That’s Bob Bowden, director of The Cartel documentary, a “look at how a widespread national crisis manifests itself in the educational failures and frustrations of individual communities”.

Writing in the Huffington Post, “It turns out that the company sporting the motto ‘don’t be evil’ has been asking parents nationwide to disclose their children’s personal information, including Social Security Numbers, and recruiting schools to help them do it — all under the guise of an art contest”, he says.

Google’s kiddie data mining project is called Doodle-4-Google.

It’s a “competition where we invite K-12 students to use their artistic talents to think big and redesign Google’s homepage logo for millions to see”, says the world’s most (in)famous online advertising company.

“At Google, we believe that dreaming about future possibilities leads to tomorrow’s leaders and inventors, so this year we’re inviting U.S. kids to exercise their creative imaginations around the theme, ‘What I’d like to do someday … ‘

“Whether students want to find a cure for cancer or take a trip to the moon, it all starts with art supplies and some 8.5″ x 11″ paper. And, one lucky student artist will take home a $15,000 college scholarship and $25,000 technology grant for their school, among many other prizes.”

Cool, huh? Gargle helping kids to be all they can be, and, “What could be wrong with filling out a few entry forms?” – wonders Bowden. “A national, commercial database of names and addresses of American children, especially one that includes their dates of birth and SSNs, would be worth many millions to marketing firms and retailers.”

But “Of course, data collection is not the reason Google gives for doing this competition”, he says.

Of course not.

In FAQ, it’s because “We love to encourage and celebrate the creativity of young people…” etc, the Huffington Post item points out, continuing >>>

If that’s so, then why on earth would the contest’s original Parent Consent Form ask for the child’s city of birth, date of birth and last four digits of the child’s SSN?  Along with complete contact info of the parents.

You see what Google knows and many parents don’t know is that a person’s city of birth and year of birth can be used to make a statistical guess about the first five digits of his/her social security number.  Then, if you can somehow obtain those last four SSN digits explicitly — voila, you’ve unlocked countless troves of personal information from someone who didn’t even understand that such a disclosure was happening.

This kind of data can be linked with other databases to target advertising. It’s worth many times more than what Google will spend on prizes (each State Finalist gets a T-shirt!).

Bowden goes on to cover his extremities by saying there’s no evidence Google will “use or sell this information for marketing purposes” and “to be absolutely clear, there’s no evidence Google has done anything with this information at all, nefarious or otherwise”.

But, he states, “Some of the people who tipped me off to it were wondering if the solicitation of children’s Social Security Numbers was even legal. And so they sent emails to the Federal Trade Commission, the website InsideGoogle.com and a couple of other places. That email went out on February 17.  Twenty-six hours later Google released an updated Parental Consent form without requiring the last four digits of the child’s SSN, although the form still inexplicably asks for the child’s city of birth.

“Meanwhile, the original PDF can still be found on lots of school websites, like this one. In other words, many schools are still distributing the original form, and many parents are no doubt still forking over their kids’ social security numbers to Google.”

The story quotes Google as stating >>>

This year we started accepting doodles from kids even if their school hadn’t registered for the contest. To help us keep entries distinct and remove duplicate entries from any particular student, we asked parents for limited information, including the last 4 digits of a student’s social security number. We later updated our forms when we recognized that we could sufficiently separate legitimate contest entries while requesting less information. To be clear, these last 4 digits were not entered into our records and will be safely discarded.

And >>>

The city of birth helps us identify whether contestants are eligible for the contest, as winners must be either U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents of the U.S. The information isn’t used for any other purpose.

“Couple things” Bowden adds:

“1.) I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist by disposition, but doesn’t “these last 4 digits were not entered into our records and will be safely discarded,” sound like a contradiction? (How can they delete something that is not in their records?) Even taking just the first part, we’re supposed to believe Google didn’t enter demographic data that it had been supplied? Isn’t this the same Google that promotes itself as the master of targeted marketing campaigns?

“2.) If they simply want to limit the contest to citizens and permanent legal residents, why not ask that question as a “yes/no”? Then, they could ask more specific questions of the winners, right? Instead, Google’s wants every child’s city of birth upfront? That’s really necessary?

“Maybe the kids should all just say, ‘Springfield’.”

Don’t bother to stay tuned.

Follow me on Twitter.

Huffington Post – Why Has Google Been Collecting Kids’ Social Security Numbers Under the Guise of an Art Contest?, February 22, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

There, “Seventh- and eighth-graders with four unexcused absences or more this school year” have to carry a GPS tracking device, says the Orange County Register, going on >>>

Each morning on schooldays, they get an automated phone call reminding them that they need to get to school on time.

Then, five times a day, they are required to enter a code that tracks their locations – as they leave for school, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school and at 8 p.m.

The students are also assigned an adult coach who calls them at least three times a week to see how they are doing and help them find effective ways to make sure they get to class on time.

Students and parents “volunteer for the monitoring as a way to avoid continuation school or prosecution with a potential stay in juvenile hall”, says the story.

Juvenile hall? For skipping school?

The story has police investigator Armando Pardo reminding parents that “letting kids skip school without a valid reason is, in fact, a crime”.

If the local district attorney “chooses to prosecute, truant students could be sentenced to juvenile hall and parents could face up to a $2,000 fine”, says Pardo.

BUT — “The idea is for this not to feel like a punishment”, the Orange County Register has Miller Sylvan stating.

Sylvan works for AIM Truancy Solutions, a company that’s figured out a way to make money out of kids who skip school.

The spy devices cost $300-$400 each, says the story, going on, “Overall, the six-week program costs about $8 per day for each student, or $18,000.

“The program is paid for by a state grant. Students who routinely skip school are prime candidates to join gangs, police say.”

Adds the story >>>

Hoping to keep their child at Dale Junior High, the Cruz family brought their son, Juan, to get a GPS.

He’s has five excused and five unexcused absences already this year; his recent report card showed his highest grade is a C and he’s failing several classes.

Miller, who showed Juan Cruz, 13, how to operate the device and tried to encourage him, asked why he wasn’t going to school.

“Sometimes I’m sick and, other times, I just don’t feel like going,” he said.

“This will be good,” Miller told Cruz. “You looking forward to it?”

“No,” Juan Cruz said, shaking his head. “I’m going to keep it in my pocket, though, so I don’t lose it.”

Parents will be responsible for paying for lost devices. But Miller said that rarely happens. They are tracking devices and typically can be found immediately.

Juan Cruz’s mom, Cristina, said she supports the program and hopes it helps her son get to school – and stay there.

“I understand that he’s been missing class. He’s one of six children, and we can’t always keep an eye on him,” she said in Spanish. “I think this is a good idea that will help him.”

Expansion into new markets

The Aim Truancy Solutions program was born after “Paul Pottinger, Ph.D, psychologist, partnered with Shelton Stogner, a veteran with over 30 years’ experience in the field of juvenile justice and truancy enforcement”, says the company, adding >>>

In 2005, the pair developed an intensive supervision service that incorporated GPS tracking to keep kids in school. The service’s initial test results exceeded everyone’s expectations and attracted the attention of local officials.

In 2006, Dallas County officials asked for a pilot test within the Dallas Independent School District, which again yielded extraordinary results. The program continued to evolve into the Aim Truancy Solutions program, which is now expanding throughout Texas and throughout the United States. AIM’s success has garnered national media coverage from the CBS Evening News, Fox News, and the New York Times.

With Aim Truancy Solutions rapidly expanding, the company recruited Travis Knox in 2008 to lead the company’s expansion into new markets. Knox, who holds an M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University, was brought on because of his extensive leadership background and over 12 years’ experience working with at-risk youth.

Through 2010, the Aim Truancy Solutions program has expanded into yearlong programs that are currently running in three states and ten markets.

When more and more US jails are run for corporate profit a la Robo Cop, why not this?

Follow me on Twitter.

Orange County Register – Kids who skip school are tracked by GPS, February 17, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

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“BT today announced that it will launch a new range of printed and online safety advice in March 2011 to help parents keep children safe on the internet”, says a statement, going on:

“At the same time, a major campaign will prompt BT broadband customers to consider BT’s free [McAfee] Family Protection parental-control software, which will now be offered automatically as part of the install process.”

