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Privacy Your Rights Online

COPPA Steps on ICQ Privacy 16

Posted by jamie from the one-year-olds-need-synchronous-messaging-too dept.
An AC writes "According to this CNET news.com article, AOL has started to remove ICQ accounts of anyone whose info states that they are under 13 years old to comply with the new Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Yahoo is now reportedly asking customers to provide credit card numbers to verify that they older than 13! Now, I am all for protecting kids online, but isn't this a bit over the line?"
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COPPA Steps on ICQ Privacy More

COPPA Steps on ICQ Privacy

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  • what really bothers me about icq is how easy it makes it to track people. unless you want to appear anti-social and set yourself invisible, anyone can tell your computer habits.
  • It's that simple. The USA, a country founded on the basis of freedom, is becoming a Big Brother type state. I'll bet you that the founding fathers of the USA are spinning in their graves right now.


    When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
  • As long as the ICQ server knows you're online, it's possible.

    Clients can lie to the server about their identity through a buffer overrun in the password field, thus they are able to be on the visible list. You'd need to know of someone on the visible list, but you get actual status.

    If your IP is known, you can confirm online status by attempting a direct spoof with a wide range of ports. Eventually the spoofer finds an open port ICQ is sitting on and transmits the message if online. I have yet to see a spoofer that reports response stat, so you can only find out if ICQ is running this way. This is the same as using a portscanner and watching for the standard ICQ responses.

    Packet sniffers can also be used. The client transmits a keepalive packet to the server. Just set the sniffer to look for packets containing UserX.

  • I don't know about the USA, but here in the UK the minimum age for holding a credit card is 18. So how is a 14-17 year old going to use a credit card to prove they are over 13?
  • I sincerely hope they don't try imposing this on non-US citizens - I am damned if I am giving them MY credit card details just to keep ICQ...
    --
  • Something I haven't seen brought up yet...what about the folks that are going to get booted just because they choose not to sell their souls to some financial institution or another?

    Let's take me, for example. I'm 25 years old, and I neither have nor want a single credit card. If I want something, I pay cash for it in person, or pop a money order in the mail. And apparently, this makes me a second-class citizen in the online world. It's very rare that you'll find any such place that needs proof you're over 18 willing to accept a truly valid form of ID (i.e. a driver's license). Try flopping a credit card down on the counter next time you get carded for a pack of cigarettes, and watch the clerk laugh in your face. Why should the Internet be any different?
  • Also what I don't quite understand is why a credit card number is the method of choice for verifying age (18 or older). Why would people feel safe giving their credit card number out to every site they use? It's ridiculous.
  • Some of the people I have on my ICQ list put 1999 as their birthyear so they can reveal their birthday without giving away their age. I hope AOL skips these accounts.

    (not meaning to imply that I agree with what they're doing in general)

    --

  • With the fees and interest rates they charge, I don't own one, and have often considered trying to crack the Visa Nextcard ads... {evil cackling}

    Back on topic, I don't feel save giving out my real name (even my first name), location, phone, or even my age (fudge the demographics... Nashville is within a day's drive, so it shouldn't make a difference ;) ) online. It even irritates me that my IP tells who my ISP is (reverse DNS or "ping -a i.p.right.here").


    -- LoonXTall
  • I believe that the minimum age for credit cards holds here as well. However, the US is plumb full of kiddies whose parents will get them a card with a tiny (or sometimes) not card that they can use.

    Of course, I still don't think that there would be many 13 year olds that have them.

  • Actually, I suspect that, by todays standards, the founding fathers were extremely conservative and probably would have approved of dire measures to protect children... That is, if they could deal with the meaning of our credit based economy. I doubt that they would have seen this as a freedom of speech issue. More like an invasion of privacy.
  • I think yahoo will apply this to non-US citizens. They may have to, since COPPA sets yahoo's rules. if COPPA says: "no data-gathering on kids" that includes all kids, not just US kids. It's not a law (well... this part, and I don't know much about it) that regulates the user, it's a law that regulates the gatherer of data i.e. yahoo

    //rdj
  • A rose by any other name still smells as sweet. No matter how we describe it, it is still evil.

    '"So long, coppa," yelled Scarface as he pulled the trigger on his Tommy Gun and blew away the policeman.'


    When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
  • Hello!? Who the fuck cares about privacy in this situation? I think the far more important issue is the fact that we're unjustifiably cutting of access to kids for a bunch of ignorant morons. I've got two brothers who are serious coders and have good friends around the country who are going to lose their ICQ accounts over this stupid law. Yeah, in the end, it'll be more inconvenience than disaster; they've still got IRC and ICB, after all... but if we want to moan about trampling on privacy rights, lets first start with how we're trampling on these kids rights.
  • OK, lots of places on the Net ask for a CC # to validate age. However, I think I speak for most people when I say that I'm weary of giving this out despite the notices that I will not be billed for anything. Why not make some form of digital ID for age verification? You get it at an office somewhere, or using a credit card (but only at one site). This way, after a one time hassle, you forever have a good way of supplying ID over the net.
  • How hard is it to lie about your age? You just enter a birth year a few years earlier than reality, and poof!, you're a few years older, at least as far as ICQ knows.

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