The Wood Verdict on Netalert

Verdict Overview

 

Introduction - Highlights that the key features of NetAlert have been around for years, and explains the actual new additions to NetAlert, and the money involved.

The Predators - Explains how the view of this issue in society is taken way out of proportion compared to other risks of technology, issues with current governmental solutions, and suggests some more effective ways of dealing with this problem, including collaboration.

The Consultative Working Group - Focuses on the recently set-up group to report on social networking predators, and explains why this is a complete waste of time as no solutions with any effect could possibly be reached, then suggests some more relevant, realistic topics the group could report on.

The ACMA Banlist - Explains what a complete joke the ACMA banlist is, giving statistics on its effectiveness in realistic terms, and suggests what the only real effective measure would be. Also explains how pointless the other $500,000 will be for Australians to take lead in dealing with illegal overseas hosted content.

The Filters - Briefly Examines filtering ethics, when to use filters, the money spending, the general rule of circumvention, and Labor and Liberal policies.

My Filter Story - Describes a part of the Filter Bypassing saga from a personal point of view, and unravelles 4 points of Government spin released in the last few months, and expresses how poor the Government's public attitude is, notably their use of Semantics.

The Awareness Raising - Explains the how out-of-touch the recent Government Awareness Raising into Cyber-Safety is, the vague attempts of collaborating with children, mentions that the ads offer no advice, and some strange uses of the NetAlert website address and the Government's seriousness in the ads.

The Booklet - Questions why the booklet has been sent to everyone, even people without kids, then goes onto explain again how out-of-touch and irrelevant so much of its content is, with some practical examples.

The School Outreach Program - Re-asserts this does not offer any education to kids at all, but is a great parent and community program.

The Website - Explains how out-of-touch and improperly extensive/organized the NetAlert website is, with a few practical examples, and also highlights an extremely annoying technical issue with it.

Cybersafe Schools - Examines how lackluster and vague the only shot at education the government is running.

The Hotline - Expresses strong support for such a fantastic initiative, but pushes for some better original training could that be offered for more efficient solution delivery - also promotes an NetAlert online Chatline which would be an even more effective additional measure to help kids in need of someone to help them with Cyber-Problems.

Discussion - Explains my strong will to get involved with some policy makers, but their lack of interest so far, and expresses a statement which is pinnacle to all the measures possible.

Conclusion - Explains in brief that without drastic changes to the way this $189 Million is being spent, we will never gain any real advances in Cyber-Safety. Also promotes actions for kids and parents and the media to take, and then goes onto my demands to the Government, and asks a final thought provoking question

Related Further Reading - A list of articles related to NetAlert, and Government Cyber-Safety policy, across the entire media spectrum of the nation.

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Introduction

NetAlert - http://netalert.gov.au - announced on August 10^th, 2007 - billed as the Government's 'world leading $189 million programme' following on from their 'enviable world reputation in tackling this issue'. Senator Coonan proclaimed, "There is no doubt that Australia now leads the world in online safety."

No Doubt!

Well, lets have a look at NetAlert, keeping in mind the countless ads, media releases and campaigns run about the fabulous new measures. More specifically, lets have a look at the time-frame of this, and see what NetAlert really is.

The core features of NetAlert are a website with practical advice and a telephone hotline set-up.

But is this anything new?? - Well NetAlert first launched at http://netalert.com.au in 2002, and its website history can be seen here - link, a snapshot of the website earlier this year - link - and surprisingly the telephone hotline has been functioning for years, as can be seen on the historic page. I even used the telephone hotline for help in May this year!

But this site was closed in early August 2007, and the phone line was cut-off. The next step was this Media Release from The Senator Coonan's department - link - saying that NetAlert will launch on the 20th August 2007. And that was right, fast-forward 10 ten days and the NetAlert site was launched on a different URL of http://netalert.gov.au and its phone line launching again on exactly the same number! – This was followed by media releases vaguely explaining the government is working to protect Australian families from pro-anorexia websites – link – Cyber-Bullying – link - Online Abuse – link – Online Scams – link – and Extreme Materials – link – almost all sharing almost identical sentences on how well the government is working on the issues of Cyber-Safety. This was further followed by a round-the-country launch – link. - I ask my first question, How the hell could these two services be turned into a media spectacle contending that they are new? - They have been around for years!

