my little Calvin
Feb. 24th, 2006 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidon...or perhaps Oliver ("Bloom County").
With all that's happening lately, I forgot to write this up:
I'm playing "single dad" this week and into next, while my partner is off teaching in Minnesota. And I am really loving it. Mostly. This morning I came down from my shower to check on my son, and he'd gotten up early, had already eaten breakfast, and was on my partner's iBook -- playing a game, I figured (usually alternates between Reader Rabbit math or reading, and some kind of shoot-em-up). But I had...a hunch, so I ambled over, asked "whatcha doing?" And he said, very quickly, "nothing," and started turning the laptop away from me.... Uh-huh. "So, whatcha doing?" I repeated, walking around to the front of the screen. "Nothing," he said, closing the laptop. Right. I took the laptop away, opened it up, and saw...a form for entering credit card information to purchase a game. With his name and a bunch of numbers entered. Did I mention my son is six? Oh, so very much "no." He's been told quite clearly not to ever enter any of his personal information online for any reason. Now, thankfully, he has no idea yet what the credit card stuff is about, he'd just been playing a "free" game, had clicked on the "buy the full game" button, and was just entering some numbers to see what would happen, but still...
So computer privileges go away for a couple of days, in part for doing something that he knows is a big no (entering his personal info online), and in part for trying afterwards to claim it was just an "accident." Right, and it was an accident to have entered in his full name and address and fake credit card numbers, and an accident he tried to hide it from me when I walked up.
My son is a very, very good kid, quite honest and truthful, but...I know what's coming next, sooner than I expect..."gee, I don't have a credit card, so all I have to do is figure out how to hack it." See, I was a first-gen hacker myself, way back in the day, and once upon a time, I can say with no false modesty, I was very, very good, one of the trailblazers, when there was a clear difference between "hackers" and "crackers." But that was in fact a more innocent time...heck, they hadn't even passed laws covering much of what we all did back then. Some of what I got away with would result in a visit from the men in black today. So, I have to try to instilll a sense of fear in my son, when I know darn well it's an uphill battle, and when I admire the impulse to tweak authority and game the system.
Oi. Karma's a real bitch, I tell ya.
With all that's happening lately, I forgot to write this up:
I'm playing "single dad" this week and into next, while my partner is off teaching in Minnesota. And I am really loving it. Mostly. This morning I came down from my shower to check on my son, and he'd gotten up early, had already eaten breakfast, and was on my partner's iBook -- playing a game, I figured (usually alternates between Reader Rabbit math or reading, and some kind of shoot-em-up). But I had...a hunch, so I ambled over, asked "whatcha doing?" And he said, very quickly, "nothing," and started turning the laptop away from me.... Uh-huh. "So, whatcha doing?" I repeated, walking around to the front of the screen. "Nothing," he said, closing the laptop. Right. I took the laptop away, opened it up, and saw...a form for entering credit card information to purchase a game. With his name and a bunch of numbers entered. Did I mention my son is six? Oh, so very much "no." He's been told quite clearly not to ever enter any of his personal information online for any reason. Now, thankfully, he has no idea yet what the credit card stuff is about, he'd just been playing a "free" game, had clicked on the "buy the full game" button, and was just entering some numbers to see what would happen, but still...
So computer privileges go away for a couple of days, in part for doing something that he knows is a big no (entering his personal info online), and in part for trying afterwards to claim it was just an "accident." Right, and it was an accident to have entered in his full name and address and fake credit card numbers, and an accident he tried to hide it from me when I walked up.
My son is a very, very good kid, quite honest and truthful, but...I know what's coming next, sooner than I expect..."gee, I don't have a credit card, so all I have to do is figure out how to hack it." See, I was a first-gen hacker myself, way back in the day, and once upon a time, I can say with no false modesty, I was very, very good, one of the trailblazers, when there was a clear difference between "hackers" and "crackers." But that was in fact a more innocent time...heck, they hadn't even passed laws covering much of what we all did back then. Some of what I got away with would result in a visit from the men in black today. So, I have to try to instilll a sense of fear in my son, when I know darn well it's an uphill battle, and when I admire the impulse to tweak authority and game the system.
Oi. Karma's a real bitch, I tell ya.
