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On-line safety through common sense

Software

Please put down that webcam for a while and while you're at it, put those boobs back where they belong as well. Profile sites such as MySpace are dangerous. Join any such network and you will soon end up in some pervert's basement. Raped and prostituted if you're lucky, dismembered in all other cases.

Or that's the impression one would get by reading The Dead Kids of Myspace for a while. It doesn't even matter whether you are the stereotypical 14-year-old inexperienced virgin (as if!) or not:

Two girls - 14- and 15-years-old - chatted on MySpace with a man for two weeks, claiming to be an 18-year-old named "Natalia." When the man showed up for a tryst at Natalia's supposed apartment, the two girls robbed him at gunpoint!

Scott Granneman's defense of social networks quotes heavily from the list of MySpace victims, but then fortunately makes the same point I've been making for the past eleven years, when I first started to meet people "from the Internet" in real life:

Look, I know there are really bad people using MySpace to do really bad things. If its criminal, they should be caught and punished. But I also know that there are really bad people in the grocery stores, at the movie theaters, in parks, and even on the other end of the phone.

Dead on. I'm also sick of the "Internet is dangerous" hype. The majority of MySpace's 87 million users know and apply the decades-old common sense rule to never meet in private and on your own, so why can't most policy makers, columnists and parents? Follow common sense and MySpace offers long weekends full of consensual sex yet void of dismemberment. No amount of parental guidance or law expansion necessary whatsoever.

How to get a date with Bluetooth

Software

Bluetooth is hip. And not just because you can use it to show off that you have an acceptably recent telephone, laptop or PDA. No, it's actually also useful to exchange v-cards after a business meeting or photos after a concert or other day/night out with friends.

And there's more: Bluejacking. The art of sending messages and photos to unknown devices to initiate contact. And attract sexy girls, apparently. Or so says How to get a date by Blackjacking?.

I have actually gotten a dozen of messages and photos over Bluetooth, so that's fun. Although sometimes in the subway I get icky .sis files which of course I deny, even though they look like viruses for Windows based devices which none of mine are (K750i phone, Linux laptop). But dates? Nope. Still, I like the way they put it:

With the built in camera in your phone you can take your picture and send it to her - moments later you get a tap on the shoulder and ......

Well, you get the idea.

The advantage is that you now have something in common to talk about - the art of BlueJacking.

Best of all this is completely and 100% free of charge - no 10p text messages or phone calls and not finding that the other person lives 150 miles away - they are in the same bar/pub/bowling alley/tube or train as you are.

So the future is Blue, not Orange.

Lovely.

Rails

Personal

You wouldn't think Rob is the kind of person who would post a letter to the dating section of Rails, the magazine of the national railways.

Maandagochtend zaten wij in de Intercity naar Amsterdam. Bij iedere stop schoof mijn fles sinaasappelsap over de tafel in jouw richting en we raakten in gesprek. Je studeert aan de AMFI op de Mauritskade, en ik werk aan de overkant. Je woont in Rotterdam bij Blijdorp, ik aan de Oude Haven. En ik hoop nog steeds dat je nog een keer een trein te laat neemt.

And you would be right to think so, I never posted this to Rails.

Crap!

Personal

I'm never having sex again.

Got a phone call from a girl I met in February last night. Knocked her up, isn't that just wonderful? As if I haven't got enough bills to pay, I suppose I can now add child support to the list of monthly expenses. I'm going to be a daddy. Again - for those of who who have known me since 1997 - although this one is probably not made up by the mother like that one probably was (I never found out as we got into a fight and at 19 I was precisely the kind of guy to figure: well, whatever, bye-bye).

Sigh.

© Copyright 1995-2009 Robert John Kaper. All rights reserved.

Tom has more friends but mine are prettier! (#1/1)