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It wouldn't effect anyone who has decent parents, or, failing that, knows what jailbreaking is.

decent parents != not using this technology.

Also no matter how good the parent is. They can not control the incoming txt messages.
 
oh so true.

The ones that seems the most up in arms about it are the ones who it would directly effect. The older people and more importantly the ones who have kids or want kids seem to understand this. Big time if they have teenagers. They know it is impossible to watch over them at all times. We live in a world were communcation is much harder to keep track of.

Back 20 years ago we did not have email. We did txt messaging. Cell phone just started hitting the consumer sector and were the size and weight of a brick.

So basically all form of communication between kids for the most part was monitored any how. If you were on the phone at home a parent could easily pick up the phone or hear one side of the convocation and easily put limits on when the phone call would end.

Now days kids have cell phone can easily quickly send pictures to eachother and text message. No real way for them to intercepted like in the passed.

What an absolutely meaningless statement. Here's my counter: the ones who seem to support this the most are the parents.

See, it means nothing.

I'm really tired of arguing with backward people who somehow think that swearing is unacceptable for teenagers or that spying on their kids' every move isn't going to hurt them psychologically. With the way you're dramatizing the hardships of raising a teenager in this modern world of all this technology that *gasp* give your children some autonomy to lead their own social lives and personal independence, it would seem that there are greater troubles than preventing your teen from texting the f word to his or her friend. Or even a sexually explicit sentence. But evidently, there are not.

Especially considering what you yourself pointed out: children having cellphones gives you the ability to constantly be in contact with them in case they ever get into trouble or lost. So, since that actual, legitimate worry has been solved, are you just simply running out of things to worry about that you decide to focus on obsessing over what words come out of your child's mouth (or in this case, thumbs)?

decent parents != not using this technology.

Also no matter how good the parent is. They can not control the incoming txt messages.

Oh. By your logic, your teenager should not cross the street by his or herself, because there's no way to control whether or not a car is going to hit him or her.

And no eating out in restaurants, because who knows, the food might not be clean!!! Theres no way to tell!
 
This is a good idea to prevent sexting. Send kids back to the time when they passed dirty pictures from desk to desk, old school style.
 
Any decent parent would respect their child's privacy.



Good, parents shouldn't be able to control any part of their personal communications.


Safe to assume you are in what HS.

Parents kids do not get the same privacy as an adult. End of story.
It comes down to trust. If the kid has done nothing to warent miss trust then non issue really. Like I said most I would do is spot check them. Assuming they have done no wrong that is all that will be there and that is the end of it. Now in one of those spot checks I catch something that I shouldn't damn skimpy they will be watch like a hawk. They broke my trust and therefor lost all right to their privacy.

Like I said the my future kids will have a cell phone but at the same time they will know that I can pick it up at any moment in time.

As for the limiting factors like this things that are acceptably to be on the phone vary with age. A 16 year old will have a lot more room than a 12 year old.

Like I said before go back 20 years. We did not have cell phones. Almost all personal communication between kids was more or less monitor. They were either with the other kid and most parents would who their kid was with or were at home and had to use the home phone which low and behold easily monitored. 1/2 of the conversation could always be heard and if they wanted to hear the other 1/2 just pick up the line. That or it gets pick up to tell the kid go to bed.

In all the both things are mostly spot check. in that phone part if the parent does not hear anything that warrants more attention they leave it alone. If lets say they hear something come out of their kids mouth they shouldn't more attention will be put into it.

It not like you go digging. Just the head lines gives you enough info for a spot check.
 
Reality Check

This tech is created solely for the purpose of encouraging more parents to buy the iPhone. anti-sexting tech will become obsolete the day it is released as kids will just invent new net-speak to get around it.

Good marketing move on Apple's part, though. They could even license it to other manufacturers.
 
Parents kids do not get the same privacy as an adult. End of story.
It comes down to trust. If the kid has done nothing to warent miss trust then non issue really. Like I said most I would do is spot check them. Assuming they have done no wrong that is all that will be there and that is the end of it. Now in one of those spot checks I catch something that I shouldn't damn skimpy they will be watch like a hawk. They broke my trust and therefor lost all right to their privacy.

