, anyone could post things like this about anyone. And there is nothing anyone can do about it.

All it takes is someone to know some details about someone, and have the desire and will to undertake the act, and the knowledge how, most likely with no possible repercussions.

The only limitators to this phenomena are the previous two factors.

Cowardly, and Inhumane. Horrible in its strongest definition.

Luckily, in the scope of the problems Cyberia presents, this seems to be quite rare (or maybe its just been that the targeted kids have no idea that they've even been attacked on it).

But, it is very serious. Extremely Serious. The implications could be life-chaning.

A coordinated campaign of abuse focused on certain young people.

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At the moment we have at least 65% of Australia's youth using the Internet. Soon will be 99%.

The integration of Cyberia with youth will increase, and increase - and this problem as such is one that will probably increase along with that.

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Lets get the compulsory education in, get the community parent/teacher awareness in - and lets provide adequate services.

These situations cannot be avoided, but their implications limited.

The offenders may be known to the victim, requests can be made to website Admins, myspace/msn/mobile number can be changed and released only to private friends. Special services can be setup that incidents can be reported and all possible action can be completed in a timely fashion.

--

I hope that advantage can be taken of Freedom.

Lets push for that hope to be realized in Cyberia.

MySpace Phishing from Behind The Scenes

2007-11-01T22:16:00.001+11:00

Phishing Scams may well be the largest threat to the 207 Million users (5.5 Million+ in Australia) of MySpace - and so far have been operating very cunningly, and very successfully.

Here is an example of a fake MySpace login site - link (Warning: May contain Spyware) - to show you how it deceptively appears almost identical to the real MySpace - with the address bar as the only difference. To view a safe, comparative screenshot I have taken of the real vs. scam MySpace, click on the images below to enlarge.

Real MySpace	Scam MySpace

Today I have found a website where it stores the login details... This is just an example as there would be thousands of websites setup for this purpose.

On this one website, there is over 70,000 usernames and passwords of users - giving anyone full, explicit access to their accounts!!!

In respect for the scammed users - I am just displaying a screenshot of the website with the passwords blurred out. Have a look below - Click to enlarge.

A recent statistic I read claimed that over 400,000 of MySpace member's login details are in someone else's hands! - But given my personal experience with how many scam comments are posted, I would suspect this problem to be much, much larger than that. I would expect it would effect in excess of 20 Million MySpace users.

This is an essential item that would be included in my proposed Compulsory Cyber-Safety Education.

But with the inadequate measures leading to unaware kids at the moment, it would be more of a question - are your login details already on the list?

ps. For more information about Cyber-Safety, please read my Verdict on MySpace below - link - and my in-depth analysis of the current government measures - link - which includes what needs to be done.

Philosophy of Cyberia

2007-10-28T12:23:00.001+11:00

Cyberia - Coins the term, provides understanding by example and lists characteristics.

Integration and Problems - Explains the Integration of Cyberia into todays society, the main demographics, the nature of it, and my detrimental effect theories.

What can we do? - Discusses the actions we should take.

Conclusion - Promotes the scope of the issue, briefs what needs to be done, stresses the importance, and asks why this action is not being taken already.

Cyberia.

It has been used unofficially by myself and many others over the last year, but it's about time we put a meaning to it... here goes... time to coin the term...

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Cyberia is a metaphysical world which exists through the use technological mediums such as the internet, computers and mobiles.

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To gain a brief understanding of the metaphysical world Cyberia is, attention should be drawn to the comments in this BBC article - link - by Brisbane born science/cultural writer, Margaret Wertheim. She says, "Cyberspace is giving us an experience of other spaces of being than the physical, material world. When I'm sitting on my chair - but I'm in a chatroom or social network or multi-user game - my body is physically in the room but there is a very real sense in which I myself am in another space of being, intersecting in some fantasy world. Those experiences are very real and what we are seeing now - is that the notion of what is real is not tied to the physical body."

In general, the two main functions of Cyberia revolves around information and communication. Parallels can be drawn to the real world. You can talk to people, play games, listen and attain music, read the news etc. etc. - Any activity that happens in real life can be replicated in Cyberia.

Characteristics of Cyberia include:

It is mostly a lawless, free world with no boundaries
The landscape is rapidly evolving

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Integration

The integration and effects of Cyberia in todays society are dynamic and vast.

Cyberia now affects everyone on this planet in some way or another, some hardly, some every aspect, some passively and some actively. The Cyberian experience is different and varied for each different person.

The major demographic of Cyberia is 10 - 22 year olds - so mainly youth. At this age Cyberia plays an integral role in life, and some may even live in it more than the real world!

With Cyberia's free, dynamic and youthful nature - the youth of the world play a dominant role of its evolution. As it is kids that are the main demographic of Cyberia - the vast majority of adults, people who are not kids, or not constantly in contact with kids, really have no idea about Cyberia - what kids are doing in it, what dangers there are, and what safety measures should be reached.

Most adults use Cyberia as a business tool, for light information and communication. Kids involve themselves much more deeply in Cyberia. They take advantage of many more aspects of it - and are integrating there lives into it at an unprecedented rate never experienced before by mankind.

Giving all this, what we have and are seeing is the quick creation of a world, that no-one knew was coming, and many detrimental effects following on.
MySpace and YouTube are fine examples. They were made with good intentions and were taken up enormously by the youth of the world, but then what happened no-one saw coming. No-one knew that waves of Cyber-Bullying would come about, no-one knew that scores of phishing websites would be created, no-one knew that hundred's of fighting video's would be uploaded - all with deep impacts on todays youth society.

So looking at some of this, can it provide an indication of future events?... well yes, it can.

Earlier in the year I stated that, "With every intended development of Cyberia, there are unknown, opposite detrimental affects."

I assure you now, that the current problems are nothing compared to what will be realized in the next 10 years - and further into the future.

Cyberia is developing faster and faster, as broadband is taken up, kids are connecting more and more, impacts are getting bigger, and unknown problems will pop-up.

What exactly will these problems be? - I cannot tell you, but I can tell you that they will be HUGE.

What can we do?

Well, a few things actually.

We need to spread the word 'Cyberia', integrate it's meaning into mainstream society in order for a proper public perception of the nature of this great land.

As there are probably only a handful of people in the world that really understand the scope and landscape of Cyberia in it's full, broad form - we really need to start some collaborative research projects with them.

We should involve the ones who inhabit this great land, kids, to help put the puzzle together of what really is happening in Cyberia.

We should listen to the recommendations of the founder of the Internet, Tim-Berner's Lee, who in this brilliant BBC article - link - stated he wants to, "Set up a web science research project to study the social implications of the web's development." He fears that, "If the way the internet is used is left to develop unchecked, "bad things" could happen. If we don't have the ability to understand the web as it's now emerging, we will end up with things that are very bad."

These fears have obviously already been realized with the current problems that are happening.

We also must have a dynamic arm in the solutions that can act/investigate on new problems to implement solutions quickly and effectively.

Conclusion

In Australia alone, we have millions of kids visiting Cyberia everyday, some spending the majority of there life in it.

Most have no training, no education, and go into this land alone.

Most parents, teachers and adults are clueless foreigners.

We need to understand the nature of Cyberia, realise it's scope and then draw collaborative, dynamic research to reach relevant solutions and advice, implement compulsory education and set-up an online chatline.

We have a chance to be pro-active, and all the evidence in the world indicates we should, so why are we not?

Technology Misleads the Economy

2007-10-28T12:05:00.000+11:00

Why have the cost fruit and vegetables, petrol and secondary education all risen to record highs in the last few years, when we are supposed to be in a time of extraordinary economic prosperity?

