By Karen Gutierrez
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Teenagers nationwide are quietly being enlisted to help protect the country's computer networks against virus writers, identity thieves and malicious hackers.

The program, sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department, is called i-SAFE America. So far in Greater Cincinnati, teachers at eight high schools, five middle schools and 13 elementary schools have been trained to use it.

Lloyd Memorial High School student Dustin Drifmeyer, 15, takes direction from director Eric Weston during the filming of an educational web-cast movie, Security: Cyber-Citizenship. (Gary Landers photo)

I-SAFE represents the first attempt on a national scale to teach young people about urgent issues in cyber crime. It's also the only such program funded by Congress, which gave it $5 million this year.

For elementary students, i-SAFE focuses on personal Internet safety - the traditional "don't talk to strangers" updated for the digital age.

At the high-school level, however, the curriculum goes much deeper, addressing teenagers not only as potential victims but also perpetrators of Internet chaos.

Students learn about tragedies related to "cyber-bullying," in which young people humiliate each other through Web sites.

They study the legal consequences of downloading music without paying for it. They learn to guard against computer worms, such as January's Mydoom.A, which cost an estimated $250 million in lost productivity and repairs worldwide.

They even get briefed on steganography. This practice - the embedding of secret messages in images passed around the Internet - may be used by terrorists to communicate, security experts say.

Greater Cincinnati students have not yet seen the i-SAFE lessons on these subjects. But some already know about the Internet's dark side.

Sharad Raj, a sophomore at Lloyd Memorial High School in Erlanger, says his curiosity about computers prompted him to study hacking programs. He knows, for example, how to send a file known as a Trojan horse to a stranger's computer and use it to see what is stored there.

Instructions for sending Trojans, viruses and other malicious files are readily available on the Web, where code writers post them to show off.

"There are millions of Trojans out there," says Sharad, 15. "Anyone who gets on the Internet, your computer is at risk."

High cost of cyber crime

Lloyd is among about 30 area schools, including Princeton, Milford, Mason and Fairfield high schools, where teachers have received i-SAFE training within the last six months.

For high schools, the lessons consist of slickly produced Webcasts, hosted by teenagers, that explore Internet issues through re-enactments, clips of news events and interviews with experts.

The facts are so up-to-date that some of the shows are still in production, offering tips such as Web sites where students can download free systems for protecting their home computers against attack.

Students should definitely be taught such information, says Adam Hartke, a junior at Lloyd High School.

"Computers are the future," he says. "We must learn how to protect ourselves and other people."

Last year, computer viruses spread over the Internet cost businesses about $13.5 billion worldwide, an increase of 250 percent compared to 1998, says Computer Economics Inc.

I-SAFE's approach - sharing such facts with teenagers without preaching to them - is a smart move, experts say.

Armed with the right knowledge, young people have the computer savvy to help prevent problems. At the same time, disaffected teens are among those committing cyber crime, so it makes sense to warn them of the consequences.

Educators should appeal to the ego of such students, says Marco Marchetti, an assistant professor of computer science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The message he would convey: Breaking virus codes is much harder - and therefore, much cooler - than launching them.

'How would you feel?'

Lloyd Memorial High has been especially gung-ho about using i-SAFE. Karen Boyle, the library media specialist at Lloyd, has presented three of the Webcasts to the school's freshmen. Those programs covered chat-room safety, cyber predators and the consequences of sharing music files.

The file-sharing lesson featured a songwriter - a regular-Joe type with a wife and kids - who talked about how his life is affected when people don't pay for music he helped write.

Freshman Michele Lunn was moved when she saw it.

"To take that job away from him and everything he's worked hard for. ...It's horrible," she says.

In addition to watching the Webcasts, four Lloyd students - Felicia Dunn, Chad Ludwick, Michael Slaughter and Chase Autry - present i-SAFE lessons in Erlanger's elementary schools.

Lloyd High has been so active that i-SAFE America Inc., the non-profit, California-based company that creates the programs, used the school this month as a set.

Lloyd students auditioned for parts as hosts and re-enactors. The installment reports on a Boston teen whose exploits cut off phone service to hundreds of homes and disrupted communications at an airport. Among the questions: "How would you feel if a hacker cut off your phone service and you needed to call 911? What do you think is involved in being a good citizen on the Web?"

I-SAFE is all about empowering teenagers to make the right decisions, says Sacha Hope, spokeswoman for i-SAFE America Inc.

"They are so knowledgeable about how to upload this and download that," she says. "We have to make sure they have the tools to make appropriate decisions."

Cyber-vocabulary

Here are some of the terms mentioned in i-SAFE America's high-school lessons. More information can be found on the Web at isafe.org.

Hactivism: Rather than protest on the streets, hactivists use the internet to hack - gain unauthorized access to a computer file or network - in the name of a social or political cause.

Crackers: Hackers who destroy in order to show off their skill.

Script Kiddie: Wannabes, often young, who launch viruses into the Internet by taking them off publicly accessible web sites, where they have been posted by real virus writers.

Malicious code: A computer program meant to hurt computers and their users.

Virus: A malicious code that infects or attaches itself to other computer programs to erase files, lock up systems or create other damage.

Worm: A self-replicating computer virus embedded in a file.

Trojan horse: Malicious code that appears harmless but, when opened by the user, can give the hacker access to user's computer. It is is not self-replicating.

Grooming: The way predators gain the trust of victims and build false relationships with them over the Internet.

Copyright: The legal protection automatically given to creative products, (such as music, books or paintings), that prevents them from being copied and distributed without permission of the copyright owner. Sending a music file over the Web may be considered a violation of copyright law.

Fair-use doctrine: Images or other creative works can be used for edcation purposes, like a book report, without permission from the copyright owner.

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E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com