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Kids Can Browse Porn in App Store Thanks to Tech Glitch
Filed under: In The News
A flaw in parental control software is allowing kids to search for and view pornographic materials in Apple's App Store.
The new operating system for Apple's wildly popular iPhones provides parents with beefed-up controls over what apps their children can purchase online, but a glitch in the software doesn't prevent them from looking for -- and viewing -- racy content, according to technology Web site Ars Technica.
Ars Technica reports that the flaw was discovered by a Scottish educator who develops applications for the iPhone. Apple now allows applications to be rated by age-level, but still allows apps rated 17 and up to be sold. While kids below that age range are prevented from downloading the content -- which Ars Technica calls "soft-core porn" -- they can still look at it.
Teacher Fraser Speirs works at the Cedars School for Excellence in Greenock, Scotland, teaching computer courses and managing the school's information technology. That school bought each of its 100 students an iPod touch, and that's when Speirs discovered the problem.
Kids looking at the "Lifestyle" applications category via Apple's iTunes Store can look at such gems as "A Hidden Cam Thong" or "Epic Boobs," including graphic text descriptions and not-appropriate-for-school screenshots.
Schools can block students from browsing inappropriate materials on the Internet using filters, but, Speirs says, so far there is no such work-around for the App Store. This would allow students to access the store, but not look at the questionable content. So, the school simply cut off access to the entire App Store.
"I would have liked to allow the students to browse the App Store and personalize their devices a bit," Speirs tells Ars. "Or, at the very least, see new apps and suggest them for deployment."
The teacher took action and filed a bug report with Apple concerning iTunes Store for Mac and the App Store on iPhones and iPod Touch devices.
Related: Should People Be Allowed to Watch Porn in Public?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
1-26-2010 @ 9:14AM
joe said...Awesome!! Thanks for the heads up!
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 10:30AM
Joe Papierz Jr said...Or..........parents could take on the job of parenting and forbid their kids from visiting such sites. How you may ask? Don't permit unsupervised use of the PC and apply a little parental discipline if they go into sites that are forbidden. Golly, what a novel idea. After they are in bed you can even check the computer to see what sites they have visited. What if this idea caught on. Hmm. Parents being parents, and exerting parental control? Can't happen. People are getting too lazy. Let someone else look out for my kids, also if they screw up maybe I can get a law suit out of it and retire early. Morals be damned. Responsibility for my own kids? What's that?
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 12:12PM
Jason said...Well put. Another "radical" idea...don't let your kids have iPhones, computers, etc. Back in my day....well you know the rest :)
1-26-2010 @ 4:40PM
MikoRose said...I couldn't have said it better! Amen I'm not the only one who thinks like this. Lazy, lazy, lazy! Imagine if more people had the initiative to take personal responsibility for themselves and their children and this would not be an issue. I think one of the problems is that a lot of the immigrant parents probably don't speak or understand a lot of English and their kids do and take advantage of their parents. LEARN PARENTS, the youth is our future! Stop making excuses and being lazy!
1-26-2010 @ 10:34AM
r said...COOL i didnt know that, i cant wait to try it, Im 6 years old
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 10:45AM
MK23666 said...parents can't be everywhere at once. That alone is a great reason to have other responsible adults looking out for them when you aren't there.
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 11:13AM
Jan said...Yeah...just let all the kids know about it!!! Very smart move NIMRODS!!!
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 11:31AM
noorma said...that store need to close or supervise better ! shame on then....
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 2:59PM
Rose said...Children learn by example and quite frankly, the example that allot of parents are teaching their kids is warped because they became these lazy librils that just decided it's easier to just go with the flow than to actually parent your children of the wrongs and rights of this changing world. Men...you are supposed to be the headship of your families. That's the way God intended it to be. You have any problem with that guys or girls, take it up with God. Porn has been around forever, we all know this, but the advancement of it and the absolute distortion of a man and a woman "making love" has become so disgusting and inhuman that anyone watching it today is going to be either repulsed or embrace it as acceptable. Everyone's morals and characters are different. I personally wish that if a video was to be made by people who know the art of TRUE love making, then all these disgusting and repulsive videos would be exposed for what they really are. Satanic and an abomonation to God and the beautiful gift He created for a man and a woman when they come together for the first time on their wedding night and the whole world seems to have stood still just for that very moment in time.
Dear people, love is beautiful and precious. When a real man shows a woman that she is valued and honored by him, she will value and honor him. Love making is when a man can look into a womans eyes and kiss her so gently she feels like the floor is coming out from under her feet. He feels like the greatest lover ever because he can do that to her. It's undressing one another with respect and dignity. Not ripping everything off and devouring each other like savages. That comes much later on in marriage when you take your first trip away from each other for a few days. Then , watchout honey, I'm home..lol...Are you guys getting it yet? If you teach society and your family by example what real love and love making is, they will have something to compare it to and then make your own choice. The act of sex is not a man dropping his draws and pounding for 5 minutes and then going back to the game. How humiliating and insulting. I don't mean to be gross, but when the clean up time is longer than the actual act, there's a problem. Yeah, I can feel the love honey. I'm not talking about those spontaneous moments when you just look at eachother and it's consentual, I'm talking about this being the norm. Get it? When a man can make love to a woman by kissing her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, when she can kiss him back the same way and the LOVE act has begun, the rest is just magic. Why short change yourselves. If your going to go to all the trouble of shaving, putting on cologne/perfume and the silk what ever's, why not enjoy the moment to the max? Just a word from someone who know's the difference and who has counseled many a marriage and seen this work first hand. Take this free advice dear one's and the porn industry will be exposed for what it really is. A bunch of fake boobs, guys that are pure pigs and neither have any self respect for themselves. My work is done here.
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 1:18PM
menda said...WOW! Your worked up this much? You have other issues I think you need tending to then to be online then.
1-30-2010 @ 1:27AM
kris said...why do children need itouches in the first place ? and in school? really is that necessary? i dont think it is. school is for learning. these ipod touches are nothing but a distraction in a classroom.
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 2:25PM
metalgddess said...GLITCH??? Yeah, right....... Then they BROADCAST IT just to make sure that all the kiddies find out!!! LOL, what a bunch of b.s....
Reply
1-26-2010 @ 4:09PM
jamesnpost said...The ability to communicate instantly with people anywhere on Earth, to have access to more information than a library full of encyclopaedia... the most powerful tool in human history! BUT, God forbid one of those kids should see... well, you know what! Them, and IT! They would be destroyed!!!
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