John Carosella On Cyberbullying
Earlier this week I posted the first of three installments of my interview with John Carosella, vice president of content control at Blue Coat Systems. He had so much to say that I wanted to break it up into groups.
This installment has to do with a topic that I’m very sensitive about and feel that every parent should too. That topic is cyberbullying. Very damaging, very real, and it’s something that will only get worse if we don’t stand up against it.
And so, here’s John’s responses:
FWW: I’m sure we’d all agree that cyberbullying is very much a real concern. I’ve read more and more schools are addressing the issue, which for the most part involves setting policies. Should they or could they do more even if such transgressions are made outside the school?
John: Ugh. Cyberbullying is perhaps the most intractable problem we’re currently facing. The schools on their own are at the practical limits of their ability to influence the problem. Sure, more schools could be more vigilant and more aggressive, more structured in their responses, and more tightly coordinated with local law enforcement. But, frankly, that’s not going to solve the problem.
My perspective is that cyberbullying in particular has to be prevented, because it can’t be cured or stopped in mid-stream. And preventing cyberbullying is a matter of community awareness, social responsibility, and social pressure.
Allow me to digress a little: Technology has the consequence of vesting more and more devastating power in the hands of an individual. We’re living that experience in the “adult world” today, whether we reflect on the Unibomber, 9/11 or Columbine High School. Technology empowers the individual. This empowerment isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it does bring a lot of risk. We can’t ignore it. Cyberbullying is in a lot of ways simply an on-line analog of this negative, aggressive, empowered behavior. An individual is empowered to do tremendous damage. How do you stop that? It’s almost an existentialist question. “If you want peace, work for justice (Pope Paul VI).
As a practical matter, we have to educate our kids on the horrible consequences of abusing their peers. It’s not a game.
FWW: Why do you suppose ISPs are slow to respond (if they respond at all) when asked to take down offensive material at the request of cyberbullied victims?
John: I think ISPs are in an untenable position legally and economically. They’re bound to be wrong no matter what they do, and they’re bound to get sued. So they often take the “Mr. Magoo” position of ignoring things for as long as possible, until they are absolutely assured that the action they’re about to take is unassailable. But by then,well, a lot of water is over the dam, and a lot of people are hurt.
Until we have sensible Internet policy, and the associated regulations, the ISPs won’t get the legally-derived protections they need to “act more responsibly”.
FWW: Do you have any suggestions for kids who have fallen victim to cyberbullies or for their parents who suspect this has happened to their child?
John: What I’m about to say may sound extremely provocative, but I think it’s a useful lens through which to view this problem. A victim of cyberbullying is like a victim of rape. Helpless, violated, shamed, exploited, and deeply wounded — what’s the remedy for that? For some people, confronting their abusers (when they can be identified) can be a step toward healing. But cyberbullying (for that matter, any really egregious peer-harassment) leaves a devastating wound, and it builds fear into a kid’s perspective – often permanently. It’s hard to come back out into the world after that kind of abuse, much less face your abuser.
That’s why we have to work as hard as we can to never let cyberbullying take root in our families and our communities.
This concludes the second installment. I’ll be posting the third and final one later this week. Until then, please spend some time to review and perhaps bookmark these resources:
- “I Wish I Could Disappear: A Victim of Cyberbullying
- Hiding Behind the Keyboard
- Stop Cyberbullying Now!
- Real-Life Stories
- Cyberbullying
- McGruff On Cyberbullying
[tags]cyberbullying[/tags]
Increase Your Blog Traffic (And Win Some Cash)
A blogging buddy of mine, Garry Conn, is running a contest over at his blog. This guy is an endless resource for blogging tips. And has a lot, and I mean A LOT of blogs he runs all of which make him money.
How do I enter the contest?
Easy. Just put a link to his blog on your’s using a special referral code. The code can be anything you want. He’ll tally up the number of readers you send him. The one with the most readers sent wins and gets to have their most recent blog posts syndicated on his blog for a month.
There’s also a chance to win some money, but to find out more, you’ll need to read the details over at his blog. 
Tell him Ken sent ya!
Two Spacey Games
It’s been a while since I’ve posted about games, so I have a two-fer today.
Space Hopper
This one’s rather interesting and requires a little skill. You play the role of an astronaut who is hopping around from planet to planet. Your object is to collect as many stars as possible. As you stroll around the orbs you can jump onto a passing planet and get caught into its gravity and start collecting the stars on that one. Gotta watch out for the roaming baddies!