All these essentials have risen at least 7.5% in the last year, with fruit and veg being at 13.5%.

But why has the overall consumer price index been at a low and stable 3% since 2004?

Well as Herald Sun columnist Glenn Milne extraordinarily reveals today, it is the huge downturn in prices of technology that has brought the overall figures to a seemingly reasonable amount.

Since 2004, luxury goods such as audio/visual and computing equipment have dropped a massive 54% - mainly due to the Chinese boom - bringing the 'overall' figures down to a low amount.

So while we may seemingly be at a time of record prosperity, family's living off bare-essentials are not quite getting this easy ride.

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Read Glenn Milne's full Column here - link

A glimpse of what could be achieved...

2007-10-23T20:57:00.000+10:00

Introduction - Discusses some major measures that The Wood Verdict has been promoting, and asks whether there is any evidence or data to back them up.

Collaboration - Showcases a collaborative initiative currently being conducted in New Zealand, it's results and what we can learn from it.

Compulsory Education - Explains my theory for Cyber-Safety education, and then draws attention to a recent example of Cyber-Safety education with kids to show how well it would work.

Online Chatline - Talks about about a bit of my experiences, and how such a service would have helped. Mentions a recent article about the waste of human resources in the current call NetAlert centres, and looks at some statistics from NetAlert's own annual report - that ads even more basis for this measure to be introduced.

Conclusion - Look at what has been explained, discusses the urgency surrounding these matters and gives a clear directions on what needs to be done.

Introduction
In the last few weeks, The Wood Verdict has consistently pushed for a few major measures that would really bring Australia to the world leader in Cyber-Safety.

These measures are;

Collaborating with all parties, especially kids, to make sure solutions are reached that are relevant, realistic and effective.
Compulsory Education in all year levels, in all schools across Australia - delivered in a manner that will engage a self-interest in kids to protect themselves in Cyberia.
The establishment of an online NetAlert Chatline for kids to get help about problems in Cyberia

These would be some brilliant fundamental measures and to all the people who understand Cyberia, would obviously be the way to go.

But do we have any backup, any research, and proof already of how effective these measures would be? - Well yes, we actually do.

Collaboration

First, for some collaborative engagement with kids - attention must be drawn to the brilliant initiative NetSafe New Zealand has recently developed, which is a new format where rather than adults standing up talking about issues in front of parents, small groups of students put together short presentations. The goal of the sessions is to get parents (and teachers) engaged with students about what they are up to online. It aims help parents understand that their kids are aware of many of the risks, and do in fact have strategies for dealing with them, while at the same time encouraging students and parents to think and talk about the issues with each other (particularly if something goes wrong). The student assignment document can be seen here - link

I would have expected such an initiative to bring fabulous results, and according to the Education Manager of NetSafe -
so far they have been brilliant! - The presentations the kids have made have been brilliant, and they would undoubtedly act as a benchmark of relevance as Cyberian Natives are actually creating the content.

What we draw from this is 1) Collaboration with kids can wield great results that are a) relevant b) in-touch and c) act as a good catalyst for some productive thought about the issues.

Compulsory Education

As The Wood Verdict on NetAlert below reveals, the current education measures are completely inadequate by being outdated, out-of-touch and very vague in actual content.

What is proposed covers education sessions conveying to kids all aspects of Cyber-Safety, including Security, Privacy, Bullying, Addiction, Downloading... etc. etc.

From my personal experience of helping kids out by telling them some simple, practical and essential steps such as making sure you have an antispyware - and providing a link to the best, free product - explaining how quick I can track them down through MySpace and Google etc. - they have all been very interested and thankful.

But would these sort of measures work with kids in mass? - Well, if a recent Cyber-Safety presentation by the Victoria Police's Cyber-Safety project ran in front of 600 kids at a school is anything to go by, then it most certainly would.

The presentation covered many relevant aspects of what kids do, and quick tips to keep safe - such as showing kids how quickly you can get into their msn accounts by answering secret questions, and showing how to make immune to it etc.

The kids reacted with so much interest, that the Victoria Police Cyber-Safety project was hardened to answer all the emails they got in response! - the kids were just so amazed and interested and thankful for such essential advice, and it really made them act upon it as it was in their self-interest.

So this really tells us that education, delivered in way that engages a self-interest in kids - will obviously be extremely effective - and really be the fundamental step to bring Australia to the forefront of Cyber-Safety.

Online Chatline

When I was being threatened horribly by people in forums and on MSN - I didn't want to tell my parents - they would have just disconnected me. I had to deal with it all on my own - and it felt absolutely horrible. It was not just baseless, stupid threats, but every third word being the C*** word and people actually hacking into my website, putting defamatory pictures up across the net - it was a terrible experience.

But what would have made it better?

If there was a website I could go to with anonymous, but professional assistance, where I could get re-assurance, guidance and exchange links with the operator to get personalized service, I am certain that I would have felt a whole layer of stress and anxiety taken off me. They could have told me what action I should've taken, and told me the exact email addresses I should contact to remove offensive content etc. - It would have been just perfect.

But would that apply not just to me, but by the thousands of kids being bullied and harassed every night across Australia? - well I believe that it would most certainly would.

Let me draw attention to some statements recently published in the political newsletter Crikey, from a person working in the NetAlert call centre. I quote, "It is my fourth day here and as yet I have only received one real call. Most people haven't even had that! There are about two hundred of us hired to man the phones, about one hundred on the shift at any one time and about 100% of us playing computer games (our computers are not internet-enabled), reading books, or talking eight hours of the day (and that's across from about 8.30am until 12.30 at night)."

Although that is obviously quite exadurated - it really showcases that the current Call Centre (as they are not connected to the internet) - will not be able to provide personalized service, and also how much labor resource is being wasted.

According to NetAlert's own annual report of the 2003/2004 - link - it states that, "NetAlert has identified that the number of people enquiring online either via email or through the mechanisms on the NetAlert website has increased in comparison with enquiring via the telephone. "

From being a ratio of about 1 email to 4 calls in 2003, according to the 05/06 report, that number had already increased to 8 emails per 4 calls in 2006 - obviously in accordance with the increased exposure of NetAlert leading to kids wanting to contact them anonymously by email, and probably to also provide links for personalized service.

I say, if this is how many more emails are being sent out compared to calls, imagine how much use an online chat service would get - so lets push for some of the wasted Call Centre staff to be re-channeled into providing an Online Chatline.

And it also promotes the idea that adults need to understand what to do in such situations, to let their kids know that they will not disconnect, but encourage the use of web-services, and contact the admins, and if a bully is known in real-life, sort it out through school etc.

Conclusion

We have observed what opportunities exist in the matters of some governmental measures on collaboration, education and an online chatline - with some strong evidence to back it up.

At such an essential time with so many problems being experienced by kids in Cyberia, the relevance of implementing these measures should be seen by all and especially the influential and powerful stakeholders, as a matter of sheer urgency.

So we now know what we we can achieve, so what are we supposed to do?...

Spread the word about some of the current inadequacies, write to the media about them, write to the government/shadow government about them - let this start a productive conversation.

Election Matters!

2007-10-23T15:27:00.000+10:00

After reading my blog last week, the Manager of Election Tracker contacted me requesting I write some political blogs for http://electiontracker.net

Election Tracker is a great website that contains election reporting and commentary by young voter's aged 16 - 30, to engage them in the democratic process.

As all of my close followers will know, I absolutely love politics, and watch ABC's Lateline religiously, with Tony Jones being one of my top idol's.

I will be posting weekly, so please visit my first post here - link

Google Reacts!

