News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:About communication safety in Messages by lozenge on Thursday July 28, 2022 @04:59AM (#32261927)
So you're OK with your child receiving unexpected messages of erect penises? Because that's what this feature is actually about if you read past the headline. Not "banning" anything but putting users and parents in control.
Re:About communication safety in Messages by vincnetas on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:11AM (#32262019)
you can extend this to everything. are you ok your children reciving gore pics, are you ok your kids receiving anarchyst cookbooks, are you ok your kids receiving comunist propoganda? are you ok your kids receiving any random messges from anonymous users? if not i guess just whitelist contacts your kid is allowed to interact. but i myself prefere to talk about world and explain how things work and what you can expect to encounter when growing up rather than growing your kid in petri dish. eventualy they will see errect penis :)
Re:About communication safety in Messages by FBISurveillance on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:32AM (#32262205)
I have a 5 y.o. daughter and two nephews: 6 and 11 y.o. I like seeing them grow in real world.

There will always be perverts sending nudes to kids one way or another. Where I grew (before the internet) we've had them arrested near schools.

Pretending the world is all unicorns and rainbows is not the way to raise your children IMO - the hard truth is going to hit them sooner or later. Talk to them, treat them as young adults, and explain what is good and what is not, and why.

Fun story: I'm into crossfit semi-professionally and I've recently been very pleased to hear my 5 y.o. telling her friends that they should not eat that much fries and coke if they want to stay healthy and suggested they try fish and chicken instead.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by Glawen on Thursday July 28, 2022 @06:38AM (#32262648)
>Fun story: I'm into crossfit semi-professionally and I've recently been very pleased to hear my 5 y.o. telling her friends that they should not eat that much fries and coke if they want to stay healthy and suggested they try fish and chicken instead.

I actually find it scary. I believe that children need to experience the maximum of stuff, and as a French they need to taste all the food, whatever unhealthy they are. Schools are a already pushing a lot of propaganda on children about saving the planet. I can see that the next step will be to tell them that meat pollute and they should be vegan to save the planet.

My child is sometimes telling me things like this and I tell him that he is totally healthy and does not need to worry.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by lloeki on Thursday July 28, 2022 @01:53PM (#32267906)
> they need to taste all the food

that's a good stand to have, and I would argue that the kid tried to concur:

>> eat that much fries and coke

>> try fish and chicken instead

"that much" (!= never) and "try" (!= have to) seem to be key in the dialog here, although from these excerpts only we get a highly decontextualised version. nonetheless to me it sounded like they always indulge in the same food

> experience the maximum of stuff ... need to taste all the food

Now replace food with drugs, how would you feel? coz TBH some food out there borderlines on being drug-like in terms of addictiveness, both when ingested and how they're being advertised.

The way we raise our child is try food, sure, but be mindful of what you eat. we're certainly not opposed to bad food once in a while, forbidding it would only make it that more alluring. also being healthy right now doesn't mean bad habits can't creep in, and healthy habits are tough to instill after the fact once bad habits have taken hold.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by Glawen on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:40PM (#32270431)
For the healthy food you just need to train them to eat vegetable, and that is easy if you start young. My kids have no issue with vegetables at all, with food in general actually, they are not fussy. But I will not disallow junk food, anyway they are not so fond of it.

>Now replace food with drugs, how would you feel? coz TBH some food out there borderlines on being drug-like in terms of addictiveness, both when ingested and how they're being advertised.

Well, I also have a big one, nearly 18, and I don't understand him at all. He is spending his free time at the gym, he tells me he goes with his friends. At his age I was trying drugs and binge drinking. I'm in total disconnect here...

Re:About communication safety in Messages by jon-wood on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:31AM (#32262198)
This strongly depends on the age of the child, and their maturity. I have an eight year old, who currently doesn’t even have a phone. Once he does I will absolutely be whitelisting contacts, approving app installs, and turning on functionality to limit access to content unsuitable for a child.