The “software has a set of controls that help parents match the maturity of each of their children to what they can do on the web”, says BT.

With it, “Parents can block entire programs or inappropriate websites, either by age, category or by blocking an individual site. Time limits can be set and parents can request instant alerts if children attempt to access blocked sites or post personal information.”

BT “will also communicate safety messages to millions of existing customers regularly, ensuring that all customers are reminded at least once a year about the availability of Family Protection software”, and wil provide a “new booklet” for “existing customers who request it”.

McAfee is a master of shock-horror marketing.

BT was once deeply enmeshed with disgraced privacy pirate Phorm.

Follow me on Twitter.

statement – BT Helps Parents Keep Kids Even Safer On The Internet, February 4, 2011
shock-horror marketing – New McAfee shock-horror ‘risk report’, October 26, 2010
privacy pirate Phorm – Cops eye Phorm, BT. Again., May 17, 2010

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

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It is, though, good for the people who make the make-up, of course.

And the people who advertise it, natch.

And the retailers, goes without saying.

And pedos.

Walmart is “targeting grade schoolers” with a cosmetics for 8- to 12-year-olds, aka “tweens”, says the Toronto Star.

“Among other benefits, the geoGIRL products are touted to have anti-aging ingredients”, says the story.

Um, er …

It’ll be “replacing the Mary-Kate and Ashley cosmetics range which has suffered a decay in consumer preferences over the last years”, says becomegorgeous.com.

In other words, it’s getting old.

“There are 69 beauty items, including mascara, foundation, eye shadow, lip treatment and skin cleansers with eco-friendly packaging made to be held by smaller hands”, accordiong to the Toronto Star, which has Joel Carden from Pacific World, whcih churns out the geoGIRL brand for Walmart,stating the cosmetics “will create return purchases and create a true beauty consumer”.

(Is that Mickey Mouse standing behind the girl in the pic? Just asking.)

(Cheers, Neat Hunh)

Follow me on Twitter.

Toronto Star – Do 8-year-old girls need anti-aging makeup?, February 3, 2011

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And it’s WIDE open to kids.

But it’s not alone.

A little earlier today I was looking for a pic to go with‘Turn yourself in’, Corbin Fisher tells BitTorrent users.

The company runs a couple of gay websites.

First, I tried an image search on Microsot’s Bing (by a tiny margin, the lesser of two evils, IMHO), but no luck.  With Gargle Images, however, just enter a porn search term — any porn search term, it doesn’t matter – and sit back.

It’s a porn-lover’s delight.

So why is Micro$oft marginally better? Because as I pointed a year ago, it at least makes a pretense of putting a shield up between the innocent and the lustful. And the young.

It’s called SafeSearch and “Users get a choice”, said our post >>>

• Filter adult content from your search results.
• Strict Filter out adult text, images, and videos from your search results.
• Moderate Filter adult images and videos but not text from your search results.
• Off Don’t filter adult content from your search results.

That’s great. Users get a choice.

But Microsoft boasts the shield is “easy-for-anyone-to-use” and as I said back then, “as far as I could see, there’s no way for Bing to tell if someone is 12 or 20 and it’s quite literally child’s play for kids to turn the filter off. And if they do, the results are on a par with anything you’ll find on any porn site, and all in one place.”

With Groggle, merely enter the search term of your choice and voila!

Will there be a hue and cry from politicians who, on behalf of Hollywood and the Big 4 music labels, never miss an opportunity to claim P2P is just a way to get porn?

No need to stay tuned.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

Follow me on Twitter.

makes a pretense – Microsoft Bing: major porn search engine, January 2, 2010

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

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Full of little lies, medium sized lies and Big Lies, statistics from outer space, smooth PR babble, and all the rest of it, they were ridiculous and fun to pull apart.

They’re still ridiculous, but as it becomes more and more obvious they’re on their last legs and their efforts to stay alive in the 21st digital century become increasingly outrageous, the fun has worn off.

The current release says >>>

The report outlines the way that record companies have revolutionised their business models to meet the demands of digitally literate consumers.

The fact of the matter is: they’ve revolutionised nothing, making enemies of their own customers, treating them like dirt, calling them criminals and thieves.

The Telegraph said in a headline yesterday, “Digital music revenue growth falls to lowest level in 2010″. And under that, “The growth of the digital music market has fallen to its lowest level, with download revenues only rising by six per cent during 2010, despite in excess of 400 global online licensed services, according to a report.”

400 global online licensed services? No one cares. No one wants to know.

Suing customers has failed. The RIAA, BPI, IFPI, and all the other Big Music ‘trade’ outfits, once the boogeymen of file sharing, have been reduced to a stumbling bullies no one is afraid of.

The truth is: Big Music is in Big Trouble. Something has to be done and finally, there seems to be only one way out:

Radically escalate the get ‘em while they’re young and impressionable campaign.

Get ‘em in the schools with no mums and dads around to spoil things, and with teaching staffs and administrations only too happy to cooperate.

That’s the message buried in this year’s report, which features a section which should be deeply alarming to any parent, any teacher, any government department anywhere that’s concerned with the way in which our children are taught, and by whom.

“Consumer education plays an important role in the music industry’s digital strategy”, admit Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US). Their “IFPI and its national affiliates are involved in dozens of public education programmes worldwide”, they say in the ‘report’, punching up “Four international consumer education programmes”.

For “education” read “indoctrination”. And there’s zero genuine content: only corporate disinformation.

With serious faces, Big Music spinsters and sophists have put together four false and delusional ‘programs’ claiming to ‘educate’ when in fact their sole purpose is to deceive.

They’re made up of mere flim-flam, illusions of the kind used by conmen to bamboozle victims.

They use the principal first employed by Nazi indoctrinator Joseph Goebbels during World War II: say something often enough and loudly enough and eventually, people will come to believe it. Something that’s entirely false and completely absurd is seen as not only true, but reasonable.

Why are the Big 4 believed? Because the Big 4 are so good at lying. It’s in the newspapers and on TV, so it must be at least partially true! But together with their opposite numbers in Hollywood they, or their cohorts, own or control most of the news and information sources seen by most of the public.

The Big 4’s IFPI ‘report’ promotes four deeply flawed ‘educational’ programs which should, in a balanced world,  make the skin of any parent, crawl.

Funded, guided and remotely controlled by four corporations which answer only to, and have regard for, their shareholders and investors,  the programs are, and we quote >>>

• Young People, Music and the Internet – This guide for parents and teachers, published in cooperation with international children’s charity Childnet, is currently available in English and Spanish with further translations planned. A UK adaptation was also backed by the film and television industries – www.childnet.com/downloading
• Music Matters – This programme was launched in the UK by artists, retailers, songwriters, managers and record labels. It aims to remind people of the value of music and highlights licensed services – www.whymusicmatters.org
• Pro-music – An international information campaign about online music supported by major and independent record companies, music publishers, artists and retailers. It provides details of the 400+ legal music services worldwide – www.pro-music.org
• Pop4Schools … www.pop4schools.com

Of the last item, I wrote in p2pnet on Wednesday >>>

School kids aren’t pupils, any more. They’re targets.

Now, over in the UK, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music are after kids under the age of 12

“The major record labels and Hollywood movie studios are traditionally and infamously linked to organized crime, rampant drug use, the use of sex as currency and corruption at all levels and they’re the absolute last entities on earth to be instructing anyone, let alone children, on moral issues, on what’s right and what’s wrong and on truth and fairness”, I posted on p2pnet almost five years ago, going on:

“Yet that’s exactly what’s happening, and it’s happening everywhere with the collusion of local governments and school staffs and administrations.

“Get ‘em while they’re young, at kindergarten and university, is the corporate buzz-phrase. And spare no expense.”

The Big 4’s latest mind-rape program is called Pop4Schools. Under it, British school children will be “given the chance” to “gain a better understanding of how the music they love is produced, while learning a wide range of curriculum subjects whether they are taught individually or as a cross-curricular project.”