If you were my parent, you'd never even be able to pick my phone up and have a look. 256bit AES encryption works quite well ;)

But anyway, even with that aside, I think that's nothing but a less extreme version of what is in principle bad parenting.

Like I said the my future kids will have a cell phone but at the same time they will know that I can pick it up at any moment in time.

See above.

As for the limiting factors like this things that are acceptably to be on the phone vary with age. A 16 year old will have a lot more room than a 12 year old.

Why not just educate your kids then give them all the same level of freedom?

Like I said before go back 20 years. We did not have cell phones. Almost all personal communication between kids was more or less monitor. They were either with the other kid and most parents would who their kid was with or were at home and had to use the home phone which low and behold easily monitored. 1/2 of the conversation could always be heard and if they wanted to hear the other 1/2 just pick up the line. That or it gets pick up to tell the kid go to bed.

To answer that, I'll point you to this post right here...

Send kids back to the time when they passed dirty pictures from desk to desk, old school style.

As I said on the last page, this "sexting" thing the media's only just decided to pick up on has been going on for longer than either of us has been alive, let alone it outliving iPhones, MMS, and e-mail.

more spot checking rubbish, blah blah

See above.

This tech is created solely for the purpose of encouraging more parents to buy the iPhone. anti-sexting tech will become obsolete the day it is released as kids will just invent new net-speak to get around it.

Exactly.

Good marketing move on Apple's part, though. They could even license it to other manufacturers.

Why would other manufacturers use it? If the iPhone starts to become unpopular with teenagers as a result of this, they'll start buying phones made by other manufacturers, and their sales will increase as a direct result of them not implementing censorship software into their phones.
 
If you were my parent, you'd never even be able to pick my phone up and have a look. 256bit AES encryption works quite well ;)

But anyway, even with that aside, I think that's nothing but a less extreme version of what is in principle bad parenting.



See above.

Kids are not little adults. You seem to have some reasoning that they are.

Also if you were my kid and tried the encryption stuff you could say bye bye to your cell phone. Sorry you do not get the same rights as an parents. You would be under my protection and my rules. Cell phone is given to you knowing that I have the right to look at it and spot check it. Chance are the spot checks would be looking at the pop up when some random message comes in and maybe one or 2 times glance threw a convo but chances are if none of those get my attention that would be the end of it. It would need to warrant farther investigation for me to go deeper.

Digging to deep you risk breaking the kids trust so it just that spot checking and knowing that I can do it.


Why not just educate your kids then give them all the same level of freedom?

Umm because there is a huge difference in a kids ability to reason as they get older compared to younger. A 12 year old does not have the ablity to reason as a 16 year old nor what is acceptable for a 16 year old is not what is acceptable for a 12 year old.



As I said on the last page, this "sexting" thing the media's only just decided to pick up on has been going on for longer than either of us has been alive, let alone it outliving iPhones, MMS, and e-mail.


See above.

Odds of those things being caught much much higher. Once caught parents informed.
 
Any decent parent would respect their child's privacy.



Good, parents shouldn't be able to control any part of their personal communications.

Until kids are paying the rent, mortgage, food, gas and electric, clothes and house bills they don't have a right to any privacy, period.
 
Kids are not little adults. You seem to have some reasoning that they are.

Kids are people and need to learn independence and need to feel trusted by their parents, too.

Also if you were my kid and tried the encryption stuff you could say bye bye to your cell phone. Sorry you do not get the same rights as an parents. You would be under my protection and my rules. Cell phone is given to you knowing that I have the right to look at it and spot check it. Chance are the spot checks would be looking at the pop up when some random message comes in and maybe one or 2 times glance threw a convo but chances are if none of those get my attention that would be the end of it. It would need to warrant farther investigation for me to go deeper.

I like how you assume my phone would have to be given to me. What if I get the phone myself?

I'd rather have no phone than a phone which is checked on. Communication should be private.

Umm because there is a huge difference in a kids ability to reason as they get older compared to younger. A 12 year old does not have the ablity to reason as a 16 year old nor what is acceptable for a 16 year old is not what is acceptable for a 12 year old.

