Kat wrote:
"toypup" wrote in message
...
I am thinking of eventually getting my 7 yo son a Nintendo DS. I am
concerned about the feature allowing him to hook up with people through a
WiFi connection. I don't mind him playing with his friend, who lives a
drive away, but I don't want him playing with random people and I don't
want anyone contacting him. Is there a parental control feature on the
Nintendo DS? Is there a safety feature built in?

I'm just talking to a friend who seems to know a fair bit about this DS...
For the connection... He's telling me that you need a wireless connection.
Like a wireless router to connect... With that, he tells me it's for playing
games with someone that isn't within the range of the DS. Not sure how far
the range is, but I believe it's not like miles away or something... fairly
close range.

Once you're connected by WiFi, it's traveling over
the internet, so distance is not an issue. You can play games
with people anywhere in the world. IIRC, these
interactions are mediated by the specific game in use,
and different games allow different types of interaction.
You do have to get the other player's code and put it in
your friends list (and vice versa) in order to do this.
There are websites where people share their friend codes
if they want to play games with other people. There is
a web browser available for the DS, but of course you'd
have to buy that, and if you don't buy it, he won't have
access to it. Most of the games that support WiFi gameplay
don't allow much interaction.

For playing a game with someone, there seems to be a couple options. With
multi player games, one DS can play off another. Like you and I are
playing, you have a game but I don't - if we're together, my DS will play
off of yours, even though I do not own the game. If you and I both want to
play a game, but you're at your house and I'm out of the range of the DS at
my own house, we can still play together - I need to have the game, though,
and we both need to have the wireless connection. Also, as almost like
"added security" we need to have what I think was called "player codes" -
which is like a password to play a game. You and I would exchange our
player codes for our game and could connect directly to eachother. There is
no chatting option for a game, though. Friend said any games he's played
have NOT had any type of chatting option... You just play the game together,
you don't talk, and then there's also the 'player code' thing that we'd need
from eachother in order to play. He said he obviously hasn't played every
game out there, so maybe some games might have an option to chat, but again,
with any connection to someone else, you need this code to get to eachother,
so since you wouldn't be walking down the street randomly giving random
people you game "code" there seems to be very little chance of Chester the
Molester playing a game with a random person (child).

A little common sense goes a long way with this one.
It's possible to keep things fairly secure if you exercise
some basic precautions. I'm sure if you googled around, there
are probably primers on the web for how to use the WiFi
and Pictochat communications safely.

I noticed, after pulling DS' DS out, there's this thing called "Pictochat"
on it. I'm told that this is something that is a direct connection from one
DS to another within the range. And for this Pictochat to work, there has
to be someone else within the range on at the time. Seems the chance of
Chester the Molester being within range at the same time is not very good,
but I guess you can't ever know for sure.

The range is only around 65 feet, so it's not huge.

I noticed, while kind of playing
around with it, that each time I've looked, these "chat rooms" for this
Pictochat have always said 0/16 - meaning no one is within range. My friend
said he's never really bothered with that, though, and isn't sure if this is
something that you could find random people out of the DS range with a
wireless connection.

You can stumble across others. My kids used to like
playing games with friends using Pictochat, or would chat
with each other. Sometimes they'd run across someone else
nearby who was broadcasting. Didn't happen that often. The
main thing is to make sure that their user name in Pictochat
doesn't give away inappropriate information, and for them
to know that it's possible for them to run into strangers
in Pictochat if they're using it in a public space.

Best wishes,
Ericka