UFO Joe
Next on the list is another friendly alien who is flying in his saucer trying to capture cattle in his tractor beam. Using your thrusters, you gently navigate among trees, windmills, and what not and deftly hover above the animals you need to pick up.
As always, I recommend parents look into the games their kids play. I steer clear of games with violence and blood, so rest assured whatever you find here on FWW will be suitable for your consideration. 
[tags]online games,ufo[/tags]
An Interview With John Carosella Of Blue Coat Systems
In September of 2006, I wrote a review about K9 Web Protection, a parental control software made by Blue Coat Systems. Since then, John Carosella, vice president of content control at Blue Coat Systems, has responded to reader’s who post comments and questions about their popular product.
I asked John to participate in my first interview here on Family WebWatch and he graciously accepted. In fact, he has so much insightful information, I wanted to break it up into a series of posts this week. So here is the first installment of three.
FWW: John, tell us a little about yourself please.
John: I started working at Blue Coat in early 2004, after spending several years at a tiny startup. Prior to that, I worked at Nokia in their Silicon Valley unit. I was responsible for the Nokia/Check Point secure firewall appliance product – very popular with IT organizations around the world because it was secure, reliable, and very easy to use. As the product architect, I placed the “user experience” at the top of the priority list. Without a good user experience, your product doesn’t get used. And “user experience” is much broader than “user interface” – it’s about the behavior of the product throughout its lifecycle, and is revealed in the simple question: “Do you like this product?” We’ve tried to bring the same discipline to our work on K9 Web Protection.
FWW: Over the years, kids have always shown an affinity toward technology especially if it makes them cool in the eyes of their friends, or allows them to express themselves and interact with others. With so much technology surrounding us today, what do you see as the greatest challenge to parents? Is technology to blame? Parent involvement? A little of both?
John: It would be easy to blame parents. We’re all too busy to really connect deeply with our kids, and co-experience the world with them, at the level we “should”. But that’s not a helpful perspective, because so much across our culture interferes with that connection. Technology is one very large element, along with aggressive, in-your-face media, companies who are “marketing” to kids, and a general dissolution of “community” in our cities, towns, and neighborhoods. Sounds like I’m painting with a very broad brush, but as I’ve looked at the roots of our challenges in this area over the past two years, I’m increasingly convinced that it’s not a simple (or short-term) problem with a simple fix.
Alvin Toeffler, in his 1970 book “Future Shock”, wrote about the impact of rapidly evolving technology on society and culture. Toffler defined future shock as “too much change in too short a period of time”. So, without question, the rate of change is the biggest challenge for parents. How do we provide enlightened guidance to our kids when they’re living in a different universe than we are? It’s not even that they’re childhood is different from ours. Their TODAY is different from ours. That’s how fast change is bearing down on us.
Interestingly, humans are the species that is most adaptable to change – we’re supposed to be good at this kind of thing. And in fact, we are, overall. It’s just hard to be a parent in the middle of it!
FWW: In the wake of successful sites like MySpace, Facebook, and the like, online social communities seem to be popping up every day. We sometimes hear in the media where these types of communities played some role in what ended up as a tragic event in some young person’s life. In general, do you think online communities are doing enough to protect their members?
John: No, I don’t. And in some cases, they’re reducing the protections in the interests of increasing market share. You know, whenever we expect an organization (of any kind) to “self-regulate”, we have to look at whether there is an inherent conflict of interest in the regulations we’re asking them to apply. If your business is selling cigarettes, for example, how effective are you going to be in setting up limits and controls to a) not create demand for cigarettes, and b) not sell them? Laughable, if it weren’t tragic, right?
The same goes for social networking sites. If you’re in the business of making social connections as dynamic and frictionless as possible, how effective are you going to be in creating friction that slows the process down, or creating roadblocks that prevent that dynamism? Can we honestly blame these players for “not doing enough”? On their own, without a sensible social policy backed by legislatively-imposed regulation, they’re bound to fail us.
So they’re not doing “enough”, but then, I think it’s naïve of us to expect them to, on their own.
FWW: Could you give us examples of sites that you think are doing a good job at making their environment safe and educational for kids?
John: I’ve had the opportunity to watch the evolution of Children’s Way. I’m fascinated by this company’s model. They combine the best intentions of child online safety, a lesson in Civics, and education on proper Internet use with a fun online environment for kids. Kind of like “Club Penguin”, but with a higher social purpose. The kids enjoy it, and learn a bunch along the way. But perhaps the most important aspect of the Children’s Way initiative is that it incentivizes kids to grab Mom or Dad by the hand, and sit with them to do certain exercises. Kind of like earning a merit badge, the kid gets credit when Mom or Dad learns something that makes him/her a better “Internet Parent”.
