I will say right now that most of the teens I have dealt with as a repair tech are the cause of me repairing their computer in the first place. While their parents may be next to clueless, the kids are way too overly confident that the Internet is just ‘no big deal’ and that everything works out in the wash.

High-schools students have a message for their parents: Trust us with technology. Security and privacy? We have it covered.

A panel of teenagers speaking at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference told attendees on Friday that they are far more in tune with technology than their parents and have come to understand the issues of security and privacy on the Internet largely without any guidance from educators or their parents.

“We don’t go over Internet security, we don’t go after ‘Watch out for that, because your identity can be stolen,’” said Elizabeth, a 16-year-old junior at Seattle Prepatory School. “I don’t know that a school should be giving courses in computer ethics, but they should talk about computer security. If you are going to have a computer in the classroom, talk to kids about — hey, you might see an adult site, that there are Internet predators out there, they exist, you kids need to be careful — you know, give them the basic education.” [Read the rest]