So what is new? - Why are these Government Measures suddenly getting all this attention?

Basically the NetAlert website and phone line remains unchanged.

But there are some new additions. In a nutshell the actual improvements include;

• $45 Million of funding for the AFP in handling predators online and a huge multi-organization consultative group set-up to investigate predators on Social Networking Websites. Also extra millions for investigations about online exploitation reports.
  
• Over $7.5 Million in funding to investigate reported sites to be added to the ACMA website Banlist
• $500,000 for Australia to 'take a lead' in finding new ways to deal with illegal overseas content
• $84.4 Million dedicated to providing multiple pc-based filters along with isp-based filters
• $22 Million for awareness raising, including rigorous advertising and a booklet to be sent to every household in the nation
• $11.7 Million for a NetAlert 'School Outreach Program'

In total they're spending over $185 Million… $185 Million Dollars…

Now, lets have a look at each issue here...

The Predators

Don't get me wrong, online predators sure do exist, but ask any kid, ask your sons and daughters if they have ever been affected by predators, or if anyone they know has, and I guarantee almost 100% of the answers will be negative. Ask anyone actually actively involved with young people, such as the Victoria Police Cybersafety Officer, renowned Adolescent Physiologist Michael Carr-Gregg - link (scroll to bottom) - and I'm sure the people from NetAlert who actually speak to kids on the hotline, and they will tell you that this problem is taken way out of proportion. Compared to other dangers facing kids online, predators is very minimal. And as Michael Duffy point out in his Sydney Morning Herald Column here - link - the statistics back this up, with only 1 person in New South Wales ever being charged for grooming online. Though I don’t believe the problem is quite as small as that, we really do need to be looking at proportions here. Mostly to blame for the public fear of this problem is our lust in society fueling predator reports in the media, predators sell! - One predator getting a front page will bring huge fear, compared to probably 1000 addicted kids with computer ruining their social, physical and mental life’s, running unreported - who cares about some computer addicted nerd! As of course, I am only assuming the ratio would be something like this, but this shows how much collaboration and research needs to be done to make sure we get things like this right.

Now, of course we should be doing something to tackle Predators, but the Ministry is not taking very comprehensive approach, as they are only tackling the DEMAND side of the problem (the pedophiles who want to download child porn etc.). By tracking them down and charging them does a bit, the most effective solutions will come by tackling the SUPPLY (the kids) through means of education. Reading this article - link - You must think, to be exploited by a pedophile, a child must intentionally play a part, by means of intentionally speaking to them, and intentionally giving out personal details, and then intentionally meeting or photographing themselves, and in many cases with the nature of teenagers exploring themselves, may intentionally want to form relationships with them.

So to the solutions.... We've got huge measures in tackling the demand side, though the most effective measure would be to cut-out the supply, then predators will have nothing to thrive on. So this is another topic that should be covered through my proposed Compulsory Education, and through proper awareness raising to parents, urging to keep computers in a public place, making the chance that a) a child would be willing to talk to strangers about such topics diminish and b) the extra time kids could spend on a computer in their room would not be as extensive, thus limiting the chances of a relationship ever even developing.

Further to my theoretical solutions, this is another fine example of a major point on this subject. All these problems are so new and unexplored, we really need to collaborate with the people they affect so we can get better understanding how they developed and how to solve them. A board should be set-up to investigate problems that people are having through all mediums in Cyberia, and in the case of the story I link to above, meetings could be held with the parents of the boys explaining the computer set-up, signs of how the boys were acting around the computer and their ideas of what should be done to improve these issues. Most importantly, if the boys themselves were willing, they could discuss with them in detail how things developed, and what they think can be done etc. - Not many people have experienced such things first-hand, so collaborating with the ones who have is essential to provide understanding of the problems, then to implement not only the most effective solutions, but solutions that will have any effect at all.