I don't think I even disputed this, I simply think that educating kids - while taking their age into consideration, of course - is a lot more effective than monitoring their communications.

Until kids are paying the rent, mortgage, food, gas and electric, clothes and house bills they don't have a right to any privacy, period.

So no human rights until you cough up some cash? Or are kids not humans? :rolleyes:
 
Kids are not little adults. You seem to have some reasoning that they are.

Also if you were my kid and tried the encryption stuff you could say bye bye to your cell phone. Sorry you do not get the same rights as an parents. You would be under my protection and my rules. Cell phone is given to you knowing that I have the right to look at it and spot check it. Chance are the spot checks would be looking at the pop up when some random message comes in and maybe one or 2 times glance threw a convo but chances are if none of those get my attention that would be the end of it. It would need to warrant farther investigation for me to go deeper.

Digging to deep you risk breaking the kids trust so it just that spot checking and knowing that I can do it.




Umm because there is a huge difference in a kids ability to reason as they get older compared to younger. A 12 year old does not have the ablity to reason as a 16 year old nor what is acceptable for a 16 year old is not what is acceptable for a 12 year old.





Odds of those things being caught much much higher. Once caught parents informed.

Until kids are paying the rent, mortgage, food, gas and electric, clothes and house bills they don't have a right to any privacy, period.

OMFG! Honestly if one of you guys were my parents I'd just sleep in your place and look that I spent most of my daytime out of your control. I'd be crazy lending my friends' mobiles to text with my gf. You guys with your draconian attitude (i.e. I make the rules, these are my rules and you just **** and obey your master!) are a child's nightmare.

And for the record - 34 yr old - studied veterinarian - planning to have children and let them grow up in a happy open relationship with their parents.
 
A chicken farmer caught up at market texts his wife about one of his birds that is sick

"Will you rub that lotion on my prize cock?"
 
Kids are people and need to learn independence and need to feel trusted by their parents, too.

Independence and privacy are 2 very different things. You seem to think that the right to privacy means parents should not have a clue what is going on.
And parents that see a message every now and thing over bearing.


I like how you assume my phone would have to be given to me. What if I get the phone myself?

I'd rather have no phone than a phone which is checked on. Communication should be private.

You can not do that until you are 18. You can not sign a contract until then.



I don't think I even disputed this, I simply think that educating kids - while taking their age into consideration, of course - is a lot more effective than monitoring their communications.

You still do not get it.
I would be like my parents and that is I would not look very closely at any of the communication respecting my kids privacy. But at the same time it would be a known fact that I would have access to it. The extent of my knowledge out side of what the kid tells me would be bit and piece of a convocation I over hear.
Or if their phone gets a text message and it is on lets say the table or close to me I might look at the pop up. Again more or less the same as over hearing it.

And maybe one or 2 times pick up the phone if left around and glance threw the text messages.

Now none of that is huge amount of digging into their privacy. And providing none of the above get my attention that would be the end of it. Now if I saw sexting in any of it or something else yes I would dig deeper.
 
Any decent parent would respect their child's privacy.

Good, parents shouldn't be able to control any part of their personal communications.

Care to substantiate any of that? Seems to me a good parents knows what's going on with their children, monitors their behavior, and reacts accordingly. No child has a right to privacy from their parents. Yes, it's wise to give children room to grow and an increasing amount of privacy as they get older, but most teenagers need no more privacy than the chance to go hang out with friends without their parents hovering over them. A parent checking the kid's computer or phone for inappropriate content on an occasional basis is not an invasion of privacy.

I'm 25, btw, recent college grad, married but no children (and as far as I can remember, my views on this subject haven't changed since I was a teen). When I have kids, I plan on getting them their first cell phone when they at 10-13, depending on the kid probably other factors. No kid needs one younger than that. If they have their own computer younger than that (only if necessary, depending on school situation), it will not be in their room, but in the family room or a school room if we have one, and it will face the room, not turned away so that no one can see the screen. Will I be constantly watching it? Nope. I won't have the time, I can assure you. I want them to know that I could, however. If they show that they are trustworthy, by the time they are in their teen years, I'll depend on being able to ask them to show me what's on their computer or phone, instead of sneaking a look. Never would I want to be spying on my kids without their knowledge. That said, they will know that I have the right to ask them to see what's on their computer or phone, and that if they refuse, it will be taken away from them and inspected.

