PARENTS BEWARE

Parents beware your digitally connected child could be downloading a lot more than copyright protected music files on KaZaA and other well known file-sharing peer-to-peer networks.

Your child logs onto KaZaA looking for music and, using innocent search terms such as cartoon characters like Pokemon, or popular music stars such as J Lo or Britney Spears, is besieged with unmonitored links leading them freely to the darkest side of the Internet where they will likely be exposed to shocking and deplorable graphic images of young children engaged in sexual acts with other children or adults; with child erotica; with cartoon pornography; or with hard core adult pornographic images or videos.

Child pornography is easily found and being downloaded using the increasingly popular peer-to-peer (p2p) technology, a form of networking allowing direct communication between computer users so they can access each otherÃs files and share digital music, images and video. According to a March 2003, federal General Accounting Office (GAO) Report on File Sharing Programs and ChildrenÃs Exposure to Child Pornography on Peer-To-Peer Networks, since 2001, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has seen a fourfold increase in the number of reports they receive of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks.

Although children can stumble upon links to child pornography or hard core adult pornography while searching Yahoo or Google, they are by-and-large prevented from accessing hard core images because of the on-line payment requirement. But, on KaZaA and other file-sharing programs such as Bear Share, iMesh, Grokster, Lime Wire, and Morpheus, children and adults can access illegal child pornography and sexual predators can freely disseminate their collections of illegal child pornography across the world without restriction.

With the assistance of the Customs Service CyberSmuggling Center, GAO analyzed titles and file names identified through KaZaA searches on keywords known to be associated with child pornography. They found that nearly half of the images (42%) were determined to be child pornography, 13% child erotica, 29% adult pornography and 14% nonpornographic.

File-sharing services also allow anyone to communicate directly with people downloading their files. If a child mistakenly opens a link to child or adult pornography, a sexual predator could be waiting in virtual space to instant message, track or even stalk that unsuspecting child.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), 41% of people downloading files through p2p networks are between the ages of 12 and 18. KaZaA, the most popular file sharing program has been downloaded more than 199 million times and on a typical day can have 4 million users connected to the network “ two and a half times the number of users Napster had before being shut down in September of 2002 for facilitating the mass sharing of copyrighted music files.

Maybe suspicious that the recording industry is simply attempting to reduce online piracy to boost lagging sales, the media hasnÃt given enough attention to the seriousness of the problems associated with p2p and massive child exploitation.

File-sharing software providers facilitate the exploitation of children by permitting illegal child pornography to be disseminated through their programs, and by ignoring the certainty that innocent children, racing to their sites by the millions will be mistakenly, or out of curiosity, exposed to unforgettable graphic images of child pornography, no doubt haunting them for the rest of their lives.

KaZaA has successfully attracted children just as a R.J. Reynolds Tobacco did when they made Joe Camel as recognizable to kids as Mickey Mouse. KaZaAÃs product pages are splashed with photos of preteen boys featuring œskins” that kids can download to jazz up their home pages “ the top two featured skins are a cool blue tie dye and a sweet lilac butterfly.

The best prevention is parental supervision but, children will be children, thatÃs why we have laws to protect them. None of the parental control options offered by KaZaA or other file-sharing programs could block all pornographic images and password protections were easily circumvented.

KaZaA needs to stop marketing to kids and must be held accountable for facilitating the massive exploitation of children worldwide. Lawmakers should require them and other p2p providers to fully disclose the dangers of file-sharing networks to parents and obtain written permission before minors can download these programs.

Laura A. Ahearn, C.S.W.

Copyright 2003

Call your federal lawmaker and urge them to pass federal legislation to prevent the exploitation of children through p2p networks.

Don't let your children use file sharing programs.