New York Lawmakers Jump on the Useless Social Monitoring Bandwagon
by
on January 29, 2008,
It wasn't enough to just go along with the useless MySpace “agreement,” New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo joined forces with State Sen. Joseph Bruno and State Assemblyman Sheldon Silver in announcing the Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (E-Stop… isn't that CUTE?), which is a new bill that promises to prevent sex offenders from accessing social networks like MySpace and Facebook.
Without getting into the nitty gritty of the bill, it proposes to do this by (wait for it), requiring registered sex offenders in New York to disclose their email addresses and online identities. New York will them compile this data and turn it over to the sites, allowing them to cross-reference this list with their user database, and then block access when they get a match.
Have you stopped laughing yet? The proposed law would view a change of email address without notification within 5 days of the change as a parole violation.
I'm a New York State resident, and I honestly have to believe that the Attorney General's office just can't figure out how to actually get anyone with any kind of technical knowledge to give input when proposing this sort of legislation. The number of ways to avoid being caught at this are astronomical, especially when you consider that New York has 25,000 registered sex offenders who could possibly be on this list. I can probably register for 10 new email addresses in the next five minutes using a Web anonymizer program. The sex offender registry has shown time and time again that they can't even keep track of WHERE many of the sex offenders are, and I'm supposed to believe they will be able to track something as changeable as an email address?
These initiatives are getting a great deal of press lately, and are nothing more than empty attempts with no real protection behind them. I'm far more interested in the proposal that Symantec has floated at DEMO this week, which is supposed to put more of the responsibility for staying safe online in a combined effort between parents and children. Anything has to be better than what the legislators are coming up with.
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Alan Kodzasov
Shallow
Bob
CopyrightLawSucks 
kinghajj 
Michael Fidler 
Has nothing to do with keeping people safe, its just pandering to the publics fear of sex offenders. The real problem is many parents will feel safer with these types of laws and think their children are safer because of it. Then lower their guard and let their children run free on the internet. But who cares? as long as it gets votes…
Right there with you. I posted this same thought on another blog that, like mine, is calling this stupid idea out. It seems full political behavior (lots of speeches and terrible ideas – no effectiveness) has infiltrated the online safety arena. What is supposed to be a basic simple – albeit new – principle of parenting is being convoluted with MANY a false sense of security – and a lot of back-patting for nothing. As Mark said above, “as long as it gets votes…”
Full disclosure: I work for the company that makes PC Pandora monitoring software. We’ve been involved in the issue for a while now – not just to sell a product (which is nice) but to really remind parents – or in some cases TEACH them – that they are the only ones responsible and accountable. If you want your child safe – don’t be stupid and rely on websites or the law – it’s YOUR child. Talk to them, educate yourself and do what you need to to make sure they are safe. Why should anyone else be held responsible for your lack of parenting and your child’s actions.
Knowledge is power. Legislation is not.