I love how so many kids (either in age or maturity) think that other kids should be trusted without exception to be mature and responsible on their own. Guess what, it's a growing process, not a bill of rights. I will educate my children to do the right thing, and I certainly hope that I do a good enough job that I don't have to worry about them when they grow older (and by that I even mean during their teenage years). I'm not going to assume that they will learn it in a day and then just hand over the reigns and let them do whatever. Good parents stick by their children, for good and bad, supervising and guiding them, letting them gain their independence at a good rate. Shoving them out of the nest and letting them fly on their own is only appropriate after we've taught them what we can and they are old enough and mature enough to handle things on their own. Yes, they can make mistakes, and that's good. We shouldn't try to protect children from ever having the chance to make mistakes. We also shouldn't be just expecting them to learn from their mistakes all on their own. Otherwise, what's the point of having parents except to give you money?

jW
 
OMFG! Honestly if one of you guys were my parents I'd just sleep in your place and look that I spent most of my daytime out of your control. I'd be crazy lending my friends' mobiles to text with my gf. You guys with your draconian attitude (i.e. I make the rules, these are my rules and you just **** and obey your master!) are a child's nightmare.

And for the record - 34 yr old - studied veterinarian - planning to have children and let them grow up in a happy open relationship with their parents.

<edit> Woha. Since when is the abbreviation for Shut The F$*K Up in your filter algorithm?</edit>

This.

Independence and privacy are 2 very different things. You seem to think that the right to privacy means parents should not have a clue what is going on.
And parents that see a message every now and thing over bearing.

How can you be independent if you have someone peeking over your shoulder at all your communication?

You can not do that until you are 18. You can not sign a contract until then.

Alright, let's clear a few things up at this. I am 16 years old. I have a BlackBerry and an iPhone, I paid to buy both of them and I pay the bills for both, too. They are on PAYG - no contract. I make most of my money from a business I run with some friends at college.

Care to explain to me why I do not deserve some basic privacy? I'm very glad my parents aren't as draconian as you.

As for "sexting"... Well, I don't do it, but 16 is the age of consent here anyway, so to be frank, if I wanted to send some dirty messages I don't see why I shouldn't be able to at an age where I can legally get married and have a family.

...

Now none of that is huge amount of digging into their privacy. And providing none of the above get my attention that would be the end of it. Now if I saw sexting in any of it or something else yes I would dig deeper.

As I said, it's a lot less extreme than the measures others have been talking about, but there are still problems with it. You may get a little piece of mind but at what cost? I imagine your kids will get paranoid with every message they get while they're at home.


See above for my thoughts on that.
 
A Patent That Should Have Never Been Issued

This shows that the USPTO has no clue.
COntent filtering exists for email and for web content.
It is obvious to anyone in the field that you can filter text.
This is an idea, which by nature should not be patentable.
On the other hand their specific implementation and how they filter could be, provided it is somehow unique.

The simple idea of filtering SMS/MMS is an obvious work.
 
Care to substantiate any of that? Seems to me a good parents knows what's going on with their children, monitors their behavior, and reacts accordingly. No child has a right to privacy from their parents. Yes, it's wise to give children room to grow and an increasing amount of privacy as they get older, but most teenagers need no more privacy than the chance to go hang out with friends without their parents hovering over them. A parent checking the kid's computer or phone for inappropriate content on an occasional basis is not an invasion of privacy.

jW

I agree to the rest of your post whole-heartedly. But one thing is for sure - you basically had little contact to kids and don't remember your childhood. Let me tell you - every child not only has a right to privacy but they also execute it.

If a child grabs Socks the little cat and goes up to his/her room they in all due respect will share a secret. Socks knows and he won't tell the parents that e.g. the child wants to kiss XYZ or has been swimming naked with XYZ - you know - all that stuff.