2007-10-22T21:59:00.001+10:00

As I reveal in my post, 'Coincidence or Censorship' - link - below, a week ago my blog mysteriously, and completely disappeared from Google's results - and I suggested there may be links with big business/government as this blog exposes some large deficiencies in some matters and had high traffic.

There was large media interest in that post, as surely the word 'censorship' in relation to the world's biggest and most reputed internet resource, are not something Google (and the World for that matter), would be very happy about.

This Morning I spoke on radio about the matter - and by lunch time, my blog suddenly, and completely re-entered Google's results - link

So it goes like this - It's in Google, It's out of Google for over a week, until an alarm is raised in the media, and it then re-appears within hours...

Seeing it play out like this adds further to my levels of suspicion. At least it's back... for now!

Update: This is back to number 1 for 'The Wood Verdict'! - link

The Wood Verdict on MySpace

2007-10-22T17:24:00.000+10:00

Introduction - Mentions who I was contacted by and reveals the extent of MySpace.

Cyber-Privacy - Explains the huge tracking down and private information epedemic, how kids don't know about it - and what needs to be done about it.

MySpace Media Profiling - Discusses the new, but very dangerous trend of MySpace profiling in the media, with some practical examples.

Cyber-Bullying - Mentions that the two platforms Cyber-Bullying is most prevelant on, are the ones that contain the majority of teen communication online - MSN and MySpace - the lack of awareness for kids and adults alike - leaving to much suffrage, and what needs to be done.

Password Bulletin/Comment Scams - Explains another new, yet extremely common and dangerous trend that has developed on MySpace, with an exclusive example link - and what needs to be done.

Predators - Shows a scary court example over MySpace predatation, which showcases my further argument of an education/awareness series to tackle this problem where it will really be effective - the DEMAND side.

Conclusion - Urges MySpace to contact the government to re-convene the 'consultative working group' - finalized with a positive statement.

Introduction

After reading this blog last week, I was contacted by the Safety Manager of MySpace Australia.

I am very impressed that such a high-level and relevant stakeholder would personally make contact in hope of improving Cyber-Safety issues in Australia. MySpace's involvement in these issues is essential to bring any relevant solutions, as it is right at the heart of the digital-world todays youth live in.

MySpace obviously has a close association with many Cyber-Safety issues. From my personal experience, here is the major ones:

Cyber-Privacy

A few years ago the only kids I could write profiles and track down to their houses were the rare 'internet' crazed kids who would actively gain a large internet presence and footprint. But since MySpace has risen and become so commonplace with almost all of todays teenagers, it has opened up issues of identification in regards of location and Cyber-Profiling to an unprecedented level. I now estimate that through the use of MySpace, I (and anyone for that matter) could track down about 80% of Australian teens to their houses in seconds - by just knowing their names or Hotmail addresses! This process involves visiting MySpace, searching for their names and narrowing it down to their profiles by means of country, and most of the profiles list something locationally identifiable (or something that can lead onto a locationally identifiable information) such as a child's school, suburb (hometown) or postcode etc. Then I can go to WhitePages and search for surnames in that suburb etc. and usually get the child's home address and number in seconds! This epidemic is so large and popular that it has already spurred some media reports - link - It shows that even if kids didn't actively give out predators their information, the majority can be profiled, and tracked down in seconds. The vast majority of kids have no idea about their presence in Cyberia - and how quickly some information they upload can lead to them being tracked down. This is one of the prime concerns that I would address in my proposed compulsory education by showcasing some examples of how quickly I can track kids down, then get them to try to track themselves down - and as it will shock the kids it will be in their self-interest to ensure a better level of anonymity is achieved.

The biggie here is private profiles - the problem? - I can assure you that if I (and I have, multiple times) made up a profile posing as kid, and added another kid saying something along the lines of, "hey - I met you at some party and my friend gave me your MySpace" - they would almost certainly accept - thus revealing all information. So very particular care must be taken by kids in accepting people, I would recommend for them not to accept anyone without being 100% sure of their identity beforehand, which can be worked out by MySpace messaging.

Along with the locationally identifiable information, I guess what would be a major parental concern is the amount of personally objectionable material that is posted on MySpace, notably bulletin surverys and homepage surverys about what is in your bedroom, and photos. etc.- so communication is unavoidable, but to ensure it is kept positive, parents need to put the computer in a public area, and show a bit of interest in their kids social networking.

I reject advice that tell kids not to put any personal information on the web, as that defies the banner of realism. Lets face it - the vast majority of teenagers have MySpace (or some sort of social networking) profile - and social networking virtually revolves around personal information. It is used as a collaborative platform to organize events as well. If we tell them to put absolutely no personal information, they will lock up and totally ignore any advice at all - it just won't happen. I believe a balance can be found between realism and necessary protection. I would recommend that kids can post vague locationally identifiable information (down to a population level of at most 3 million, such as a city like Sydney or Melbourne) - and first names, with photos of themselves as secondary private profile pictures (not primary displayed ones). Without details such as last names of a intricate location, it is almost impossible to track someone down online.

MySpace Media Profiling

Let me start with the example of Nick Bracks (The former Victorian Premier's Son). As soon as he was in the news for crashing a car, his MySpace was visited and quoted... It was only after that happened that Nick thought to make his profile private - link. This is a fine example of the newfound MySpace-media epidemic that goes like this; if anyone who's a teenager (or anyone with a MySpace profile) is in the news, they are instantly MySpace profiled and relevant info is extracted for media reports. I think this really needs to be made aware of to MySpace users as I'm sure they would be quite angry if (or more appropriately, when) it happens to them!

For example - when reports first aired about Stephanie and Jodie Gater going missing - link, I instantly checked their online presence, and found their MySpace's in seconds, followed by profiles on VampireFreaks, and DeviantArt to name a few. As I was doing this, many media sources were as well and by the next day, their MySpace's were front page news. Their DeviantArt contained many death poems, plus pictures of them with Pitchforks in their mouths, sitting in Cemeterys etc. and many things that promoted negative and media exposure of what you would think would be private.

This is not a small rare epidemic, but I have seen hundreds of reports using this sort of strategy to gain information.

Cyber-Bullying

Other than MSN, MySpace is most certainly the main platform where teens communicate online. But that also brings in the negative side of communications, which can involve Cyber-Bullying by discrimination, racism, threats, and fraudulent and hurtful profiles/material being put up. From my personal experience, through the free and mostly unmonitored world that social networking brings, the level of bullying and misuse going on is parallel to none. The biggest problem here is a) the reluctance of kids to tell parents, teachers of fear of disconnection etc. and b) the mostly unaware attitude kids have of getting help through the tough times. Now, to the constructive measures; Most kids already know how to block people etc., but all MySpace really needs to do is make a clear abuse url to report content that can be spread throughout society quickly. A lot of kids are to dumb to find the abuse page here - http://collect.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.contactInput&primarySubject=2&secondarySubject=13 - so I would seriously recommend MySpace re-links the page to http://myspace.com/abuse - so kids and adults alike can quickly and easily navigate there. The rest of the information on how to deal with abuse is really needs to be channeled through the compulsory education. It also needs to raise awareness of how parents should deal with such situations, notably not to disconnect but to help out by visiting the simple url and provide mutual support.

Password Bulletin/Comment Scams

A particular trend that has risen to huge levels within the last year is the amount of set-up phishing and scam sites, that aim to gain a users password, and then post advertising comments and bulletins. Up to 50% of many of my friends profile comments are purely advertising with tonnes of bulletins as well. I in fact fell for a scam earlier this year, and have observed behind the scenes of how user's usernames and passwords are listed in plain text format. I almost fell for another here a few days ago - link (Be aware this link may contain spyware) - !! - This yet must be another educational driven approach, although I do believe again this is an area that MySpace can set up a quick, efficient page at http://myspace.com/phishing to report such websites quickly. An initiative I would recommend is for MySpace to set-up some fake URL login pages, such as the one above, and then once a user puts in their details, a message can come up saying - "This is not the MySpace website - look at the url^^^ - your password has just been stolen" - and then say - "This is actually a site made by MySpace to make you aware that this can happen - so please pay attention more in the future".

