RE: chat logs

["Steve Bostedor" <Steveb () tshore com>]

Simply put, children do not have the same right to privacy as adults.
How can you raise a child right while giving them all of the benefits of
being an adult before their ready?  

When I was growing up, it was very clear that my privacy was a privilege
and not a right.  My parents where more concerned with my safety and
upbringing than in my "right" to hide things from them.  

With that being said, you should still give the child the illusion of
privacy.  Don't just walk into their room and start going through things
and if you do spy, don't let them know that you are doing so unless
there is something discovered that is dangerous to them.  They do need
to feel like they have private space in order to feel secure.  

However, if you suspect something, your right to be a good parent trumps
their right to privacy every time.  Don't be a pansy parent that is too
scared to make their child mad at them.  There are too many of them out
there already and that's why we have the problems that we have today.
These after school special TV programs that make the spying parent a
villain only perpetuate the problem.  It's the parent who lets their
child go into the world unready who is the villain.  It's the parent of
the missing child that could have been saved if the parent just cared
enough to invade the privacy.

If you're a parent ... Be one.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Zaven [mailto:zaven () sonic net] 
> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2005 5:01 PM
> To: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: Re: chat logs
>
> Keller, Tim wrote:
> > The one thing you've got going for you is all of these 
> protocols are 
> > unencrypted.
> >
> > I'm not going to get into the details because this email 
> would get a 
> > little long, but this is how I'd do it.
> >
> > I'd take a port on the router and configure it to mirror all the 
> > traffic to this port.  I'd then take a Linux box plug it into said 
> > port, install snort and configure it to trap all 
> > AIM/MSN/Yahoo/email/IRC and record all URL's that are accessed.
>
> I think she was talking about parents doing this kind of 
> thing, at will, in their own homes. Spying on all chat 
> communication seems, to me, to be
>   a drastic invasion of privacy. School children are people 
> too, and I certainly hope all the officials involved will 
> respect their privacy to the greatest possible extent.
>
> Consider that kids use IM a lot these days, and for many it 
> is probably one of their main forms of communication with friends.
>
> I think the police would rarely if ever be granted the 
> authority to capture and monitor ALL chat/email/whatever 
> traffic just in hopes of finding a single "suspicious" comment.
>
> In any case, if this setup was implemented, say on the school 
> network, who would be entrusted to snoop through every 
> child's conversations? How much time would this take? What is 
> the policy if something unrelated is found that the 
> authorities think is a problem? What are the legal 
> implications for the school district?
>
> Zaven