[real-eyes] RE: [real-eyes] Parents, Teachers, Schools and Churches Sieged by Zamzuu?s KidZafe Sales Force
- From: Chuck Brady <cbrady2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2011 02:01:27 -0500
Steve:
Thanks for sharing this. It is one of the most disturbing articles I read in
a long, long time.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve <kcpadfoot@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, 08 July, 2011 21:32
To: real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [real-eyes] Parents, Teachers, Schools and Churches Sieged by Zamzuu?s
KidZafe Sales Force
Hi,
I know the following is a long article but I wanted to make people aware
of this scam and false sense of security that is going on.
Steve
The following is from:
http://blog.eset.com/2011/07/08/parents-teachers-schools-and-churches-sieged-by-zamzuu%E2%80%99s-kidzafe-sales-force
Parents, Teachers, Schools and Churches Sieged by Zamzuu?s KidZafe Sales
Force
BY RANDY ABRAMS
July 8, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Randy Certificate
This is an impressive looking certificate isn?t it? You might think it
means something
significant, but then you might be wrong. How hard is it to pass the
Internet and
Child Safety Advocate certification test? Ask Hanna, a 9 year old (10
this weekend)
girl who I met with her father at a local coffee shop. Hanna did not
have access
to the KidZafe training materials, but with her father?s permission I
gave Hanna
the certification test under the same conditions that ?Kidzafe? gives
the test. Hanna
had 20 minutes to answer 8 out of 10 questions correctly and could
immediately retake
the test if she failed. Like me, Hanna did not achieve the 80% passing
grade the
first time through, but the second time she aced the test with a perfect
100% score.
The only thing between 9 year old Hanna and ?Certified Internet and
Child Safety
Advocate? is $149 and the legal right to enter into a contract. Yes, in
about 12
minutes Hanna demonstrated the knowledge and understanding of the core
competencies
required to share the Keeping Kids Safe: An Internet and Mobile Safety
Workshop?
program.
Perhaps what is more troubling is that is the only thing a child
predator or violent
sex offender needs to become a ?Certified Internet and Child Safety
Advocate? is
$149 and the ability to pass a test that takes a 9 year old about 12
minutes to successfully
complete without ever seeing the certification coursework.
So, if the test is that easy to pass, what is the point of it? The point
of it is
to help Zamzuu sales people to trick parents, teachers, guidance
counselors, librarians,
preachers, and others into hosting meetings designed to generate sales
leads.
The certificate is a marketing brochure used to make a person appear to
have a much
higher level of expertise than the certification actually represents.
The fact is that during the Kidzafe training, Tim Woda, one of the
product owners
and creators states that they are not trying to make the sales people
experts.
Here?s how the pitch goes. A Zamzuu sales person contacts schools,
churches, libraries
and other organizations and indicates that as a local resident, Internet
business
owner and Certified Internet and Child Safety Advocate they would like
to volunteer
to present a free Internet and Mobile Safety Workshop. What these sales
people don?t
disclose is that this ?workshop? is ?a 45 minute interview? for business
partners,
customers, and referrals. The sales person, during the course of the
workshop indicates
they know of tools to help parents and asks parents to provide contact
information.
The whole workshop is an elaborate ruse to get leads to generate sales,
recruit more
sales people and obtain more referrals.
I must thank Nilda G. Thomas for tipping me off to this story. Nilda
sent a comment
to the ESET threat blog indicating that she is a Certified Internet and
Child Safety
Advocate and offered to be interviewed for the blog. That sounded pretty
nice to
me, but I don?t want to interview someone for the blog if they aren?t
qualified to
speak on the subject. I wondered what is a ?Certified Internet and Child
Safety Advocate?,
who certifies them, and what does the certification mean? I sent Nilda
an email and
asked her ?Can you provide me with some information about what
organization certifies
Internet Child Safety advocates??
The response I received back avoided answering my question. Nilda told
me that ?If
your followers are interested in becoming certified they will need to
become an Internet
Broker and can get licensed through me.? Nilda is not the ?organization
that certifies
these alleged ?advocates?. I thought that maybe Nilda didn?t understand
the question,
so I posed it differently. Nilda replied that ?The certification covers
protecting
kids online from predators, bullies and sexting and how to protect their
privacy
and reputation on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and on select mobile
phones. The certification
also trains you on how to conduct Internet and Mobile Safety Workshops.
Wodabiz is
the creator of our real-time child safety monitoring product KidZafe
providing parents
with alerts on who their child is frequently texting, communicating with
on social
media sites, and inappropriate language?of which I sell through my website?.