Predators

In February 2007, a U.S. District Judge in Texas dismissed a case when a family sued MySpace for negligence, fraud and misrepresentation; a girl in the family had been sexually assaulted by a man she met through MySpace, after she had misrepresented her age as 18 when she was 13. Regarding his dismissal of the case, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks wrote: "If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace.

This is the single most overrated, and misunderstood concept when it comes to MySpace, though it does exist. I already contended in my NetAlert Verdict below that it would be mostly impossible to combat this problem on the Demand side, but rather supply. Kids must intentionally and actively get in contact with predators for anything to happen - so through awareness raising and education we can really put an end to this. Notably, keeping kids informed about this, to keep locationally identifiable info private - and parents to keep the computer in an open space.

Conclusion

I recommended to MySpace's Australian Safety Manager that as MySpace is probably the only member of the 'Consultative working group' that has been convened to combat predators on MySpace that actually understands MySpace, I would urge them to get in touch with some of the related governmental departments/organizations and make sure they understand that at the current state this group will never really achieve anything with any great effect, in order to re-convene what the group reports on, and/or start some new groups to report on Cyber-Privacy, Addiction and Bullying.

MySpace can and mostly is great - we just need to make sure they are involved, researched, and understood to incorporate them into Cyber-Safety education and awareness to make sure we minimize any negatives that it produces.

Clearing up the Cash!

2007-10-15T20:35:00.001+10:00

Recently many media reports have contended that the Federal Government has spent $84 Million on an Internet Porn filter, leaving the impression that the entire $84 Million was spent in one-shot on a single filter.

But it must be made clear that the $84 Million is dedicated to a 'National Filter Scheme', with only a portion of it going to multiple PC-based (Installed on your own computer) filters, and a portion going to ISP-Level Filtering.

A lot of the money going to the suppliers of the PC-based filters is proportionately decided anyway, which realistically means the more people who download the filters, the more money will be given to the companies.

The contracts for each company include costs such as; setting up, expanding, managing servers and backup servers, management of individual call centers, and implementing patches and updates.

A multiple company system was chosen for positive competition between them.

According to the official Government Tender website, contract values for the PC-based filter suppliers are as follows;

InternetSafety.com (Safe-Eyes) is $10,934,215.30 - link

DIGITAL REPUBLIC (Optenet) is $8,546,826.75 - link

As far as values for the two other current suppliers go, we do not know.

There is another tender currently underway for even more filter products to be submitted for possible inclusion in the National Filter Scheme - link

There is also a large contract value for Call Centre Services Pty Ltd at $7,338,505.13 - link - Though we are not certain whether this is for the NetAlert helpline, or individual filter technical support lines.

So don't go out thinking that the Government already has spent the entire $84 Million on it!

Coincidence or Censorship?

2007-10-14T12:19:00.000+10:00

Not once have I ever contemplated that Google may be joining forces with large business/government in order to shut the whistle-blowers out, until now.

I started this blog just over a week ago, and as it was referred to in national media, thousands of people used the Google search engine to track it down, bringing it the vast majority of its traffic.

During the week it was the absolute number 1 result for the term - 'the wood verdict'.

But that was until last Friday, when suddenly the entire blog disappeared from Google results.

Why would a perfectly normal site suddenly disappear from Google?

It certainly would not qualify on any grounds of spam removal from Google's index - link - , so I can count that out. It would not have been due to Blogspot being down during the last Google crawl, as there are 16.4 Million other Blogspots currently in Google's index and it is hosted on their own servers, which may well be the most reliable in the world.

There are really only two logical answers;

1) It may have suddenly fell out of the search results for no particular reason, but this is extremely unlikely,

OR

2) Their may have been some interference from an external power, as some things that this blog exposes may not be in the best interests of some certain parties.

This blog has lost almost 90% of its traffic now, mostly due to this.

I have set-up a page to monitor Google's index status of this website, and it has verified my site but its still not showing. I will soon make contact with Google to get some direct response from them.

You can check for yourself if it is indexed yet here - link

I cannot be certain why this has happened, but it certainly is very fishy.

Expectation Becomes Realization!

2007-10-09T22:06:00.000+10:00

When the news broke I had worked out how to bypass the filter, many hailed me as a genius.

I rejected that, as the process was so simple that I was sure other kids would find out how and it would spread like wildfire.

The Herald Sun stated, "Tom feared a computer-savvy child could work out the bypass and put it on the Internet for others to use." - link

Well, that expectation became a realization last night when I stumbled across this video on YouTube showing in exact steps, how to bypass all the filter's with method's very similar to me - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4CP4hgfVM4
(Click the Play button on the video below to play instantly)

There was also another video published examining how to gain Windows Administator Access first - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfcIRILHw6o

(Note - the step of getting Administrator access will very rarely be required as nearly all kids have that already)

It has already been watched by over 100 people, I assume most of them would be kids trying to get around the filters.

I have tracked down and contacted the maker of the video, and suprise suprise, he is a 15 year old teenager himself!

This just shows my story was not a one-off media stunt, but something very real and applicable to Cyberia, and the kids who inhabit it.

And this ads validity to my continued pressure to implement COMPULSORY EDUCATION, sourced from a serious of youth-involved forums, getting a Youth Advisory Board and collaborating to get some more EFFECTIVE and RELEVANT measures in place.

It also brings up the issues surrounding YouTube and it's continuous integration in our youth culture, as it is the 7th most popular site in Australia at the moment with over 15 Million views a day! - Most likely you would have heard as the cause of so many Cyber-Problems in the media recently - so I find it a reflection of the http://netalert.gov.au site that it is not even listed, further backing my argument that it is out-of-touch.

The Wood Verdict on Netalert

2007-10-05T16:27:00.001+10:00

Verdict Overview

Introduction - Highlights that the key features of NetAlert have been around for years, and explains the actual new additions to NetAlert, and the money involved.

The Predators - Explains how the view of this issue in society is taken way out of proportion compared to other risks of technology, issues with current governmental solutions, and suggests some more effective ways of dealing with this problem, including collaboration.

The Consultative Working Group - Focuses on the recently set-up group to report on social networking predators, and explains why this is a complete waste of time as no solutions with any effect could possibly be reached, then suggests some more relevant, realistic topics the group could report on.

The ACMA Banlist - Explains what a complete joke the ACMA banlist is, giving statistics on its effectiveness in realistic terms, and suggests what the only real effective measure would be. Also explains how pointless the other $500,000 will be for Australians to take lead in dealing with illegal overseas hosted content.

The Filters - Briefly Examines filtering ethics, when to use filters, the money spending, the general rule of circumvention, and Labor and Liberal policies.

My Filter Story - Describes a part of the Filter Bypassing saga from a personal point of view, and unravelles 4 points of Government spin released in the last few months, and expresses how poor the Government's public attitude is, notably their use of Semantics.

The Awareness Raising - Explains the how out-of-touch the recent Government Awareness Raising into Cyber-Safety is, the vague attempts of collaborating with children, mentions that the ads offer no advice, and some strange uses of the NetAlert website address and the Government's seriousness in the ads.

The Booklet - Questions why the booklet has been sent to everyone, even people without kids, then goes onto explain again how out-of-touch and irrelevant so much of its content is, with some practical examples.

