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About
Children
Online
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Children Online offers
innovative and comprehensive workshops on Internet
safety and online education to students, parents,
faculty and administrators. Our approach,
unique in the field of Internet safety, combines a
thorough understanding of Internet technologies, child
development and counseling, to focus on the impact of
the internet on the social, emotional and language
development of young people.
Doug Fodeman and Marje
Monroe, experts in technology, counseling and education,
work together to provide invaluable research and tools
for parents and schools with practical real-life
solutions to the issues faced by young people
online. Since 1997, Marje and Doug have spoken to
thousands of students, teachers and parents.
They have several publications in the area of Internet
safety and offer a free online newsletter. More
detailed information can be found at
ChildrenOnline.org.
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Book for
Parents:
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32nd
Edition of the Children Online Newsletter.
In last month's
newsletter we addressed the primary reasons why kids are
motivated to use the Internet. This month we
follow up with a look at why kids are so easily
scammed.
Scams are perpetrated against
children and teens in nearly every popular online venue.
Club Penguin, Runescape, kids gaming sites and,
especially, social networks, like Facebook and MySpace,
have all been used to target children and teens.
Scammers also utilize popular tools such as Twitter,
instant messaging and cell phones. Cell phone
scams even have their own name called "cramming."
(Google the words: cramming phone bills) Even newly
popular games such as Facebook's Farmville are used to
scam kids via manipulative and dishonest
advertisements.
Children and teens, more
than ever, need to be better educated how to recognize
and avoid scams, and to understand how their own
behavior is manipulated by these clever social
engineers.
As always, we welcome your
comments and suggestions. Our telephone number for
Children Online is 413-214-1225.
Best
wishes,
Marje
Monroe and Doug Fodeman
Contact Marje or Doug via
email at marjem@childrenonline.org or
dougf@childrenonline.org for information about our
programs or consulting services.
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Why Kids Can't Avoid a Good
Scam
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Whenever we conduct
workshops with children and teens, regardless of age, we
show them a variety of scams they are likely to have
seen based on their age and Internet experiences.
The best scams have most, if not all, of the following
characteristics in common:
1. The scam is very
attractive.
The graphics or photos employed
are very pleasing to kids (and adults). They may
contain cartoon characters, moving graphics,
kid-friendly colors, "edgy" words or phrases or the
suggestion/hint of being "edgy" (e.g. connecting to
something potentially pornographic or
violent).
Look at these images of various
scams taken from kids gaming
sites:
1-PuffgamesEvonyAd1
1-PuffgamesEvonyAd2
2-WinnerAd
2-WhatHaveIWon
3-LoveCalculator
4-CursorManiaAd
5-GamevanceAd
5-GamevanceAd2
The first two,
found at PuffGames, give the impression that anyone
signing up to play the role-playing game Evony will
likely experience more scantily-clad women. Online
bloggers speaking about this shameful advertising tactic
have stated that the game actually doesn't contain any
graphics or game-play that could be considered indecent
or pornographic. The ad, of course, suggests
otherwise. The second group of ads tells the
viewer they have won a prize. Notice that the ad
guaranteeing 5 free ringtones or $5000 contains a timer
indicating the time remaining to enter the
contest. However, once it counts down to zero, it
simply restarts and counts down again. In each of these
cases the user is asked to give up personal
information. The ringtone ad leads to a second
screen that asks for a lot of personal information,
including mother's maiden name. The Love Calculator ad
puts the fine print in a color that is difficult to
read. Most kids won't read the fine print anyway,
nor notice the charges at the top of the ad that will
appear on their parents' cell phone bills. The
last set of ads, from CursorMania and GameVance, can
actually lead to the installation of adware on the
user's computer. These ads are playful and two of
them are even game-like themselves in order to entice
and engage the viewer.
2. The scam employs an old
fashioned "slight of hand" to distract the
visitor/viewer from things that should make them
suspicious.