In summary of online Predators - Though the seriousness of this problem may be more than most others online, the extent is simply not, and the measures need to be balanced across the board to being a more comprehensive approach.

The Consultative Working Group

Next I want to dive a bit deeper and have a look at the 'Consultative Working Group' that has been convened to 'prevent predation through social networking sites' - link.

The group involves more than 10 huge organizations, industry representatives, police and the government and aims to report on, "Additional measures that could assist in dealing with the online predator threat, including through the prevention, detection and prosecution of criminal conduct and the management of convicted offenders." - then it goes onto to basically the two main solutions and realistically, the only solutions that could be possibly reached, which are 1) Social Networking sites providing member information to Government and Authorities and 2) Banning the names of people listed on the ANCOR sex-offenders list from joining Social Networking sites, just like the US has done.

And now I would like to pose this question to the Ministry - Who are we kidding here?

Now, to let the non-savvy understand, when you join MySpace and nearly all free web-services, you put your name and details on it as you want, and there are no credible measures of identification. For all I like I could visit the MySpace sign up page - link - put my email address as my made-up Hotmail, my name as Chuck Norris, my Country as Azerbaijan and set my age as 99, and it would let me - try it if you want! So seeming’s YOU decide how you appear on these sites, I ask two further questions, 1) knowing this, what kind of paedophile would register with their real names? And 2) Why would a paedophile want to appear as themselves anyway? - Surely kids aren't attracted to a sleazy 40 year-old men!

Without changing some fundamental principles of MySpace such as implementing some credible forms of identification when signing up, there is absolutely no way this group will be able to report back with any effective solutions. The fundamentals are there and it is highly, highly doubtful that they will change.

Sadly, this is another example of where the generation gap has come into place, and the problems that adults and the digital-fossils think exist, and solutions that they think will be effective, are out-of-touch and will be completely useless. And out of all the members of this group, it does not include 1 young person, 1 digital native, 1 person who knows this all first hand, and this fact is very sad.

All of the organizations involved have brilliant intentions and really want to help, so I hope this group is re-channelled or other groups are convened into reporting of the effects of Computer-Addiction and Cyber-Bullying, collaborating extensively with the kids and people involved.

The ACMA Banlist

This is a list of prohibited websites, in URL form eg. http://google.com. This list contains approximately 3,000 - 5,000 websites. To get this is perspective, there are roughly 30 Trillion Websites in the world, with an average of 15 Million being launched every minute, I come back to an earlier question - Who are we kidding here?

Unfortunately ACMA staff do not spend time looking for potentially prohibited content, they decide whether or not particular content will be prohibited after receiving a complaint about it. According to the Ministries own report - link - Between Jan 2000 and June 2005 there were 4263 complaints about websites, leading to 2207 of them being prohibited. So over half of the reports were successful in being prohibited. This included 334 Australian Hosted websites, but over 2900 overseas hosted ones. Now, the Government has jurisdiction over Australian hosted content and can remove it, but overseas content it does not. This brings back the notion that the Internet really is a lawless and free, but dangerous world. So the best they can do is providing filter companies with a small blacklist. So another $7.1 million is being funded for ACMA to investigate reported websites, but really, ~3,000 to 5,000 websites??? - What is the point? It is so minuscule it unbelievable that the Ministry thinks it is worth these Millions. The answer is filters that can analyze content in real-time, which we have already.

Also, regarding the $500,000 to find new ways to deal with illegal content hosted overseas. Well, this again brings up the point about the lawless nature of the internet, as there is ultimately no governing body with jurisdiction over the Internet as a whole - and if something cannot be hosted in one country, it can just move. For example http://thepiratebay.org recently moved from Sweden to be hosted in The Netherlands because it is not illegal there. So ultimately again, what possibly can the government achieve from this money spending? They cannot possibly gain physical jurisdiction in countries say, in Africa, so realistically the only conclusion they could reach is in filtering the content somewhere along the line - which is already being implemented now anyway.