The School Outreach Program - Re-asserts this does not offer any education to kids at all, but is a great parent and community program.

The Website - Explains how out-of-touch and improperly extensive/organized the NetAlert website is, with a few practical examples, and also highlights an extremely annoying technical issue with it.

Cybersafe Schools - Examines how lackluster and vague the only shot at education the government is running.

The Hotline - Expresses strong support for such a fantastic initiative, but pushes for some better original training could that be offered for more efficient solution delivery - also promotes an NetAlert online Chatline which would be an even more effective additional measure to help kids in need of someone to help them with Cyber-Problems.

Discussion - Explains my strong will to get involved with some policy makers, but their lack of interest so far, and expresses a statement which is pinnacle to all the measures possible.

Conclusion - Explains in brief that without drastic changes to the way this $189 Million is being spent, we will never gain any real advances in Cyber-Safety. Also promotes actions for kids and parents and the media to take, and then goes onto my demands to the Government, and asks a final thought provoking question

Related Further Reading - A list of articles related to NetAlert, and Government Cyber-Safety policy, across the entire media spectrum of the nation.

Introduction

NetAlert - http://netalert.gov.au - announced on August 10^th, 2007 - billed as the Government's 'world leading $189 million programme' following on from their 'enviable world reputation in tackling this issue'. Senator Coonan proclaimed, "There is no doubt that Australia now leads the world in online safety."

No Doubt!

Well, lets have a look at NetAlert, keeping in mind the countless ads, media releases and campaigns run about the fabulous new measures. More specifically, lets have a look at the time-frame of this, and see what NetAlert really is.

The core features of NetAlert are a website with practical advice and a telephone hotline set-up.

But is this anything new?? - Well NetAlert first launched at http://netalert.com.au in 2002, and its website history can be seen here - link, a snapshot of the website earlier this year - link - and surprisingly the telephone hotline has been functioning for years, as can be seen on the historic page. I even used the telephone hotline for help in May this year!

But this site was closed in early August 2007, and the phone line was cut-off. The next step was this Media Release from The Senator Coonan's department - link - saying that NetAlert will launch on the 20th August 2007. And that was right, fast-forward 10 ten days and the NetAlert site was launched on a different URL of http://netalert.gov.au and its phone line launching again on exactly the same number! – This was followed by media releases vaguely explaining the government is working to protect Australian families from pro-anorexia websites – link – Cyber-Bullying – link - Online Abuse – link – Online Scams – link – and Extreme Materials – link – almost all sharing almost identical sentences on how well the government is working on the issues of Cyber-Safety. This was further followed by a round-the-country launch – link. - I ask my first question, How the hell could these two services be turned into a media spectacle contending that they are new? - They have been around for years!

So what is new? - Why are these Government Measures suddenly getting all this attention?

Basically the NetAlert website and phone line remains unchanged.

But there are some new additions. In a nutshell the actual improvements include;

$45 Million of funding for the AFP in handling predators online and a huge multi-organization consultative group set-up to investigate predators on Social Networking Websites. Also extra millions for investigations about online exploitation reports.
Over $7.5 Million in funding to investigate reported sites to be added to the ACMA website Banlist
$500,000 for Australia to 'take a lead' in finding new ways to deal with illegal overseas content
$84.4 Million dedicated to providing multiple pc-based filters along with isp-based filters
$22 Million for awareness raising, including rigorous advertising and a booklet to be sent to every household in the nation
$11.7 Million for a NetAlert 'School Outreach Program'

In total they're spending over $185 Million… $185 Million Dollars…

Now, lets have a look at each issue here...

The Predators

Don't get me wrong, online predators sure do exist, but ask any kid, ask your sons and daughters if they have ever been affected by predators, or if anyone they know has, and I guarantee almost 100% of the answers will be negative. Ask anyone actually actively involved with young people, such as the Victoria Police Cybersafety Officer, renowned Adolescent Physiologist Michael Carr-Gregg - link (scroll to bottom) - and I'm sure the people from NetAlert who actually speak to kids on the hotline, and they will tell you that this problem is taken way out of proportion. Compared to other dangers facing kids online, predators is very minimal. And as Michael Duffy point out in his Sydney Morning Herald Column here - link - the statistics back this up, with only 1 person in New South Wales ever being charged for grooming online. Though I don’t believe the problem is quite as small as that, we really do need to be looking at proportions here. Mostly to blame for the public fear of this problem is our lust in society fueling predator reports in the media, predators sell! - One predator getting a front page will bring huge fear, compared to probably 1000 addicted kids with computer ruining their social, physical and mental life’s, running unreported - who cares about some computer addicted nerd! As of course, I am only assuming the ratio would be something like this, but this shows how much collaboration and research needs to be done to make sure we get things like this right.

Now, of course we should be doing something to tackle Predators, but the Ministry is not taking very comprehensive approach, as they are only tackling the DEMAND side of the problem (the pedophiles who want to download child porn etc.). By tracking them down and charging them does a bit, the most effective solutions will come by tackling the SUPPLY (the kids) through means of education. Reading this article - link - You must think, to be exploited by a pedophile, a child must intentionally play a part, by means of intentionally speaking to them, and intentionally giving out personal details, and then intentionally meeting or photographing themselves, and in many cases with the nature of teenagers exploring themselves, may intentionally want to form relationships with them.

So to the solutions.... We've got huge measures in tackling the demand side, though the most effective measure would be to cut-out the supply, then predators will have nothing to thrive on. So this is another topic that should be covered through my proposed Compulsory Education, and through proper awareness raising to parents, urging to keep computers in a public place, making the chance that a) a child would be willing to talk to strangers about such topics diminish and b) the extra time kids could spend on a computer in their room would not be as extensive, thus limiting the chances of a relationship ever even developing.

Further to my theoretical solutions, this is another fine example of a major point on this subject. All these problems are so new and unexplored, we really need to collaborate with the people they affect so we can get better understanding how they developed and how to solve them. A board should be set-up to investigate problems that people are having through all mediums in Cyberia, and in the case of the story I link to above, meetings could be held with the parents of the boys explaining the computer set-up, signs of how the boys were acting around the computer and their ideas of what should be done to improve these issues. Most importantly, if the boys themselves were willing, they could discuss with them in detail how things developed, and what they think can be done etc. - Not many people have experienced such things first-hand, so collaborating with the ones who have is essential to provide understanding of the problems, then to implement not only the most effective solutions, but solutions that will have any effect at all.

In summary of online Predators - Though the seriousness of this problem may be more than most others online, the extent is simply not, and the measures need to be balanced across the board to being a more comprehensive approach.

The Consultative Working Group

Next I want to dive a bit deeper and have a look at the 'Consultative Working Group' that has been convened to 'prevent predation through social networking sites' - link.

The group involves more than 10 huge organizations, industry representatives, police and the government and aims to report on, "Additional measures that could assist in dealing with the online predator threat, including through the prevention, detection and prosecution of criminal conduct and the management of convicted offenders." - then it goes onto to basically the two main solutions and realistically, the only solutions that could be possibly reached, which are 1) Social Networking sites providing member information to Government and Authorities and 2) Banning the names of people listed on the ANCOR sex-offenders list from joining Social Networking sites, just like the US has done.

And now I would like to pose this question to the Ministry - Who are we kidding here?