And the labels are actually selling this stuff —  ”lesson plans for nine different subjects ranging from Literacy to ICT”.

The tragedy is: schools will go for it — without first asking parents if they want their children exposed to this transparent corporate indoctrination campaign.

Their purpose is to quite literally brainwash our children so they come to accept lies as truth, and fiction as fact.

The rest of the ‘report’? Fodder for the lamescream media, and not worth the effort of reading.

“For further information:
Adrian Strain or Alex Jacob at IFPI Communications
Tel: +44 (0)20 7878 7935
Email: press-office@ifpi.org”

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

Follow me on Twitter.

Telegraph – Digital music revenue growth falls to lowest level in 2010, January 20, 2011
p2pnet –  Pop4Schools, new Big 4 UK school scam, January 12, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

“Breaking news”, says Kenny Barnes (?) .

“MouseMail has rewritten its terms of service and School Safety Partners has updated/corrected the record with a very positive report”.

Well, fancy that.

MouseMail.com is an “anti-sexting and anti-bullying” bidniz promoted by stockholder and former US secretary of education William Bennett (right)”, said p2pnet in a story on the goings on of MouseMail.com.

“Parents who register with MouseMail may not realize they are granting MouseMail the right to publish all private messages and photos their families transmit through the system”, we quoted School Safety Partners.org as saying in a press statement.

Barnes’ comment comes in our second item, which links to a new School Safety Partners  statement which explains, “a boilerplate clause in the MouseMail registration form seemed to require parents to grant MouseMail the right to publish all private messages and photos their families transmit through the system.”

Damn! Those pesky boilerplate clauses, eh?

The new ‘language’, now in section 16, says the statement, goes like this >>>

For the sole purpose of providing services to you, You hereby grant Safe Communications, Inc. a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to use any Content and User Content that You upload to the Service or transmit through this Service. This license allows our systems to process and filter messages; monitor keyword usage to support continuous improvement of our proprietary filtering algorithms; assess and understand the ever evolving ways digital communications tools are being used so we can develop products for you that keep up with the trends; provide advertising targeted to adults subscribers of our free services; and use the information for other purposes that may support the continuous improvement of our service offerings.

Um, er …

The section also states >>>

The use of Content or User Content for these purposes is done by computer systems in a manner that maintains the anonymity of the individuals associated with the Content or User Content, other than for enabling message delivery in the normal course of providing the service. In this context, the Content and User Content will only be viewed by humans, when necessary, in the aggregate and in a manner that does not link back to any individual subscriber.

Which humans? And what qualifies them to have access to this kind of very personal information, especially bearing in mind MouseMail will “provide advertising targeted to adults subscribers of our free services; and use the information for other purposes that may support the continuous improvement of our service offerings”?

That’s so full of likely privacy invasion holes you could drive a fleet of Mac trucks through it.

Not only but also, “This license allows our systems to process and filter messages; monitor keyword usage to support continuous improvement of our proprietary filtering algorithms; assess and understand the ever evolving ways digital communications tools are being used so we can develop products for you that keep up with the trends”.

In other words, MailMouse will be lurking in the computers of users, spying on everything that goes on and with access to everything on the hard drive.

Says School Safety Partners’ John Venners in the statement, “It’s not good enough to say that all of the other providers have similar terms regarding privacy. As leaders we are hoping others will follow our lead and make similar adjustments.”

Stay tuned.

Follow me on Twitter.

second item – Danger: MouseMail.com, Deuxieme partie, January 12, 2011
goings on – Danger: MouseMail.com, January 11, 2011
statement – MouseMail Pledges Privacy Protection , January 17, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

They’re targets.

Now, over in the UK, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music are after kids under the age of 12

“The major record labels and Hollywood movie studios are traditionally and infamously linked to organized crime, rampant drug use, the use of sex as currency and corruption at all levels and they’re the absolute last entities on earth to be instructing anyone, let alone children, on moral issues, on what’s right and what’s wrong and on truth and fairness”, I posted on p2pnet almost five years ago, going on:

“Yet that’s exactly what’s happening, and it’s happening everywhere with the collusion of local governments and school staffs and administrations.

“Get ‘em while they’re young, at kindergarten and university, is the corporate buzz-phrase. And spare no expense.”

The Big 4’s latest mind-rape program is called Pop4Schools. Under it, British school children will be “given the chance” to “gain a better understanding of how the music they love is produced, while learning a wide range of curriculum subjects whether they are taught individually or as a cross-curricular project.”

And the labels are actually selling this stuff —  ”lesson plans for nine different subjects ranging from Literacy to ICT”.

The tragedy is: schools will go for it — without first asking parents if they want their children exposed to this transparent corporate indoctrination campaign.

“Children engaged in the Pop4Schools programme produce and promote a piece of music, simulating the basic process that takes place in a business environment”, says the IFPI, going on >>>

Teachers can match pupils’ skills to certain tasks, such as composing, writing and performing a song, designing artwork or writing album sleeve notes. The resulting CD or download can be sold to family and friends, perhaps to raise money for the school or a charitable cause.

Who pays the teachers to shill this corporate scam? Taxpayers.

Then the punch-line >>>

As part of their collaboration in the production and promotion of an original piece of music, children will learn about the importance of ownership, being fairly rewarded for their work and respecting the rights of others.

‘Designed to protect commercial interests’

Behind the Pop4Schools scam is one Ruth Katz.

In 2009, “The corporate record industry is under fire, ‘after launching a scheme to teach primary schoolchildren — possibly as young as five — not to illegally download music from the internet’,” I quoted Britain’s the Daily Mail as saying, continuing >>>

“Lessons teaching pupils about copyright law are already being piloted in six schools and could be rolled out across the country.

“Critics suggest the initiative is designed to protect commercial interests rather than provide a valuable educational experience.”

The get ‘em while they’re young child mind-rape scheme is organised by music industry ‘consultant’ Ruth Katz who, by an amazing coincidence, also works for Big 4 music gang member EMI.

But that’s okay because she’s, “funding the school scheme independently,” although by another amazing coincidence, it’s supported by music industry outfits, “including the  EMI Music Sound Foundation — a charity set up by the label to improve music education,” says the story.

Critics, however, “have questioned whether young primary schoolchildren would even know how to download music without assistance”.

But why not?

This particular travesty is happening in Britain, but it’s no more than part of an overall entertainment industry campaign to warp the minds of children by introducing copyright and intellectual property law into classrooms.

It looks fantastic — unbelievable — but it’s happening.

Says the IFPI today, “The all-encompassing programme is backed [read 'created'] by organisations from a wide range of sectors in the music industry including AIM, BPI and IFPI”, all of three of which are corporate outfits.

And Katz actually expects schools to pay for this festering, mind-boggling Big Music bullshit >>>

£100 +VAT (£120.00*)*Introductory Offer for Academic Year 2010/11 AND 2011/12. Annual license for up to 5 registered staff users within your school.

Unbelievable.

As I’ve said before, thank God we decided to home-school our daughter.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

Follow me on Twitter.

p2pnet – Open letter to parents, July 2, 2006
IFPI – New Pop4Schools programme launches, January 12, 2011
I quoted – Get ‘em while they’re young!, October 5, 2009
Daily Mail – Anger at record industry bosses over school anti-piracy lessons for children as young as five, October 3, 2009

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed

MouseMail is backed by Bill Bennett, ex-US secretary of education.

Reader’s Write #1
You know what’s odd? I checked the source out, School Safety Partners.org. They have no privacy policy on their website that I can find. They state: “School Safety Partners is dedicated to creating long-term funding partnerships to support school safety best practices.” How can they preach that they “support school safety best practices” and complain about a products privacy policy, when they don’t even have a standard privacy policy on their website (that I saw). Very odd.

