OK, that last post about "Is Your Child a Computer Hacker" was a joke. Sort of. Unfortunately, it seems to be about the level at which many adults understand the Internet:

Theirer:  ISPs and site would have to collect data on their customers, like IP address, for at least a year and maybe longer.  It’s already in place in EU, DOJ is enthusiastic.  We don’t know what problems this will create.  There are agreements to retain for six to nine months or longer (voluntary agreements).  Most of these sites will preserve on official request if there’s a bad guy.  Do we go from preservation to fullblown retention model?  Good chance of this.

— Adam Theirer, by Susan Crawford, Susan Crawford Blog, 6 March 2006

She’s reporting on a talk and Q&A at the recent Freedom to Connect conference. Why would anyone want universal data retention? To protect the children. They’re scared (or being scared by people who want them scared) that the Internet is swarming with predators out to get their child. Nevermind that IP address doesn’t necessarily map to person. It looks like they’re doing something!

And it gets worse:

Age verification: requiring social network sites to authenticate identity of individuals for age. Even though nation has no infrastructure for identity. It won’t work, will create false sense of security, but protecting kids is popular. Just debating AGs about this. They honestly believe that social networks are essentially evil. You have a moral panic out there. Adults have no idea and don’t understand.

It’s enough to make me hope everyone’s child has read Cryptonomicon and is ready to vote these people out. That would be good risk management.

What can we do meanwhile to educate law enforcement and legislators?

-jsq