As I look at the challenges we face as parents, this model is really fundamentally correct. The only way to get the parents to be educated enough to be helpfully involved is to have the kids drag them, kicking and screaming. Children’s Way is a great model for making that happen.
Children’s Way is for younger kids, and teaches “online citizenship” to both kids and parents in the context of play and challenge, which is why I think it works so much better than so many other “child-safe” sites.
FWW: What do you see as the biggest threat to families today when it comes to their online activities?
John: Broadly speaking, it’s the lack of knowledge; lack of knowledge of the kind of content, experiences, and dangers that are out there. We are seduced by the simplicity, (false) intimacy, and dynamism of the online experience. And it seems so friendly, fun, and harmless. Sheesh! Nothing could be further from the truth. Internet behavior is PUBLIC behavior. If we really understood that EVERYTHING we do online is done IN PUBLIC, I think our behaviors would change; pretty dramatically in many cases.
FWW: Overall, do you think parents are getting involved enough with their children and the way they spend time on the Web?
John: No, I don’t. But again, when you look at the realities of the culture we’re living in, it’s hardly surprising, and barely remediable. As I said, we’re living in different worlds. And that’s why I like the premise behind Children’s Way so much: for the kids to make progress, the parents have to be involved.
This concludes the first of three installments with John Carosella. Tune-in later this week when he discusses his viewpoint on a topic every parent should be sensitive to: cyberbullying.
[tags]interview,blue coat,k9 web protection,web safety,family,parenting[/tags]
Power Kit For Back-To-School
Kids are dreading it; the parents are rejoicing. Yes, school’s in session or soon will be. I’ve pulled together a few online services to create a back to school power kit that’s sure to help students start the year off on a positive note.
Organizers
Getting organized is half the prep work to getting good grades. Here are a few services that can help with that. Each has their own way of doing things, so one of them is sure to fit your student’s personality and study method.
Backpack - just like the ones you see so many students carry around with them, this site contains some very useful tools: notes, lists, writeboard, and reminders, all of which are free. Pay a little something to get the calendar added, if you want. Very easy to use. Add list items in a flash and reorder by drag-and-drop.
Kiko - Keep track of class schedules and homework due dates with this little corner of the Web. Powerful features make it easy to add events, notes to those events, reminders, labels, contacts to attend, and lots more. Did I say contacts? Yes, as a matter of fact I did, which means you can store contacts for easy storage. Rolling over an event gives you a quick pop-up showing you the important details of that even. Wrong date? No problem, just drag the event to the right day. Yes, there’s group sharing, too, for those study groups.
HipCal
This little hippo has got it all: calendar (group sharing too!), to-do list, address book, and alerts that can be sent to your email inbox or cell phone.
30Boxes - no logo on this one, but it only goes to show you that they’re really more about functionality than glitz. When you first login, you’re greeted with a full-size calendar that fills your screen. But what I also like about this service is its to-do feature. You can quickly add to your lists and add tags to them while you’re typing. This means that you can save yourself a few clicks AND find your stuff easily in the future.
Organized Home Printable planners - not much for keeping your schedule online? No worries because printing out your schedule still has a purpose. This site offers you a variety of pre-made planners for easy download and printing.
Note takers
Okay, so maybe your student needs something more basic without the bells and whistles. Note taking is very important, so give these a try.
Notefish - while doing research on the Web, having an online note-taker can come in handy. Just make annotations on a Web page and they’ll be there when you return. You can even share with others. (I’m thinking study groups again). It requires an add-on for Firefox or Internet Explorer.
Google Notebook - I use this one quite frequently to help remind me of things I want to write about on my blogs. Using the add-on for Firefox really opens up the versatility of this service, but it’s not necessary.
Studicious - a little more than your average note-taker tool, but this one does the trick, for sure. You can share notes, automatically link note keywords to Wikipedia and Google, you can even store documents and to-dos.
Office Applications
Let’s face it, college is expensive enough as it is. If you have to tack on a bunch of software, the price tag goes even higher. Why not try these free online equivalents that do the same job AND are compatible with the big dog that is Microsoft?
Ajax13 - you can draw, create presentations and spreadsheets, and even do word processing. They all look and feel similar to Microsoft applications and are compatible in case teacher uses them.
ThinkFree - this one’s been around for a while and continues to improve. Same as above, you can create all the things Microsoft can and still exchange documents between them.