The Filters

The claims that some people have been making that we are turning into China by offering filters is absolute rubbish. China's communist ruler's intention is to block pro-democracy and civil rights of their citizens. Our intent is to protect kids (at guardian discretion) from material which may pose a risk to them. The adult world thinks porn is the big one, but I think more along the lines of how-to-suicide sites such as this - link. The ethical aspects of filtering seem fine if it is done with good intentions and can be handled in a non-invasive way that does not discourage trust and access to good websites.

My general rule is; if your child is mature, respectful, and the computer is in an open space, filtering is not necessary. If your child doesn't comply to all of these, and/or is showing indicators of anxiety etc. with their internet use, you may like to first talk about it with your child, and then implement filtering and logging as a mutual decision - do not do it behind their backs!

On to the money the government is spending on them. $84.4 Million may strike as a lot, but that is hardly the case. The government has not actually spent $1 dollar on it yet. Rather, the money is being spent on a take-up basis, ie. The more people who download the filters, the more money the companies will be given. And to let you know, the $84 Million covers both computer and ISP-based filtering, which will possibly be spent over 3 years.

As a general rule of circumvention, Filters are very effective for kids younger than 12, but as kids get older and more tech-savvy the chances of circumvention are increased. Each year level at school has a few tech-savvy kids that everyone asks for help, and these are the kids that will spread how to get around the filters, along with it being spread by siblings, and a lot of the time on the internet, though some filter companies have said they endeavor to monitor the internet for updates on circumvention, and release filter upgrades accordingly.

The government's policy to implement both computer-based and ISP-based filters is positive, with the computer-based ones being the most configurable, but easiest to circumvent, and the ISP-based ones being a little less configurable, but almost impossible to get around. So in this case a holistic approach should and is being taken, though we are yet to see any ISP-based filter actually be implemented, and will have to wait till next year for the tender and testing processes to be completed. Whilst I'm on this topic I'll express my disappointment for a very narrow policy the Labor party has by just implementing ISP-based filters on the entire Cyber-Safety issue. Though ISP-filters will play a great part of the issue, education, proper awareness raising and services are what will really make a difference, and the Labor Party has no other proposed measures at this point in time.

My Filter Story

After reports aired that it took me less than 1/2 hour to figure out how to bypass the filters, I met with a representative of the Government and three of the filter Vendors at an independent Testlab, to show them how they could be circumvented. The representative from the Government was very welcoming and friendly towards me, as was the companies. They all observed how I did it and learnt from it in a constructive fashion.

I came out happy headed, until Sunday night when I heard Senator Coonan on Seven News virtually say the filters were not compromised and the reports of hacking were completely incorrect. To the average person, this implies my claims were wrong. This is not the case. The Senator is using Semantics, is trying to shift the blame by means of political spin to try and dampen my actions. Let me now respond.

-- Skip to next double-dash if your reading time is limited

Spin 1 - Senator Coonan on the Today Show - "The reports have suggested that the young person hacked into the filters; that's not true." Dear Senator, the reports did not suggest or even mention I hacked the filters, nowhere in The Herald Sun did it even mention the word hack, rather the headline of the report read, and I quote, "It took 16-year-old Tom Wood just 30 Minutes to bypass the Government's $84 Million porn filter." So in this case, the Senator is creating her own scenario of what the report said, and then responding to that... clever politics!

Spin 2 - On the Today Show again - "What in fact happened was that he had some administrator privileges to override the filter." - My privileges were the default Windows Privileges when Windows is installed, which happens to be administrator privileges. Now let me make this clear, this is the DEFAULT circumstance, the basic circumstance when you install Windows, and I surveyed my entire year level at school and everyone had these privileges and they all said their parents would not have a remote clue what they meant anyway. Lets get this in perspective; There is a filter password to administrator the filter, and the filter is installed on Windows. Now, without knowing the filter password I was able to delete an integral component of the filter’s to make them completely ineffective and useless, whilst displaying they are still working. Having limited privileges on Windows is a complication in the process, but that can also be overcome. So really, this shows how well semantics work with the technologically-challenged! - and this being the case, we need to work with Windows Administrator privileges, as I know that filters could be made that my methods of circumvention would not be workable on Windows Administrator, and every kid has that anyway - so we should and can be working within that framework.