Reader’s Write #2
Devil’s Advocate says: “They have no privacy policy…” It’s getting to the point that, even if a site does display an equitable policy, you still cannot expect them to actually live by it. “MouseMail.com also reserves the right to…” This is where people really need to wake up.  It doesn’t matter what “right” follows an opening like that, any practice described in such a statement is, most often, ILLEGAL. Most people, for some strange reason, seem to accept these kinds of statements without even questioning them, possibly because of the “legalese” flavour they’re given. The only way the activities in such clauses become legal is BY YOUR “IMPLIED ACCEPTANCE”. When you (supposedly) “acknowledge” a page with these types of policies, in order to move on to the part where you get to use a service, you also “accept” everything you probably didn’t even bother to read. That’s where they get away with everything they intend to do, legally. It may be somewhat of a shaky legal ground, but it’s all they need. Everybody just whizzes through these types of applications or EULAs or whatever, blindly clicking every “yes” or “I accept” they have to, because they just want something. By doing this, you have all collectively contributed to all these business models that are based on (what should be illegal) data mining exploitation, and given them a way out of any obligation to account for anything at the same time.

Reader’s Write #3
School Safety Partners Says: School Safety Partners privacy policy: http://www.SchoolSafetyPartners.org/privacy_policy.html | School Safety Partners terms of service: http://www.SchoolSafetyPartners.org/tos.html | Please note that School Safety Partners does not store or monitor any personal or private communications between visitors and outside parties.

Reader’s Write #4
Devil’s Advocate says: “Please note that School Safety Partners does not store or monitor any personal or private communications between visitors and outside parties.” There’s another example of those irrelevant statements that are usually included to mislead, by design. The terms “monitor” and “communications” have very little to do with the tracking, trading and selling of personal information. You can be TRACKED without being monitored. And, “communications” usually refers to something directed from one person to another, such as e-mail. Personal info can be collected without monitoring anyone’s communications. I could say, for example, that I’m not tapping your phone, and that I’m also not keeping your number that you gave me. It doesn’t stop me from giving that number to somebody else. And, it certainly doesn’t mean somebody else isn’t tapping your phone, either, does it?! School Safety Partners may or may not store or monitor anything themselves, but that doesn’t mean 3rd parties aren’t being given free reign through your site. Everyone seems to have those kind of “trusted partners” these days, who get access to everything, including direct connection to the site users’ machines. Basically, the 3rd parties do all the dirty work, while the site gets to say its hands are clean. As I previously said, even if the posted policies are explicitly outlined, and admirable, what actual guarantee does anyone have that those policies are going to be followed, anyway? Every privacy policy you read says you’re not being tracked, and that your personal info is not shared with anyone else, and that your info is “safe” (even though they’re supposedly not collecting it).

Stay tuned.

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p2pnet – Danger: MouseMail.com, , January 11, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

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“MouseMail uses Active Email Filtering to scan for inappropriate content, as well as non-approved contacts in every email”, it says on the web page, promising:

“MouseMail scans all incoming and outgoing email messages for inappropriate content. Questionable messages will not be delivered to the child, but diverted to the parent for review.

“This filtering allows parents to passively monitor their children’s communications, giving parents a chance to talk with their child if an issue arises before that issue becomes serious.”

But that’s not all it does. Not by a long shot.

It also scoops personal and private data and “Parents who register with MouseMail may not realize they are granting MouseMail the right to publish all private messages and photos their families transmit through the system”, says School Safety Partners.org in a press statement.

“Although parents may cancel the texting and email-sniffing service at any time, MouseMail still keeps the right to publish in any way the family content stored on company servers”, it says, going on >>>

MouseMail.com also reserves the right to turn over any personal information or messages to law enforcement agencies without first notifying parents or children.

The MouseMail team includes Bennett, Fox News regulars Frank Luntz and Angela McGlowan, and McGlowan’s husband, John Venners, as president. The company uses social media and viral marketing, along with non-profit endorsements in the hopes of attracting millions of subscribers nationwide.

School Safety Partners says it finds privacy and liability risks “crop up in the terms of service and privacy policies of most MouseMail competitors as well” with more than 20 companies now offering “online monitoring services to parents alarmed by the way children connect today.

(Cheers, Marc)

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press statement – Bill Bennett MouseMail Program Asks Parents to Surrender Privacy, January 10, 2011

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan

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I asked these questions more than five years ago in a post headlined They’re brainwashing YOUR child.

“The answer is, of course, that IP law has a legitimate place only in a law school or special interest classes”, I went. “But the software, movie studio and recording industries are using publicly funded schools and teaching staffs and institutions around the world to try to make you believe that protecting industry product is of primary importance to you and your children.

“And carrying the corporate message that young children need to be subjected to intensive indoctrination on copyright laws are the same on- and offline newspapers, magazine and radio and tv stations that depend almost wholly on corporate advertising cash and goodwill to survive.”

Now, “A major consumer education campaign is being launched by the non-profit organisation Childnet International (www.childnet.com), supported by a new partnership between the film, TV and music industries”, says a post from Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s IFPI.

“The campaign starts in the UK and is planned for rollout in multiple countries and languages in the next few months”, it says, going on >>>

Music, Film, TV and the Internet – a guide for parents and teachers is being unveiled on Tuesday 9th November in the UK. In jargon free terms, the guide provides straightforward, practical advice to parents and teachers on how children can enjoy and access entertainment safely and legally on the internet. The guide is available at www.childnet.com/downloading.

The guide has been produced by Childnet International and is supported by Pro-music (www.pro-music.org) , the international information campaign launched in 2004 under the umbrella of major and independent record companies, publishers, performers and musicians.

For further information contact:
Adrian Strain or Alex Jacob, IFPI London
Email: press-office@ifpi.org
Tel: +44 (0)20 7878 7935 (Press Office)

Five years ago, “A very dark, very frightening corporate scheme is being carefully orchestrated around the world with the full and active support and cooperation of governments and public administrations”, I wrote.

“The inter-linked, multi-national corporations are slowly and surely brainwashing our children. And many of you – especially if you’re teachers or are involved in institutions administering to children – are helping.”

I continued >>>

The entertainment and software cartels, principally, are trying desperately to stay afloat, using outdated business models from the 1970s in the digital 21st century. They’ve lost control of their consumer bases and to regain it, they’re painting everyone who uses non-corporate p2p applications to download digital files, and the companies which make them, as hard-core criminals.

As the Live8 shows proved, the labels could easily and effectively harness p2p power, using it to rope in hundreds of millions of paying file-sharers and their discretionary dollars.

Instead, to achieve the same end, our children are being force-fed warped values through schools and organizations such as the scouting movement and Childnet International under the pretext of ‘education’.

The BSA (Business Software Alliance) is a major trade group owned by such heavyweights as Microsoft and Adobe and they’re using it to weasel their way into your child’s head with a “copyright-crusading ferret” which “teaches tech-savvy kids about cyber ethics”.

For cyber-ethics read copyright law.

Even the FCC is in on it. And the aim of all of these apparently separate, but in reality closely interlinked, entities is to firmly implant industry compliant behaviour patterns and attitudes into kids’ brains while they’re still young and highly impressionable.

Pliable ‘consumers’
Over time, say industry strategists, using schools as pre-marketing units will become accepted practice and properly obedient cash-cows will replace the people who, thanks to the emergence of the Net and blogs, are for the moment showing alarming tendencies to think for themselves and to make their own decisions about what they want and don’t want, and to use online outlets which aren’t corporate-owned or controlled.

Clearly, this must stop, say the corporate leaders. How better than to indoctrinate ‘consumers’ while they’re still at school and while they’re still relatively uninformed and, therefore, pliable?

No need to worry about in-depth media cooperation because the landscape is “very, very heavily dominated” by a tiny handful of “gigantic media transnational media corporations,” says Mark Crispin Miller, the most important being Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, the News Corporation and Universal-Vivendi.

Viacom owns, among other important media entities, MTV. And MTV, in turn, now owns NeoPets.

Advertisers spend about $15 billion a year, targeting kids through sites like NeoPets which has product advertising cleverly hidden in games and links to websites run by McDonald’s, General Mills and Procter & Gamble. Other NeoPets ‘consumer’ clients include Carl’s Jr, Hasbro, Hershey, Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods / Nabisco, LEGO, Mattel, Nestlé, Pepperidge Farm, Thinkway Toys and Wrigley.

