O’DonnellWeb

If this wasn’t posted on a .co.us domain I would assume it was satire. Let us have some fun.

The “Information Super Highway,” which is made up of commercial online services such as Prodigy, America Online, CompuServe, and the Internet, allows millions of people around the world to communicate anonymously in a virtually uncontrolled electronic world. If your child has a home computer, uses a computer at school, or has access to a friend’s computer (particularly if they have an internet connection), please take some time to review this guide.

Prodigy? This must have been written sometime in the mid 90s I’m guessing?

What we are concerned about is giving personal and credit information to people you meet in chat rooms, via sites like MySpace, or email / instant messaging.

So they’ve updated this page since MySpace came into being, but it didn’t occur to them to update the bit about Prodigy and Compuserve? Your tax dollars at work…

The warning signs of computer crime are hilarious.

Use of a new, unusual vocabulary, heavy with computer terms, satanic phrases, sexual references or a sudden interest in related hard rock or satanic oriented posters, music, etc.

Remove the reference to computer terms and that is a stock parental warning of drug problems from as far back as the 70s. Did they take a 30 year old document and just replace “drugs” with “computers?”

Look for related doodling or writing using of words such as: Hacking, Phreaking, or any words with “ph” replacing ‘f”

So homeschooler Phat Mommy is really a computer hacking drug lord something or another?

Lack of interest in self and appearance, grooming and hygiene, or indications of lack of sleep, sudden drop in school grades, and unauthorized absences from classes.

I think every teenage boy in America hits at least two of these at some point of their teen years. Who knew they were all criminals?

The computer and modem are running late at night, even when unattended.

I’ll give them this one, I’d be worried if I saw my kids with a dial up modem.

Computer files ending in GIF, JPG, BMP, TIF, PCX, DL, GL, FLI, MPG, AVI, MOV – these are picture or graphic files and parents should know what they illustrate. Image files may be pictures of a sexual nature and can be of very high quality, moving pictures, and even include sound.

They can send pictures and stuff over them Internet tubes? Wow, those crazy kids. What will they think of next?

Names on communication programs that seem satanic, pornographic, rude, or vulgar in nature

My son’s Xbox screen name violates this. I’m a bad parent.

An obsession with fantasy adventure games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Trade Wars.

Trade Wars? Are they fracking kidding? Has anybody played trade wars since about 1996?

Now that they’ve scared both parents in town that are dumb enough to think that this is helpful, they offer their advice.

Talk to your kids about their use of the computer and the dangers online. You are already talking about school, sex, drugs, strangers, gangs, and violence. Computers can involve all these problems and they can happen in your home without your knowledge.

They forgot the satanism boogie-man in that laundry list of parental fears.

Control all internet activity. Monitor the times and the numbers dialed.

I have no doubt that today’s teens would happily turn over the list of numbers that they are dialing from their computers.

Closely monitor your long distance telephone bill for unexplained calls. With online services and bulletin boards all over the world, it is easy to start calling long distance for special systems.

So apparently the unlimited long distance meme has not yet hit Thurston County?

Check the screen of an unattended computer. If the computer is showing a series of changing numbers, the computer may be running a hacking program trying to identify calling card “pin” numbers, long distance access numbers, or be attempting to validate credit card numbers.

Or, you aren’t looking at the computer screen, you are looking at TBS running a late night rerun of Hackers starring Angelina Jolie.

Who am I kidding? These people probably don’t have cable yet.

BTW, the county web site is running on active server pages – so it is not a circa 1996 web site. In fact it appears to be relatively well maintained, and the web server reports that this particular page was last edited on Oct 29, 2009.