Spin 3 – in this media release – link – the Senator says “On the back of the unconfirmed report of recent filter ‘hacking’, the filter providers have responded rapidly and take any report of vulnerability seriously to ensure their filters stay ahead of new threats.” – I tested the new filter added a few days ago and my method of circumvention was successful, and I tested one of the existing filters today infact, and could still bypass it – so much for remaining ahead of the game!

And in final spin, regarding the Senator’s continuous use metaphorical terms such as the “car/seatbelt” analogy regarding filters, saying a computer with a filter is infinitely safer than one without. I say, well if a seatbelt was made out of cotton wool, I’m not quite sure how much safer it would be!

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Overall I am not bothered by the Governments exact wording on how I bypassed the filters, but rather their overall attitude in the public-domain. Rather than a positive, constructive attitude of admittance and improvement, the Government is trying to brush-it-off, and this is most certainly not admirable. No-one is achieving anything from this sort of attitude, rather a 16 year old is left to defend himself in the realm of Federal Politics, what sort of world do we live in when this is the case!
The Awareness Raising

What could have been some fantastic awareness-raising through advertising recently, has been conducted very, very poorly and is really sending a very wrong message that's really not going to help anyone.

Watch one here -

Many ads have been recently aired on radio and television, in newspapers, in cinemas, on buses, trams and at bus stops. The Commercials warn "playing leads to straying", and "talking leads to stalking". It goes as far as to say that over half of 11 to 15 year olds are contacted by strangers online.

I'm going to have to restrain my words here, but in gentle terms, I, and any other sensible teenager will tell you that these statistics are absolute garbage.

So where are they quoting them from? - Well from the department's own research that can be read here - link - and how they are really twisting the statistics can now be understood. In strangers they include 'friends of friends', 'people they have met online that their parents have said are alright to talk to’, and unsolicited forms such as spam emails.

Well let’s relate this to real life - at school you talk to friends of friends, if not you will never meet anyone new. And I'm sure the statistics if observed for what they are, really point a different picture.

And another problem with these very vague and narrow surveys is that the people writing the survey questions are most always adults and people that do not collaborate and know the real problems with kids, so unless you ask kids what they do online and get their word in full form, you’re always going to be out-of-touch.

The biggest problem with the ads though is they don't offer any advice, rather than display some over-the-top content igniting fear.

Further in the Awareness Raising and other measures the government is taking in these issues, a common theme is emerging, that is use things that contain nothing at all that would be of any benefit to anyone. For example, on the every ad that has aired on TV, it ends with, "The Australian Government is serious about protecting your family online." - Let me say now - Seriousness is displayed through actions, not baseless words. And then I am not exactly sure why the displayed URL on the ads is http://australia.gov.au/netalert, rather than the normal http://netalert.gov.au - hmmm... - If this was to be conducted in an effective manner, we would have ads bolstering different practical Internet Safety advice, and also linking to a website. They should also bolster the message of the more relevant concerns of addiction, Cyber-Bullying, and Privacy risks of how quick kids can be tracked down online, and how to stop that etc. etc.

The Booklet

I was at my Aunties house in Queensland two weeks ago, and received a booklet from the department, the booklet aiming to help protect families online. The funny thing is, my aunties kids are almost 40 and live in another city, so why would this be of any relevance to her! - So I assume all households in Australia have received it, regardless if kids exist there or not. I opened it up, and realized the first four pages come again come under my beforehand principal of the use things that contain nothing at all that would be of any benefit to anyone! – Page 3 has a message from the Prime Minister, which shares numerous phrases including the whole first and last paragraphs, albeit edited slightly as was said by Senator Coonan a few weeks earlier on the NetAlert site – link – Page 4 & 5 again contain no advice, but rather quite impressive content on the Howard Government’s huge effort’s into the Cyber-Safety.