That’s not to say I won’t also be talking about the world, and things they’re likely to encounter. Those conversations are happening even now, he’s not being raised in a petri dish, but equally I’d quite like to avoid throwing him directly into a vat of toxic waste unprepared if I can avoid that. Ultimate children are just that, children, they’re not renowned for solid decision making skills.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by djaychela on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:13AM (#32262038)
How old are your kids?
Re:About communication safety in Messages by vincnetas on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:18AM (#32262081)
to clearify apple feature looks reasonable to me. 4 and 7. ... and now im questioning my previous comment in my head about how certain i am about what i wrote :)
Re:About communication safety in Messages by heavenlyblue on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:18AM (#32262086)
I think the more important question is how old are your kids?
Re:About communication safety in Messages by djaychela on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:26AM (#32262151)
Between 15 and 23. It's easy to live in a utopian ideal where you say "We'll talk to them about all of this, and they'll be rational and see sense", but having spent the last 3+ years firefighting the impact of their spectacularly stupid behaviour (all 4 kids are above average IQ, but all of them have ASD diagnoses, all of them fall into the 'loud, confident and wrong' category) - a lot of which has involved impact with people whose opinions are along the lines of free speech absolutists mixed with 8chan lunacy - whenever I see people crowing about how terrible all these ideas are, I think they probably haven't spent sleepless nights comforting their child's mother because one of the kids has spent another night in a hospital, institution or police custody because of undue influence placed on them whether it's because of social pressure, or because they've been convinced by a nutter to send nudes and use that against them.

I'm well aware you can't protect them from all these things, but a lot of people who have young kids seem to think that as soon as they get to school it'll all be OK. My experience has been that the games get harder and stakes rise drastically, to the point where I often consider that killing myself would be a logical way out.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by deltarholamda on Thursday July 28, 2022 @12:31PM (#32266614)
>you can extend this to everything

Doing nothing until you can do 100% of everything is not how anything works.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by codedokode on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:22AM (#32262117)
It is not OK that children have access to adult phones and adult Internet.

Apple should fix this by creating a kid mode, where the user can only contact people approved by parents and visit sites approved by parents or conforming to kid safety requirements. In this case the children will be perfectly safe.

Why Apple doesn't do it? I guess because it is unprofitable, it requires major investments and doesn't promise any returns.

Kids must be banned from the Internet completely instead of trying to patch different issues here and there.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by jrmann100 on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:38AM (#32262248)
These features exist! Apple includes parental controls under "Screen Time" and they works very well. You can whitelist contacts and websites, and even extend them remotely, as an administrator of a child's device.

For restricting access to the internet: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304 For restricting access to contacts: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-screen-time-fo...

Re:About communication safety in Messages by freeman478 on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:33AM (#32262215)
This exists already as part of Family Sharing.

You can do everything you said when you manage your kids accounts (manage contacts, whitelist internet websites, define appropriate content ratings and so on.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by lostlogin on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:57AM (#32262389)
> You can do everything you said when you manage your kids accounts (manage contacts, whitelist internet websites, define appropriate content ratings and so on.

Have you tried? It's a dumpster fire.

Child requests app purchase > I get notification > It wants my AppleID password > I go to password manager to get password, but this dismisses the notification.

I believe it's getting a bit of love this OS cycle, but it's hopeless currently.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by codedokode on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:39AM (#32262259)
This is not enough because in reality (I guess) most parents do not bother with setting this up (or don't know how to do it) and as a result kids stay unprotected. Maybe there should be a law requiring to setup such settings and a one-click option to switch to restricted mode without having to toggle every checkbox.
Re:About communication safety in Messages by john_the_writer on Thursday July 28, 2022 @06:21AM (#32262540)
Way easier.. full parental control, no phone for the kids. 100% effective.

I got my first phone at 35. I figure my kids can wait a bit.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by jon-wood on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:33AM (#32262213)
They do. iDevices can be setup with a managed Apple account which allows whitelisting contacts, accessed websites, and permission to be granted before installing apps.
Re:About communication safety in Messages by lostlogin on Thursday July 28, 2022 @06:01AM (#32262417)
Have you used it? It's really horrible. It said I could share Apple Music with my family, so I gave my father access. Now I pay for all his purchases.

I required approval for a child's app purchases. The notification is dismissed when I try to get password from password manager.

