Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for July 21, 2007 XXX

Oh, well...the best laid plans!

But, then again, shouldn't folks have known that going in? We have ample evidence here at home what children will do if left unattended to surf the net!

It's another "Well, duh!"

From the BostonHerald.com website...

XXX-tracurricular activities: Kids use donated laptops to find porn

By Donna Goodison

MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte’s lofty One Laptop Per Child program is showing that children will be children - and naughty ones at that.

Nigerian kids testing what are being designed as $100 laptop computers were caught surfing pornography on the Internet, according to a News Agency of Nigeria report this week. The agency said one of its reporters saw pornographic images stored on several of the children’s computers in the capital city of Abuja.

“Efforts to promote learning with laptops in a primary school in Abuja have gone awry, as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials,” the agency said.

Launched in February as a pilot program, One Laptop Per Child’s mission is to equip millions of children from developing countries with cheap laptops to help them learn, explore and express, according to the nonprofit’s Web site. The goal is to help break them out of the poverty and isolation experienced by their parents.

But the new “windows on the world” are apparently giving the Nigerian children more than an eyeful of what’s beyond the West African country. The Herald was unable to contact an OLPC official who would provide comment.

The final so-called XO laptops, likely to cost closer to $150, are expected to be unveiled this fall. It apparently will be up to recipient governments and school systems to use their computer servers to filter content, since the laptops’ hardware and software is being designed to be as open as possible, according to a Web site maintained by OLPC staff.

“In regard to the children being exploited in the creation of pornographic content, it is certainly a concern - one we are trying to address through a number of mechanisms, some technological, but most of a societal nature,” states a posting by Walter Bender, OLPC’s software and content president.

The laptops’ cameras and microphones are protected against remote access, and journals log all activities, including picture-taking, according to Bender’s posting.

“But neither of these measures is adequate if the family and community turn their backs on their children,” Bender’s posting states. “We are striving to engage all community members in the program, which includes guidance about the exploitation of children.”