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A service called KidReports started sending me detailed daily reports on someone's child
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In my inbox this afternoon were two emails, one from last Friday and one from today, from a service called KidReports, with the details of a young child. The report gave the child's name, the school they attended, the time the child arrived, the time the child left, what the child ate, several of the child's activities during the day, and the apparent name of the child's teacher or monitor. I had never heard of KidReports, and at first I thought it might possibly be a scam, but after calling them and reporting the issue, they appear to be a legit service.
As a parent using this service, I would immediately be concerned about:
(1) KidReports appears to begin sending reports to any email address without verification. In my case, the support rep I spoke to could not confirm that an error had been made, but did confirm that my email address was in fact in the child's record. Likely an error on someone's part, but it seems a bit reckless to start sending out information about a child to an email address that the parent hasn't verified. Of most concern is that based on the emails and the phone call I had, this happens rather often.
(2) The emails are being sent in plain text. While most of the data is not all that sensitive, there is sufficient information to identify the child, the school, and the arrival and pickup times. As a parent it would concern me to know that this information was being sent in plain text emails.
I no longer have young kids at home, but I do see some merit in having been able to have access to this kind of information. However, the mere recording of this information to begin with would give me pause, and it appears that KidReports needs to give much more concern to privacy.
Top Comment:
Contact the school, parents, and media.
Tales of Zestiria: to report thieving kids, or not.
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There's a choice in one of the side things where you follow a bunch of orphans to the Sanctuary in Ladylake. You'll get the option to report them to the guards, or to not. Just in case someone looks it up like I did, the choice doesn't matter. Rose apprehends them either way.
Top Comment:
Either way they wound up being reported, so I don't think it matters. I chose no and Rose still insisted to Sorey to report them and they did.
Monster trip report: 2 weeks in Japan with 2 kids in July (overview)
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Overview and general information:
We are a family of 4 (kids 10 and 12) who were in Japan from July 9 to July 21.
I typed this up on the plane on my way home to keep the details fresh, and it got a bit out of hand. :-)
The weather: we got lucky. Only one day of heavy rain, though it was often overcast and humid, with drizzle/light rain at times. It was never really all that hot in Tokyo. We had one brutal humid and 35 C day in Kyoto, but the rest of the time, the daily highs were around 24-27 C, which isn’t too unpleasant.
Money: We did not change money—instead we used ATMs to withdraw yen. We have an account that does not charge extra for this. We mostly used ATMs in combinis. The fees were consistent (and we were pre-warned there would be fees at the machine before completing the transaction): 108 yen for 10,000 yen, 216 yen for anything more. When possible, we used a credit card (we have both US and Canadian cards with no ForEx fees), but many restaurants and attractions only take cash, and cash is needed to refill IC cards.
Transportation: We used mostly Google Maps in cities, and HyperDia for trains between cities. We got Pasmo card upon arrival, and used them extensively. We had 7-day Japan Rail passes, which I activated in Ueno station with no wait. I brought a list of desired train reservations, and had them all done at the same time. We were unable to get reservations for desired travel times for Tokyo to Kanazawa, so we took an unreserved car. We got there about 30 min before the scheduled departure, and got 4 seats together without difficulty.
Google Maps is super useful. It tells you the exit you should take when leaving each station, which is very helpful. Many train stations have a large number of exits, and taking the wrong one can lead to lots of extra walking. We also found it useful to plot both walking and public transit routes to get from place to place. The estimated costs were very accurate, and it was quite helpful to find comparable routes that use a single company’s line when possible, saving quite a bit for 4 people over many days.
We walked A LOT (which is not atypical for our family). Other than that, we took trains of various sorts. We didn’t try buses, so I can’t comment there. The trains look complicated if you look at the whole system, but are actually pretty straightforward once you start using them.
Internet: The free wifi in Japan is very painful to use. Slow, and requires lots of registration and re-registration. We relied on a SIM from Singapore that works well in Japan and enabled us to share out data when needed. 2 Gb was enough for a 2 week trip with lots of searching. We had a Pocket Wifi from one of our accommodations, and found it a little annoying to have to track and charge another device, but YMMV. We only stayed places that provided Wifi, so we only used the SIM when out and about.
