Sparklebox on Inside Out (BBC)

[Dos_Box]

Did any of you see the article on Inside Out (West) last night. Large bits were filmed at BETT (on the Wednesday looking at the lack of crowd due to snow), but it looks like Kinge has not been stripped of ownership of Sparklebox or its content. What this means is that any teacher visiting the site is actually paying this man, whilst he's in prison, as the site is ad funded!

And teacers are begging for access to it again! There are some mirror sites out there however with 'some' content on, so it may be worthwhile reminding your staff of this before they think that all is well and good with Sparklebox.

 

Link to iPlayer version. The article is 10 mins in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qg4fc/Inside_Out_West_25_01_2010/

 

*Bit angry aout this actually. How the judge saw fit to allow him to retain ownership of a business primarily aimed at schools I don't know.

Edited January 26, 2010 by Dos_Box

[ninjabeaver]

The article starts at 09:26 if you want to miss out the other stuff.

[gibbo_ap]

i gonna watch this tonight as i forgot last night....women n pizza.

[ninjabeaver]

As Dox_Box said, why wasn't the website shutdown as well. When he gets out in 6 months all the data will be available to him again.

[localzuk]

I don't think the court is allowed to arbitrarily shut down someone's business for such a crime. Doing so could amount to unfair punishment - as if that business has any employees, they'd be being punished also.

 

Its an odd area of law really.

[synaesthesia]

It's the nature of the crime though. I'd cite an example but really don't need to - a paedophile running a website dedicated to resources for children in schools?

No different to allowing one to be a lollipop person, or dinnerlady, or teacher.

[PiqueABoo]

Perhaps I'm a Vulcan or something, but AFAIC it is completely different from someone routinely working with and thus being in a personal trust relationship with real children.

[Jamman960]

I'm guessing the site will never be unblocked by any of the RBC's so it'll die off eventually anyway, I know I certainly have no intention of ever unblocking it here and hopefully the head will back my suggestion to ban teachers downloading the resources at home and bringing them in.

[localzuk]

Perhaps I'm a Vulcan or something, but AFAIC it is completely different from someone routinely working with and thus being in a personal trust relationship with real children.

 

Exactly. He is now going to be subject to supervision (well, being monitored) with his computer use by the police for 15 years. His crime was separate to his website, so why does the website end up being part of the punishment?

 

An example - a child breaks a window. In punishment, he has to pay for new one out of his pocket money. That is a suitable punishment. You wouldn't take his bike off him for it...

 

Otherwise, what you're effectively saying is that his punishment should continue for his entire life - with no chance of a reprieve.

 

The idea of CRB checks is to protect children from men like him, but how can he do damage to children by running his website, whilst being monitored by police?

 

NOTE: I will not be unblocking the site. My professional views and what I think the law stands for are different things.

[synaesthesia]

This could be an ongoing argument for quite some time. I get the points made about the site being separate from what he did, but many people think it's certainly a catalyst for him. I suspect that I would just rather be safe than sorry with things like this and not give anyone like this a margin with which to "misbehave".

But yes, for a moment I did forget the supervised internet usage thing. I'm still intrigued as to how that works. I'm guessing all his traffic would just be logged/monitored by a central hub somewhere but is that going to be entirely effective?

 

For one, I hope the blocks remain in place for a long time to come. I do still feel a little uneasy about seeing the resources in schools however that's just my opinion which needs to stay in my head. The school staff are intelligent enough to think for themselves.

[Face-Man]

An example - a child breaks a window. In punishment, he has to pay for new one out of his pocket money. That is a suitable punishment. You wouldn't take his bike off him for it...

 

I agree about suitability but would you take the bike off him if he was using to find more windows to break and using it to getaway (this was a second offence after all). The ad revenue may be immoral but the fact that the site may have been used to gain access to children means it is far more dangerous.

[localzuk]

I agree about suitability but would you take the bike off him if he was using to find more windows to break and using it to getaway (this was a second offence after all). The ad revenue may be immoral but the fact that the site may have been used to gain access to children means it is far more dangerous.

 

I don't think any evidence of this was presented against the Sparklebox site - either in court, or by the police generally.

[Dos_Box]

I am led to belive that Sparklebox has several employees who help generate content, but what my main beef is that his site generates income, not only to pay wages, but to fund his 'lifestyle'. Trips to Africa don't come cheap y'know.

Now that has to be wrong, at least morally, and would teachers really fund this if they knew where the money went?

[LeMarchand]

I don't think any evidence of this was presented against the Sparklebox site - either in court, or by the police generally.

 

If I had a fetish for (say) men of the cloth and was put away for raping priests and was forbidden from any contact with the men in cassocks, and then on my release started a site that was aimed at making composing sermons easier then surely this would raise concerns?