And that's why I think this discussion is rather hypocritical. I have no right to monitor every conversation my child performs. The only right I have is to talk with them, when parent XYZ tells me that my child is responsible for the use of dirty language/dirty deeds with their child. And that's it. Period.

And basically we should maybe talk about the justification of giving minors mobiles in the first place...
 
As I said, it's a lot less extreme than the measures others have been talking about, but there are still problems with it. You may get a little piece of mind but at what cost? I imagine your kids will get paranoid with every message they get while they're at home.

And if they were you can sure bet that would raise a huge a flags and chances are would warrant more digging.
If a phone call comes in and let say they are talking to BF/GF. I would not be pay much attention to the convocation I was hearing from my kid. Just bits I over hear unless something gets my attention.
For example:
"hi........ you too..... Date Saturday..... ...7:00... "
None of that would get my attention.

But change that to

"hi.... love ... to... sex with.... Saturday..... ...7:00."


The 2nd one would sure as hell get my attention and cause me to dig a hell of a lot more.
That just an example. Now I would look into it and it could be they were talking about a TV show. In that case matter is dropped. Question that is raised was answer. but at the same time it was enough to get my attention.

Noticed none of that was huge digging just bits and piece I saw/read.

Trick to being a parent is to not invade to deeply but look for things that warrant investigating farther.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; sv-se) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Rodimus Prime said:
If you were my parent, you'd never even be able to pick my phone up and have a look. 256bit AES encryption works quite well ;)

But anyway, even with that aside, I think that's nothing but a less extreme version of what is in principle bad parenting.



See above.

Kids are not little adults. You seem to have some reasoning that they are.

Also if you were my kid and tried the encryption stuff you could say bye bye to your cell phone. Sorry you do not get the same rights as an parents. You would be under my protection and my rules. Cell phone is given to you knowing that I have the right to look at it and spot check it. Chance are the spot checks would be looking at the pop up when some random message comes in and maybe one or 2 times glance threw a convo but chances are if none of those get my attention that would be the end of it. It would need to warrant farther investigation for me to go deeper.

Digging to deep you risk breaking the kids trust so it just that spot checking and knowing that I can do it.


Why not just educate your kids then give them all the same level of freedom?

Umm because there is a huge difference in a kids ability to reason as they get older compared to younger. A 12 year old does not have the ablity to reason as a 16 year old nor what is acceptable for a 16 year old is not what is acceptable for a 12 year old.



As I said on the last page, this "sexting" thing the media's only just decided to pick up on has been going on for longer than either of us has been alive, let alone it outliving iPhones, MMS, and e-mail.


See above.

Odds of those things being caught much much higher. Once caught parents informed.

Would you also, if it was convenient, attatch a microphone to your kid so you could monitor their conversations in real life as well? If not, how is a cellohone different?
 
So no human rights until you cough up some cash? Or are kids not humans? :rolleyes:

In the eyes of the law (at least in the U.S) you are a minor until you are age 18 and you under 18 you don't have any rights nor do you have any say so don't try that argument here buddy, it ain't working. I just love how kids (especially the ones on here) try to tout independence but are still living at home while their parents are out working to bring food home and keep them in a warm home and paying to wash their kids clothes, paying for their kids UNNECESSARY wants like a texting plan for a cell phone that don't need.

You want independence? You want to swear when you see fit? You want the control to flaunt sex and porn over your cell phone? Get the hell out of your parents home and start paying to live as your parents do for you. You have no rights as kid to tout independence but have your parents pay for your living expenses. :p
 
I agree to the rest of your post whole-heartedly. But one thing is for sure - you basically had little contact to kids and don't remember your childhood. Let me tell you - every child not only has a right to privacy but they also execute it.

[removed overly harsh text] (Sorry if you saw that, I overreacted, and I retract this section of my remarks if you did see it.)

My little sister is 16. I work with youth all the time, and talk directly with them about these exact issues. The only times I've ever heard a kid complain about their parent checking on their phone or computer was in the context of them having been caught doing something they shouldn't and getting punished for said deed (some parents did the right thing and included good instruction along with punishment, some did not, but since these weren't my kids, I didn't have a part in that obviously).