Shared photo albums? In a family? This is looks to be getting some attention now, rather belatedly.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by watwut on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:33AM (#32262214)
Nah, opt in feature like this is better. Because it is actually useable for parents. The all in everything locked kids modes are too much of annoyance for everyone involved to be used.
Re:About communication safety in Messages by codedokode on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:45AM (#32262300)
Maybe the locked mode for children should be required by the law because many parents are too lazy or not competent enough to setup a phone properly for their kids.
Re:About communication safety in Messages by watwut on Thursday July 28, 2022 @06:41AM (#32262666)
Nice try, but no. If you create ridiculous hurdles, people won't use it.

Meanwhile, the opt in button for this is simple, clear and easy.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by samatman on Thursday July 28, 2022 @03:41PM (#32269215)
Yes. Apple should have such a mode.

Maybe make a support page about one of its features.

That could get posted to Hacker News.

I could continue.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by tommica on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:23AM (#32262127)
If a parent is worried about something like this, then wouldn't it be smarter to go for a phone that has no image sending/receiving possibility?

Or if they are no longer available, shouldn't there be a parental control of a white-list of contact numbers that can show more than just the text in the message? This automatic filtering seems like a slippery slope.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by bambax on Thursday July 28, 2022 @06:08AM (#32262460)
Yes, I'm totally ok with that (I have three kids). What's going to happen? Will they faint? Die? They will probably laugh.

In Rome there were statues of Dionysus sporting a huge erection everywhere. It wasn't a problem.

In Italy today still, you can find postcards of him in the same position. (Granted, they are statues, not images in the flesh, but they're pretty realistic.)

I would have a problem with an adult sending nude pictures of themselves to my kids. But I would confront them myself, I don't need Apple's help in preventing it from ever happening like it's a horrible risk.

It's nothing. Really one of the least important problems ever.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by shultays on Thursday July 28, 2022 @07:49AM (#32263075)
You are OK with strangers sending penis pictures to your kids? At what point of you are not OK with sexual predators?
Re:About communication safety in Messages by bambax on Thursday July 28, 2022 @08:02AM (#32263176)
I don't welcome it. I'm just not terrified, as seems to be obligatory these days. It's quite literally the least of my concerns.

I'm much more worried about my kids being glued to stupid games or "harmless" (but constantly updating) TikTok videos.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by ziddoap on Thursday July 28, 2022 @11:38AM (#32265804)
They literally wrote out "I would have a problem with an adult sending nude pictures of themselves to my kids".

How do you get "OK with sexual predators" from that?

Re:About communication safety in Messages by azinman2 on Thursday July 28, 2022 @02:16PM (#32268215)
Probably from what follows: “ It's nothing. Really one of the least important problems ever.”

Just because you feel that way doesn’t mean others do. Everyone parents differently. This is an optional feature that you don’t have to turn on and is off by default.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by ziddoap on Thursday July 28, 2022 @02:44PM (#32268546)
>Just because you feel that way doesn’t mean others do. Everyone parents differently.

The same applies to the parent poster I quoted, who was then told they must support sexual predators because of their different parenting.

They didn't tell you to how to feel or tell you how to parent. They stated how they feel and how they parent. You don't have to agree, but that doesn't mean they support sexual predators.

>This is an optional feature that you don’t have to turn on and is off by default.

Yes, that's been well established, and I don't think anyone in this comment chain has said otherwise.

Re:About communication safety in Messages by llampx on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:26PM (#32270314)
From the chilling reports I have read, sexual predators can do their entire work not needing to send or receive a single (nude) image.
Re:About communication safety in Messages by claudiawerner on Thursday July 28, 2022 @12:29PM (#32266577)
Firstly, why specify 'erect penis' as though that's where the line is crossed? Does the question only apply to parents of girls, since they're less likely to have seen a penis before?

But yeah, I wouldn't mind all that much; it would raise a red flag for sure, given that many grooming operations work by starting out as raising children's curiosity, but I do not see any inherent issue with my child seeing a penis (erect or not!).

Re:About communication safety in Messages by MomoXenosaga on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:46AM (#32262307)
Teenagers have sex and experiment. Just teach them about birth control and "no means no" and everything will work out.