Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Am I the only person that has a real big problem with software like this?

<< < (7/21) > >>

mouser:
I wish you guys would distinguish in your arguments between the case for monitoring a child's cellphone/gps with vs without their knowledge.  To me this is the critical factor distinguishing appropriate from inappropriate.

40hz:
I wish you guys would distinguish in your arguments between the case for monitoring a child's cellphone/gps with vs without their knowledge.  To me this is the critical factor distinguishing appropriate from inappropriate.
-mouser (October 05, 2013, 09:38 AM)
--- End quote ---

I politely disagree. To monitor is to send a message you don't trust the person being monitored. And that is corrosive to a relationship regardless of whether the distrust is open or covert. And doing whats "legal" (i.e. what you can get away with) is not the necessarily the same thing as doing what's right.

Much like the NSA's repeated insistence that everything it does is "within the law" it's still all word games.

The fundamental distinction is whether or not you believe someone can be trusted. Once that decision has been made it just becomes a matter of choice of which preemptive actions will be taken plus some spin control afterwards.

I'm still old fashioned enough to not accept somebody needs to "prove" their innocence or integrity in advance. I judge a person for what they've done or not done. Not for something they might someday do. And I flat out reject any attempt at prejudgements based on a hunch or act of imagination fueled by paranoia and one's personal hangups or grudges.

TaoPhoenix:
Even if it is "your kids" (insert strongly worded language what one might do to protect "your kids"), I still think that's beginning to slide down the wrong path. Particularly for Teenagers is where it all gets fuzzy.

I think that if there is a meta-theme where the parents have to have Always On monitoring, that resentment will simmer "nice and fine" until it blows up like a volcano. Then in the resulting emotional explosion is when it gets really dangerous because the kid will be in Rebellion Mode!

Plus these monitoring solutions are "lazy" - "I do nothing, I know every step you make". The whole country isn't one gang war zone. And as that resentment builds, the kid will actively try to break the app himself.

Rob Malda of Slashdot fame posted an anecdote once that his parents tried to reprimand something he did as a child, and took away his computer, so he logged into his friend's computer or something.

Then what happens when the kid turns 18? That's why college sees a lot of bumpy stuff, because suddenly after living in a virtual walled room, all that goes away and then the kid has had no practice taking his baby steps to live a real life.

TaoPhoenix:

Plus I think there's a knowledge paradigm problem for teenagers. They're used to being "babied" "oh look how cute you drew a horsey in crayon", until one day they break critical mass and suddenly they connect enough skill to go "yeah, look, how cute, I have hardware access to the phone and if I jailbreak it and use a 0day exploit, your monitoring app doesn't work, how cute."

40hz:
I think that if there is a meta-theme where the parents have to have Always On monitoring, that resentment will simmer "nice and fine" until it blows up like a volcano. Then in the resulting emotional explosion is when it gets really dangerous because the kid will be in Rebellion Mode!
--- End quote ---

^This.

Easily half the acts of the youthful rebellion I've seen are a direct result of needless provocation by parents or school authorities.  Can you say: "Setup!"?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page