Disclaimer: I don't like DOPA -- the legislation, as written, sucks. It's overly-broad, primarily, although there are enforceability issues too (the authors seem to have never heard of a proxy server).
However, the spirit of the act is a good one -- it's very easy to build a profile of a person through their journal. Take a fictional example, containing 3 bits of information: "My Dad donated new uniforms to the school softball team," "We made the State Championship game!" and "My new job at Omelet Yurt is going well."
All a predator would have to do to find out the identity of the poster would be to cross-reference Omelet Yurt locations with state championship softball schools, and look in local papers for stories about a school getting donations of new uniforms from a parent. With that info, the predator has a good idea:
Who the poster is (look for the girl with the same last name as the donor, or note the donor is "John Smith, father of star center fielder Janie Smith.").
Where they live -- she's going to be within the district boundaries of the school, likely the school's attendance boundary, both of which are public info on the school district's website. Additionally, the predator can guess that she lives near the Omelet Yurt in that zone, as people -- especially teens, who tend to have limited transportation options -- work near where they live.
What she looks like -- again, look at the local paper for "Softball Team goes to State Championship." There'll be a picture, likely of the whole team, with names nicely noted in the caption. Failing that, the softball team may have a webpage on the school's site, with names nicely listed. Beyond that, all a predator has to do is attend one of the games and get a program -- look for Janie Smith to be announced, or keep an eye on her listed position.
That kind of detective work, plus a little more info that's easily available on a teenager's blog ("I broke up with my boyfriend! Oh noez!") can paint a great background picture for a predator, and that gives him a huge advantage in attempting to predate upon her. Note that, at no time does the child have to give out her personal information directly, and really, I don't think many parents would consider the information I've fictionalized here to be risky on a blog.
After all, how easy was it for you (deza.livejournal.com/1115959.html) to find a child's personal info on MySpace, even though the profile was set private? If a well meaning librarian (ok, "assaulted librarian") can do it, a pedophile or stalker can too.
The upshot? I don't think any amount of Congressional legislation is going to do anything -- look how well it's done for curbing online poker! To really make a difference, social networking and chat sites (and MMORPG's) would have to begin requiring proof of age somehow -- I can think of at least one cryptographic protocol that might work -- and that would cut back on their eyeballs-on-screen numbers (imagine a MySpace without 14-year-olds!), lowering their ad revenue, and they view that as a Bad Thingtm. So we'll get a fundamentally useless and overly broad bill in Congress that'll likely get shot down for 1st Amendment reasons (bloggers=free press). Therefore, sites like that would likely prefer to have this crappy legislation go through, rather than anything well-written and researched.
Limiting potential contact between predators and children is a good idea -- especially when you consider how net clueless most parents are; I doubt that 2/3 of the parents in our county who have children with a MySpace (or Xanga, etc) truly monitor their children's blog (or, failing that, the tech-savvy kids have 2 blogs, one for show and one for tell as it were, or any number of other social engineering workarounds).
Playing Devil's Advocate
However, the spirit of the act is a good one -- it's very easy to build a profile of a person through their journal. Take a fictional example, containing 3 bits of information: "My Dad donated new uniforms to the school softball team," "We made the State Championship game!" and "My new job at Omelet Yurt is going well."
All a predator would have to do to find out the identity of the poster would be to cross-reference Omelet Yurt locations with state championship softball schools, and look in local papers for stories about a school getting donations of new uniforms from a parent. With that info, the predator has a good idea:
- Who the poster is (look for the girl with the same last name as the donor, or note the donor is "John Smith, father of star center fielder Janie Smith.").
- Where they live -- she's going to be within the district boundaries of the school, likely the school's attendance boundary, both of which are public info on the school district's website. Additionally, the predator can guess that she lives near the Omelet Yurt in that zone, as people -- especially teens, who tend to have limited transportation options -- work near where they live.
- What she looks like -- again, look at the local paper for "Softball Team goes to State Championship." There'll be a picture, likely of the whole team, with names nicely noted in the caption. Failing that, the softball team may have a webpage on the school's site, with names nicely listed. Beyond that, all a predator has to do is attend one of the games and get a program -- look for Janie Smith to be announced, or keep an eye on her listed position.
That kind of detective work, plus a little more info that's easily available on a teenager's blog ("I broke up with my boyfriend! Oh noez!") can paint a great background picture for a predator, and that gives him a huge advantage in attempting to predate upon her. Note that, at no time does the child have to give out her personal information directly, and really, I don't think many parents would consider the information I've fictionalized here to be risky on a blog.After all, how easy was it for you (deza.livejournal.com/1115959.html) to find a child's personal info on MySpace, even though the profile was set private? If a well meaning librarian (ok, "assaulted librarian") can do it, a pedophile or stalker can too.
The upshot? I don't think any amount of Congressional legislation is going to do anything -- look how well it's done for curbing online poker! To really make a difference, social networking and chat sites (and MMORPG's) would have to begin requiring proof of age somehow -- I can think of at least one cryptographic protocol that might work -- and that would cut back on their eyeballs-on-screen numbers (imagine a MySpace without 14-year-olds!), lowering their ad revenue, and they view that as a Bad Thingtm. So we'll get a fundamentally useless and overly broad bill in Congress that'll likely get shot down for 1st Amendment reasons (bloggers=free press). Therefore, sites like that would likely prefer to have this crappy legislation go through, rather than anything well-written and researched.
Limiting potential contact between predators and children is a good idea -- especially when you consider how net clueless most parents are; I doubt that 2/3 of the parents in our county who have children with a MySpace (or Xanga, etc) truly monitor their children's blog (or, failing that, the tech-savvy kids have 2 blogs, one for show and one for tell as it were, or any number of other social engineering workarounds).