Now, to let the non-savvy understand, when you join MySpace and nearly all free web-services, you put your name and details on it as you want, and there are no credible measures of identification. For all I like I could visit the MySpace sign up page - link - put my email address as my made-up Hotmail, my name as Chuck Norris, my Country as Azerbaijan and set my age as 99, and it would let me - try it if you want! So seeming’s YOU decide how you appear on these sites, I ask two further questions, 1) knowing this, what kind of paedophile would register with their real names? And 2) Why would a paedophile want to appear as themselves anyway? - Surely kids aren't attracted to a sleazy 40 year-old men!

Without changing some fundamental principles of MySpace such as implementing some credible forms of identification when signing up, there is absolutely no way this group will be able to report back with any effective solutions. The fundamentals are there and it is highly, highly doubtful that they will change.

Sadly, this is another example of where the generation gap has come into place, and the problems that adults and the digital-fossils think exist, and solutions that they think will be effective, are out-of-touch and will be completely useless. And out of all the members of this group, it does not include 1 young person, 1 digital native, 1 person who knows this all first hand, and this fact is very sad.

All of the organizations involved have brilliant intentions and really want to help, so I hope this group is re-channelled or other groups are convened into reporting of the effects of Computer-Addiction and Cyber-Bullying, collaborating extensively with the kids and people involved.

The ACMA Banlist

This is a list of prohibited websites, in URL form eg. http://google.com. This list contains approximately 3,000 - 5,000 websites. To get this is perspective, there are roughly 30 Trillion Websites in the world, with an average of 15 Million being launched every minute, I come back to an earlier question - Who are we kidding here?

Unfortunately ACMA staff do not spend time looking for potentially prohibited content, they decide whether or not particular content will be prohibited after receiving a complaint about it. According to the Ministries own report - link - Between Jan 2000 and June 2005 there were 4263 complaints about websites, leading to 2207 of them being prohibited. So over half of the reports were successful in being prohibited. This included 334 Australian Hosted websites, but over 2900 overseas hosted ones. Now, the Government has jurisdiction over Australian hosted content and can remove it, but overseas content it does not. This brings back the notion that the Internet really is a lawless and free, but dangerous world. So the best they can do is providing filter companies with a small blacklist. So another $7.1 million is being funded for ACMA to investigate reported websites, but really, ~3,000 to 5,000 websites??? - What is the point? It is so minuscule it unbelievable that the Ministry thinks it is worth these Millions. The answer is filters that can analyze content in real-time, which we have already.

Also, regarding the $500,000 to find new ways to deal with illegal content hosted overseas. Well, this again brings up the point about the lawless nature of the internet, as there is ultimately no governing body with jurisdiction over the Internet as a whole - and if something cannot be hosted in one country, it can just move. For example http://thepiratebay.org recently moved from Sweden to be hosted in The Netherlands because it is not illegal there. So ultimately again, what possibly can the government achieve from this money spending? They cannot possibly gain physical jurisdiction in countries say, in Africa, so realistically the only conclusion they could reach is in filtering the content somewhere along the line - which is already being implemented now anyway.

The Filters

The claims that some people have been making that we are turning into China by offering filters is absolute rubbish. China's communist ruler's intention is to block pro-democracy and civil rights of their citizens. Our intent is to protect kids (at guardian discretion) from material which may pose a risk to them. The adult world thinks porn is the big one, but I think more along the lines of how-to-suicide sites such as this - link. The ethical aspects of filtering seem fine if it is done with good intentions and can be handled in a non-invasive way that does not discourage trust and access to good websites.

My general rule is; if your child is mature, respectful, and the computer is in an open space, filtering is not necessary. If your child doesn't comply to all of these, and/or is showing indicators of anxiety etc. with their internet use, you may like to first talk about it with your child, and then implement filtering and logging as a mutual decision - do not do it behind their backs!

On to the money the government is spending on them. $84.4 Million may strike as a lot, but that is hardly the case. The government has not actually spent $1 dollar on it yet. Rather, the money is being spent on a take-up basis, ie. The more people who download the filters, the more money the companies will be given. And to let you know, the $84 Million covers both computer and ISP-based filtering, which will possibly be spent over 3 years.

As a general rule of circumvention, Filters are very effective for kids younger than 12, but as kids get older and more tech-savvy the chances of circumvention are increased. Each year level at school has a few tech-savvy kids that everyone asks for help, and these are the kids that will spread how to get around the filters, along with it being spread by siblings, and a lot of the time on the internet, though some filter companies have said they endeavor to monitor the internet for updates on circumvention, and release filter upgrades accordingly.

The government's policy to implement both computer-based and ISP-based filters is positive, with the computer-based ones being the most configurable, but easiest to circumvent, and the ISP-based ones being a little less configurable, but almost impossible to disable, but possibly can be bypassed. So in this case a holistic approach should and is being taken, though we are yet to see any ISP-based filter actually be implemented, and will have to wait till next year for the tender and testing processes to be completed. Whilst I'm on this topic I'll express my disappointment for a very narrow policy the Labor party has by just implementing ISP-based filters on the entire Cyber-Safety issue. Though ISP-filters will play a great part of the issue, education, proper awareness raising and services are what will really make a difference, and the Labor Party has no other proposed measures at this point in time.

My Filter Story

After reports aired that it took me less than 1/2 hour to figure out how to bypass the filters, I met with a representative of the Government and three of the filter Vendors at an independent Testlab, to show them how they could be circumvented. The representative from the Government was very welcoming and friendly towards me, as was the companies. They all observed how I did it and learnt from it in a constructive fashion.

I came out happy headed, until Sunday night when I heard Senator Coonan on Seven News virtually say the filters were not compromised and the reports of hacking were completely incorrect. To the average person, this implies my claims were wrong. This is not the case. The Senator is using Semantics, is trying to shift the blame by means of political spin to try and dampen my actions. Let me now respond.

-- Skip to next double-dash if your reading time is limited

Spin 1 - Senator Coonan on the Today Show - "The reports have suggested that the young person hacked into the filters; that's not true." Dear Senator, the reports did not suggest or even mention I hacked the filters, nowhere in The Herald Sun did it even mention the word hack, rather the headline of the report read, and I quote, "It took 16-year-old Tom Wood just 30 Minutes to bypass the Government's $84 Million porn filter." So in this case, the Senator is creating her own scenario of what the report said, and then responding to that... clever politics!

Spin 2 - On the Today Show again - "What in fact happened was that he had some administrator privileges to override the filter." - My privileges were the default Windows Privileges when Windows is installed, which happens to be administrator privileges. Now let me make this clear, this is the DEFAULT circumstance, the basic circumstance when you install Windows, and I surveyed my entire year level at school and everyone had these privileges and they all said their parents would not have a remote clue what they meant anyway. Lets get this in perspective; There is a filter password to administrator the filter, and the filter is installed on Windows. Now, without knowing the filter password I was able to delete an integral component of the filter’s to make them completely ineffective and useless, whilst displaying they are still working. Having limited privileges on Windows is a complication in the process, but that can also be overcome. So really, this shows how well semantics work with the technologically-challenged! - and this being the case, we need to work with Windows Administrator privileges, as I know that filters could be made that my methods of circumvention would not be workable on Windows Administrator, and every kid has that anyway - so we should and can be working within that framework.

Spin 3 – in this media release – link – the Senator says “On the back of the unconfirmed report of recent filter ‘hacking’, the filter providers have responded rapidly and take any report of vulnerability seriously to ensure their filters stay ahead of new threats.” – I tested the new filter added a few days ago and my method of circumvention was successful, and I tested one of the existing filters today infact, and could still bypass it – so much for remaining ahead of the game!

And in final spin, regarding the Senator’s continuous use metaphorical terms such as the “car/seatbelt” analogy regarding filters, saying a computer with a filter is infinitely safer than one without. I say, well if a seatbelt was made out of cotton wool, I’m not quite sure how much safer it would be!

