Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Internet Safety

Warning: this post is not for the faint of heart. Do not read while drinking any fluids. Do not read if there are children in the room. Do not read it you are prone to apoplectic seizures. This is the email I wrote to the social worker this evening:

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Dear Diane,

We told him he was going to respite. He did not react like it was a big deal. It might not be for him, or it might come out later.

And now for the OTHER big news. Andrew and Brian told us, or rather made Frankie tell us, about something he did in WoW a while ago. A group of people in the game whom he knows are very nice and would never do anything bad approached him and asked him to accept a patch (a program that adds something to WoW). He did, because they were giving game money to people who accepted. He understood that this is against WoW rules and something for which WoW could cancel his membership. It's harmless though, and he needed the money, so he didn't see any reason for not doing it.

Andrew explained and Hubby explained that they could have downloaded ANYTHING and that it was possible that was why the computer had to go into the shop, that they could have downloaded a key-stroke spy program to get credit card numbers and that all our anti-spy protection would not stop it because he had authorized it. He said he understood but these were nice people who wouldn't do anything bad and we have programs that prevent things like that.

I told him that I had been fooled by people on-line before, that there were people who seemed nice and were not. He said he understood, but not these people.

He said that he knew what he did was wrong and he would remove the patch, and of course he could because these are nice people who told him where the patch is and of course they did not also download anything else that he did not know about.

Okay...now are you ready for the really bad part of this? Take a deep breath.

The nature of the patch is this. In WoW underwear is a permanent part of your character. You can't get naked. With the patch you can. Yep. A group calling themselves the "strip sisters" gave him virtual money to download a program that will allow him to virtually strip and walk around naked. On the up side (maybe) only other people who have the patch can see him in all his glorious nudity.

I told him that it was never a good idea in the real world or the virtual world to accept money for taking off your clothes. He said, "But I really needed money!"

May I take a moment to say "OH MY G-D!!!!"

Okay...I'm calm now. So....do you want to tell him he can't play anymore, or do you want me to ask the kids to tell me how to report him and the strip sisters to the WoW company? Hubby has decided to take out some of the old computers out of his classroom. We are going to bring one home and set it up for him -- no Internet connection. We will buy him one computer game that can be played off-line only.

7 comments:

  1. If this nude patch is like most of them, only people with the patch can see the nudity, sometimes just on their own character. You can only change things on your end, not on the server side or other people's setups. I'll ask around about whosa-nakey with this one, if the boys don't know.

    I'd be more upset that he downloaded from an unknown source (though I'm sure he'd argue that they weren't unknown... whatever) than the nature of the patch. Little bit of undead pubes never hurt anyone much.

    Also, if you report Frankie's breach of the WoW TOS, there's a good chance that the ISP will be flagged and the other boys' accounts will be suspended.

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  2. Yeah, I'd be upset about the download thing, too. I don't care how "nice" these people seemed. I think a computer with no internet connection is a good idea. I know Slugger's a lot younger, but I have his account passworded so he can only get on when I log in for him. He doesn't have email, can't download anything, and can't view sites that are even remotely bad. I bought the holy grail of internet security programs when the first cheapo security program allowed him to view porn after typing in a search for images of "foxes." (Not one of my prouder parenting moments.)

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  3. Yeah, I'd be so done with the whole WO*W thing a long time ago. Of course just having him on my computer would give me hives, but this would certainly be the final straw.

    He clearly doesn't have any boundaries and having him on the internet is just not safe.

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  4. Thanks Maerlowe (and the rest of you of course),

    I'm glad to know that I would endanger the boys. That is another reason to give Frankie. It was only because of the boys that he was allowed to play this long (curse fairness!).

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  5. This is disturbing and hysterically funny, both.

    I would definitely revoke his Internet privileges.

    But it would be hard for me not to laugh as I did so.

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  6. There is never any lack of excitement when Frankie is around! And no lack of laughter from our end of the deal either. Good life lesson. Never, ever take your clothes off for money. Got it.

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