2. 外语
  3. Not long ago, friends of mine confessed over dinner that they had put spyware on their 15-year-oht son’s computer so they could

Not long ago, friends of mine confessed over dinner that they had put spyware on their 15-year-oht son’s computer so they could

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问题     Not long ago, friends of mine confessed over dinner that they had put spyware on their 15-year-oht son’s computer so they could monitor all he did ratline. At first I was repelled at this invasion of privacy. Now, after doing a fair amount of research, I get it.
    Make no mistake: If you put spyare on your computer, you have the ability to log every keystroke your child makes and thus a good portion of his or her private world. That’s what spyware is—at least the parental monitoring kind. You don’t have to be an expert to put it on your computer. You just download the software from a vendor and you will receive reports—weekly, daily, whatever—showing you everything your child is doing on the machine.
    Scary. But a good idea. Most parents won’t even consider it.
    Maybe it’s the word: spyware. It brings up associations of Dick Cheney sitting in a dark room, rubbing his hands together and reading your most private thoughts.  But this isn’t the government we are talking about—this is your family. It’s a mistake to confuse the two. Loving parents are doing the surveillance here, not faceless bureaucrats. And most parents already monitor their children, watching over their home environment, their school.
    Today’s overprotective parents fight their kids’ battles on the playground, berate coaches about playing time and fill out college applications—yet when it comes to chatting with pedophiles or watching beheadings or gambling away their entire life savings, then...then their children deserve independence?
    Some will say that you should simply trust your child, and that if he is old enough to go on the Internet he is old enough to know the dangers. Trust is one thing, but surrendering parental responsibility to a machine that allows the entire world access to your home borders on negligence.
    Some will say that it’s better just to use parental blocks that deny access to risky sites. I have found that they don’t work.  Children know how to get around them.  But more than that—and this is where it gets tough—I want to know what’s being said in e-mail and instant messages and in chat rooms.
    There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve all read about the young boy unknowingly conversing with a pedophile or the girl who was cyberbullied to the point where she committed suicide. Would a watchful eye have helped? We rely in the real world on teachers and parents to guard against bullies—do we just dismiss bullying on the Internet and all it entails because we are entering difficult ethical ground?
    Second, everything your" child types can already be seen by the world—teachers, potential employers, friends, neighbors, future dates. Shouldn’t he learn now that the Internet is not a haven of privacy?
    One of the most popular" arguments against spyware is the claim that you are reading your teenager’s every thought, and that in today’s world, a computer is the little key-locked diary of the past. But posting thoughts on the Internet isn’t the same thing as hiding them under your mattress. Maybe you should buy your children one of those little key-locked diaries so that they too can understand the difference.
    Am I suggesting eavesdropping on every conversation? No. With new technology comes new responsibility. That works both ways. There is a fine line between being responsibly protective and irresponsibly nosy. You shouldn’t monitor to find out if your daughter’s friend has a crush on Kevin next door or that Mrs. Peterson gives too much homework or what schoolmate snubbed your son. You are there to start conversations and to be a safety net. To borrow from the national intelligence lexicon—and yes, that’s uncomfortable—you’re listening for dangerous chatter.
    Will your teenagers find other ways of communicating with their friends when they realize you may be watching? Yes. But text messages and cellphones don’t offer the anonymity and danger of the Internet. They are usually one-on-one with someone you know. It is far easier for a predator to troll chat rooms and MySpace and Facebook.
    Parenting has never been for the faint of heart. One friend of mine, using spyware to monitor his college-bound, straight-A daughter, found out that not only was she using drugs but she was sleeping with her dealer. He wisely took a deep breath before confronting her. Then he decided to come clean, to let her know how he had found out, to speak with her about the dangers inherent in her behavior. He’d had these conversations before, of course, but this time he had context. She listened. There was no anger. Things seem better now.
    Our knee-jerk reaction as freedom-loving Americans is to be suspicions of anything that hints at invasion of privacy. That’s a good and noble thing. But it’s not an absolute, particularly in the face of the new and evolving challenges presented by the Internet. And particularly when it comes to our children.
    Do you tell your children that the spyware is on the computer? I side with yes, but it might be enough to show them this article, have a discussion about your concerns and let them know the possibility is there.
Which of the following is NOT suggested by the author?
选项 A、Children can be bullied both in school and in chatrooms.
B、Internet is a place where privacy cannot be guaranteed.
C、Chatting on Internet is like writing in key-locked diaries.
D、Using spyware is to find potential danger in children’s on-line communication.
答案C
解析 推断题。作者第八段指出了使用间谍软件监督孩子们在网络上与人交流内容的原因之一．就是Cyberbully也很严重，父母和老师及学校会保护孩子们不受别人欺负是不够的，故排除[A]；第九段指出了第二个原因，即应该让孩子们知道Internet is not a haven of privacy，[B]是对此的另一种说法，故排除；第十段里作者指出在网络上聊天的危险性与key-locked diaries是不同的，但是有些父母不明白这一点，因此作者建议，也许你们可以去给孩子买一本这样的日记本，so that they too can understand the difference，故[C]为答案；在第十一段作者指出，使用间谍软件不是要看孩子们所有的聊天内容，而是从聊天内容里看到潜在的危险，you’re listening for dangerous chatter。故排除[D]。
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