The rest of the book is full of technical and out-of-touch errors just as I explain below that the NetAlert website contains. The first page uses the governments SEE analogy which I really do not know where it was sourced from. The first page realistically offers only one practical tip – to keep computer’s in open areas, the rest is wasted on meaningless theoretical text. Just reading the book now I see some errors on page 7 already, in Children under 8 it mentions to use ‘safe zone’ websites… safe zone? – Another thing I haven’t heard of, and if I don’t know what it means, I don’t have high-hopes for parents! – So it doesn’t go onto explain that at all. The only other practical advice on this page is to protect private information, which is good, but then it says that posting on Newsgroups makes your email address public. Well as I explain below, no kids would use Newsgroups of even know what they are. The next page goes onto talking about sex predator’s straight away and about the ridiculous notion that kids so commonly go on ‘chat-rooms’ which I can tell you, is a load of garbage – there would not be one kid in my year level that uses this medium, and many don’t even know what IM means, it’s simply and should be MSN. And then the SEE advice on this page is in such general terms it really wouldn’t help a thing. I don’t want to go into the extent of the ridiculousness of the rest of this booklet; the Glossary is so poor it is not even worth mentioning. The rest is basically taken from the NetAlert website, which as you can read below – is a shambles of a job itself!

The School Outreach Program

The last new measure is an extra $11.7 Million for the 'School Outreach Program'. At first glance this actually sounds as though there is some education for kids involved in this, but sadly departments own website - link - confirms that it only gives, "presentations to parents, teachers and community members" - not a child in sight! - So unfortunately this, as nearly all of the government measures, does not tackle the most important part, effectively educating kids, at all.

The Website

Out of all the measures the governments offering, this could be the best part, but sadly again it falls into the out-of-touch category.

The night it was launched I was so excited, I quickly analyzed half of all the advice on the site, and to my utter dismay I what I found was very sad. Not only is the site technically incorrect in some areas, but so much of the content kids themselves would not understand as it is so irrelevant. The problems with the site are even highlighted by an annoying popup that comes up after clicking every single link on it, try it yourself - link - how annoying is that!

I wrote over 3 pages of on the basis of half of the advice, reporting briefly on errors and missed content. I don’t really want to publish this all here for the chance that its advice may be taken with no credit. Let me provide a few examples about what I mean;

1) Newsgroups - link - Newsgroups? - Ask any average kid you now if they know what this term remotely means... and I can almost offer you assurance that they would never have heard of it. I think this is trying to convey is the word 'Forums', which is technically different. Newsgroups reside on paid UseNet services popular the late 80's - how could they be so out-of-touch? Add this with Newsreaders that it explains on the next page which not even I had heard of! - It then goes on about some different type of Newsgroups such as alt.sex, and I do not know how to even access a Newsgroup - if anyone can comment to this blog on how to, it would be greatly appreciated! Furthermore, if they are trying to talk about forums, then they miss out on sooo much, such as such simple things as how to deal with members who flame or insult you, who to contact (forum admins) etc. etc. etc.

2) P2P - link - again, most kids would not have heard of such things, it is usually portrayed as 'downloading music' and usually with a program like Limewire. Then to the 'how to keep safe' section, it doesn't even mention the two most realistic steps of - 'turning off uploading' as all it does is increase risk of illegal action, and to look for ridiculously small or large file sizes as signs of fake virus infected files.

3) Security - link - This is a fine example of how it talks about all the wrong things. The categories of Trojans, Worms, Cookies and Secure Websites are totally irrelevant and 2 of them should under the banner of viruses. It should rather be in order, Spyware/Adware, Virus, Firewall, Phishing - and in each one explain it, the software or actions you need to handle it, and to keep things up-to-date etc. - sticking to the concrete and relevant point, not a random mis-match of irrelevant information.

Now, I don't want to bore you by writing hundreds of faults, but from these hopefully you can gain a glimpse of how out-of-touch and irrelevant this site really is. And you're probably about to explode with annoyance due to all the popups! - This is another fine example of why we need collaboration with all parties, with input from all to make sure everything is covered in the most full, realistically relevant and practical manner.

Cybersafe Schools

A part of the existing NetAlert initiative is a ‘Cybersafe Schools’ program. This program aims to ‘help teachers empower students on safe use of the Internet.’ It includes what is deemed to be advice for kids that is, “relevant, effective and created specifically for their level of education”. It includes a system deployed in 3 phrases, a teacher Professional Development Phase, a Primary School education tool and a Secondary school one.