The certification training materials do provide some lightweight online
child safety
information, but the certification is not by any means an indicator of
any significant
knowledge or understanding of online child safety, much the less
Internet safety.
Much of the training information is statistics that are misused to
create fear. For
example, a statistic is quoted that 20% of kids have been sexually
solicited online.
The presenter goes on to state that ?most of us never heard from our
kids that they
were sexually solicited online.? Do you see the twist? Most kids, 4 out
of 5, have
NEVER been sexually solicited online, yet to make parents believe that
most kids
have been the presenter states that ?most of us never heard from our
kids that they
were sexually solicited online.? Of course not, because most of your
kids were never
sexually solicited online according to the statistics used. This is an
example of
creating fear, uncertainty, and doubt to create a need for the product
that is to
be sold. This statistic is further shattered by
Larry Magid
in slides 29-33 of his presentation at
http://www.safekids.com/mommy.ppt
. The speaker notes of slide 33 reveal that the real number was 1% and
not 20%. This
kind of insight is not useful to sell parental monitoring software, hype
is far more
effective.
In another example the statistic used is that 63% of teens said that
they had been
asked to meet offline by someone they hadn?t met before. This statistic
is useful
in understanding how society is interacting today, but it does not
reveal a risk
factor. There is no follow up about what percent of the meetings were in
public places
with parents or other trusted authority figures. There is no additional
information
provided about how often those meetings result in harm or if they ever
result in
a higher rate of harm than meeting someone at a school event, movie
theater, or other
physical venue where people encounter strangers on a daily basis. The
idea is to
raise fear, uncertainty and doubt in order to create the perception of
need for the
product to be sold.
In researching Kidzafe the more I learned the more distasteful the
organization became
to me. Tim Woda, allegedly a ?nationally renowned Internet & Child
Safety Advocate?
(apparently he certified himself) with Hanna Masters appears to
demonstrate how to
deceive and lie while setting up and giving presentations. At the end of
the prescribed
workshop that the sales people trained are to present, they are
encouraged to stress
that they are volunteering and it isn?t their ?day job? in order to
foster the incorrect
belief that it wasn?t a sales meeting. The fact is that the presenter is
there doing
business. The goal of the workshop is to make sales, recruit sales
people and get
referrals to do more of the same. In the product and sales training
there is a place
where Woda says NOT to ask the host to photocopy the handouts for the
presentation.
In the role playing he tells the pretend hostess that he went to the
library on his
lunch break to make photocopies of the handouts. When the hostess
responds that she
could have done that for him, Woda responds ?well, too little too late,
I didn?t
think to ask?? What? ?I didn?t think to ask?? The slide that is
displayed as Woda
goes through this exchange with Masters says ?Don?t ask the host to
photocopy your
Parent Packs. Save your ?ask? for something important!? Is that not
encouraging the
sales people to lie? Then Woda goes on to ask the hostess for a letter
of reference
for not making the photocopies. Is that not disgustingly manipulative? I
suppose
I should not be too surprised. KidZafe is sold by Zamzuu and Zamzuu is a
subsidiary
of YTB, Inc.
In 2009 YTB settled a lawsuit with the state of California
in which it was alleged that YTB was an unlawful endless chain scheme
(pyramid scheme),
and engaged in other deceptive and illegal practices. Part of the
settlement included
the payment of $400,000 in civil penalties though the total cost of the
settlement
for YTB was $1,000,000. In April of 2011 it was announced that
YTB agreed to pay $150,000 as part of its settlement with the State of
Illinois
.
I?ve already mentioned the deception used to trick parents, teacher,
preachers, and
others into setting up workshops, but I?d like to show you another
example. At
http://www.examiner.com/family-issues-in-san-diego/internet-safety
Vangie Akridge writes about Internet safety and includes an invitation
to attend
a ?free workshop?. According to Vangie?s Facebook profile she is a
Zamzuu Business
Owner/Broker. If this ?free workshop? was one of those thinly disguised
KidZafe sales
meetings that would be a violation of common journalistic integrity as
Vangie does
not disclose her financial interest in the workshop.
The domain ?
KidZafe.com
? appears to have been registered on July 6 2010. Another site,
www.kidzSafe.org
was registered on October 1, 2007 and is a non-profit, charitable
organization that
helps teach parents and educators about child safety. The site
www.kidsafe.com
was registered on October 31, 2000 and addresses many areas of child
safety as well.
At
www.kidsafe.me
Woda refers to his product as ?Kidsafe?. It certainly appears like
typo squatting
and/or an attempt to trick people into thinking they are someone who
they are not,
but there is more that leads me to this conclusion. On the
Kidzafe webpage
at the bottom there is a logo that reads ?Parental Intelligence
powered by FamilyConnect?.