Overall I am not bothered by the Governments exact wording on how I bypassed the filters, but rather their overall attitude in the public-domain. Rather than a positive, constructive attitude of admittance and improvement, the Government is trying to brush-it-off, and this is most certainly not admirable. No-one is achieving anything from this sort of attitude, rather a 16 year old is left to defend himself in the realm of Federal Politics, what sort of world do we live in when this is the case!
The Awareness Raising

What could have been some fantastic awareness-raising through advertising recently, has been conducted very, very poorly and is really sending a very wrong message that's really not going to help anyone.

Watch one here -

Many ads have been recently aired on radio and television, in newspapers, in cinemas, on buses, trams and at bus stops. The Commercials warn "playing leads to straying", and "talking leads to stalking". It goes as far as to say that over half of 11 to 15 year olds are contacted by strangers online.

I'm going to have to restrain my words here, but in gentle terms, I, and any other sensible teenager will tell you that these statistics are absolute garbage.

So where are they quoting them from? - Well from the department's own research that can be read here - link - and how they are really twisting the statistics can now be understood. In strangers they include 'friends of friends', 'people they have met online that their parents have said are alright to talk to’, and unsolicited forms such as spam emails.

Well let’s relate this to real life - at school you talk to friends of friends, if not you will never meet anyone new. And I'm sure the statistics if observed for what they are, really point a different picture.

And another problem with these very vague and narrow surveys is that the people writing the survey questions are most always adults and people that do not collaborate and know the real problems with kids, so unless you ask kids what they do online and get their word in full form, you’re always going to be out-of-touch.

The biggest problem with the ads though is they don't offer any advice, rather than display some over-the-top content igniting fear.

Further in the Awareness Raising and other measures the government is taking in these issues, a common theme is emerging, that is use things that contain nothing at all that would be of any benefit to anyone. For example, on the every ad that has aired on TV, it ends with, "The Australian Government is serious about protecting your family online." - Let me say now - Seriousness is displayed through actions, not baseless words. And then I am not exactly sure why the displayed URL on the ads is http://australia.gov.au/netalert, rather than the normal http://netalert.gov.au - hmmm... - If this was to be conducted in an effective manner, we would have ads bolstering different practical Internet Safety advice, and also linking to a website. They should also bolster the message of the more relevant concerns of addiction, Cyber-Bullying, and Privacy risks of how quick kids can be tracked down online, and how to stop that etc. etc.

The Booklet

I was at my Aunties house in Queensland two weeks ago, and received a booklet from the department, the booklet aiming to help protect families online. The funny thing is, my aunties kids are almost 40 and live in another city, so why would this be of any relevance to her! - So I assume all households in Australia have received it, regardless if kids exist there or not. I opened it up, and realized the first four pages come again come under my beforehand principal of the use things that contain nothing at all that would be of any benefit to anyone! – Page 3 has a message from the Prime Minister, which shares numerous phrases including the whole first and last paragraphs, albeit edited slightly as was said by Senator Coonan a few weeks earlier on the NetAlert site – link – Page 4 & 5 again contain no advice, but rather quite impressive content on the Howard Government’s huge effort’s into the Cyber-Safety.

The rest of the book is full of technical and out-of-touch errors just as I explain below that the NetAlert website contains. The first page uses the governments SEE analogy which I really do not know where it was sourced from. The first page realistically offers only one practical tip – to keep computer’s in open areas, the rest is wasted on meaningless theoretical text. Just reading the book now I see some errors on page 7 already, in Children under 8 it mentions to use ‘safe zone’ websites… safe zone? – Another thing I haven’t heard of, and if I don’t know what it means, I don’t have high-hopes for parents! – So it doesn’t go onto explain that at all. The only other practical advice on this page is to protect private information, which is good, but then it says that posting on Newsgroups makes your email address public. Well as I explain below, no kids would use Newsgroups of even know what they are. The next page goes onto talking about sex predator’s straight away and about the ridiculous notion that kids so commonly go on ‘chat-rooms’ which I can tell you, is a load of garbage – there would not be one kid in my year level that uses this medium, and many don’t even know what IM means, it’s simply and should be MSN. And then the SEE advice on this page is in such general terms it really wouldn’t help a thing. I don’t want to go into the extent of the ridiculousness of the rest of this booklet; the Glossary is so poor it is not even worth mentioning. The rest is basically taken from the NetAlert website, which as you can read below – is a shambles of a job itself!

The School Outreach Program

The last new measure is an extra $11.7 Million for the 'School Outreach Program'. At first glance this actually sounds as though there is some education for kids involved in this, but sadly departments own website - link - confirms that it only gives, "presentations to parents, teachers and community members" - not a child in sight! - So unfortunately this, as nearly all of the government measures, does not tackle the most important part, effectively educating kids, at all.

The Website

Out of all the measures the governments offering, this could be the best part, but sadly again it falls into the out-of-touch category.

The night it was launched I was so excited, I quickly analyzed half of all the advice on the site, and to my utter dismay I what I found was very sad. Not only is the site technically incorrect in some areas, but so much of the content kids themselves would not understand as it is so irrelevant. The problems with the site are even highlighted by an annoying popup that comes up after clicking every single link on it, try it yourself - link - how annoying is that!

I wrote over 3 pages of on the basis of half of the advice, reporting briefly on errors and missed content. I don’t really want to publish this all here for the chance that its advice may be taken with no credit. Let me provide a few examples about what I mean;

1) Newsgroups - link - Newsgroups? - Ask any average kid you now if they know what this term remotely means... and I can almost offer you assurance that they would never have heard of it. I think this is trying to convey is the word 'Forums', which is technically different. Newsgroups reside on paid UseNet services popular the late 80's - how could they be so out-of-touch? Add this with Newsreaders that it explains on the next page which not even I had heard of! - It then goes on about some different type of Newsgroups such as alt.sex, and I do not know how to even access a Newsgroup - if anyone can comment to this blog on how to, it would be greatly appreciated! Furthermore, if they are trying to talk about forums, then they miss out on sooo much, such as such simple things as how to deal with members who flame or insult you, who to contact (forum admins) etc. etc. etc.

2) P2P - link - again, most kids would not have heard of such things, it is usually portrayed as 'downloading music' and usually with a program like Limewire. Then to the 'how to keep safe' section, it doesn't even mention the two most realistic steps of - 'turning off uploading' as all it does is increase risk of illegal action, and to look for ridiculously small or large file sizes as signs of fake virus infected files.

3) Security - link - This is a fine example of how it talks about all the wrong things. The categories of Trojans, Worms, Cookies and Secure Websites are totally irrelevant and 2 of them should under the banner of viruses. It should rather be in order, Spyware/Adware, Virus, Firewall, Phishing - and in each one explain it, the software or actions you need to handle it, and to keep things up-to-date etc. - sticking to the concrete and relevant point, not a random mis-match of irrelevant information.

Now, I don't want to bore you by writing hundreds of faults, but from these hopefully you can gain a glimpse of how out-of-touch and irrelevant this site really is. And you're probably about to explode with annoyance due to all the popups! - This is another fine example of why we need collaboration with all parties, with input from all to make sure everything is covered in the most full, realistically relevant and practical manner.

Cybersafe Schools

A part of the existing NetAlert initiative is a ‘Cybersafe Schools’ program. This program aims to ‘help teachers empower students on safe use of the Internet.’ It includes what is deemed to be advice for kids that is, “relevant, effective and created specifically for their level of education”. It includes a system deployed in 3 phrases, a teacher Professional Development Phase, a Primary School education tool and a Secondary school one.