The above ad with the timer
counting down is a perfect example of this
distraction. The timer is intended to make the
viewer feel rushed into making a decision, to act
impulsively, which kids are developmentally and
neurologically wired to do anyway (more on that
later). Another example of distraction is this
scam taken from a Facebook ad recently that promises a
free
MacBook Air computer. Whenever we ask teens to
look
carefully at the full ad and identify something
suspicious in the ad, most are able to figure it
out. First is the fine print "Free with reward
offer purchases." The Better Business Bureau group that
exposed this scam noted that participants were required
to purchase at least $2,500 in other goods and services
before coming close to owning a laptop. Second,
Apple has never produced a MacBook Air in any other
color but silver.
3. The scam makes an effort to
connect personally and/or emotionally with the viewer
and thereby manipulate their behavior.
This form of "social engineering" is often
used by malware writers to manipulate viewers into
installing malware or paying for goods/services they
really don't need. This category of scam includes
email scams that many of us receive, such as fake
notices from UPS or DHL about packages that can't be
delivered (so please download the attached form to
schedule delivery), or "click the link to see Angelina
Jolie naked", or click the comments posted under a
YouTube video saying "lol. Nice vid. Check mine out
at.....". They are just tricks to manipulate us
into downloading the attachment, clicking the link or
visiting a website which results in a computer
infection. Check out this friend request from Emily on
Facebook. Thousands of these are routinely
sent out. This one was disseminated across Facebook with
the same photo used with, at least, three different
names. In each case the link led to
extortion-ware. The visitor receives a popup
notifying them that their computer contains multiple
viruses. The visitor is further told that software
can be purchased to remove the viruses. Sadly, the
software actually installs malware once purchased to
remove the non-existent viruses. Perhaps the most
effective scam we have ever found to manipulate the
behavior of teens was this Facebook scam that appeared in the Fall
of 2007 and tricked thousands of teens into
infecting their computers with malware and giving up
their login credentials to personal accounts such as
Facebook. Facebook account holders were told told by a
"friend" (who's account was hacked into) that "OMG,
there are these pictures of you on this website!
You better check them out"! The trick made the recipient
feel that the photos were personal and possibly
embarrassing.
Reasons why children and teens
are vulnerable to scams:
a) Poor decision-making
skills: Kids have difficulty making good
decisions. That is, in fact, part of growing
up. As they grow up and mature they learn how to
make better decisions. They learn, for example,
how to delay decisions that may be more self-gratifying
for decisions that may be healthier, the "right thing to
do", or that postpone gratification. Neurologists
have understood this for some time now. Generally
speaking, brain maturation occurs back to front.
The frontal lobe of the brain is the last portion of the
brain to mature. Yet the frontal lobe is the seat
of higher-order thinking, critical analysis and
decision-making skills. The frontal lobe doesn't
fully mature, on average, until we are in our
twenties.
b)
Impulsiveness: Any parent can tell you that kids
are impulsive. They act without thinking ahead
about the possible consequences of their actions or the
impact of their decisions.
c) Too trusting: Kids
tend to be very trusting of others on the
Internet. Though they routinely lie online, they
often believe what others say to them. This is, in
part, because they want to connect to others so
much. This is especially true of
teens.
d)
Naivety: While kids may be extremely savvy HOW to
use the Internet and technology, it doesn't mean they
can easily recognize scams, subterfuge and
manipulation. They are still, after all, children
of various developmental levels of
maturity.
Adults need to help kids think
critically about what they read and see online.
Schools should consider incorporating age-appropriate
education around these and related topics such as media
influences in their life. Their world, and ours, is
changing. It is our obligation as parents and
educators to help prepare them for life in the virtual
world.
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INTERNET
SAFETY CURRICULUM
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Safe Practices for
Life Online
Children Online has a
curriculum on Internet Safety that includes nearly 100
student exercises and lots of information on many topics
including social networks, instant messaging,
cyberbullying, online marketing, scams directed at kids,
protecting privacy online, avoiding identity theft and
impersonation, creating strong passwords and
more.
 There is also a student
edition which includes cartoons and "Did you know"
sections of interesting facts for students.
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© Children Online 2009
Doug
Fodeman & Marje Monroe.
For permission to reprint
please contact
DougF@ChildrenOnline.org
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