My son got a 3DS for Christmas, and while I immediately turned on what I thought was the obvious security settings, I didn't turn on all of them. Not knowing how all of it works, I'm not sure how paranoid to be here. Should Mii be enabled, or is that pedophile bait? What about Street Pass? I'm sure I could research all this, and I'm sure I will, but I figured I'd ask your opinions first.
[Question] Securing the 3DS
- Thread starter Fun Size
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The 3DS is already pretty secure. Communication between 3DSes, even when you're friends with someone, is pretty hard to do. Miis and Streetpass is also basically fine, because generally speaking, no one is going to know the exact person they got their tag from, unless they already know your kid. Just make sure they aren't putting personal information on their greeting or something.
Any form of digital communication can be pedophile/rapist/whatever bait; developers try for a bit but can never prevent it completely.
Besides the obvious, the main thing is to raise awareness. If your child doesn't know about (or you don't want to crap on their worldview by burdening them with) pedophilia or stuff, give other reasons why it's a bad idea to share (real) personal information. I've seen pretty smart kids do pretty stupid things because they thought they "knew" the other person. I don't know your child's age, which also sort of determines a lot of things. You can lock a 6 year old out of a lot of stuff (or keep them in the dark) much more than a 12 year old.
Having sat through my fair share of e-crime lectures and meetings (because of my job, not court mandated to be there, natch
), the main thing to remember is that some people are willing to go very, very far to convince others. Being on line friends with someone for 3 or 4 months seems like an eternity to children or teens, but it's all set-up; the other may volunteer to share pictures first (because it's so hard to fake a picture... but it looks so real!), share stories/feelings/"really personal" stuff first. Most parents still seem to think predators like a "quick kill", talking/chatting a few times and then pushing forward, while the reality is these days most successful ones are slow stalkers who wait 'till trust is gained.
No matter who or what the other claims to be, unless it's someone you know IRL, it's usually a good idea to be skeptical. It may come as a shock to some, but I'm not, in reality, an owl, for example.
Besides the obvious, the main thing is to raise awareness. If your child doesn't know about (or you don't want to crap on their worldview by burdening them with) pedophilia or stuff, give other reasons why it's a bad idea to share (real) personal information. I've seen pretty smart kids do pretty stupid things because they thought they "knew" the other person. I don't know your child's age, which also sort of determines a lot of things. You can lock a 6 year old out of a lot of stuff (or keep them in the dark) much more than a 12 year old.
Having sat through my fair share of e-crime lectures and meetings (because of my job, not court mandated to be there, natch
), the main thing to remember is that some people are willing to go very, very far to convince others. Being on line friends with someone for 3 or 4 months seems like an eternity to children or teens, but it's all set-up; the other may volunteer to share pictures first (because it's so hard to fake a picture... but it looks so real!), share stories/feelings/"really personal" stuff first. Most parents still seem to think predators like a "quick kill", talking/chatting a few times and then pushing forward, while the reality is these days most successful ones are slow stalkers who wait 'till trust is gained. No matter who or what the other claims to be, unless it's someone you know IRL, it's usually a good idea to be skeptical. It may come as a shock to some, but I'm not, in reality, an owl, for example.
The only thing we bothered with limiting was the purchasing, but we never stored our credit cards on their nintendo accounts anyway, so even that was overkill.
You can load a browser, youtube or netflix on it for free, so if you want to monitor or limit access you'll need some amount of router based protection. We use Disney Circle since skydog stopped working.
Note that we don't live in a big city - or a city, even - so there just isn't much time they can get into trouble with them. They take it with them on trips, and occasionally they'll mentioned they got some streetpass stuff merely being near another 3DS owner, but we talk to them every year or two about being careful and we feel safe enough.
You can load a browser, youtube or netflix on it for free, so if you want to monitor or limit access you'll need some amount of router based protection. We use Disney Circle since skydog stopped working.
Note that we don't live in a big city - or a city, even - so there just isn't much time they can get into trouble with them. They take it with them on trips, and occasionally they'll mentioned they got some streetpass stuff merely being near another 3DS owner, but we talk to them every year or two about being careful and we feel safe enough.
I didn't even think about the browser thing, because both of my kids have their own computers built from our old parts (or paid for by my father -_-) and would never even consider using that terribleness. We've also more or less taught them internet safety from the day they could use the internet, which is not foolproof obviously, but at least allows for them to do basic things without me panicking. Of course, they are older and would just go behind my back anyways, so at least I know they might be a little smarter about it.