The logo is not linked, which often, but not always, is a sign of
someone trying
to hide something. A search for ?FamilyConnect? turns up
www.familyconnect.org
, a website for parents of children with visual impairments. It appears
that KidZafe
is trying to ride on the reputation of FamilyConnect as well.
Although Kidzafe claims that they partner ?with some of the nation?s
leading privacy
and cyber safety experts and child safety advocates?, none that I
checked with had
heard of them or partnered with them and a message to the Internet
Crimes Against
Children mailing list asking if anyone had heard of KidZafe yielded no
results.
So, what is the service these people are trying to sell? Kidzafe is a
parental monitoring
service, or spyware, depending upon your point of view. The way it works
is that
you provide your child?s Myspace, Facebook, and/or Twitter account
credentials to
Kidzafe and then they monitor EVERYTHING your child does. If they spot
certain words
they inform the parents. It goes a lot deeper than that and they have a
mobile app
for Blackberry and Android phones that also monitors all text messages.
A while back, the Taser company came out with a mobile phone monitoring
service that
was just as spy-happy as the KidZafe program.
In writing about this product it is stated that
Dr. Patti Agatston, a licensed professional counselor
with the Prevention/Intervention Center of the Cobb County School
District in Georgia,
thinks that technology like this ?
would probably do more harm than good? for most kids. ?The only place I
can see this
is with kids who are already exhibiting dangerous behavior, such as kids
who are
in gangs,? she said. ?In general, I don?t see this as an appropriate
solution for
the risky behaviors that are generating headlines because it?s still a
relatively
small percentage of kids who are engaging in those activities.
?Kids need to have some type of privacy, it?s developmentally
appropriate as kids
get older,? said Agatston. She added that ?part of my fear is that this
type of technology
appeals to the type of parents who are already being too controlling in
their children?s
lives.? With these families, ?kids will want to have nothing to do with
their parents
once they leave the home.
?
A study by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University
concludes that
Minors are not equally at risk online. Those who are most at risk often
engage in
risky
behaviors and have difficulties in other parts of their lives. The
psychosocial makeup
of
and family dynamics surrounding particular minors are better predictors
of risk than
the use
of specific media or technologies.
So, the product being sold is likely to be of limited benefit and may
more frequently
cause significant and long term harm. All the same, if you are the type
of parent
who feels that extreme monitoring is warranted that is not my call to
make, however
I would caution you not to use this product. Given the deceptive nature
in which
I believe the product is presented and marketed I think it is wrong to
hand over
your child?s communications to such a company. The fact is that Kidzafe,
if not Zamzuu
and YTB, have access to your child?s entire profile and every post, and
private message.
Based on the information you have seen, does it sound reasonable to you
to give your
child?s information to such people. Note, and product that claims to be
powered by
?Parental Intelligence?, ?FamilyConnect?? or ?Uknow?? is likely to be
placing your
child?s information into the hands of a company owned at least in part
by Tim Woda.
Everything I have seen tells me that giving him your child?s
communications is not
a good idea.
To summarize this all, there is an army of sales people armed with
highly misleading
certifications, who appear to be encouraged to lie to and deceive
parents, PTA officials,
school officials and church clergy in order to hold sales meetings that
are euphemistically
referred to as free workshops in order to sell a service that some
experts claim
would do more harm than good to address a problem that is significantly
exaggerated.
Randy Abrams
Director of Technical Education
Cyber Threat Analysis Center
ESET North America
PS. For a partial listing of the components of Internet and child safety
that the
certification course does not cover, read on?
Firewalls ? No
Wireless routers ? No
Public Wifi ? No
Computer viruses ? No
Rogue antivirus/security software ? No
Other malware ? No
Phishing ? No
Identity theft protection/response ? No
Strong Passwords, Password reset questions, Changing Passwords ? No
Configuring privacy settings for Facebook/Myspace/Twitter ? No
Updating operating systems, security software, any software ? No
Securing mobile devices ? No
Encryption of data ? No
Use of Https protocol ? No
Intrusion detection/prevention software ? No
Child Safety Education?
Drowning prevention ? No
Traffic safety ? No
Date rape ? No
?Knowing my rules for safety? from the National Center for Missing &
Exploited Children
? No
Eating disorders ? No
Health and Nutrition ? No
Exercise ? No
Family fire escape plan ? No
Being approached in person by strangers ? No
This entry was posted on Friday, July 8th, 2011 at 3:28 pm and is filed
under
cybersecurity
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