Comment by smhenderson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smhenderson | Hacker News Reader

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I've only read the article linked here and had never heard of this tool before today so grain of salt and all that.

But the article did mention he was hoping "anxious parents" would use it to monitor their kids activity.

As a parent of two teenagers and a twenty-something I could see myself wanting to turn on a web cam without them knowing it. I hate to say it but my kids get up to some crazy stuff on the web and have defeated a lot of my efforts to monitor/block that activity. In the end I've had better luck just sitting down and talking openly with them about it. But there was a time where I was frustrated enough that I might have sunk to plain old spying on them...

Anyway, that's just one use I could see for disabling the cam indicator.

And the article does mention youtube videos and how frustrated he was to see what people were doing with the tool. He even added a "feature" where the user's license number was displayed in the program so if he could see it in such videos he could disable their copy. Did you see the actual author in any youtube videos?

I'm also a parent, and I am of the opinion that being a teenager doesn't mean you should have your computer hacked to be monitored like this. There's all kinds of legitimate admin tools you can use to monitor their activity. If they deliberately circumvent them, physically take the computer away. Turning on a webcam surreptitiously to monitor them is not cool.

Or you could, you know, just teach them the consequences. Eg, talking to catfish, child porn charges, etc.

I think I said as much in my comment.

>As a parent of two teenagers and a twenty-something I could see myself wanting to turn on a web cam without them knowing it. I hate to say it but my kids get up to some crazy stuff on the web and have defeated a lot of my efforts to monitor/block that activity.

What the fuck. It's well past time to give real responsibility and freedom. This sort of behavior can and will cause long-term damage, pain, and resentment to your own children. And for what, to selfishly assuage your own anxiety?

IMO, riding roughshod over a basic fundamental need for privacy is child abuse, and it ought to be more widely considered as such.

How many children do you have? And how many times have they caused threatening letters from ISP's to be sent to your house for downloading copyrighted material? How many times have you intercepted drugs in your mailbox that were bought off the internet? How many times have you had to worry that one of these days their social activities were going to catch up with them finally and get them into real trouble?

For the record to all those that replied, I never actually spied on my children through a web cam hack. I said in my comment that I had been frustrated enough in my life that had I read this article then I may have considered it.

And, no, children living in my home using my internet connection are not entitled to the same level of privacy that you and I are. Just as they are not entitled to drink, drive, vote or join the military. They need boundaries and guidance. To the extent that they are doing well in school and socially and leave me little room to worry I'd guess they enjoy more freedom than most of their friends. When they abuse that trust the reins get drawn in and you can darn well bet I'm going to do everything I can to make sure they don't get into further trouble.

And less you draw any conclusions about the twenty-something I mentioned, I was speaking about when she was a teenager and living at home, I didn't try to block or monitor her habits once she became a well rounded adult who looks back on her own behaviour now that she's also a parent a bit sheepishly.

I'm sorry, I definitely read more into your post than is there. I've found that abusers often use more legitimate overt goals as narrative cover for covert abusive techniques. "Protecting your children from things" is often a pretext for fulfilling the parent's need for control and dominance. Or for a more graphic example, people who handle their anger or frustration through physical abuse will claim that they spank their children for disciplinary reasons.

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