Now, the teacher’s Pro Dev. Begins with a very vague wall chart – link – describing in General terms what outcomes students must have by the end. It tells teachers what needs to be done, but most teachers have hardly a clue about the Internet and what kids are really doing on it these days, and this doesn’t explain anything in a practical manner at all really rendering it useless. The next step is this ‘quick reference guide’ – link – which follows the same principals as wall chart I just described. The main and most practical measure is the next step, a ‘teachers guide to Internet Safety’ – link – which actually describes some of the things kids do online, and then in the ‘managing the risks’ section it goes onto say the risks associated with some of these, but no actual advice on managing them!, rather telling the teachers to visit and read more on the NetAlert website! The ‘teaching strategies for Internet Safety’ section goes on and we finally get some practical things through such as telling teachers to, “show students how to distinguish online from offline content” – followed by other related links. Well from a common fact that most kids know more about computers than most adults, I doubt teacher’s would even understand how to distinguish offline from online content and I do not see how at all relevant it would be. Some better advice is displayed downward such as “Explain the dangers of posting identity information.” – Again, it tells teachers to explain something, but doesn’t tell them what it is! Furthermore this guide was written in 2004 – since that time so many new problems have emerged, and things like Social Networking and Computer Addiction isn’t even mentioned – because now-essential sites such as MySpace and YouTube weren’t even around then! So this really is an outdated and not all-that-helpful and relevant teacher PD.

So onto Primary School Resources, the entire resources for all Primary years is a flash game called Netty’s World, which I think would work for the younger years but would be seen as boring by the older years.

Checking the Secondary resources page – link - I was greeted with the text, “It is intended that resources for secondary schools be developed in Phase Three of the CyberSafe Schools program. This phase is scheduled for product release in 2006.” – Umm… well it is now less than 3 months till 2008! Well anyway, I dived a bit deeper and found two things that could possibly be used for Education in Secondary Schools. It is a flash game called CyberNetrix. – link – With great respect for the designers of this game, as I’m sure they mean the best for my peers, I showed this game to some friends at school and it was non-stop laughter, it just appeared that corny to everyone. The themes, music and characters seem like a ‘cool’ teenage stereotype of the late 80’s, and being realistic, kids just turn off and laugh at this stuff. I also found a plain website called ‘Wise up to IT’ – link – which was quite impressive. It contained for case studies, but overall after watching them all I wouldn’t say it was that great. The scenario’s are just so obviously fake because it’s too over-the-top to what would realistically happen; though hearing the words out of these young people’s mouth may gain a bit of attention as they can connect and talk about technology at the same level as kids do.

So that’s it of the education! – Some very vague and not fantastically helpful material for teachers, a flash game for primary kids and a very corny one for secondary kids, with an interesting site at the end. I don’t think it is adequate to promote this as “created specifically for their level of education” unless you’re happy with separating the entire spectrum of 6 – 18 year olds into 2 levels. What I learn from this is if we really want to do something with a good deal of effectiveness, we will have to make sure the age specific groups are much smaller, it will need to be updated rigorously as technology changes pace so quickly, it must not be corny, rather be spoken in a way that will interactively engage kids with a self-interest to protect themselves. And I don’t think it’s even bother trying to rush teacher-training in depth, as it is just so complex and a world they don’t live in, so rather there could be some more practical tips and video’s supplied to them with the advice attached they could play to kids. A lot better than this obviously can be done.

The Hotline

According to my past experiences with the phone Hotline, the people manning it were just lovely, really nice and I'm sure they understand what the problems are because they are tackling them first hand. Though there was a few days delay in getting some practical help, and that could have had some disastrous consequences, so maybe some more training for the operators could take place in the simple advice steps, to reduce a bit of the bureaucracy involved.

