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HIGH-teCH MIsCHIeF
New “impersonator” technology can hoodwink parents
By Julie Kendrick
You receive a text from the mother of your daughter’s friend,
asking if she can sleep over at her family’s house that night.
You come home from work one day to fi nd a message on
your home answering message, from a man who sounds like
your son’s physics teacher, requesting that the boy stay after
school next week for extra help.
You check your kids’ cell phone and notice a signifi cant
number of calls to “Dad’s house.”
If you would accept these communications at face value,
it’s time, dear tech-age parent, to think again. While the
examples shown above might honestly be messages from
the friend’s mom and physics teacher, or calls to Dad’s
house, they might also something much less innocent.
Here are some other, more chilling, scenarios: Your
children could be accessing a “send a text” site to enter the
sleepover request with the friend’s mom’s phone number
in the “from” fi eld. Or your more sophisticated kid might
school next week for extra help.
You check your kids’ cell phone and notice a signifi cant
number of calls to “Dad’s house.”
If you would accept these communications at face value,
it’s time, dear tech-age parent, to think again. While the
examples shown above might honestly be messages from
the friend’s mom and physics teacher, or calls to Dad’s
house, they might also something much less innocent.
Here are some other, more chilling, scenarios: Your
children could be accessing a “send a text” site to enter the
sleepover request with the friend’s mom’s phone number
in the “from” fi eld. Or your more sophisticated kid might
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have found a “prank call” website that
allows users to have their speech recorded
and “filtered” to sound like their choice of
adults, down to gender and accent. So
that message from the elderly Asian
teacher may just be your 13-year-old in
disguise, figuring out a way to arrange
some supervision-free after school time.
And if your child suspects you of cell
phone snooping, it’s easy enough to
change contact names to headers like
“Tutor” and “Dad’s house,” when the
numbers are really those of people you’ve
told your child to avoid.
yes, you have to get on FacebookTo avoid these scenarios, or ones like
them, it’s impor-
tant to emphasize
good, old-fash-
ioned communica-
tion. “You need to
go online with your
kids and partici-
pate with them in
the online culture.
Talk with them
regularly about sites they like and don’t
like. Bring up discussions about online
integrity, and about making good choices
in the virtual world just as much as in the
real one,” says Justin Patchin, Ph.D,
co-director of the Cyberbullying Research
Center. Patchin’s most recent book,
written with co-director Sameer Hinduja,
Ph.D, is School Climate 2.0: Preventing
Cyberbullying and Sexting One Classroom
at a Time. At speaking engagements all
over the country, he tells parents that the
days of saying, “I don’t do Facebook”
should be over, since it’s just not some-
thing a parent can ignore.
But opening a Facebook account is just
the beginning. It’s important to keep
up-to-date with the latest trends, too,
Patchin says. “The more adults are
heading onto Facebook, the more kids are
abandoning it for places like Tumblr and
Twitter.” (And yes, you need to get set up
on those sites if your kids are using them.)
Pulling the pixels over mom’s eyesFor Tammy Burns Woodhouse, a South-
west Minneapolis resident, it was a casual
glance at the family computer that
stAyInG one steP AHeAD• Know your children’s friends and meet
their parents
• Monitor children’s internet and cell phone activity
• A child who refuses to Facebook “friend” important adults (parents, friends of family, grandma, and grandpa) should not be allowed to have a Facebook page
• It may seem old-fashioned, but pick up the phone and talk to parents to make sure an adult will be supervising at kids’ get-togethers
• Try to stay current on what’s happening, and talk with other parents about what you learn
• Access your child’s cell phone account online and review the text and phone numbers coming and going. Some phone plans (such as Verizon Wireless) allow you to assign names or codes to each number, for ease in recognition. This can be different than how the number might be named on your child’s phone.
Patchin
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provided her with the disappointing
news—after being forbidden to do so, her
11-year-old son had joined a social
network site. A few more clicks led her to
the realization that he’d set up a secret
Gmail account to get on the site. Once her
son had been punished (bye-bye iPod),
she turned her attention to his friend, who
had been in on the scheme. “Luckily, our
group of parents have a mutual policing
agreement, so my husband approached
them during hockey practice, asked about
social media rules in their household, and
then told them what their son and ours
had been up to.”
As a result of the incident, the family
has reinforced the importance of real
interaction with live people, not mindless
banter online. “He discovered that those
online ‘conversations’ were really not
worth making Mom and Dad that mad,”
she says, adding, “Once I got over the
initial combination of rage, disappoint-
ment, and fright, it reinforced some key
things for me. We have a shared family
computer in a public space, frequently
check the browsing history, and compare
notes with other parents.”
the night we lied to the babysitterLeah Samler was finishing her doctorate
in clinical psychology when she took a job
with a high-end nanny service to help
with tuition costs. Her elite customers,
who lived in some of the biggest mansions
in the city, paid her very well for super-
vising their children while they headed off
to galas, charity functions, and front-row
seats at the hottest shows in town.
Observing all that privilege, Samler found
that the number of toys (physical and
virtual) in these households was staggering.
She also discovered that her well-bred
charges were some of the tech-savviest—
and sneakiest—kids she’d ever encountered.
She recalls, “One night, a 10-year-old had a
group of friends visiting when I arrived. The
Mom was very clear that everyone had to
leave early, and the girl had to be in bed by
ten. ‘She has an important tennis match
tomorrow,’ the Mom said.”
Got it. Or maybe not. Around nine p.m.,
the girls approached Samler and pleaded
to be allowed to sleep over. “‘Your Mom
said no,’” I told the girl, and then she
asked, ‘If I get my Mom to change her
mind and say it’s okay, will you let us?’
Within minutes, my cell phone was
buzzing with a text from the Mom’s
number, which said: ‘I changed my mind.
Let girls sleep over.’ When the woman got
home at 11:30 and saw that the kids were
still up, she was angry. ‘I told you she had
to go to bed early,’ she said. I showed her
the text I’d received, but she said she’d
never sent it. We just stood there looking
at each other, completely confused.”
Finally, they decided to round up the
girls and grill them. The one with a techie
older brother quickly confessed that her
sib had showed her how to go online and
send a text to any number (Samler’s, in this
case), from any number the site user
specifies (the Mom’s). They had sent a fake
text to their sitter, and she had fallen for it.
Samler, who is now a degreed psychol-
ogist specializing in adolescent issues,
admits that she was punked. “When I
saw the Mom’s telephone number on the
text, I believed it was from her. Since
that incident, I’m much more
mistrustful of anything other than
face-to-face communication.” She now
works as a therapist at Allendale
Association in the Chicago suburbs, and
the incident was a catalyst for under-
standing that kids today have an arsenal
of high-tech trickery at their fingertips.
“My clients have the technical savvy to
communicate in ways that do not even
cross the minds of their often less
technically inclined caregivers. Kids can
get away with much more than in years
past,” she says, adding, “Information
delivered via smartphone or computer
should not be taken at face value. It is
normal developmental behavior for
children to see what they can get away
with and try to exert some power and
control. Technology, however, adds
another layer of intricacy and complexity
that must be actively monitored.”
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