The Daily Mail reports on the latest craze sweeping the US: i-Dosing. The phenomenon involves teenagers putting on their headphones and drifting off into the world of ‘digital highs’.

Videos posted on YouTube show a young girl freaking out and leaping up in fear, a teenager shaking violently and a young boy in extreme distress.

This is the world of ‘i-Dosing’, the new craze sweeping the internet in which teenagers used so-called ‘digital drugs’ to change their brains in the same way as real-life narcotics. They believe the repetitive drone-like music will give them a ‘high’ that takes them out of reality, only legally available and downloadable on the Internet.

The craze has so far been popular among teenagers in the U.S. but given how easily available the videos are, it is just a matter of time before it catches on in Britain. Those who come up with the ‘doses’ claim different tracks mimic different sensations you can feel by taking drugs such as Ecstasy or smoking cannabis.

The reactions have been partially sceptical but some songs have become wildly popular, receiving nearly half a million hits on YouTube.

Under one called ‘Shroom’, Berecz wrote: ‘just listened to this… at the beginning I began to see some blinking light (while eyes closed), then the pitch went up and I began to feel that Im sinking into my chair…as the pitch went down I began to feel confident, and very relaxed, and I dont want to stand up from my chair and I dont want to say any words…’

Not everyone is taking i-Dosing seriously – some YouTube videos show young adults ‘i-Dosing’ on Neil Diamond and mocking the whole phenomenon. But there has been such alarm in the U.S. that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has issued a warning to children not to do it.

‘Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places, spokesman Mark Woodward said. He added that parental awareness is key to preventing future problems, since I-dosing could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs. ‘So that’s why we want parents to be aware of what sites their kids are visiting and not just dismiss this as something harmless on the computer. If you want to reach these kids, save these kids and keep these kids safe, parents have to be aware. They’ve got to take action.’

He added that another concern is that many of these I-dosing sites lure visitors to actual drug and drug paraphernalia sites.

Access the original article online at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1296282/I-dosing-How-teenagers-getting-digitally-high-music-download-internet.html#ixzz0uJ3VB6cX

• CNN posts video of Facebook's new child protection app: http://tiny.cc/mpbga worth a watch! #

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The BBC reports on a row that has erupted in the United States centring on the ownership of a gay teenagers’ database.

The owner of XY Magazine and its associated website – which catered for homosexual teenagers – filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. XY’s creditors have applied for the firm’s one remaining valuable asset: its database of one million users.

But the Federal Trade Commission has expressed its concerns and said the sale “could violate Federal law”. The issue of selling databases is not new, but it is the sensitivity of this particular database that is catching the attention of lawmakers.

The list contains details of tens of thousands of young men, the majority of whom will be gay.

Writing on the technology blog Read Write Web, Curt Hopkins summed up the concern felt by many users. “The selling off of private information, gathered under the supposition of privacy, is bad enough,” he wrote. “Even worse if you’re forced into it. And positively untenable when the information is connected to kids who are dealing with a dawning sexual reality that in some instances is even more fraught than what straight kids go through,” he added.

Simon Davies, director of the human rights campaign group Privacy International, told BBC News that while privacy policy was very clear, in the event of bankruptcy or winding-up “all bets are off”. “Information shouldn’t be used for a purpose other than for which it was originally intended,” he said. “In the UK, it would be hard – under normal circumstances – to take a database and apply it for another purpose. However, in the real world, when a firm goes into receivership, all bets are off when it comes to protection, because everyone’s scrabbling for something of value. It’s yet another hurdle for data protection advocates to jump through,” he added.

XY’s founding editor, Peter Ian Cummings, filed for bankruptcy in February 2010. He listed his personal assets at $1,500, a net income of zero and one other asset: the “customer list, personal data and editorial and back issues of XY Magazine and XY.com”.

Shoshanna Schiff, a partner with the Trenk law firm – representing the creditors – told the US website Cnet.com: “Any property listed on the debtor’s bankruptcy petition is property of the bankruptcy estate and my client intends to administer those assets for the benefit of creditors.”

Mr Davies said that the UK Information Commissioner had an obligation to protect any British citizens who may be on the database. “I would argue that this is a case where the Information Commissioner should write directly to the US and ensure action is taken.”

Access the original article online at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10612800

The BBC speaks to the charity Barnardo’s about how teenagers are affected by sexual predators that target them online.

They speak to 15 year old Lorena, who was abused after meeting a man she had been in contact with online. She had been using the internet relatively unsupervised, from an early age – logging on to sites she describes as “for older people”.

Lorena is clearly damaged by her experience, commenting how “you feel like you don’t want to exist anymore.”

Barnardo’s is worried at the number of cases where older men deliberately target, encourage, coerce and then exploit young teenagers. The charity’s chief executive, Martin Narey, calls it “a hidden obscenity”.