Collaborate with other students on documents easily, and store your work on a generous 1GB account. ThinkFree also offers a few extra features if you’re a blogger what with its ability to embed documents in blogs.
Zoho - another one that gives you that “kid-in-the-candy-store” feel, you won’t be disappointed with what you find here. In addition to the jewels above, you also get a project management tool, a notebook, a wiki, chat, planner, web conferencing, and a few others. Most are free, but some have the option to upgrade to gain more features.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets - As the name implies, Google has a rather nice free alternative to paying big bucks for Microsoft counterparts. It also has a cool calendar, which is separate.
OpenOffice - one of the first ones to go up against Microsoft, you’ll find all the heavy hitters to Word, Powerpoint, Access, and Excel. The difference here is that you can download OpenOffice right to your desktop and take it with you — assuming you have a laptop of course. But even deskbound students will surely appreciate the awesome features these apps provide. And of course, they’re compatible with Microsoft.
Bonuses
FutureMe - Even the best planner in the world can have something slip by them from time to time. With this service you can plan ahead and have an email sent to you to remind you of, well, whatever. Just enter your name, email and message. Then enter the time you want to receive the email, and boom! - you’re reminded.
Spambox - who doesn’t hate spam — the email variety? Well, students don’t need to sift through all the junk in their email inbox, so to help them keep their junk to a minimum, this service helps protect their true email address by providing them (for free) a temporary address that sends messages to the email of their choice.
Diigo - a bookmarking service with punch! Not only can you save your bookmarks, you can also add notations to any Web page you visit. When you return, they’ll be there waiting for you. But there’s more. You can share your bookmarks with others, tag them for easy retrieval, and even save copied content from the Web pages that you’ve viewed all within your account.
[tags]online apps,office,school,education,tools,software,free,google,zoho,openoffice[/tags]
Proof That Evil Lurks On MySpace
If you need more proof that MySpace can be a risk to your kids, then you’ll be interested to learn that earlier this month the popular web community found more than 29,000 profiles of registered sex offenders on their site. Even with a community of over 180 million, 29,000 is still a dangerous slice by anyone’s standards.
And that’s just the ones who were — excuse me — stupid enough to put their name out there for the authorities to see. I would think it would be virtually impossible to discover the ones who were a little more discrete.
This should be a wake-up call to caring parents who need to know what danger lies within this community. I’m not making a blanket statement that MySpace is all bad, but if you spend a few moments browsing the profiles you see on there it wouldn’t be long before you come across something, shall we say, unsavory.
Just like cyberbullying, the Web offers a feeling of freedom not normally found in the offline world. Just as it’s easy to harass someone online using the Web and be anonymous, so too is the feeling one has when they are in the comfort of their own bedrooms providing all sorts of data for all the world to see.
What can you do?
- Ask your child if they have a profile on MySpace. If they do, try not to freak (again, I’m not saying everyone on MySpace is bad), but ask to see it and judge for yourself if it contains appropriate material.
- Set guidelines for what is appropriate and what is not appropriate to put on their profile.
- Have them require visitors to be part of their network, thus requiring a login. At least this way some control is involved with who can see the information. And have them connect with only friends they know in real life.
I’ve viewed profiles on MySpace and have witnessed first hand that kids can put content of themselves that they wouldn’t think of showing mom and dad in a million years. Provocative poses, shots of inappropriate behavior, information about where they go to school or live, their cell phone number, and lots more.
What I’m suggesting here is not to eliminate their freedom of expression. I don’t think that’s even possible with kids today even if we tried. But it’s more about teaching them the difference between right and wrong. So many times kids think it’s only their friends who are viewing their information on their profiles. Not so, unless they’ve only limited their profile to be viewed by their friends.
[tags]MySpace,sex offenders,pedophiles[/tags]
Mars Mission: A Game From Lego
I saw this advertised while waiting for a movie to start: Mars Mission by Lego. I have to say that Lego has really come a long way from when I was a kid. All we had were a bucket of plastic bricks. None of these fancy-shmancy bells and whistles. I’m jealous.
Anyway, if you have a child who likes online games and Legos, then they’re in for a treat. The game is simple. You’re an astronaut on Mars, being chased by aliens. You use your mouse (not the arrow keys, strangely enough) to jump over obstacles. To the right you see an indicator for how far behind the alien is on your tail.
Score points by picking up green energy crystals. Fall down and you don’t have much time to recover. That alien doesn’t let up!
[tags]Lego,games[/tags]