More than 40% of the NeoPets audience is under the age of 13.

America’s Children Now says it’s a “national organization for people who care about children and want to ensure that they are the top public policy priority”. But its chairwoman, Jane Gardner, is a marketing consultant, and its vice chairman, Peter D. Bewley, is the Clorox Company’s senior vp, general counsel and secretary. On the board are the likes of Neal Baer, Wolf Films/Universal Television’s ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ executive producer and Suzanne Nora Johnson, vice chairwoman, Goldman, Sachs & Co.

‘Breaking the law for years’
“Gina Harkell was, putting the final touches to her third CD when the full weight of the music industry came crashing through her letter box, said Britain’s prestigious The Times recently.

`It was a legal document,` she recalls. `There were all these huge names – 14 of them – Universal, Polydor, EMI, Capitol, Virgin, Mercury, Sony versus, well, me, my partner, but principally my son.`

A hundred miles away, at about the same time, Richard French, a respectable financial adviser, was calling his wife, Louise, with the news that he and his two young children had apparently been breaking the law for years, and they hadn`t even known it. If they wanted to keep out of the courts, he told her, they would have to pay £2,500.

In fact, all over the country on that day in mid-April, the opening of dull white envelopes elicited gasps of astonishment and despair among parents as they found out that they – usually because of their children – had become the first in Britain to be hit by a clampdown on internet music piracy. After losing sales amounting to some £300 million because of music-sharing software, the industry had decided it could take no more; there was no option but to use the courts.

The industry could “take no more”. And the article goes on and on in this vein, treating the £300 million claim as though it’s based on reality and as though it comes from credible sources.

And behind this victimization of children and their parents in the UK is the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), owned by the members of the Big Four record label cartel with their direct and indirect associations with the major print and electronic media outlets.

The BPI is also a leader in the UK government backed move to ‘educate’ British school children during class time and at tax-payer expense. And the many other cartel owned and funded organizations such as the RIAA, CRIA, JRIA, ARIA, IFPI, and etcetera, also feature the creation and implementation of ‘child education’ programs in their mandates.

‘Consumer’ of tomorrow
Our daughter, Emma, is now almost nine. She went to kindergarten but ever since, we’ve home-schooled her.

And we thank God we made that decision.

To some extent, we’ve been able to filter the outside world for her, which isn’t to say she’s cloistered. She has, for example, a room almost filled with Barbies and she’s exposed to TV advertising aimed at kids every time she tunes into one of her favourite TV programs during the two-hours-a-day she’s allowed to watch.

But thankfully, the kind of materialistic, pernicious garbage now being fed to kids in schools (which these days can be counted as media outlets of the third kind) doesn’t reach her.

We hope she’ll grow up having a value system garnered not only from us, but also from other people with independent mindsets, as well as from the books she chooses to read, from the music she chooses to listen to and from the movies she chooses to watch, none of them suggested by the cartels.

Although Emma will make make up her own mind about what’s good for her, and what’s bad, where she’ll spend her money, and when, sadly, she’s part of a small minority.

But it needn’t be that way if you and your teachers love and care about our children enough to take back control of what happens to them, what they’re taught and by whom.

If you don’t, the corporations, of which Hollywood is only the most visible, will.

Nothing has changed.

Not even the names.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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November, 2010

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

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If she wanted to go to school, she’d go. NP.  She tried it. Twice. But didn’t like it and frankly, that’s a relief for Liz and I. Because from what we’ve seen, and what we can see, with a few exceptions, schools are no places for kids, and that’s goes double considering the tremendous, and increasing, influence various corporations and entertainment cartels exert, using schools as parent-, teacher- and taxpayer-funded indoctrination grounds for good little consumers.

Eleven-year-old Faylene Frampton (right) who was “thrown off a Nebraska elementary school’s junior cheerleading squad because she refused to ’shake her booty’ says that while the gyrations may be a crowd-pleaser” she “doesn’t think young girls should be moving their bodies like that.”

That comes in the intro to an MSNBC story which goes on further down >>>

The cheer had been used in the past, but Faylene says never liked doing it and told the coach so. So when Harris gave the signal for “shake your booty” on Oct. 10, the third-to-last game of the season, she decided it was time to put her foot down — both of them, actually — and take a stand.

Faylene, the oldest and most senior of the junior cheerleaders, refused to do the cheer and was sent home. Later, her father was informed by the coach during a phone call that Faylene was being benched for the last two games for disrespecting the coach.

But for her mother, Sabrina Bobzien, Faylene’s act of defiance was a moment to be proud of. Her adolescent daughter did not feel comfortable doing something she felt was wrong, and took a firm stand despite the consequences, the mother said.

Sexy seven-year-olds

In July, “ The dolled-up, high-kicking showgirls on the right, dancing to Beyoncé’s Single Ladies, are only seven”, said p2pnet, going on, “That’s right. Seven.”

Said galveston in the a comment to the GooTube video >>>

The black knee high stockings that make it look like they’re wearing a lingerie set and the constant booty popping? Booty popping isn’t talent. They have talent, but the teacher chose to sexualize them instead. ? They’re seven. Sexualizing prepubescent children is not right.

‘Difficult’ decision

Back to Faylene “Volunteer cheer leading coach Toni Harris told NBC News that the cheer is innocent, is in good fun, and a crowd favorite”, says Now Public, going on:

“She added that no one had complained about the cheer before, and that explaining the controversy, and her decision to bench Faylene for the remainder of the season, was difficult.”

Jon

(Cheers, Em)

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MSNBC – Cheerleader, 11, ousted for refusing to ‘shake booty’, October 20, 2010
p2pnet – Sexy seven-year-olds, July 10, 2010
Now Public – Cheerleader Faylene Frampton Refuses To Do Shake Your Booty Cheer, October 20, 2010

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“The music industry takes seriously its responsibility to help parents determine what is and is not appropriate for their children”, says its leader, Mitch Bainwol.

The RIAA making suggestions to parents about determining anything is a sick joke. But it’s particularly sad when it comes to ‘product’.

The lyrics on some of the ‘music’ one or other of the labels, who effectively own the ‘trade’ organisation, pump out, would make a drunken sailor cringe.

The RIAA and, by extension, the other AAs, stick ‘explicit content’ labels on releases which contain filthy language.

Job done.

But “One day this summer, my three girls raced home from camp and ran straight to the computer to Google the lyrics for the songs their groups had been assigned for the big end-of-summer talent show”, says Alissa in Sklar on Montreal Families, going on >>>

Next thing I knew, my 7-year-old was dancing around the kitchen to My First Kiss, by Kesha, belting out these lyrics:

“Lips like licorice, tongue like candy” and “She won’t ever get enough/ Once she gets a little touch/ If I had it my way, You know that I’d make her say/ Ooooooh/ Ooooooh.”

Incredulous, I read the rest of the lyrics off the screen as my youngest daughter continued singing them – the bits about sailors, whiskey and the “taste of your tongue.” When I got to the part about removing the girl’s panties, my Canadian Idol-wannabe reassured me the counsellor taught them a version where it just said “la la la.” Clearly a shrewd bit of reasoning on the counsellor’s part.

But don’t worry, Alissa. Just give Mitch a call and he’ll explain it all to you.

‘ … the core American value of freedom of expression’

“Through music, parents or other adults can tune into what kids are thinking and feeling”, says the RIAA on its Kids page.

Because “We need to pay attention to the music children choose and ask questions: why do they like a certain song or album? What do they think the artist is saying? When these opportunities to talk openly are seized, parents, kids AND music are best served.”

A bit further down “The recording industry’s PAL Program lets parents undertake that responsibility for their families and respects the core American value of freedom of expression that tolerates unpopular speech and frowns upon censorship”, it says.

When Hilary ‘Reach Out’ Rosen was running things at the RIAA eight years back, “The recording industry takes seriously our responsibility to help parents identify ”music with explicit lyrics, she said, continuing, “We believe that not all music is right for all ages and our Parental Advisory Label was created for just that reason.”

