Comments on: Patricia de Lille vs MXit and the Bloggers http://ramonthomas.com/2007/05/patricia-de-lille-vs-mxit-and-the-bloggers/ Psychology of Technology Blog Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:12:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: George Marx http://ramonthomas.com/2007/05/patricia-de-lille-vs-mxit-and-the-bloggers/comment-page-1/#comment-2650 George Marx Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:40:27 +0000 http://onlinesafety.org.za/patricia-de-lille-vs-mxit-and-the-bloggers/#comment-2650 I am in two minds about the MXIT saga. I own a mobile community (mavchat.mobi) where people chat dayly and we (thankfully) haven’t yet had the problems they have had. But with the recent incidents of kidnapping of members of MXIT members by other characters leads us to think maybe it should be regulated. Then we look at MXITs circumstances (if you can call it that): 1. User logs are cleared when the user logs off. Which makes sense if you take into account the amount of active users they have daily. 2. There is nobody in authority there who enforces the rules. Eg. One rule, their lawyer mentioned in his spin on SABC3 last week sunday, of not giving out your personal details. If nobody checks that the rules are followed, who’s going to follow the rules? A child dont think about pedophiles when their on these sites they are just making friends. Now the big question: How do you know the person registering for using these sites/applications are who they say they are. Do yo force them to send a certified copy of their ID to the Administrator of such a site… and then stand a chance of becoming a victim of identity theft if you register on the wrong site. Email verification is an old system to identify users, in a way, but there are many services that give you a free email adress like Gmail, Hotmail, MSN, gala.net. SMS verification? Starter packs can be picked up for 99c at your local Pick ‘n Pay making them disposable and still an unreliable form of identifying users. IP? South African celular networks use dynamic IP’s thus many people use the same IP’s. At MavChat.Mobi users are identified by a combination of the IP adress and the phone browser being used and thats not even very reliable. If you ask them how we are to be sure a person online is realy who they say they are I believe their response will probably be: ” I don’t know. You are the web developer you figure it out.” Should they implement this and make it law, I will not change anything in the registration process untill they tell me a foolproof way to know who is on the other side of that phone. I am in two minds about the MXIT saga. I own a mobile community (mavchat.mobi) where people chat dayly and we (thankfully) haven’t yet had the problems they have had.

But with the recent incidents of kidnapping of members of MXIT members by other characters leads us to think maybe it should be regulated.

Then we look at MXITs circumstances (if you can call it that):
1. User logs are cleared when the user logs off. Which makes sense if you take into account the amount of active users they have daily.
2. There is nobody in authority there who enforces the rules. Eg. One rule, their lawyer mentioned in his spin on SABC3 last week sunday, of not giving out your personal details. If nobody checks that the rules are followed, who’s going to follow the rules? A child dont think about pedophiles when their on these sites they are just making friends.

Now the big question:
How do you know the person registering for using these sites/applications are who they say they are. Do yo force them to send a certified copy of their ID to the Administrator of such a site… and then stand a chance of becoming a victim of identity theft if you register on the wrong site.

Email verification is an old system to identify users, in a way, but there are many services that give you a free email adress like Gmail, Hotmail, MSN, gala.net.

SMS verification? Starter packs can be picked up for 99c at your local Pick ‘n Pay making them disposable and still an unreliable form of identifying users.

IP? South African celular networks use dynamic IP’s thus many people use the same IP’s.

At MavChat.Mobi users are identified by a combination of the IP adress and the phone browser being used and thats not even very reliable.

If you ask them how we are to be sure a person online is realy who they say they are I believe their response will probably be:
” I don’t know. You are the web developer you figure it out.”

Should they implement this and make it law, I will not change anything in the registration process untill they tell me a foolproof way to know who is on the other side of that phone.

]]> By: Colin Alston http://ramonthomas.com/2007/05/patricia-de-lille-vs-mxit-and-the-bloggers/comment-page-1/#comment-2649 Colin Alston Wed, 23 May 2007 11:35:18 +0000 http://onlinesafety.org.za/patricia-de-lille-vs-mxit-and-the-bloggers/#comment-2649 Online safety is an important thing, but I feel it's far more a case of educating people than imposing regulation - which is infeasible. Anonymity is the one thing which actually provides internet safety. The fact that someone was silly enough to ruin their *own* life by means of MXit is simply indicative of how new these technologies are to South Africa, as well as the excellent job MXit have done in it's penetration. Scary stories will happen, but let them rather be a lesson to us all. Online safety is an important thing, but I feel it’s far more a case of educating people than imposing regulation – which is infeasible. Anonymity is the one thing which actually provides internet safety.

The fact that someone was silly enough to ruin their *own* life by means of MXit is simply indicative of how new these technologies are to South Africa, as well as the excellent job MXit have done in it’s penetration. Scary stories will happen, but let them rather be a lesson to us all.

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