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Comment by ethbr0 | Hacker News Reader

If a 13 year old is that inexperienced and much of a target... it's probably time to have a conversation about sexuality and the perils of sharing sexual pictures of oneself with random people on the internet.

I swear, most of the "But what if?!"isms boil down to "I don't want to have an uncomfortable conversation with my child to teach them about the world."

(Said as the father of a 14 year old)

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I think you underestimate the problem space.

Think of it like security issues where the attackers/researchers are constantly evolving and generating novel ways to hack a system. Your solution is telling fresh out of school developers to be really careful about use after free bugs and spear phishing. Obviously a good start. But it's not enough in a lot of cases.

The central problem here is trust: either your kid trusts you enough to discuss things with you, or they don't.

If that doesn't exist, implementing a technical panopticon is a way to paper over its worst effects, but it's not a solution to the root problem.

> The central problem here is trust: either your kid trusts you enough to discuss things with you, or they don't.

I don't think it's that simple. A predator can catfish as a high school girl, send raunchy texts and images to the boy, and the boy might be tempted to engage but wouldn't tell their parents out of embarassment (just like how a teenage boy isn't going to tell their parents about their porn watching habits)

The solution to that isn't tapping your boy's IM and chat history though. It's having a relationship with him where he feels comfortable mentioning he's talking to someone new.

And the opposition is doing everything they can to

1) make that communication remain innocuous long enough to fall into background ignore status

2) escalate in a way that will either avoid communicatong with you or even better seem fine to the child but not to you and so invoke the "my parent isn't fair" response and stop consulting you wholesale

Yes. And why is your teen so desperate for attention that they're willing to get it from a random stranger on the internet? Instead of their friends or someone they know in real life?

Jesus, this thread of an exercise of people making more and more convoluted excuses to treat their own children like criminals.

Is this the HN that was against warrantless wiretapping, or did I mistakenly fall through into another forum?

You're obviously well convinced of your position; I haven't had to make one yet. I think a pure trust approach is laudable but scary.

A common refrain from parents in these situations is how strong they thought their relationship with their child was and how they never imagined it could happen to them. Thats scary. Weighing a very low probability extreme consequence vs. various questionably impactful interventions with certain downsides is hard (at least in my view).

Not to mention that there are risks the internet exposes you to that aren't sexual abuse related. Desensitization to violence, insane discourse (epithets dropped like candy), etc are also important aspects of a parent's moderation choices. Trust and conversations cannot address this since the desensitization takes place as a consequence of simple repeated exposure. In the extreme case, desensitization translates to usage, and I think thats clear if you listen to any 14 year old kid on an xbox stream.

> Weighing a very low probability extreme consequence vs. various questionably impactful interventions with certain downsides is hard (at least in my view).

And that's the essence of the decision.

IMHO, the sane move is not crippling your child's development and your trust relationship with them in exchange for preventing an extremely low probability event: that they will be approached by a sexual predator, who's convincing enough, decide not to talk about it with you, and successfully conceal it from you.

To me, it's a known harm (spying on your child) in exchange for a nebulous good (you might catch something).

Do I have conversations with my child about what they do online? Absolutely! Do I keep a weather eye on any new developments or characters who pop up? Absolutely!

But do I think the solution is technically spying on my child? Hell no. The proper means of redress are analog and emotional.

Uh... Because they're a teenager. Sometimes, that are bottomless pits of craving attention for reasons that aren't logical.

Especially if it’s someone posing as the opposite sex.

> Is this the HN that was against warrantless wiretapping

I’m pretty sure there are different rules and regulations around issuing warrants for minors.

And that’s the whole point here. They are not adults.

It’s not a relationship between equals. They’re not ready for trust yet. Not in the same that trust can exist between two adults. And they need protection, in a way that adults don’t.

And it’s not a question of parenting either. No amount of parenting will make a person’s brain fully developed at 13.

The "girl" doesn't want him to mention her, because her dad's possessive and abusive and if he finds out, she's dead meat. Your kid now has a selfless, noble reason to be uncomfortable sharing that information.

Do you have children?

If they trust a stranger they just met on the internet more than a parent, that's the problem.

No amount of technological redress is going to fix that.

I think you underestimate how children overestimate themselves. I have an exceedingly good relationship with my younger siblings and they will think they can handle situations beyond their capacity, and then when they bring me in sometimes the emotional or psychological damage has already been done.

This isn't a single issue, and your view seems excessively simplistic. Kids are gullible. Kids keep secrets for any number of reasons -- and while I've taught my kid that strangers insisting he keep a secret is a major red flag, if a predator convinces him that they're a peer, they might enter the "friend" category when an adult would still call them a "stranger." Also, what kids and parents consider to be noteworthy can differ by a mile. How do you (a) enforce an ironclad rule that the kid tells you everything about every new contact and status update and (b) maintain the kid's trust? You don't, that's impossible. Yes, parents have duty to educate their kids and engender a trusting relationship, but every child is an individual who develops autonomy (by definition) before they're ready for it.

I have a friend who was catfished in high school, and the fisher took on a persona for several years before "introducing" her to the fisher's "friend" who was actually the fisher -- and he maintained the ruse for several years after. I'm honestly unsure of how a parent could even prevent something like that. The only comfort I've got today is that video chat is normal and a friend who couldn't do that would probably noteworthy enough to mention. That comfort is diminishing: by the time my kid will be old enough to worry about, deepfakes will be that much more advanced.

You can't solve everything with a discussion. You can tell kids not to do something all day long, doesn't mean they won't do it.

> it's not a solution to the root problem.

And will make that root problem worse.

You should, but at the same time kids are naive and sometimes do things they know they shouldn't

It is good to have that conversation but it isn't remotely enough. Children lack the reasoning capacity to make good decisions. They are immature by definition. No matter how well-informed and well-schooled your child is, they will not have the faculties or defenses of an adult.

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