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Monday, April 9, 2007

The 8-year-old hacker on Webkinz.com

Technology has changed and will continue to change how we do many things. And as we all know, it can lead some people to do things they shouldn’t and act in ways that are dishonest.

Take, for example, what happened to my 8-year-old daughter: a classmate learned her password to a web-based game and decided to spend all her “money” that she had “earned.”

Maybe that doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but there’s a little more to it.

Ever heard of Webkinz? They are stuffed toy animals (all kinds of species—dogs, cats, frog, unicorn, cow. You get the idea) sold in specialty type stores. Webkinz have a web site where the kids “register” their “pet.” They then can play various games on line and win “money” that they use to “buy” things for their Webkinz via the site.

My daughter, who is very into this, went on line one day to find that all of the money she had accumulated was gone. Zero balance in her “account.” Turns out that she had shared her password with some friends when they were at our house playing online, and one of the girls told another girl at school. This girl decided to log on as my daughter and spent all of her “money.” I give the girl credit for coming clean to my daughter at school the next day; but there was no way to get back the “money.”

In this case nothing tangible was lost of any value, but feelings of violation and a loss of trust with the offender were very real. Something of value was indeed lost.

What does this say about the effects of technology on kids growing up today?Is it too easy now to do the wrong thing with the help of technology? Do parents need a revised guidebook on how to explain right vs. wrong to their kids?

Tell me what you think. This kid could be working for you in 15 years.

Debra Bulkeley
Executive Editor, Electronic Business

Reader Comments

(Add your comments)

at 4/9/2007 12:18:16 PM, Bitbanger said:
Something should be done to impress on the offender that what she did was indeed an offense. What's appropriate for an 8-year-old I'm not sure - it's been a long time since I was there. But, there should be punishment, and the punishment should fit both the offense and the offender.

at 4/9/2007 12:39:52 PM, AA said:
I think it''s like anything else. This will expose kids to more "life" experiences to learn from. The result will be very savvy technology users in years to come. My kids love Webkinz also and had a similar issue but laughed at the experience (of course its only play money and time that was lost).

at 4/10/2007 6:32:27 AM, MM said:
Same story, different genre. This has been going on for thousands of generations, and will coninue for many, many more. This crime is no different than stealing something more tangible. The only difference between dealing with the current technologies and the past is that it requires different strategies to protect our children. The strategies to teach them right from wrong are still the same.

at 4/12/2007 9:42:11 AM, CN said:
it''s never too soon to learn good security practices. i''ll bet she never gives out her password to "friends" again.

at 4/21/2007 2:36:32 PM, Becky middleton said:
I think your daughter should not have shared her password. If she hadn't, then her money would still be there. sorry, Rebecca middleton

at 4/23/2007 12:46:55 PM, J. Rutledge said:
A difficult lesson in trust for an 8 year old with a high tech twist. I can think of countless similiar "life experiences" that I went through as a child. Leave your bicycle unlocked it gets stolen, share a secret with a "friend" it may not stay a secret...

at 4/25/2007 7:31:32 PM, webkinzaddict95 said:
hey, i actually had this happen to me like a month ago and if webkinz receives several complaints from you by phone and by email(this is what we did) Just get a tech person from Webkinz on the phone and give them the exact date and a time range and they can look up if stuff was stolen or not, they checked mine and saw someone did sell things on my account, Webkinz was kind enough to give me a whole 5,000 knizcash. P.S. tell them what went missing

at 5/1/2007 5:34:46 PM, Parent of Five said:
Sad how the online world gives us yet another reason to not trust others. Anyone with an 8-year-old daughter will know that what your daughter and the other girl did is perfectly normal behavior for girls of that age. Not perfectly acceptable of course, put perfectly normal. They want friends more than anything, and yet they can be extremely insensitive to the feelings of others. Like a good investor who knows to only invest what they can afford to lose, I suppose we should only entrust to young kids what they can afford to lose. Like an online stuffy with fake money.

at 5/3/2007 4:03:39 AM, Suzanne said:
This exact thing happened to my daughter, but she didn't give anyone her password. She said she only gave her password to 1 person, but she changed it as soon as she got home. When you see your children cry over "Stolen Kinzcash" and "rare items" from the "curio shop", it brakes your heart.

at 6/5/2007 7:21:38 PM, Bob L. said:
The worst is club penguin (as I mentioned to you tonight). Somone apparently hacked into my 11 year old daughter's account, because they have given her a lifetime ban. And she didn't do anything! They claimed she swore on more than one occasion. My daughter does not swear; in fact I call her the 'swear police'. She always reports bad language to me. A lifetime ban?! How upsetting is that to a kid? I hope whoever is behind club penguin has something horrible happen to them. I told you I wanted to get this out there. They have some nerve. And when I emailed them, they claimed it had to be because she told someone her password. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I can have my ebay account hacked into, but they can't believe that their site is just as vulnerable. What nerve!!!

at 6/9/2007 8:07:34 PM, robbed said:
My little 10-year-old sister was completely hurt when she found out she had been robbed of everything off her Webkinz account. She lost her irreplaceable iteams, she lost trust in all of her friends that played the website game with her and now she has been taking several ways to make sure this doesnt happen again. I think it was a good learned lesson for her when she is older but I think that she now trusts no one and she needs some answers. If anyone knows a way to show trust to someone younger, please tell me.

at 6/10/2007 3:08:21 PM, soccer star 99 said:
that really stinks. i feel so bad for her. i would hate for that to happen to me. webkinz world has a lot of bad stuff going on now. why can't people just leave kids websites alone for once. kids want to have fun too. kids just want to enjoy their webkinz account. hopefully she gets 500 kinzcash on the wheel of wow. if she is on my friends list, then i will send her some of the rare items i got from the curio shop. anyway, i feel sooo bad for her. sooooooooooooo sorry.

at 6/20/2007 8:32:29 PM, Allison said:
why would any one do that to kids its just not fair.is that the reason why webkinz has been having difficulties?

at 8/25/2007 5:13:27 PM, Kris said:
Wow my daughter has a webkinz and her friend got hacked! Can you believe it!

at 9/6/2007 6:44:05 AM, upset mom said:
I feel for you. My 4 1/2 year old son's webkinz crown of wonder was stolen from his account. The only person who could have done it is one of his older friends that he had added, I have an idea of who it might be. It's a horrible experience to explain to your child how something that he had worked for for so long was taken away from him all the sudden without knowing who or why. What kind of a world are we living in now? I guess the internet is making it easier for kids to steal.

at 9/17/2007 12:42:15 PM, JimOM said:
Sounds like a lot of kids have had the same experience. My son was really into Maple Story. In this web game other people can actually talk to you in the game. Some one told my son that if my son gave him his password that he would level-up his character. At first my son was wary, but then the other person gave my son his password, so my son reciprocated. The other person then immediately changed my son's password and completely stole his account. Of course the password that my son got was worthless. My son was crying and crying, he had been working on that account for months, and he said that his character was like a brother to him. So even tho it is a free game, he really felt he had lost something of great value to him. I felt so bad for him, and I hate to see young kids have to learn these lessons so young. But at least they are learning these lessons with fake money so maybe they will be much more savvy when they grow up than my generation was. I was very innocent until I got to college.

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