However, “I think that it is hypocritical for the music industry to claim that it is helping parents by placing a parental advisory label on a CD, while at the same time undermining parents by aggressively marketing the same CD to children,” said Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle a year later.

The FTC had just released, Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children: A Review of Self-Regulation and Industry Practices in the Motion Picture, Music Recording & Electronic Game Industries.

Of the 55 music recordings with explicit [read filthy] content the FTC checked out, it found all 55 were aimed at kids under 17.

“Rosen’s statement responding to a follow-up study would lead anyone to conclude the FTC had awarded the RIAA a large pat on the back for a good job well done”, said p2pnet, quoting her subsequent puff release which said:

“We are heartened that the Federal Trade Commission’s report did reflect the many steps we have taken and the progress we have made to strengthen our program.”

In the same post, “P2P stands for piracy to pornography,” we quoted Andy Lack, then CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, as declaring. And, “As a guy in the record industry and as a parent, I am shocked that these services are being used to lure children to stuff that is really ugly.”

We went on, “But just to make doubly sure, last September [2003] the RIAA launched a campaign against p2p, says a CNET story, going on, ‘a significant percentage of the files available to these 13 million new users [of P2P networks] per month are pornography, including child pornography’.”

By an amazing coincidence, that was the year the RIAA launched its failed Sue ‘Em All campaign.

Meanwhile, Alissa is worried about  “Lips like licorice, tongue like candy”. But how about this >>>

Little young thing go around my dick with your tongue ring
Deep throat my nine inch

That’s from a Sony Music CD, we wrote, adding, “and you’ll find more Sony porn here. Or simply use your favourite search engine.

“Or how about Eminem? He’s now doing his own thing, but he’s still Big Music, big time, so here’s a little Eminem prose >>>

Bitch getter, hid in the bush like Margot Kidder
Jumped out (Ahhhh!) killed the bitch and did her
Use to let the babysitter suck my dick when I was little’er
Smoke a blunt while I’m titty fuckin Bette Midler
Sniper, waiting on your roof like the Fiddler
Y’all thought I was gonna rhyme with Riddler
Didn’t Ya? Bring your bitch I wanna see if this dick gon’ fit in her“

That was eight years ago, Allissa.

In 2010, nothing has changed. And if you think an ‘Explicit content’ label stops anyone of any age from listenting …

(Cheers, RW)

Jon Newton - p2pnet

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Montreal Families – Sexually-charged lyrics offer chance to discuss values, October, 2010
music with explicit lyrics – Merchants of Porn, June 22, 2004
CNET – RIAA: Child porn rife on P2P networks, September 9, 2003

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

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Hold that thought. And while you do, “We entrust Google [people] with our most private communications because we assume the company takes every precaution to safeguard our data”, says the Gawker.

But “It doesn’t. A Google engineer spied on four underage teens for months before the company was notified of the abuses.”

An employee of Gargle the Pure trifling with user data, and kids’ data at that?

Yes. And Google has confirmed it.

“We dismissed David Barksdale (right) for breaking Google’s strict internal privacy policies” TechCrunch has another Google employee, Bill Coughran, stating, going on >>>

We carefully control the number of employees who have access to our systems, and we regularly upgrade our security controls–for example, we are significantly increasing the amount of time we spend auditing our logs to ensure those controls are effective.

But not carefully enough, obviously.

Coughran adds >>>

That said, a limited number of people will always need to access these systems if we are to operate them properly — which is why we take any breach so seriously.

Unless the breach has something to do with Google’s Street View fleet scooping up unsecured WiFi data, of course.

Be that as it may, David Barksdale “repeatedly took advantage of his position as a member of an elite technical group at the company to access users’ accounts, violating the privacy of at least four minors during his employment, we’ve learned”, says Gawker, going on >>>

Barksdale met the kids through a technology group in the Seattle area while working as a Site Reliability Engineer at Google’s Kirkland, Wash. office. He was fired in July 2010 after his actions were reported to the company.

It’s unclear how widespread Barksdale’s abuses were, but in at least four cases, Barksdale spied on minors’ Google accounts without their consent, according to a source close to the incidents. In an incident this spring involving a 15-year-old boy who he’d befriended, Barksdale tapped into call logs from Google Voice, Google’s Internet phone service, after the boy refused to tell him the name of his new girlfriend, according to our source. After accessing the kid’s account to retrieve her name and phone number, Barksdale then taunted the boy and threatened to call her.

In other cases involving teens of both sexes, Barksdale exhibited a similar pattern of aggressively violating others’ privacy, according to our source. He accessed contact lists and chat transcripts, and in one case quoted from an IM that he’d looked up behind the person’s back. (He later apologized to one for retrieving the information without her knowledge.) In another incident, Barksdale unblocked himself from a Gtalk buddy list even though the teen in question had taken steps to cut communications with the Google engineer.

Adds the Gawker:

“It’s unclear how many accounts Barksdale inappropriately accessed while employed by Google, or if the company has conducted a thorough investigation into possible privacy abuses by other employees. (Calls to Google for comment were not returned.) It’s also not clear what measures are in place to prevent Google staffers from snooping on users.

“The Barksdale case comes as Google has attempted to address concerns about privacy by encrypting Gmail to protect messages from hackers, and by simplifying its privacy policies to make them more comprehensible to users. Ironically, just last week Google launched its Family Safety Center, dedicated to helping parents keep their children safe on the Internet. But as this disturbing incident suggests, the biggest threat to kids’ privacy might be Google employees themselves.”

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Gawker – GCreep: Google Engineer Stalked Teens, Spied on Chats (Updated), September 14, 2010

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

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Well, they’re at it again.

Only this time it’s in Australia.

“Trying to mess with the minds of children around the world is standard entertainment cartel operating procedure” said p2pnet last time around, going on >>>

A Kiddie Spy program was launched in Hong Kong in 2006. Under it, 200,000 members of local youth groups would spy on internet activity and, report illegal file transfers”.

Hollywood, “traditionally one of the most corrupt places on earth, and the equally tainted music and software companies prating to our kids about right and wrong?” – said p2pnet in wonderment, continuing, “It`s like Jack the Ripper branching into cosmetic surgery.”

As a test bed, the studios introduced copyright law to Scouts in Hong Kong, then the MPAA proudly announced it’d scammed the Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts of America into a, new education program.

The Big Six studios, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, wanted to help raise awareness about the value of copyrights among the over 52,000 young people involved in Boy Scout programs in the greater Los Angeles area, they said.

Now, with Hollywood’s AFACT getting hammered in a court case involving Oz ISP iiNet, the copyright enforcement outfit has in effect re-issued the same lame, but truly hilarious, Terror-Byte City ‘comic’ they used to try to scam kids in New Zealand.

They — the wise auld heads controlling Hollydud — just don’t get it, do they?

Click here for a download.

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crappy comic book – Hollywood goes after New Zealand kids, October 13, 2009
mess with the minds – They’re brainwashing YOUR child, July 4, 2005
p2pnet – Hollywood goes after New Zealand kids, October 13, 2009
Kiddie Spy program – Hong Kong`s kiddie Net spies, May 31, 2006
Jack the Ripper – MPAA corrupts US Scouts, October 21, 2006
AFACT getting hammered – AFACT vs iiNet, August 2, 2010

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Yet feral corporations are increasingly not only allowed but actively encouraged to penetrate school systems, preaching phony ’standards’ desiged to corrupt kids into good little ‘consumers’ at the earliest possible age.

And crime, sexual promiscuity and drug use are normal in a horrifying number of teaching institutions around the world.

My wife, Liz, and I are lucky. We’ve been able to organise our lives so we can be responsible for our daughter’s education, teaching her at home and giving her the freedom to largely chart her own course.

We’re far from being alone as more and more parents choose to take their kids away from the dangers they’re routinely exposed to in classrooms.

But not so fortunate is Yoani Sánchez (right) in Havana, Cuba.

“For several days I have been coaching my son for his final secondary school exams”, she says in her blog, Generation Y.