I would love to see what I've been pushing for that I think would be more effective, on the medium that kids shine on, a manned Internet Advice Chat line on the NetAlert site, that gives kids the ease of anonymity and confidentiality, a basis to exchange links quickly instead of verbally giving them, which can be a bit slow, and due to this will give the operator a better understanding of say, if something derogatory was posted on a website they could actually read it, and assist in the process of actually getting the offending material removed etc. From personal experience I can tell when you are in a situation like this, telling my parents it's alright would not have helped, but doing something like this, getting positive reassurance would have made me feel so much better and relieved a lot physiological pressure I was dealing with.

Discussion

I emailed both Liberal and Labor Senator’s in the week following my attention in the media, asking for some changes to occur and if they would be willing to work with people who are native to Cyberia, such as myself. I did this to make sure I was completely impartial and kept my priorities right in the league of implementing the most effective Cyber-Safety measures in Australia. At this point I have not received responses from either. I would really love to work with either party's and people/organizations on these issues.

Please remember my next statement as it is pinnacle to this all, - "If you tackle these problems in manner that ignites a self-interest in kids to protect themselves, then that will be more effective than any other possible measure." - Nothing in any of the measures the government is taking will have this effect. So down to my fundamental hope – that some COMPULSARY education will be implemented in a fashion that will engage self-interest in kids to act. I have written entire curriculums of practical advice for kids which will engage self-interest in them as I also showcase examples of how quickly I could for example, track them down, or how easy it is to get rid of spyware and have peace of mind about computer security – if they want it themselves, they would listen and act. If something like that was advertised on TV, and put in every classroom – boy what a change there would be!

Conclusion

A few months ago my favorite TV show, Lateline, interviewed a person I idolize very much, that is aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, and he said, "it's an absolutely shameful hour that has descended on us, [an] absolutely shameful hour where even an emergency intervention to protect the safety of our children is hindered, hindered by people who supposedly have good will for Aboriginal people and in fact, those people are willing [to have] the protection and succour for Aboriginal children to fail."

I want to make sure that I am not one of these people who supposedly have good-will for Australian kids and their online safety, but am willing to have the NetAlert measures fail. What needs to be understood is without drastic changes to the way the government is spending this $189 Million, and changes to Labor's proposed plans for these issues; NetAlert will never succeed in an effective manner anyway. I have hope that Australia will one day be at the forefront of Cyber-Safety, but unfortunately at the moment it most certainly is not. I don’t want this post to come out as a negative, but offer a motive for something constructive.

We need to start the conversation, open our minds, and get some changes for the positive happening.

For whom may be reading;

Kids - tell your parents that these ads on TV are way out-of-touch, send letters to the media about any bad issues you may have relating to Cyber-Safety in chance that they will report.

Parents - Ask your kids what they think about the TV ads, ask them how many contacts they have on MSN, ask what the real dangers are. Talk to teachers at school about it; ask if the school has had any problems with Cyber-Safety. Send letters to your paper about these issues, your thoughts on government measures, and letters about related stories. Make sure the Media knows what a hot election topic this is with so many related events airing in the last year.

To the Media – I would love for you contact me if you are interested in speaking to me, or re-publish anything on this blog, but please email me and ask my permission beforehand.

Government - Listen to the people who knows these problems first hand, re-channel this money, start a series of conferences with all parties involved, get a board of Youth Advisors and implement some real and effective COMPULSORY education. Get REALSITIC, RELEVANT and EFFECTIVE about this. Maybe even get some mature tech-savvy kids to write the advice themselves to make sure it is in-touch!

And a message to everyone reading this, and the quiet observer - don't sit back there, send this blog to your friends, email it around, and even write other blogs about it! Please take the opportunity to contact the government explaining your thoughts on anything relating to Cyber-Safety in Australia - and lets push for some changes for the positive.

As Senator Coonan as expressed, "There is no doubt that Australia now leads the world in online safety."

I pose this final question to you…

Still No Doubt?

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Please feel welcome to comment on this blog or email me at tomwoodpublic@gmail.com

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Related Further Reading

Brisbane Times Article - link

The Age Article - link

IT Wire Article - link

Michael Carr-Gregg’s Article (Scroll to bottom) - link

Sydney Morning Herald Article - link

The Australian Article - link

ABC Online Article - link

Herald Sun (Australia’s Biggest Newspaper) Editorial - link