A classic. So many questions arise from this simple text+image post:
- Is this person’s child named really “Strairdrac The Netherwatcher”?
- Is Strairdrac even human?
- Why does Strairdrac want to teach crabs how to read?
- Why is it considered forbidden knowledge?
- What other knowledge is forbidden?
We will never have all the answers. Still, the questions are themselves a sort of answer.
- Strairdrac is three crabs in a trenchcoat, now teaching others of his kind how to blend in with humans
I get the “haha” of this particular search getting reported on…but I think that this sort of surveillance is definitely stepping into creepy territory that will end up doing more harm than good.
There were definitely web searches I performed about topics back when I was younger that I would never want my parents to know. When you live in an oppressive household where you are taught never to think outside of the box or be anything your parents don’t want you to be, having the internet available is supposed to be a path to liberation.
If they want to set up filters that block certain results, fine. But tattling is just unethical, especially if the child does not know their search history is being monitored by their parents.
if only there was a Black mirror episode about the dangers of being an overbearing parent.
The thing is, parents get incredibly conflicted messages about this. When a child DOES end up looking at something bad parents get all the blame for not supervising and controlling their child and get called abusive. If they supervise and control their child they get called helicopter parents or abusive as well.
And it’s not only regarding the internet. When parents let their children roam, for example, the neighborhood and something bad happens, the parents get the blame and called abusive for letting their child roam the neighborhood. If they control outdoors time for they child, they are abusive again.
It literally doesn’t matter what you do as a parent, a lot of people will call you a bad parent or an abuser for it. I believe it is one reason why some people don’t want to have children at all. It’s basically an impossible task.
To be honest, Black mirror is not a prophecy. It merely is a speculation.
it is not a speculation nor a prophecy lol, it’s stories exploring the human condition with technology as the driver of the story
This sort of oppressive situation is my childhood in a nutshell. And you’re right, it’s entirely unethical, and in combination with other factors can be used as a factor in psychological abuse. I know I at least am traumatized from it, and surveillance was definitely one of many signifigant factors.
People really underestimate the effects constant surveillance has on a kid.
Stop spying on your kid… Jesus.
Kids need access to the internet at a super young age these days for school. If you don’t have some sort of filter in place when they are in single digits or tweens you are just negligent. The internet has some dark corners.
I don’t mind just filters, but reporting it to the parent doesn’t sit right with me. It probably depends on the parent though
Harder the surveillance, harder the kid works to bypass them
Kids are smart, good on OOP to teach their kids to use a VPN, about dual booting, and more
If the kid is old enough to purposely bypass the security, they’re probably around the right age to find some of the stuff on the other side. But you don’t want them accidentally stumbling into it because they searched something seemingly innocent.
If the kids old enough to figure out VPNs, dual booting, and all the other pretty simple workarounds then it is what it is. You can’t control everything. I am talking about the little guys. And this dudes kid is googling how to teach crabs to talk. If someone is searching that they probably aren’t ready to get completely unrestricted access because they are probably pretty young. Like I said, single digits or tweens.
And the proper way is to teach your kids about it and stop treating kids like super fragile glass beings.
Your city probably has some dark corners too, but you don’t set up geofenced tracking beacons to be alarmed if they stumble slightly off the path you intended them to go.
Children should feel comfortable enough to talk to you about bad stuff they encounter, not feel frightened, that they broke a rule.
By the time I was 17, at least on my windows PC, every search I made was reported. Every setting I touched was reported. Every app I use, and how long, reported. Every startup and shutdown reported. Games with chat features were banned. Online games were banned. Every week on Sunday, an email with all this went to my parents, and my dad would forward it to me as a kind of intimidation that “we know all”…
And yes, they used geofenced tracking too.
But I’m a geek, so my Linux laptop and phone were no longer bugged (my only access to other people at the time) by the time I figured it out (around age 16).
Still had to turn the tracker on so they wouldn’t ask why the location pings stopped though.
This kind of obsessive control ought to be illegal. I propose privacy rights at age 16, enforceable by fines, with a safe hotline for those with obsessive parents. They were emotionally abusive, control by external restrictions is often only part of the story in cases like mine.
I’m all for safety filters, but parental controls that can be classified as spyware have no place in a parent-child relationship after the age of 16…
If you use these trackers and barge in “hey I saw what you did on the internet, you’re in trouble.” then you’re doing it wrong. Kids need guidance. If you were negligent enough to let your kid roam the city without supervision, you SHOULD have a tracker on them. We’re talking about little kids not 16+. Many young kids get themselves killed or groomed or into some kind of cult online. When that happens to young kids, parents are negligent. When 12 year olds get addicted to porn, negligence. You can guide your children without being an asshole. I know a lot of us grew up either completely neglected or completely terrified to make a mistake, but there is an in-between.