 

Especially if I then tried to get people to download a toolbar that could (presumably) be later updated to harvest information from the holy computers.

[Dos_Box]

This may have been one of those cases where the judge (and possibly jury) we not as net savvy as we in the profession are, and the links we can draw may not have been taken into consideration.

A possibilty.

Edited January 26, 2010 by Dos_Box

[fafster]

What's all this about?

[Dos_Box]

What's all this about?

 

Have you been under a rock? Serously, read the first post and watch the iPlayer link. It will give you all of the information you need.

[Dos_Box]

I should add though that the Sparklebox content really is first rate. My daughter often brings worksheets from school as homework. It's just a shame it's so tainted now.

[PiqueABoo]

If I had a fetish for then surely this would raise concerns?

 

That parallel is wonky because you've missed out one level of indirection. AIUI Sparklebox is/was a site for adult teachers, not children. Dunno about anyone else's but the chances of my Y2 Sprogette spending more than a second on that site as opposed to club penguin, barbie.com, polly pocket, CBBC trying to circumvent the TV rationing, somewhere with Scooby Doo games and so on ... is nil.

 

What was it that media report said? Something about a risk that he could get "intimate" with teachers? If that's a route to kids in their classes, then someone really ought to have a word with the teachers: About good old confidentiality first, and the new-fangled e-safety stuff if they're too stupid to correlate the latter with what they do on the net.

 

Especially if I then tried to get people to download a toolbar that could (presumably) be later updated to harvest information

 

If I were an RBC/whatever and thought that toolbar was a problem then all Conduit toolbars are a problem and the very first thing I'd be doing is explaining how I'd just blocked the ability of any of them to call home.

[LeMarchand]

That parallel is wonky because you've missed out one level of indirection.

 

OK: a site for vicars' wives on how to support their men. Or does that not work because both parties are adults, or because it isn't providing printable materials, or...?

 

The salient point is that it is very suspicious that someone who has been committed for an offence should go into business with something closely related to the "temptation" that he had previously succumbed to. Would you be more suspicious of a recently-released drug dealer who got a job in a bookstore or a "head" shop?

 

If I were an RBC/whatever and thought that toolbar was a problem then all Conduit toolbars are a problem and the very first thing I'd be doing is explaining how I'd just blocked the ability of any of them to call home.

 

If it were up to me all toolbars would be banned from the school.

[GrumbleDook]

There are a couple of risks associated with Sparklebox still as I *personally* see it.

 

1 - We have no idea who is really running the site.

2 - The lack of registration for Data Protection should worry people if this is to be seen as a legit company

3 - Kids bringing stuff home from school branded SparkleBox gives the message that the site is ok for parents to go on and have a look at stuff and possibly be in contact with the owners or others.

4 - Whilst there was no evidence that the site was not used to store or transmit material there is still a question over the position of a site with the facilities to upload pictures of students with no clear guidance about protecting pupils.

 

As for Condiut ... I would only used a toolbar from a trusted source and I now no longer trust the source.

 

Should the site be owned by someone else, or should the team running it (who I actually feel are a bit hard done to) be a bit more open about how things are being run then it will be worth looking at.

 

The materials can be accessed by mirrors so the advertising revenue does not have to be an issue ... but I would not share anything directly on the site in the meanwhile.

 

As I said to start with ... this is a personal opinion and we are still reviewing in Northants.

[LeMarchand]

should the team running it (who I actually feel are a bit hard done to)

 

Is/were there definitely staff, then? If so (and I'm assuming they didn't know about their employer) they must be pretty sad/angry.

[Dos_Box]

I am led to belive there were several full time employees who created the content, and 'went to ground' when Kinge was arrested once they found out about his activities. They are totally innocent BTW!

[Michael]

*Bit angry aout this actually. How the judge saw fit to allow him to retain ownership of a business primarily aimed at schools I don't know.

 

I agree 100% but this is where the law needs to tightened up. As it stands there's nothing in law to stop an offender of this nature to continue to deliver services to education and I think there should be. I do find it incredible that with all the MPs out there that none of them consider this a problem

You're right also that although he's in prison he will continue to profit, however in light of the negative publicity this opens the doors for another company to provide the same/similar resources. It's only a matter of time before this happens as I don't think many LAs will tolerate their material used in classrooms.

[AyatollahPies]

I agree 100% but this is where the law needs to tightened up. As it stands there's nothing in law to stop an offender of this nature to continue to deliver services to education and I think there should be. I do find it incredible that with all the MPs out there that none of them consider this a problem

You're right also that although he's in prison he will continue to profit, however in light of the negative publicity this opens the doors for another company to provide the same/similar resources. It's only a matter of time before this happens as I don't think many LAs will tolerate their material used in classrooms.

 

You expect MPs to have morals?