Internet warning: 'Privacy is dead; get over it'

The Internet is a siren, seductively calling people to surrender their secrets, their passwords, addresses, account numbers and even intimate photos.

Don't do it, the experts say — and Santa Rosa teenager Addie Stone agrees.

“Anything you put on the Internet is there forever,” she said. “You just have to think about what you're willing to share with the world.”

Stone, 14, a lacrosse-playing freshman at Sonoma Academy, has her own space on the Facebook social media site with 350 friends and uses an instant messaging account.

She's part of the wired generation. Out of every 10 American teens, nine go online, six do so every day and two are willing to send out sexually suggestive images of themselves.

That type of reckless behavior, and the Internet's reputation as a shady haven for sexual predators and pornographic material, has a generation of parents, educators and police on high alert.

“The less you know, the more you worry,” said Polly Stone, Addie's mother, acknowledging that most parents are playing catch-up to their net-savvy children.

While Addie first ventured online seven years ago, her mother jumped onto the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn sites in the last three months primarily to boost her business as a voice actor.

“It has been fun uncovering some old friends,” Polly Stone allowed.

Janet Durgin, head of school at Sonoma Academy, a wireless campus that issues laptops to all students, described pupils as the “digital natives” and “we,” meaning boomer-age adults, “are the immigrants” on the Internet.

The academy turned to one of its board members, Petaluma online tech-show host Leo Laporte, to explore cyberspace hazards to children — and potential safeguards available to parents.

Laporte, named to Forbes' list of top 25 “web celebs” in 2007, opened his remarks last week in the school theater with a blanket disclaimer: “There is no one right answer.”

There are programs to record a child's tracks on the Internet and filters to block their access to objectionable sites, he said, but they all have drawbacks and limits.

Laporte recommended OpenDNS, a free, downloadable program that offers various Internet filtering options.

Some years ago, Laporte set the program to shut off his children's Internet link at 10 p.m.

“Oh God, it worked,” said Abby Laporte, a Sonoma Academy senior who produces her own podcasts.

But all a kid needs to do to evade OpenDNS is carry a laptop to a public wi-fi area or a friend's house, he said.

Polly Stone, who lives in the Santa Rosa Junior College area, figures her children — without leaving their bedroom — could pick up a router signal from a neighbor's house.

On the hot topic of what age it's advisable to let kids onto social networking sites like Facebook, Laporte also had no firm standard. Maybe, in the beginning, he said, you could allow it if the kids revealed their passwords.

“No,” said his son, Henry, a Sonoma Academy freshman.

“That's really harsh,” said his wife, Jennifer.

“A good idea, if they are younger,” daughter Abby said.

The four Laportes, all part of the program, offered a sense of the ambiguities — and generational conflicts — involved in managing the Internet.

When Leo Laporte flashed his daughter's Facebook profile on the theater's video screen, Abby protested: “It's my Facebook, don't go there.”

Leo Laporte promptly shifted to his own Facebook page, and warned the audience that Facebook has shown “an absolute disregard for your privacy” by selling personal information to marketers.

As a broader caveat to Internet users, Laporte cited the comment of Sun MicroSysterms former CEO Scott McNealy: “Privacy is dead; get over it.”

Teens post embarrassing personal details online, Laporte said, because they fail to appreciate the consequences, like a future employer Googling their names.

Jennifer Laporte, a psychotherapist, interjected that teen bravado is “developmentally appropriate.”

“Teenagers take risks,” she said. “That's why they're so fascinating.”

But the dangers are real, Petaluma Police Lt. Matt Stapleton said in an interview. “Any predator can reach your kid,” he said. “We have those people in our community lurking among us, there's no doubt about it.”

Petaluma police arrested 29 men in a predator sting operation four years ago, but Stapleton noted that more than 100 had expressed interest in personally meeting the decoy, who posed online as a 13-year-old girl.

In other stings, Stapleton said, “respected adults” have engaged in lewd behavior in front of a Web cam, believing the person watching was a teen.

Regarding Web cams, Leo Laporte warned there is commercial software capable of remotely activating a camera without the computer owner's knowledge.

He recommended covering the Web cam lens with tape when it is not in use, and said computer manufacturers should equip cameras with a sliding cover.

Addie Stone said there is “creepy stuff” online, but said she's careful about what she posts and hasn't encountered anything vulgar.

Parents applying Internet filters to their children's activity should consider the likely reaction, a kid's determined effort “to try to find what your parents don't want you to see,” she said.

Addie Stone keeps her online act clean, she said, because college admissions officers are likely to search for any indiscretions.

Experts, law officers, parents and teens seem to agree on one point: a well-grounded, well-informed child is the best defense against Internet misconduct.

Stapleton recommended NetSmartz.org, a program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as a resource for parents, and Leo Laporte endorsed SafeKids.org, which offers a family contract for online safety.

But communication is the key, they say.

“There's no substitute for parenting,” Stapleton said.

“We talk about it all the time,” said Polly Stone, whose home network has five computers for her, her husband Matt, son Hayden, 17, and Addie. “The best way is to get online with your kids. You've got to join their world. Go play a video game with your kids. They might be plenty impressed.”

Addie Stone, an online veteran at 14, said she has a healthy relationship with the Internet, treating it with caution and respect.

“You can type one word in a search box and all of a sudden you have a million places to look,” she said. “It's a lot to handle.”