Teach them the old ways of flash games (or html5 nowadays) and they will have no time for drugs.
Not giving your kids access to the internet at all is insane. You’re setting them up for failure by not actively teaching them how to navigate the Internet and what bs to look out for. Anyone that does this is just trying to indoctrinate their kid and prevent them from being exposed to any other ideas. The ego on parents that think they know enough to entirely prepare their kids for the world is ridiculous. Especially these days. You’re just setting them up to be behind when they’re older and they’ll resent you while they struggle to catch up.
Better yet, don’t let them use the internet.
Good luck with that. And also spying is the best way to lose your kid’s trust.
My parents used this as part of their obsessive-control emotional / psychological abuse. Mostly to try to indoctrinate me into their cult, and their extremist right-wing ideology. There is a place for filters, and even search reports - but search reports ought to end around 14 years, and by 16 there needs to be some form of legal recognition of privacy rights as a human being for cases of isolating abuse as a part of indoctrination. P*rn blockers etc on the router are fine though, the network legally belongs to the parents. But human being, at least after puberty, requires privacy for proper psychological development. Complete surveillance after that time is psychologically and emotionally harmful to both the child and the relationship.
I’m reminiscing the days in school where we’d use proxy sites to get around the school blocklist/monitoring to play dolphin olympics
Reduce it gradually to 0 until 16.
Spare them the embarassement with their peers.
If there’s a reliable way to only be alerted to specific activity, then the parents aren’t really actively spying, in the sense that the kids still have privacy when they aren’t transgressing into prohibited space. As long as that prohibited space is reasonable (huge debate possible there of course) and the kids know about the restrictions. imo
this post is about a child being blocked then reported to their parents for ‘teaching crabs to read’
I don’t think you can defend it as a reasonable prohibited space
When I was a kid (way too many years ago) my parents gave up trying to restrict my Internet usage because no matter what they did I could easily get around it. I knew more about networking than they did. Then I grew up to become an IT administrator.
Dad creating a small business class network with DPI at home to find out if the kids do something bad. :p
I dunno… A lot of the newer gens didn’t have to tinker with everything to get it to work so they’re less familiar with the ins and outs of stuff. Not to say they all are because it’s silly to generalize that many people but many of them grew up with this stuff. Just like how I couldn’t tell you how a TV works or fix one but I’ve built all my own pcs. That happened naturally because I had to learn it early on to have a computer. That being said they definitely seem to be developing a unique skill set for navigating the internet and social media as a whole. I’ve noticed they’re a lot less likely to trust a generic Google search or various articles online. I guess when you’re raised around bullshit you’re gonna end up more critical of it. This is mostly about gen z of course and maybe younger millennials. Gen alpha is feral and weird we should all be worried lmao
The fresh college grads getting hired at my work imply this is becoming an inaccurate generalization. Particularly in regards to tech. We may be reaching the brain’s natural knowledge saturation point, and with so much knowledge available, there’s a natural tendency towards a wide but shallow pool.
My mom asked my uncle to restric access.
I researched how to unblock it during my time :)
Was seemingly IP-based and the router probably just created an DHCP reservation for my device. Changing IP to static and done. They should do it via MAC. And even that is useless nowadays.
Edit: Also work in IT now.
I gave my kids completely open internet access and just chose to talk with them on what they might encounter. If I’d locked their devices, they’d just went online at a friend’s place.
And this is why kids should grow up with increasingly restrictive parental control software. It’s educational.
You’re not wrong. I was so desperate to get online as a kid I was pirating my neighbor’s internet on my Nintendo DS with a borrowed copy of the browser, because that was the only hardware I had with wifi access lmao.
Back when I was a kid, I ended up guessing my principal’s internet password for our local dial-up. His email was through our local phone company, so his login name was the same… So I had free internet from 8th grade til I graduated. Eventually, the phone company made it where only one person could be logged in at once, but by then I had the money to buy my own.
My parents weren’t home a lot of hours in the afternoon, and I was the oldest, so I had free reign. I kind of miss those days
I still remember the 3 passwords I got over the years. His was “kramer” and the other two were “Ozzie1” and “Chicken1”
Stolen (fair use) from https://rustacean.net
It’s too late, they’ve already began developing novel new programming languages to infiltrate our computers.