“There is an understandable tendency to believe this happens very rarely. In fact it’s everywhere, in every town and city in the UK,” he says. “Professionals involved with children need to know the tell-tale signs. The earlier abuse is identified, the earlier we can stop it.”

Barnardo’s believes there are a number of warning signs that parents, teachers, social workers and police officers should be able to spot. These include young people who disappear from school and home, the secretive use of mobile phones and the internet, unexplained gifts such as new clothes, jewellery, mobile phones or money, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Access the original article online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10508392.stm

The BCC reports that Facebook has begun to roll out changes to the site in its efforts to appease critics of its privacy practices.

The change means that games and applications installed on a person’s profile must specify what personal information they will access and use. The moves were welcomed by privacy advocates.

“It is encouraging to see Facebook act on its stated commitment to providing users with simple but real control over their information,” said the US Center for Democracy and Technology. “The changes Facebook announced today represent an important and positive step for the company.”

The changes will apply to all third-party applications and games that a user installs on their profile.

“With this new authorisation process, when you log into an application with your Facebook account, the application will only be able to access the public parts of your profile by default,” said the firm’s Bret Taylor in a blog post. “To access the private sections of your profile, the application has to explicitly ask for your permission.”

A user will be presented with the permissions box every time they install a new application or first log in to an external website with their Facebook account.

The social network currently offers more than 550,000 applications, including games such as the popular Farmville. The site says that more than 70% of its 500 million users use an application every month.

Last month it was forced to simplify its privacy settings after storms of protest from users and privacy groups. The new system brings all of the site’s settings into one page, with suggested default settings.

When they were introduced, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted the older settings had become too unwieldy and difficult for users. “The number one thing we’ve heard to that the settings have gotten complex and hard for people to use,” he said at the time.

Access the original article online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10472844.stm

The Telegraph reported on claims made by the British Association for Adoption & Fostering that the internet is making it easy for young people to trace their natural parents and other relatives, by searching for their names or photos. Meanwhile birth parents are able to find babies they gave up for adoption years earlier.

It bypasses the safeguards that are usually put in place, and can distress or upset those who are tracked down, the charity warns. If children were taken away from violent or abusive parents, they could be placed in “real danger” by their presence online, it is feared.

Meanwhile mothers who kept their pregnancy secret could be put at risk if the children they put up for adoption get in touch with relatives.

David Holmes, Chief Executive of BAAF said: “Social media is here to stay – we can not put the genie back in the bottle. We need to learn how to deal with it in relation to contact issues with birth families. “We strongly urge adoptive parents to familiarize themselves with social media, so they are able to talk to their children with confidence about all the issues. “The use of social media needs to be incorporated more generally into understanding the importance of a child’s curiosity about their origins, and how this changes over time. Adoption agencies have developed great expertise about this, and social networking needs to be incorporated into that expertise. Adopters and adoption agencies need to become tech-savvy so they can talk with confidence while recognizing the natural curiosity and the need for information.”

BAAF has now published a guide called Facing up to Facebook to help adoptive parents, which suggests that they ensure that their children use the popular website safely by putting privacy settings in place and avoiding using profile photos or posting information about where they live.

The charity is also holding a conference for social workers in London so they can educate families in the risks of internet use. Under British law, adopted children must wait until they are 18 before they can apply for their original birth certificates although they can sometimes maintain contact with their birth family, directly or through intermediaries.

Since 2005, birth relatives including parents have had the legal right to ask an adoption agency to let their adopted children that they want to get in touch.

Access the original article online at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7841599/Facebook-poses-risk-to-adopted-children-and-families-charity-warns.html

Yesterday, we reported on AOL’s plans to sell Bebo. The company’s financial loss from selling the increasingly unpopular teen social network has sparked great debate amongst the press. James Moore of The Independent has put forwards some interesting comment about how Facebook should take heed from Bebo’s tale…

“What has happened at Bebo should still worry Facebook. To make its founders fabulously rich in cash terms (as well as in paper), the big dog in the world of social networking appears to be pursuing the route of an initial public offering. So there shouldn’t be much chance of a old, slow moving, dinosaur of a new owner mucking up what has made it good as has happened to so many of its rivals (Friends Reunited, even MySpace).

Facebook, however, could just as easily go down the Bebo route on its own. The site might look like it has traction as one of the dominant forces on the web. It has even surpassed Google in the number of hits (depending on how you chose to categorise such things). Momentum, liquidity and the number one position matter a lot on the web.

But they can still be lost in the blink of an eye, especially if your service is provided for free and you consumers decide that they don’t like you anymore. Recently, Facebook has shown that it is anything but immune from own-goals. The holy grail of social networking is to monetise the vast amount of data you hold on your customers. Trouble is, that creates any number of privacy implications and Facebook has not always shown the most sure-footed handling of this very important issue.

It is a major power for now, but if it loses sufficient goodwill there is nothing to stop it from following Bebo down the road to nowhere. As unthinkable as it appears now, Criterion Capital Partners s – or something like it – could easily be picking over another corpse if Facebook fails to learn the right lessons from Bebo’s blow up.”