Now, the teacher’s Pro Dev. Begins with a very vague wall chart – link – describing in General terms what outcomes students must have by the end. It tells teachers what needs to be done, but most teachers have hardly a clue about the Internet and what kids are really doing on it these days, and this doesn’t explain anything in a practical manner at all really rendering it useless. The next step is this ‘quick reference guide’ – link – which follows the same principals as wall chart I just described. The main and most practical measure is the next step, a ‘teachers guide to Internet Safety’ – link – which actually describes some of the things kids do online, and then in the ‘managing the risks’ section it goes onto say the risks associated with some of these, but no actual advice on managing them!, rather telling the teachers to visit and read more on the NetAlert website! The ‘teaching strategies for Internet Safety’ section goes on and we finally get some practical things through such as telling teachers to, “show students how to distinguish online from offline content” – followed by other related links. Well from a common fact that most kids know more about computers than most adults, I doubt teacher’s would even understand how to distinguish offline from online content and I do not see how at all relevant it would be. Some better advice is displayed downward such as “Explain the dangers of posting identity information.” – Again, it tells teachers to explain something, but doesn’t tell them what it is! Furthermore this guide was written in 2004 – since that time so many new problems have emerged, and things like Social Networking and Computer Addiction isn’t even mentioned – because now-essential sites such as MySpace and YouTube weren’t even around then! So this really is an outdated and not all-that-helpful and relevant teacher PD.

So onto Primary School Resources, the entire resources for all Primary years is a flash game called Netty’s World, which I think would work for the younger years but would be seen as boring by the older years.

Checking the Secondary resources page – link - I was greeted with the text, “It is intended that resources for secondary schools be developed in Phase Three of the CyberSafe Schools program. This phase is scheduled for product release in 2006.” – Umm… well it is now less than 3 months till 2008! Well anyway, I dived a bit deeper and found two things that could possibly be used for Education in Secondary Schools. It is a flash game called CyberNetrix. – link – With great respect for the designers of this game, as I’m sure they mean the best for my peers, I showed this game to some friends at school and it was non-stop laughter, it just appeared that corny to everyone. The themes, music and characters seem like a ‘cool’ teenage stereotype of the late 80’s, and being realistic, kids just turn off and laugh at this stuff. I also found a plain website called ‘Wise up to IT’ – link – which was quite impressive. It contained for case studies, but overall after watching them all I wouldn’t say it was that great. The scenario’s are just so obviously fake because it’s too over-the-top to what would realistically happen; though hearing the words out of these young people’s mouth may gain a bit of attention as they can connect and talk about technology at the same level as kids do.

So that’s it of the education! – Some very vague and not fantastically helpful material for teachers, a flash game for primary kids and a very corny one for secondary kids, with an interesting site at the end. I don’t think it is adequate to promote this as “created specifically for their level of education” unless you’re happy with separating the entire spectrum of 6 – 18 year olds into 2 levels. What I learn from this is if we really want to do something with a good deal of effectiveness, we will have to make sure the age specific groups are much smaller, it will need to be updated rigorously as technology changes pace so quickly, it must not be corny, rather be spoken in a way that will interactively engage kids with a self-interest to protect themselves. And I don’t think it’s even bother trying to rush teacher-training in depth, as it is just so complex and a world they don’t live in, so rather there could be some more practical tips and video’s supplied to them with the advice attached they could play to kids. A lot better than this obviously can be done.

The Hotline

According to my past experiences with the phone Hotline, the people manning it were just lovely, really nice and I'm sure they understand what the problems are because they are tackling them first hand. Though there was a few days delay in getting some practical help, and that could have had some disastrous consequences, so maybe some more training for the operators could take place in the simple advice steps, to reduce a bit of the bureaucracy involved.

I would love to see what I've been pushing for that I think would be more effective, on the medium that kids shine on, a manned Internet Advice Chat line on the NetAlert site, that gives kids the ease of anonymity and confidentiality, a basis to exchange links quickly instead of verbally giving them, which can be a bit slow, and due to this will give the operator a better understanding of say, if something derogatory was posted on a website they could actually read it, and assist in the process of actually getting the offending material removed etc. From personal experience I can tell when you are in a situation like this, telling my parents it's alright would not have helped, but doing something like this, getting positive reassurance would have made me feel so much better and relieved a lot physiological pressure I was dealing with.

Discussion

I emailed both Liberal and Labor Senator’s in the week following my attention in the media, asking for some changes to occur and if they would be willing to work with people who are native to Cyberia, such as myself. I did this to make sure I was completely impartial and kept my priorities right in the league of implementing the most effective Cyber-Safety measures in Australia. At this point I have not received responses from either. I would really love to work with either party's and people/organizations on these issues.

Please remember my next statement as it is pinnacle to this all, - "If you tackle these problems in manner that ignites a self-interest in kids to protect themselves, then that will be more effective than any other possible measure." - Nothing in any of the measures the government is taking will have this effect. So down to my fundamental hope – that some COMPULSARY education will be implemented in a fashion that will engage self-interest in kids to act. I have written entire curriculums of practical advice for kids which will engage self-interest in them as I also showcase examples of how quickly I could for example, track them down, or how easy it is to get rid of spyware and have peace of mind about computer security – if they want it themselves, they would listen and act. If something like that was advertised on TV, and put in every classroom – boy what a change there would be!

Conclusion

A few months ago my favorite TV show, Lateline, interviewed a person I idolize very much, that is aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, and he said, "it's an absolutely shameful hour that has descended on us, [an] absolutely shameful hour where even an emergency intervention to protect the safety of our children is hindered, hindered by people who supposedly have good will for Aboriginal people and in fact, those people are willing [to have] the protection and succour for Aboriginal children to fail."

I want to make sure that I am not one of these people who supposedly have good-will for Australian kids and their online safety, but am willing to have the NetAlert measures fail. What needs to be understood is without drastic changes to the way the government is spending this $189 Million, and changes to Labor's proposed plans for these issues; NetAlert will never succeed in an effective manner anyway. I have hope that Australia will one day be at the forefront of Cyber-Safety, but unfortunately at the moment it most certainly is not. I don’t want this post to come out as a negative, but offer a motive for something constructive.

We need to start the conversation, open our minds, and get some changes for the positive happening.

For whom may be reading;

Kids - tell your parents that these ads on TV are way out-of-touch, send letters to the media about any bad issues you may have relating to Cyber-Safety in chance that they will report.

Parents - Ask your kids what they think about the TV ads, ask them how many contacts they have on MSN, ask what the real dangers are. Talk to teachers at school about it; ask if the school has had any problems with Cyber-Safety. Send letters to your paper about these issues, your thoughts on government measures, and letters about related stories. Make sure the Media knows what a hot election topic this is with so many related events airing in the last year.

To the Media – I would love for you contact me if you are interested in speaking to me, or re-publish anything on this blog, but please email me and ask my permission beforehand.

Government - Listen to the people who knows these problems first hand, re-channel this money, start a series of conferences with all parties involved, get a board of Youth Advisors and implement some real and effective COMPULSORY education. Get REALSITIC, RELEVANT and EFFECTIVE about this. Maybe even get some mature tech-savvy kids to write the advice themselves to make sure it is in-touch!

And a message to everyone reading this, and the quiet observer - don't sit back there, send this blog to your friends, email it around, and even write other blogs about it! Please take the opportunity to contact the government explaining your thoughts on anything relating to Cyber-Safety in Australia - and lets push for some changes for the positive.

As Senator Coonan as expressed, "There is no doubt that Australia now leads the world in online safety."

I pose this final question to you…

Still No Doubt?

Please feel welcome to comment on this blog or email me at tomwoodpublic@gmail.com