[cap-talk] Can webkeys solve the MySpace problem?

[Karp, Alan H]

Dean Tribble wrote:
>
> Or adults with children, or adults who manage children (teachers,
> scout leaders, priests), or anyone who participates in handing out web
> keys, or anyone that knows a child and buys their webkey or or or.
> This is one of those cases in which providing people what they are
> asking for will leave you less secure, because the security theater
> will distract from solving the real problem (which is really darn
> hard, to be sure).

People involved with schools have a responsibility to protect children.  They are screened (or at least are supposed to be).  That doesn't mean there won't be some who abuse any system you set up.  However, such people are only a small percentage of those who would be dealing with these webkeys, and there is a mechanism to recover if a webkey is found to have been compromised.  The question is whether or not the webkey mechanism does a better job of age verification than other proposals.

________________________
Alan Karp
Principal Scientist
Virus Safe Computing Initiative
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
1501 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(650) 857-3967, fax (650) 857-7029
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Alan_Karp