“I dusted off my notions about quadratic equations, formulas for calculating the area of a pyramid, and factoring”, she says, going on >>>

After more than twenty years of not encountering these mathematical complexities, I reconnected neurons to help him prepare and to avoid paying the high price of a tutor. More than once, during these days of study, I was on the verge of giving up, faced with the evidence that numbers are not my forte. But I resisted. Only when Teo returned from his most difficult test, saying he’d done well, did I feel relieved, as many of his classmates are in danger of repeating a grade. The reason is that in their three years of middle school, these students have seen three different evaluation methods paraded before them. They have also been affected by the lack of preparation of the so-called “emerging teachers” and the long hours of classes taught by television.

For two semesters my son’s group has had no teachers in English and computing, and the assigned hour of physical education consists of an hour of running around the schoolyard, unsupervised. The lack of requirements and the bad quality of the education has left us parents trying to put patches over the innumerable gaps in knowledge.

Fortunately, Teo’s school is not one of the worst. Although the smell of the bathroom sticks to the walls and clothes, because no one wants to work as a cleaning aid for the miserable wages the job pays, at least there is not as much haphazardness as in other schools in Havana. Nor, and this is a relief, do they sell grades, an ever more common practice in educational institutions. The teachers Teo has had, despite being ill-prepared, are good-natured people whom the community of parents have tried to help.

In comparison with the problems that a friend of mine has had with her daughter’s technical school, we could not be happier with the moral environment of our son’s secondary school. According to what my friend tells me, the exchange of sex between the teenagers and the teachers has become a common way to get a good grade. Each test comes with a fee, and few remain unscathed in the face of the tempting offer of a cell phone or a pair of Adidas shoes, in exchange for outstanding grades.

I have avoided writing about this thorny issue of the deterioration of the educational system for fear, I confess, that my child would feel the affects of the opinions of his mother.

In the three years he has been in junior high, I’ve barely slipped in a couple of criticisms about the state of the school infrastructure, but now I can’t take it any more. They will be the professionals of tomorrow, the doctors who will attend to our bodies in the operating room, the engineers who will build our houses, the artists who will feed our souls with their creations; this terrible educational background puts all of this at risk.

We cannot continue to be satisfied with the fact that at least while our children are sitting at a desk they are not roaming the streets at the mercy other risks.

“Within the walls of the classroom very serious vices can be developed, permanent ethical deformations, and an incubation of mediocrity of alarming proportions”, says Yoani, adding:

“No parent should remain silent about it.”

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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Generation Y – When Learning Turns to Dust, June 26, 2010

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But the New York Times is promoting Zynga’s latest game like it’s genuine news — good news, at that.

Owned by Mark Pincus (right), Zynga is said by VentureBeat to be worth $3 billion.

That’s because it’s sucked in millions of marks, a significant, very frightening,  number of them children.

When I logged on this morning and checked comments for spam, there was a Reader’s Write on another Zynga game called YoVille. It was from Alex, 13, the same age as my daughter, Emma.

“I play just about all the Zynga games (Farmville, Mafia Wars, Cafè World ect.) exept Yo Ville”, he says.

Except YoVille? Why’s that?

Nothing amusing about the Mafia

Last year, “I’m getting all kinds of  Fa$ebook and Twitter messages to join various peoples’ Mafia families”, I said, going on:

“Mafia Wars is from a company called Zynga. For me, there’s nothing amusing about the Mafia and there’s no way I’d join anything which bases itself on a deeply evil gang which depends for its existence on extortion and terror.”

Not only but also, “ ‘Zynga (the company that develops Mafia Wars) does not give a rats a** after injecting a spyware cookie into the game,’ says i_hate_zyng’s Reddit post, suggesting:

“ ‘Upvote and let the others know how a company can screw up your security for personal monetary gains’!”

And, “Hi, My Name Is Mike And I Was A FishVille Addict,” I quoted TechCrunch’s Mike as saying, going on >>>

Social gaming addiction is a real problem. It may be a somewhat funny problem, but it’s still a problem. And it’s no wonder that kids without access to credit cards are taking all these sketchy offers to get game currency. They’re hooked.

“Arrington is a very wealthy lawyer who’s old enough to look after himself”, I noted, adding, “But what about the kids?” – a point also raised by Emma in March, 2009.

Too fond of the Net?

In a p2pnet post, “I work online and I’ve spent hours  explaining the pit-falls and the ups and downs of the Net and I’m fine with letting her go online to do pretty well what she wants to do within the two hours she’s theoretically allowed”, I said, going on >>>

I say theoretically because I’m not looking over her shoulder all the time and I expect her to log off when it’s time to log off.

In other words, I trust her.

Sometimes my wife and I worry she’s too fond of the Net. But it’s an integral part of life in the digital 21st century and will become even more so as she grows up.

But parents worry about everything. It’s their job.

So when she asked if she could join YoVille, explaining it was a kind of virtual world, I said Yes,  figuring if it was on Facebook, it couldn’t be too bad: that as mercenary as Facebook’s owners are, they’re not stupid enough to allow anything really offensive on the site.

I was dead wrong.

Soon after she joined YoVille, “Dad, can I do a post on Facebook for p2pnet?” Emma, who was 12 at the time, asked.

She’s home-schooled and “as far as I and my wife, Liz, are concerned, writing this kind of thing is much the same as writing an essay in school, only better because it’s self-selected instead of imposed”, I said, going on, “So I logged on … and found the item below waiting for me — and I emphasise this is her own work written when I wasn’t around, and unedited by me.

“I should also make it clear YoVille isn’t exclusively a Facebook application. It’s also on MySpace and for all I know, on other sites as well.”

Here’s what Emma wrote >>>a

Topics: Alchohol on YoVille / no age limit / pedophiles and people asking for “cam shows” / no chat filter / cyber bullying / Bikini bottoms are thongs / Gambling is encouraged.

YoVille is a world where you can buy new clothes for your player, purchase items for your apartment, go to work, and meet new friends,” says creator, Zynga. Sounds fun, and completly kid friendly right?

But to make a long story short, it’s anything BUT kid friendly! There is an extreme lack of a chat filter, allowing the “F Word” and others just as bad to be said freely, often in the presence of kids as young as 10!

Okay, so maybe they have a SMALL chat filter — IE  if you say the full word (shit, for example) it gets blanked out as “yadda”. But if you put a space in between any of the letters (s hit) it gets through.

I think there should at least be an age limit for it (18+?), given how it’s easy for sexual predators to lure victims in, giving them YoMoney and items in return for this.

I have come across several people (usually men) as old as 43 trying to get girls as young as 13 to role play sexual acts via the game, and give so-called “cam shows”.

These basically consist of you giving them your cam adress, and stripping on cam.

I myself have been asked more times than I can count. Whenever I got asked, I basically told the person involved to go jump off a cliff.

Feel like getting drunk? Just head down to the all ages Sky Nightclub and grab a martini! Because they make it so FUN to get drunk!

Or feeling lucky? Just head down to the Casino!

There is no age limit for this game, making it possible for people of any age to be on.

In the Dating section of the Events page, there are usually sex parties. I once even saw one called “14 and under sx party”.

It’s a breeding ground for pedophiles and the like. I think that it’s best if kids don’t go on it at all.

I hope that by writing this, parents who have kids on YoVille will take a closer look into whether or not they REALLY want their kid on this.

Thanks for reading my rant

Stay safe!

Emma Newton

‘ … no gambling, no drinking ect … ‘

Back to the comment post from Alex, 13 .

He says “I play just about all the Zynga games (Farmville, Mafia Wars, Cafè World ect.) ” continuing >>>

You can’t really interact with people on these games unless they’re your friends exept Yo Ville.

I do hope they filter out this game atleast a little more, (ex. one-piece swimming suits, no gambling, no drinking ect.) but with 1mil+ daily players if they fixed these it may cause a huge loss in players.

The biggest problem I’ve noticed is these dating parties. I too have seen this ages 14- only or whatever, thy people who do this are the most sickining creatures to roam this earth, pedofiles. This game should be able to access your facebook page and view your age and allow an age limit but even if it did the other problem remains, false ages.

So what I suggest is for adults to watch over your children and limit them to the internet there is a way to block certain pages.

