Teens and Malware

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5 December 2006, ICANN, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, reviewing revised proposal for a new domain-- ".xxx," proposed by the ICM Registry. This revision includes additions to protect children, ensure registrants label content clearly, prohibit spam, prevent certain religious or culturally sensitive names from being registered and donate money to child safety organizations.

22 November 2006, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner from Massachusetts District Court confirmed a long-standing precedent that convictions in child pornography prosecutions must rely on actual, not virtual, images of children.

Pre-election fall 2006, the Mark Foley "House Page Scandal" adds saliva to the legislative palate for passage of a comprehensive Internet data retention act in the 110th Congress.

27 June 2006, five major online companies announced joint initiative with National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to launch an aggressive new campaign against child exploitation on the Internet.

Late 2000, Congress enacted The Children’s Internet Protection Act (“CIPA-2000”), which required school and libraries to employ filtering software to address access by minors to inappropriate matter on the Internet.

Late 1998, Congress enacted the Protection from Sexual Predators Act (“PSPA-1998”), which amended the federal criminal code to increase penalties for any Predator using the Internet (or any other form of communication) to solicit the personal information of a person under 16 with the intent to entice, encourage, offer, or solicit any person to engage in illegal sexual activity.

Top culprit number 1: Pornographic web sites. Coenraad's great quote: "pornography does not go out looking for people, people go out looking for pornography.

Top culprit number 2: Illegal music (MP3) and movie downloading sites. These often require special downloading software that comes bundled with spyware and trojan horses.

Top culprit number 3: Software piracy web sites. Accompanying illegal software, cracks, serial numbers or license key generators. "Many of these sites do not only contain harmful scripts but also fake cracks and key generators, which are nothing else but malware."

Top culprit number 4: Peer-to-peer file sharing programs and networks. "The file sharing community is loaded with pornography, pirated software, music and movies."

Top culprit number 5: Pop-up and pop-under advertisements. "These windows can start downloading malicious programs and install them on your computer."

Top culprit number 6: Fake anti-virus and anti-spyware tools.

Top culprit number 7: Free games, screen savers and media players. Adware and spyware is often the price for these free programs.

Top culprit number 8: Malicious web pages with harmful scripts. These often come from totally innocent looking websites.

Top culprit number 9: E-mail. Its doubly your fault. "For the virus to be activated you need to open the e-mail and in most cases you need to deliberately open the file attachment too."

Top culprit number 10: Your teen and you. If you don't have both an anti-virus package and anti-spyware packages installed on your computer, you are a prime culprit.

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The Advocates support the goals of the NCMEC, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, which serves as a national clearinghouse for information and a resource for child protection. NCMEC's congressionally mandated CyberTipline, a reporting mechanism for child sexual exploitation, has handled nearly a half million leads. The organization received $32.6 million in tax dollars in 2005.

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