I also grew up in a family with 6 kids, and my parents basically tried out different parenting styles with various sets of them. In my case, I was left alone almost completely, only getting my parents attention when my actions were harmful to another family member. I really wish they had spent more time monitoring my computer usage, because I did things I regret and I am having a hard time breaking some habits that I developed then. My little brother received more attention after a while, and has not hit those same problems (he's now 19, and while he had his own rough patches, he doesn't have the same type of lasting problems in that area as I do).

I know this is essentially anecdotal, but I have a fair amount of basis for what I say here, as you can see. So I'm not really clueless in this regard.

If a child grabs Socks the little cat and goes up to his/her room they in all due respect will share a secret. Socks knows and he won't tell the parents that e.g. the child wants to kiss XYZ or has been swimming naked with XYZ - you know - all that stuff.

And that's why I think this discussion is rather hypocritical. I have no right to monitor every conversation my child performs. The only right I have is to talk with them, when parent XYZ tells me that my child is responsible for the use of dirty language/dirty deeds with their child. And that's it. Period.

And basically we should maybe talk about the justification of giving minors mobiles in the first place...

You do know that none of this is at all related to what I proposed. I don't care if a child tells something to Socks the cat (not that we'll have a cat, but I know that's not your point;)). My child should tell me if they did something wrong, but I'm aware I won't know everything my child does (past the age where I'm not constantly with them). That doesn't mean I don't have the right to know. I have the right to not only ask them, but ask others or put cameras and microphones around my house if I feel like it. I don't plan to monitor my kids in that way, nor do I think anyone needs to, but the fact is, it's perfectly within a parent's rights.

I also don't feel that it's outside my jurisdiction as a parent to question my child about something they have done wrong. I'm not going to do so unless I have some indication that they have done something wrong, but I don't have to wait until another parent complains. If my child does something wrong, and I discover that fact by nothing else than seeing a text message or email, I still have the right to discover the truth and punish the child for that (along with giving them instruction as to how they should have behaved and encouraging them to do the right thing in the future). This notion that I have no right to question my child's behavior is absolutely absurd. Again, it takes away any reason for having parents in the first place.

And yes, I do question the need for children to have mobile phones in the first place, but from the point at which they are free to go away overnight to a friend's house, camp, etc, I feel that there is at least sufficient reason if there aren't any factors that would make it unwise. Not necessary, but not wrong either. I don't think there's any reason for a child under about 10 years old to have a cell phone though.

jW
 
In the eyes of the law (at least in the U.S) you are a minor until you are age 18 and you under 18 you don't have any rights nor do you have any say so don't try that argument here buddy, it ain't working.

Thankfully, the law here says different. I can, at 16, even move out if I want. Hell, I can get married and have a family at my age as far as the law is concerned.
 
as mentioned before, A LOT of you cannot read apparently.

it says in the very first line:

A newly-awarded Apple patent addressing parental controls for text-based communication is receiving a considerable amount of attention from the mainstream press today for its ties to the hot-button issue of "sexting", the sending of sexually-explicit messages that is of growing concern to many parents.

i don't have children, but if i did, i would be a great option to have for them.

if implemented, it would be totally optional, so you "adults" really don't need to worry.
 
Thankfully, the law here says different. I can, at 16, even move out if I want. Hell, I can get married and have a family at my age as far as the law is concerned.

It's a shame that you haven't since you feel the need to be so independent and have the right to your privacy. Yeah you CAN, but have you? I didn't think so. :p
 
It's a shame that you haven't since you feel the need to be so independent and have the right to your privacy. Yeah you CAN, but have you? I didn't think so. :p

Thankfully, I don't have Orwellian parents, so I have privacy at home anyway. However, I'm still developing independence - I already mentioned how I make my own money, pay my own phone bills, etc.

However, it simply would not be feasible for me to move out while I'm still in full-time education, and at this point, I don't think I need to.

Not that my personal life is of any concern to you.
 
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