New Microsoft spy app
p2p news / p2pnet: Quite a while back Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) launched a Parental File Watch program designed to get parents to spy on their kids for the MPAA’s owners, the Big Six studios.
You expect that kind of thing from Hollywood, but now Bill and the Boyz have come up with Family Safety Settings censorware for Vista to, “allow customers to choose to allow, block or warn settings for a range of content categories,” says Ryan Hamlin, general manager of Microsoft’s Technology Care and Safety group.
Quoted in PC Pro, “Parents will be able to access activity reports for each user in the family, any time from any PC, to help them stay informed about how their children are browsing the Web or communicating online,” he says.
Well-known Net experts the American Academy of Pediatrics, “provide guidance on developing age appropriate settings for various online activities,” says the story. “It will also be posting advice on how parents can talk to their children about their online activities and the potential dangers.”
“Parents may choose to allow or restrict specific game titles, limit their children’s play to games that are rated at or below a certain age level, or block any games with certain types of content they do not want their children to see or hear,” says Microsoft.
“Finally, Windows Vista provides parents with a detailed activity report that shows exactly what their children have been doing on the computer, including the games they have played, the websites they visited, and the applications they have used.”
Microsoft doesn’t say whether or not Family Safety Settings borrows from the MPAA in another way by also allowing parents to delete offending applications.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
spy on their kids – MPAA releases anti-piracy app, January 27, 2005
PC Pro – Microsoft to debut child safety controls on Windows Live, March 14, 2006
March 15th, 2006 at 12:19 am
I don’t see much of a problem with this, unless of course this program goes to decide what is actually offending. Parents should be given more responsibility over their children’s browsing habits, and this tool offered by Microsoft will help them to achieve that to a degree.
March 15th, 2006 at 9:05 am
I’m willing to bet money this requires parents to know how and be willing to set up additional windows accounts for their kids. Problem with that is of course that the parents who should use something like this won’t, out of sheer laziness or ignorance or ignorance to excuse their laziness. The kind of parent who would be able to use something like this by having accounts for their kids already, is probly already supervising those kids net access and thus wouldn’t need it.
This is nothing more than an attempt to pander to the forces lined up against computers and computer games “because of the terrible things they do to kids minds”.
Considering that the us police’s own stats demonstrate that violent crimes committed by kids has fallen since the advent of home based console and computer games it’s a complete waste of time and effort.
And i’m sure will provide all kinds of wonderful exploits that the scriptkiddies and malware-for-profit makers will be able to use to take pc’s over. Assuming that the cartels havent’ beaten them to the punch of course.
March 17th, 2006 at 3:45 am
This is just another way Microsoft is trying to make itself look good among consumers, the most of which will probably not utilize this software, or not use it to its full potential.
It will most likely be easily bypassed, just as Microsoft’s Windows activation has been in the past for Window XP. Thats even if it won’t be turned off by the kids themselves. Seeing as most kids nowadays know more about computers from being weined on them than adults do, its more than likely that a number will figure out how to turn it off if an adult leaves the computer alone for a few moments or something. And thats IF it is set up by the parent anyways.
Another problem i see with this, is the data collection itself. If its able to be acessed online, thats going to lead to more security vulnerabilites than before, unless the data is stored on microsofts servers when the computer is logged off, or after intervals of time. Then comes the question of who is able to veiw that data? And how secure is it. Do you really want all your browsing habits, and alot of information about you, or worse your kids on the internet? With all the child porn cases out there, this could be scary for microsoft and parents too, if someone was able to create some malware that redirected all sent content in the data to a non-microsoft site where it could possibly be used to stalk, or harass children. Their are more abductions and sick things going on in the world nowadays than ever. This all just seems like too bad an idea.
Is this the way of the future? With parents being able to moniter children so easily, why could governments not do it too?
Cheers, Silas.