Parents should have to be on guard for dangerous material pumped out by corporations such as Zynga, Alex?

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Shouldn’t anyone who’s making, marketing and promoting any kind of material aimed at children be vigourously and rigourously monitored by federal, provincial and state organisations tasked specifically with protecting children’s welfare? And before it’s turned loose online

Canada’s Stephen Harper government is throwing away literally billions of dollars on a three-day political love-in which’ll do no one, except the politicians involved, any good.

There are plenty of other examples of gross financial waste in this country, and the picture is the same everywhere else around the world.

Children are our most valuable resource. We should be spending our taxpayer dollars looking after them and protecting them instead of opening them up to corporations which answer only to their boards and shareholders.

I know. Never happen.

And I’d be surprised to find Zynga doesn’t already have access to user data.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting to see a Zynga ‘game’ aimed a ‘pre-schoolers’, the deliberately bland marketing buzzword for really little kids.

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton - p2pnet

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Zynga’s partnership – Facebook, Zynga, 5-year partnership,May 19, 2010
VentureBeat - FarmVille, Mafia Wars maker Zynga is worth $3 billion, says trading site SharesPost, February 18, 2010
deeply evil gang – Zynga Mafia Wars spyware, December 5, 2009
does not give a rats a** – Zynga cookies vs EU Telecoms Reform, December 7, 2009
TechCrunch – Facebook And Zynga Enter Into Five Year Partnership, Expand Use Of Facebook Credits, May 18, 2010

June, 2010

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“It’s also a place where kids can pretend to get drunk and where they can be picked up by sexual predators”, said my daughter, Emma, last year.

Later in 2009, “I’m getting all kinds of  Fa$ebook and Twitter messages to join various peoples’ Mafia families”, I posted continuing:

“Mafia Wars is from a company called Zynga. For me, there’s nothing amusing about the Mafia and there’s no way I’d join anything which bases itself on a deeply evil gang which depends for its existence on extortion and terror.”

Not only but also, “ ‘Zynga (the company that develops Mafia Wars) does not give a rats a** after injecting a spyware cookie into the game,’ says i_hate_zyng’s Reddit post, suggesting:

“ ‘Upvote and let the others know how a company can screw up your security for personal monetary gains’!”

And, “Hi, My Name Is Mike And I Was A FishVille Addict,” I quoted TechCrunch’s Mike as saying, going on >>>

Social gaming addiction is a real problem. It may be a somewhat funny problem, but it’s still a problem. And it’s no wonder that kids without access to credit cards are taking all these sketchy offers to get game currency. They’re hooked.

“Arrington is a very wealthy lawyer who’s old enough to look after himself”, I noted, adding, “But what about the kids?”

Now, “Facebook and Zynga have just announced a five year partnership and the expansion of use of Facebook Credits in Zynga games” says TechCrunch, noting:

“After months of discord, Zynga and Facebook have made peace– at least for now. Despite Zynga’s earlier frustrations and reports that it was ready to abandon Facebook, the two companies were able to agree to a ‘five-year strategic relationship.’ ‘Facebook was a pioneer in opening their platform in 2007 and in just three years tens of millions of Facebook users play our games every day, from FarmVille and Café World to Treasure Isle and Mafia Wars,’ Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said in the press release. ‘We are excited about Facebook’s long-term commitment to social gaming and Zynga, and look forward to working with them and other platform providers to bring the best social gaming experience to users worldwide’.”

Talk about an unholy collaboration.

But there is a solution for you AND your kids.

Just Say No to Fa$ebook.

Jon Newton - p2pnet

Follow p2pnet on Twitter.

pretend to get drunk – Is Zynga’s YoVille OK for kids?, March 17, 2009
FishVille Addict – Dear Capo: Got your Zynga Mafia email, December 6, 2009
deeply evil gang – Zynga Mafia Wars spyware, December 5, 2009
does not give a rats a** – Zynga cookies vs EU Telecoms Reform, December 7, 2009
TechCrunch – Facebook And Zynga Enter Into Five Year Partnership, Expand Use Of Facebook Credits, May 18, 2010
Say No to Fa$ebook – May 31: International Quit Facebook Day, March 19, 2009

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That was the intro to a recent p2pnet story pointing out that under the US  Family Educational Rights Privacy Act, public school districts “across the country are forced to give out your child’s personal information”.

Now “This year, thousands of high school students, mostly 11th-graders, will take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a three-hour test that asks questions about reading, math, electronic and mechanical knowledge, as well as other subjects”, says the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy.

The results “are processed by the U.S. Department of Defense, as part of its ‘Career Explorations Program,’ and typically shared with both schools and military recruiters”, it says, continuing >>>

Although the military promotes the ASVAB as a voluntary “Career Exploration Program” administered to juniors and seniors, the US Army Recruiting Command’s School Recruiting Program Handbook, USAREC Pamphlet 350-13 says the primary purpose of the ASVAB is to provide military recruiters “with a source of leads of high school juniors and seniors qualified through the ASVAB for enlistment into the Active Army and Army Reserve.”

The homepage of the Pentagon website, www.asvabprogram.com does not identify what the acronym “ASVAB” stands for and fails to mention the primary purpose of the testing regime. In high schools throughout the country, the ASVAB is often promoted without revealing its tie-in to the military or its primary function as a recruitment tool.

But not in Maryland.

“A first-of-its-kind law bars public high schools in Maryland from automatically sending student scores on a widely used military aptitude test to recruiters, a practice that critics say was giving the armed forces backdoor access to young people without their parents’ consent”, says the Associated Press, going on:

“The Maryland law, the first in the nation after similar California legislation was vetoed, was signed last month and bars schools from automatically releasing the information to military recruiters. Instead, students, and their parents if they are under 18, will have to decide whether to give the information to the military. The law takes effect in July. One other state, Hawaii, has a similar policy for its schools, but not a law.”

Some 650,000 US high school students took the exam in the 2008-2009 school year, “and the Department of Defense says scores for 92 percent of them were automatically sent to military recruiters”, says AP.

It has Toria Latnie, now living in Michigan, saying a counselor at her son’s Florida charter high school told seniors in late 2008 the military aptitude test was “a requirement for graduation”.

She “researched the exam online and refused to allow her son to take the test”, says the story, quoting her as declaring:

“I was angry, very angry. I felt lied to, deceived, like people were trying to go behind my back and give my child’s private information to the military.”

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

p2pnet – Info on kids for sale: only $1, May 7, 2010
Associated Press – Md. 1st to bar schools releasing tests to military, May 13, 2010

That’s the headline in a Spam Trap post from a little earlier today. It refers to a story in WOAI.com which states that under the US  Family Educational Rights Privacy Act, public school districts “across the country are forced to give out your child’s personal information”.

It goes on >>>

Here’s what most school districts consider public information when it comes to your child:

Name
Date of birth
Address
Telephone number
Awards received
School photos

While you might think all of this is private, the government considers it public information. If someone wants it, all they have to do is ask for it. And they only pay a small amount of money to the district to reimburse them for making copies or labels.

We also found out school districts that provide this information to requestors aren’t allowed to ask what the information will be used for.

News 4 WOAI wanted to know who has requested children’s personal information from the N.E.I.S.D. in the last few years. There are army recruiters, local day cares, photography businesses, and even driving schools on the list provided to us. Then there are other requestors, individuals, not associated with any business.

“We can’t distinguish between the requests of a legitimate marketer that wants to give out some coupons to a restaurant,” Calderon pointed out. “We can’t distinguish between that and the request of a journalist or between a general member of the public who might have an ulterior motive.”

Mendi Litman told us she doesn’t remember ever giving the district permission to sell her child’s information. But Calderon said details about this law and what information is considered public can be found in their student-parent handbook.

To stop this from happening, “When you register your child for school next year, read the enrollment papers closely”, suggests WOAI.com, adding:

“One of them will ask you for permission to release this information. If you don’t want anything released – check ‘no’. But if you check ‘yes’ or don’t fill it out at all, expect that your child’s info will automatically be put on the list.”

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

WOAI.com – Selling your child’s personal information, May 7, 2010