Accommodations: As a family of four, we mostly stayed in family rooms at hostels to keep costs down. All of our accommodations were great except for one (Guesthouse Kintoto in Kanazawa) because the room was sooooo tiny, it was impractical. And when I say tiny, I mean the size of two bunkbeds set less than 30 cm (6 inches) apart tiny. All of our hostels were very clean with good wifi, and all had desk staff for 12-14 hours in case we needed help with anything. There were laundry machines at all of our hostels, helping us pack light for the trip.
Food: We ate breakfast from combinis almost every day, and really enjoyed the food in Japan. Our children are big eaters and adventurous eaters, so trying new foods with them is a pleasure. One of my kids was not really into ramen, but loved udon and soba, so we looked for noodle shops instead of ramen shops as our go to places to eat, especially when the kids were getting hangry. We also went to supermarkets and had picnic lunches. What the kids missed most actually was fresh fruit, which is really expensive in Japan. The kids really enjoyed using the vending machines, and going into stores to find new Japanese foods to try (especially snacks). The family favorite vending machine beverage was Melon Skal.
Miscellaneous: For souvenirs, we tried to get things the kids would actually use (like Frixion pens and bento lunch boxes), though we let them use allowance to buy what they wanted. I also bought them each one pack of Pokemon cards. For ourselves, we bought a bunch of different kinds of teas and that awesome sesame salad dressing. And cool Uniqlo Gundam T-shirts. ☺
The cut-off age for kids is often elementary school vs older, which is interpreted as 11 or 12 (depending on where you are). For trains, it is 11. My 12 year old daughter is very tall for Canada, making her extremely tall for Japan. We had to show her passport at times to demonstrate her age.
Top Comment:
Thank you so much for the trip report. We are also a family of 4 leaving for Japan in one week. These tips are super helpful and much appreciated!
Report: Police Got Own Kids Out of School While Subduing Other Parents
Main Post: Report: Police Got Own Kids Out of School While Subduing Other Parents
Top Comment:
The Government will not protect you or children.
Law Enforcement will not protect you or your children.
No one is coming to save you or your children.
Is there a way to report kids under 12?
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I'm genuinely curious. I've been playing VRchat since May, have gotten to know people, and seemingly everywhere i go, there's at least one kid who sounds like they're 9 years old, in an FNF avatar, that never shuts ups. It's annoying, to say the least. I know i could mute them, block them, go to another world, but there's just legions of FNF kids constantly making their way onto VRchat. Is there a reason why there isn't anything VRchat can do about this?
Top Comment:
Your best option is to continue muting and blocking. You don't have any way of verifying their age to determine if they're actually outside of the TOS.
VRChat also doesn't have much recourse with those under 13 accessing their platform. They could ban users reported for being underage, but they'd be banning without proof. They could require you to enter your date of birth upon registration, but the user would just falsify the date. They could raise the minimum age requirement to something like 16+/18+, but it wouldn't really change much, and they'd cut out a lot of their current user base.
Keep or ditch kid’s report cards?
Main Post: Keep or ditch kid’s report cards?
Top Comment:
I get it's a long shot this will happen, but every day it seems to happen more. I had my identity stolen, they were even filing taxes. My childhood report cards were one of the documents that proved I was me. I didn't have many pictures, and was living bouncing around. My parents, and grandparents were gone. But I had those in a box. Only 4 or 5, but enough. Not particularly great grades, but my dad had signed them. So I kept them. He died when I was 11, so kinda neat to have that.
The Cass Report Uses Images of AI-Generated Kids
Main Post: The Cass Report Uses Images of AI-Generated Kids
Top Comment:
of course AI would be involved somehow lol
The review does not appear to acknowledge these AI-generated images in any way
undisclosed too, so feels especially scummy
how do i report an underage discord user
Main Post: how do i report an underage discord user
Top Comment:
https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360000029731