Access the full article online at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/james-moore-bebos-blowup-offers-lessons-that-facebook-must-pay-heed-to-2003533.html

The BBC reports that privacy could be enhanced if data was allowed to fade, suggests research.

Dutch researcher Dr Harold van Heerde is looking into ways to gradually “degrade” the information that sites gather about visitors. Slowly swapping details for more general information can help guard against accidental disclosure, he said.

“There are so many weak points in security that you can never be sure that your data is safe,” said Dr van Heerde.

The research project carried out by Dr van Heerde from the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT) at the University of Twente looked into ways to change the way databases manage information about users and customers.

The ability of those databases to gather information tempts companies and organisations to hoard information just in case it proves valuable, Dr van Heerde told BBC News.

The dangers of having data about us stored more or less permanently in many different places around the web have been proved many times when that information is leaked by accident or design, said Dr van Heerde.

“People make mistakes, people can be bribed,” he said. “You cannot protect this data, you cannot be sure it’s not been disclosed, privacy policies are simply too weak.”

Instead of simply refusing to use services that gather data, Dr van Heerde believes it would be better for people to surrender data knowing that there was a policy that determined how it degraded over time.

At initial use to secure a transaction or get useful information from a search all relevant details might be stored. Subsequently details would slowly be swapped for more general information. In the case of a location-specific search information about a user’s exact GPS co-ordinates could be swapped for a street name, then a neighbourhood and then just a city.

“You can slowly replace details with a more general value,” he said.

As well as limiting the impact of any disclosure, such a policy might also force companies to be more explicit about what data they gather and what they will use it for.

“In most cases there’s no good reason for them storing data for so long,” he said.

Access the original article online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10324209.stm

The BBC reports that China has defended its right to censor the internet in a document laying out the government’s attitude towards the web. It says the country has the right to govern the internet according to its own rules inside its borders.

The white paper also reveals just how fast the internet has developed in China in the 16 years since it was first connected. By the end of last year the country had 384m internet users.

The white paper, released on Tuesday, called the internet “a crystallisation of human wisdom”. But in the document the government lays out some of the reasons why its citizens cannot get access to all of that wisdom. It says it wants to curb the harmful effects of illegal information on state security, public interests and children.

“Laws and regulations clearly prohibit the spread of information that contains content subverting state power, undermining national unity [or] infringing upon national honour and interests,” it says.

Websites, blogs and information deemed sensitive by the Chinese government is routinely blocked using a range of technological tools, dubbed the Great Firewall of China. The country’s state secrets law has just been amended in a way that makes internet and telecommunications firms now responsible for helping the government police the web.

Despite that, China still maintains that its people have unfettered access to the internet. “Chinese citizens fully enjoy freedom of speech on the internet,” says the white paper.

The document also reveals just how fast the internet is developing in China. The government hopes that nearly half the population will have access to the internet within five years. That figure is nearly 30% at the moment.

Access the original article online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8727647.stm

Leading chemists are selling diet pills to children and those suffering from eating disorders, an investigation has found. The £1-a-day slimming pill Alli should only be available over the counter without a prescription to over-18s with a high body mass index.

But the BBC’s Watchdog programme found Boots sold the drug to a schoolgirl online while both Boots and Lloyds Pharmacy sold Alli to a recovering anorexic over the web.

When the drug was sold in branches of the chemists, patients’ height, weight and BMI were checked – and if underweight they were refused the tablets. But online the vetting procedures were much more lax. Applicants were able to lie about their BMI and their purchase was then approved.

Alli prevents the body from absorbing fat in food and in trials helped slimmers lose anything from 10lb to five stone over six months. When confronted with the investigation’s results, Lloyds Pharmacy said it would tighten regulations. But Boots said it ‘could not let the actions of a few’ stop it helping millions of people lose weight and it would not change its policy.

Watchdog launched its investigation after leading eating disorder charity Beat warned Alli was easily available online. It found that Boots sold Alli to a 16-year-old girl who gave her real age but that the Lloyds website turned her away.

Professor Steve Field, of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said that Alli interfered with vitamin absorption and so can be dangerous for children.

Boots said: ‘We have taken the isolated incident very seriously. We have reminded our e-pharmacy teams of the checks that they should follow for the sale of pharmacy medicines to ensure we remain vigilant.’ Lloyds Pharmacy said it had introduced ‘additional cross-checks’ to its online service.

If you are concerned about your child buying medicines online, you can prevent them from visiting sites that reference drugs by using Brightfilter Parental Control software. Even with a 15 or 18 profile activated, the drugs category can then also be blocked. Individual URLS can also be blacklisted, so children are unable to visit pharmacy and other drug selling websites.

Access the original article online at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1278280/Teenagers-sold-diet-pills-online-chemists-investigation-finds.html#ixzz0ntTzI4kR