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File-sharing privacy risks to families

May 11, 2004 By Anne Leave a Comment

Parents, if you don’t know that kids’ file-sharing (or digital music downloading) activities can be a family privacy risk, here’s a heads-up. We asked Tim Lordan, head of Washington-based GetNetWise.org, about this issue, and he said that – though reports of identity theft and other privacy violations are as yet nonexistent – exposing personal files on the P2P networks is definitely happening. By personal files, we mean emails, tax returns, medical records, and in some cases people’s entire hard drives. Tim pointed to a study done over a year ago that found this kind of file-sharing a widespread mistake, partly because the design of the software (whether it’s the well-known Kazaa or one of the newer, more obscure programs) is confusing. “Many users [especially kids eager to find their favorite songs] do not realize that when they add files to the download folder, all the files in the directory, as well as the directories below it, can be recursively shared,” reported PCWorld in its coverage of the study. “The report also criticizes the way the software searches for files to be shared, noting that it does not give criteria for discovering folders to be shared, such as searching only for media files. Therefore, when it discovers a folder to be shared, ‘it presumes that users haveba perfect knowledge of what kinds of files are contained in those folders and what will be shared,’ the researchers wrote.”

For more on this, see “A tech-literate dad on file-sharing” in the 1/16/04 issue of my newsletter.

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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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