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HIGH-teCH MIsCHIeF

New “impersonator” technology can hoodwink parents

By Julie Kendrick

You receive a text from the mother of your daughter’s friend,

asking if she can sleep over at her family’s house that night.

You come home from work one day to fi nd a message on

your home answering message, from a man who sounds like

your son’s physics teacher, requesting that the boy stay after

school next week for extra help.

You check your kids’ cell phone and notice a signifi cant

number of calls to “Dad’s house.”

If you would accept these communications at face value,

it’s time, dear tech-age parent, to think again. While the

examples shown above might honestly be messages from

the friend’s mom and physics teacher, or calls to Dad’s

house, they might also something much less innocent.

Here are some other, more chilling, scenarios: Your

children could be accessing a “send a text” site to enter the

sleepover request with the friend’s mom’s phone number

in the “from” fi eld. Or your more sophisticated kid might

school next week for extra help.

You check your kids’ cell phone and notice a signifi cant

number of calls to “Dad’s house.”

If you would accept these communications at face value,

it’s time, dear tech-age parent, to think again. While the

examples shown above might honestly be messages from

the friend’s mom and physics teacher, or calls to Dad’s

house, they might also something much less innocent.

Here are some other, more chilling, scenarios: Your

children could be accessing a “send a text” site to enter the

sleepover request with the friend’s mom’s phone number

in the “from” fi eld. Or your more sophisticated kid might

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have found a “prank call” website that

allows users to have their speech recorded

and “filtered” to sound like their choice of

adults, down to gender and accent. So

that message from the elderly Asian

teacher may just be your 13-year-old in

disguise, figuring out a way to arrange

some supervision-free after school time.

And if your child suspects you of cell

phone snooping, it’s easy enough to

change contact names to headers like

“Tutor” and “Dad’s house,” when the

numbers are really those of people you’ve

told your child to avoid.

yes, you have to get on FacebookTo avoid these scenarios, or ones like

them, it’s impor-

tant to emphasize

good, old-fash-

ioned communica-

tion. “You need to

go online with your

kids and partici-

pate with them in

the online culture.

Talk with them

regularly about sites they like and don’t

like. Bring up discussions about online

integrity, and about making good choices

in the virtual world just as much as in the

real one,” says Justin Patchin, Ph.D,

co-director of the Cyberbullying Research

Center. Patchin’s most recent book,

written with co-director Sameer Hinduja,

Ph.D, is School Climate 2.0: Preventing

Cyberbullying and Sexting One Classroom

at a Time. At speaking engagements all

over the country, he tells parents that the

days of saying, “I don’t do Facebook”

should be over, since it’s just not some-

thing a parent can ignore.

But opening a Facebook account is just

the beginning. It’s important to keep

up-to-date with the latest trends, too,

Patchin says. “The more adults are

heading onto Facebook, the more kids are

abandoning it for places like Tumblr and

Twitter.” (And yes, you need to get set up

on those sites if your kids are using them.)

Pulling the pixels over mom’s eyesFor Tammy Burns Woodhouse, a South-

west Minneapolis resident, it was a casual

glance at the family computer that

stAyInG one steP AHeAD• Know your children’s friends and meet

their parents

• Monitor children’s internet and cell phone activity

• A child who refuses to Facebook “friend” important adults (parents, friends of family, grandma, and grandpa) should not be allowed to have a Facebook page

• It may seem old-fashioned, but pick up the phone and talk to parents to make sure an adult will be supervising at kids’ get-togethers

• Try to stay current on what’s happening, and talk with other parents about what you learn

• Access your child’s cell phone account online and review the text and phone numbers coming and going. Some phone plans (such as Verizon Wireless) allow you to assign names or codes to each number, for ease in recognition. This can be different than how the number might be named on your child’s phone.

Patchin

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provided her with the disappointing

news—after being forbidden to do so, her

11-year-old son had joined a social

network site. A few more clicks led her to

the realization that he’d set up a secret

Gmail account to get on the site. Once her

son had been punished (bye-bye iPod),

she turned her attention to his friend, who

had been in on the scheme. “Luckily, our

group of parents have a mutual policing

agreement, so my husband approached

them during hockey practice, asked about

social media rules in their household, and

then told them what their son and ours

had been up to.”

As a result of the incident, the family

has reinforced the importance of real

interaction with live people, not mindless

banter online. “He discovered that those

online ‘conversations’ were really not

worth making Mom and Dad that mad,”

she says, adding, “Once I got over the

initial combination of rage, disappoint-

ment, and fright, it reinforced some key

things for me. We have a shared family

computer in a public space, frequently

check the browsing history, and compare

notes with other parents.”

the night we lied to the babysitterLeah Samler was finishing her doctorate

in clinical psychology when she took a job

with a high-end nanny service to help

with tuition costs. Her elite customers,

who lived in some of the biggest mansions

in the city, paid her very well for super-

vising their children while they headed off

to galas, charity functions, and front-row

seats at the hottest shows in town.

Observing all that privilege, Samler found

that the number of toys (physical and

virtual) in these households was staggering.

She also discovered that her well-bred

charges were some of the tech-savviest—

and sneakiest—kids she’d ever encountered.

She recalls, “One night, a 10-year-old had a

group of friends visiting when I arrived. The

Mom was very clear that everyone had to

leave early, and the girl had to be in bed by

ten. ‘She has an important tennis match

tomorrow,’ the Mom said.”

Got it. Or maybe not. Around nine p.m.,

the girls approached Samler and pleaded

to be allowed to sleep over. “‘Your Mom

said no,’” I told the girl, and then she

asked, ‘If I get my Mom to change her

mind and say it’s okay, will you let us?’

Within minutes, my cell phone was

buzzing with a text from the Mom’s

number, which said: ‘I changed my mind.

Let girls sleep over.’ When the woman got

home at 11:30 and saw that the kids were

still up, she was angry. ‘I told you she had

to go to bed early,’ she said. I showed her

the text I’d received, but she said she’d

never sent it. We just stood there looking

at each other, completely confused.”

Finally, they decided to round up the

girls and grill them. The one with a techie

older brother quickly confessed that her

sib had showed her how to go online and

send a text to any number (Samler’s, in this

case), from any number the site user

specifies (the Mom’s). They had sent a fake

text to their sitter, and she had fallen for it.

Samler, who is now a degreed psychol-

ogist specializing in adolescent issues,

admits that she was punked. “When I

saw the Mom’s telephone number on the

text, I believed it was from her. Since

that incident, I’m much more

mistrustful of anything other than

face-to-face communication.” She now

works as a therapist at Allendale

Association in the Chicago suburbs, and

the incident was a catalyst for under-

standing that kids today have an arsenal

of high-tech trickery at their fingertips.

“My clients have the technical savvy to

communicate in ways that do not even

cross the minds of their often less

technically inclined caregivers. Kids can

get away with much more than in years

past,” she says, adding, “Information

delivered via smartphone or computer

should not be taken at face value. It is

normal developmental behavior for

children to see what they can get away

with and try to exert some power and

control. Technology, however, adds

another layer of intricacy and complexity

that must be actively monitored.”

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