TimmyH
Lord of the Virtual Flies
July 10th 2008 05:28
It used to be that you’d punch a kid for his lunch money, or push them around and demand they give up their bike, but now it seems that cyber-bullying has moved on to cyber-scamming and teens are at the forefront of the trend.
The most recent online complaints have been that kids are rigging elections, selling fake products, scamming each other on dating websites and generally…getting away with it.
The problem has been the increasing use of virtual worlds, and subsequently, virtual-theft. Kids as young as 8 or 9 are finding their credits, points and bonuses wiped out by pesky online thieves. An estimated 12 million kids and teens visit virtual worlds every year, so its no wonder that they are a good opportunity to make both white and Black money.
The sites that are frequented most readily are the ones that have protections for users, but many don’t. The has been that sites have been so obsessed with keeping adults out of this child’s world that in a “Lord of the Flies” like orgy, the youngins have been turning on each other.
Most sites emphasise that kids should never give out password or personal information. But many fall victim to a simple scam: they are offered better pages, more virtual money and most readily “bonuses” to give up their passwords.
Jen Sun, president of Numedeon Inc., the Pasadena company that created and runs Whyville, said there is an upside when kids get scammed this way. They learn a lesson about being careful on the Web in a safe environment.
“It's a learning experience for the victim not to be so gullible, not to be motivated by greed, because the scammers use greed against you,” she says.
UCLA researchers, studying virtual worlds have been startled by the "seemingly innumerable" ways that kids cheat each other. They detailed several in a 2007 paper published in the proceedings of the third international conference of the Digital Games Research Assn.
According to the paper, Whyville vets often cheat newbies by demanding rent, others have discovered a set of keystrokes that allow them to steal space in cars. Users have claimed that elections for the Whyville Senate were rigged through stuffing of virtual ballot boxes. Some players took advantage of an outbreak of Whypox (a virtual plague) by selling fake bottled cures.
UCLA doctoral student Deborah Fields, who wrote the paper with professor Yasmin Kafai, said players were much more willing to engage in behaviour that they wouldn't in the real world.
“I don't think they feel monitored,” she said. “It's way less monitoring than they probably have in school from just the presence of a teacher.”
Like most adults, kinds believe that acting inappropriately online has few repercussions when compared to real life. Just like jumping off a virtual building and coming up without a scratch, in the virtual world you can steal someone’s life and all their possessions and not suffer any payback.
Some virtual worlds only let users select chat options from a pre-determined list. While other like Whyville are filtering chat and blocking users who swear or exchange real contact or personal information. While simple name calling might not be enough to get you cut off, suggestive sexual comments certainly will, as does asking other users for email information.
But the problem is that kids are very adaptive and more often than not, somewhat clever. Should a kid be removed from virtual interaction because he sarcastically says “Go kill UR mama” or greets another user as a “female dog”?
But virtual crime is getting serious too. In November, Dutch police arrested a teen who stole passwords and furniture from Habbo users. The case is still pending. But parents don’t seem comforted. Parental controls are all well and good, but blocking chat rooms and sites where kids interact with one another is socially dangerous for them.
The most recent online complaints have been that kids are rigging elections, selling fake products, scamming each other on dating websites and generally…getting away with it.
The problem has been the increasing use of virtual worlds, and subsequently, virtual-theft. Kids as young as 8 or 9 are finding their credits, points and bonuses wiped out by pesky online thieves. An estimated 12 million kids and teens visit virtual worlds every year, so its no wonder that they are a good opportunity to make both white and Black money.
The sites that are frequented most readily are the ones that have protections for users, but many don’t. The has been that sites have been so obsessed with keeping adults out of this child’s world that in a “Lord of the Flies” like orgy, the youngins have been turning on each other.
Most sites emphasise that kids should never give out password or personal information. But many fall victim to a simple scam: they are offered better pages, more virtual money and most readily “bonuses” to give up their passwords.
Jen Sun, president of Numedeon Inc., the Pasadena company that created and runs Whyville, said there is an upside when kids get scammed this way. They learn a lesson about being careful on the Web in a safe environment.
“It's a learning experience for the victim not to be so gullible, not to be motivated by greed, because the scammers use greed against you,” she says.
UCLA researchers, studying virtual worlds have been startled by the "seemingly innumerable" ways that kids cheat each other. They detailed several in a 2007 paper published in the proceedings of the third international conference of the Digital Games Research Assn.
According to the paper, Whyville vets often cheat newbies by demanding rent, others have discovered a set of keystrokes that allow them to steal space in cars. Users have claimed that elections for the Whyville Senate were rigged through stuffing of virtual ballot boxes. Some players took advantage of an outbreak of Whypox (a virtual plague) by selling fake bottled cures.
UCLA doctoral student Deborah Fields, who wrote the paper with professor Yasmin Kafai, said players were much more willing to engage in behaviour that they wouldn't in the real world.
“I don't think they feel monitored,” she said. “It's way less monitoring than they probably have in school from just the presence of a teacher.”
Like most adults, kinds believe that acting inappropriately online has few repercussions when compared to real life. Just like jumping off a virtual building and coming up without a scratch, in the virtual world you can steal someone’s life and all their possessions and not suffer any payback.
Some virtual worlds only let users select chat options from a pre-determined list. While other like Whyville are filtering chat and blocking users who swear or exchange real contact or personal information. While simple name calling might not be enough to get you cut off, suggestive sexual comments certainly will, as does asking other users for email information.
But the problem is that kids are very adaptive and more often than not, somewhat clever. Should a kid be removed from virtual interaction because he sarcastically says “Go kill UR mama” or greets another user as a “female dog”?
But virtual crime is getting serious too. In November, Dutch police arrested a teen who stole passwords and furniture from Habbo users. The case is still pending. But parents don’t seem comforted. Parental controls are all well and good, but blocking chat rooms and sites where kids interact with one another is socially dangerous for them.
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