Don’t give minors cellphones. Just. Don’t.
There’s a reason I think minors and cellphones shouldn’t mix. Well, lots of them. This is just one.
A 17-year old in Acworth, GA, US, has been arrested and charged with 8 counts of cruelty to children and 1 count of sexual exploitation of a child. How did he do it? He sent them a link in a text message that when activated installed malware that gave the guy access to the phone.
And the dirty pictures on the phones. Then he posted them to a child pornography website. The youngest victim identified so far is 14.
Children, and teens (yes, we adults know you think you know everything. Then why do teens keep doing this stuff over and over and over?), don’t have the experience, the savvy, to think these things through. A text with a link from someone you don’t know? DON’T BLOODY CLICK ON IT, NIMROD!
Read the article here. And if you or someone you know has had contact with “Maxi Focus Photography,” by all means call the Cobb County Police Department’s Crimes Against Children Unit at (770) 801-3470.
So the first lesson is: there are bad guys out there.
The second lesson is: kids do stupid things on their phones. It’s my opinion they shouldn’t be led to temptation – it’s going to find them, so try to minimize the risk. Judge your child by their maturity level before you give them a phone. Maybe just get them a feature phone – text but no camera or vice versa. And for FSM’s sake, TALK TO YOUR KIDS. Seriously. They just might listen.
Source: nakedsecurity.sophos.com
Picture: betterparenting.com (They think you SHOULD give kids phones, and here’s why.)
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About The Author
martim
GIS C++!>$ And if you can translate that, you've been around as long as CompuServe. IT is now just a hobby, and shares my time with cross-stitch and knitting. High-tech, low-tech, and everything in between. I keep these guys in line and roll my eyes at Simmons. Come on, ladies, celebrate your love of technology! "Tech should be black. Colors are for cases."
I like the weekly Microsoft Family Safety Reports for the PC/IE browser stats. I wish all the carriers, Smartphone OS makers allow the parents to check the stats from their kids devices usages report something like daily or weekly (configurable), that would be great and that would warn at least the concerned parents. We can’t stop giving phones to minors thinking about these, because as a parent I would think that the device would help kids in emergency situation. Yes, I have grown up without even having TV for the most part of my life, but times are changing and the world is not same as 20 to 30 years before.
That’s a great tool. And, yes, if you can’t abstain, as much control as you can get is great.
A phone with no camera? You mean two cans with a string attached between them? you could always get them a windows phone. 🙂 The only phone out there who’s bootloader is apparently bad ass enough to avoid being cracked for almost two and a half years now, despite some serious efforts by the community to do so. No malware, no problem. Not saying your kids should keep taking naked pictures of themselves but even the smartest kids are still going to practice their amateur photography. 😉 they’re just going to be smart enough to either lock them down better or, as you’ve said, not be retarded enough to follow links on their phone that they don’t recognize. smartphone reeducation needs to happen in the world of iPhone and android to fall in line with the way email and pcs are treated today. If you can’t handle that, then you should look to be installing antivirus apps in the near future.
Suckers….