| The AIPCFAQ on this page was compiled in 1996 and is now largely out of date.
For current information (updated May 2006), visit EFA's Internet Content Filtering and Blocking page, which includes information about: |
adapted by the Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA)
from the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW)
Feedback and questions about reuse of this FAQ should be sent to feedback at efa.org.au
Copyright 1995 by Shabbir J. Safdar & Steven Cherry
Modified version Copyright 1996, Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc.
In the solutions mentioned below, it is not just important to note what is desirable to parents, but to free speech advocates as well. A solution agreeable to both parties will successfully flourish, while a solution highly unpopular with one or the other will never catch fire in the industry due to legal challenges or customer unhappiness.
The solutions below have been judged purely on their workability.
Changes / additions / corrections should be sent to james.nunn at efa.org.au.
As will always be true, the most effective method of getting comfortable with your child's Internet access is to guide them as a parent. No other human being except you knows what is and isn't appropriate for your children. By learning to use the Internet with your child (either one of you can teach the other) you can instill in them the values that you want them to use when selecting material in the Internet, or on television, radio, or in print media. The respect built between you and your child will function when no one is around, and will survive software upgrades, eternally-changing international law, and other unpredictable events.
This solution is supported as the best one by most reasonable parents and free speech advocates.
Some governments around Australia have introduced legislation to criminalize certain types of speech throughout the medium in order to shield minors from 'objectionable material'. Although this plays well at the polls, it is not effective at addressing the issue of children's access to such material. As long as the Internet continues to be a global network, there will always be some one or more countries in which one can provide material that is out of the reach of Australian law and flies afoul of Australian expression standards.
Governmental restrictions are not the answer to those serious about addressing the issue.
On the technical side, several people have proposed "tagging" all items on the Internet with a rating similar to the Australian motion picture ratings. This scheme is also not a workable one, since even well-intentioned content authors will have difficulty rating their material in a manner that agree with your values as a parent. In addition, malicious authors are under no pressure to rate their content correctly if at all. Although the next logical step would seem to be to make rating of content a statutory requirement, this quickly enmeshes one in all the problems described above in "Governmental Restrictions".
Recently there has been a growth in the number of systems that require proof of age before providing access to their content. This system still requires a judgement call on the part of those providing the content. This judgement call is by someone who has probably nothing in common with your ideals as a parent.
In addition, because they are a content provider they have a disincentive to make that judgement call impartially, since every user that cannot see their content reduces their audience (and potential revenues) by one person.
Similarly, many have suggested "encrypting" all traffic that might be objectionable to minors. Ignoring the lack of ubiquity and general exportability of encryption, this begs the question. Who decides what should be encrypted? If they assume everything, you still need to decide who is allowed to receive the keys to decrypt the traffic.
Several online systems have proprietary environments where content is screened as being available for the lowest common denominator of children. You, the parent, request that your child's account be placed into this environment. Because you the parent are paying the service provider for the child's account, they have an incentive to do it correctly as opposed to the ratings systems previously presented.
The major systems are treating this option as a customer-driven feature, fueled by requests from paying parent customers. It is a growing market and not likely to fade in the near future.
String detection systems are a method for setting up, ahead of time, trigger phrases and words. When these phrases or words are detected in the data stream (whether they're in a web page, a file being ftp'd, or even in a chat session) the software can take an action to counter it.
It could shutdown the computer, choose not to show it, hang up the modem, or many other things configurable by the parent.
This is an extremely popular method of controlling children's access to content that has both the support of the market and free speech advocates. In all the previous ratings systems (the proprietary system notwithstanding) you have only two parties, the content producer (ie author of a Web page or a Usenet posting) and the content consumer (the child). In the third party ratings system the third party is an entity trusted by the parent of the consumer (the child) who goes out on the Internet and rates pages.
The parent has specially tinkered versions of Internet access software that understands and enforces the ratings system. Raters could be either the authors of the software themselves, or yet different third parties that are chosen by the parent. Indeed, the third party ratings system possesses the unique quality of allowing you to choose a ratings body that is closely principled with what you believe as a parent.
For example, the Metropolitan Community Church might wish to shield young people from any images of sexual images involving food, but explicitly allow pages about gay and lesbian teenage support groups. The Christian Coalition, on the other hand, may wish to place both types of information on their "not for children" list.
A crucial element to this is how you as a parent would want the software configured. Would you rather have every part of the Internet be unavailable unless deemed "appropriate for children" by your ratings groups? Or would you rather have every part of the Internet deemed "appropriate for children" unless a ratings body (that you trust to consistently net-surf) deems it "inappropriate for children"?
Most software packages allow you to do both. And that's the best part: unlike other communications technologies, consumer demand has driven entrepreneurs to produce third party ratings products far ahead of government calls for regulation, attempting to head off the problem before parliaments feels the need to legislate a solution. You can obtain these products now, and in some cases, your child's school can obtain them free of charge.
Parental control (ie you giving your child guidance on what is appropriate) has been available for hundreds of years and continues to be the best approach to the issue of monitoring your child's use of the Internet.
Federal level
The following States have passed laws restricting content online: Victoria (1/96), Northern Territory (1/96). The following States have bills currently travelling through their parliament which will restrict content online: Western Australia. Draft legislation has also been prepared by the NSW Government.
Several proposals for author self-rating of content on the Internet have been floated. Here is the list of proposals we are aware of:
RSACi (Recreational Software Advisory Council on the Internet) this is a system whereby a webmaster can rate his or her pages by filling out a questionnaire at http://www.rsac.org/ which then returns sets of HTML tags. Authors can add these tags into their documents which can then be read by compatible browsers. RSAC is compatible with PICS (See below). See the RSAC WWW site for more information."Voluntary Internet Self Rating" by Alex Stewart (riche at crl.com) http://www.crl.com/~riche/IVSR/proposal.html
"Protecting Our Innocents - A Proposal for Voluntary Content Classification" by L.Allison and R.Baxter, Department of Computer Science, Monash University http:// www.cs.monash.edu.au/~lloyd/tilde/InterNet/Innocent/1995.224.html
Many content providers are now requiring you to have a registration on file that proves you are over 18 before accessing their content. Some are using a credit card or an Internet FirstVirtual account number as proof of age. However the same original problem applies: what incentive does the content provider have to keep objectionable material out of the hands of minors? (None; more restrictions diminish their advertising audience.)
AMERICA ONLINE (AOL) [not available in Australia] offers parental blocking that allows the parent to limit a child's distinct screen-name to either a "Kids Only" area (recommended for children under twelve) or to just disallow Chat Rooms and Internet Newsgroups (for pre-teens and teens). "Kids Only" is a collection of educational resources and entertainment areas specifically designed for kids -- it includes a range of AOL content areas as well as a pre-selected collection of child-oriented internet sites. Message boards and chat rooms in Kids Only are monitored by AOL staff, who are recognizable by the prefix "KO" in their screen-names. A Teens-Only area is in developpment as well as tools that will allow the parent to select appropriate internet sites at their discretion. AOL provides telephone help, detailed instructions and advice for parents who are the only ones who can change the control settings. In addition, parents can contact AOL to set billing limits on accounts. There is no additional cost for the service.
BESS (a.k.a. Bess.Net) [not available in Australia] is an Internet service provider designed specifically for kids, families, and schools. Bess provides access to most popular Internet services, including World Wide Web, FTP, Gopher, and e-mail. Bess blocks access to areas of the net that are inappropriate for children. Bess monitors new sites and adds them to the list of blocked sites on a daily basis; no maintenance is required on the part of the subscriber. BESS costs about $35 / month for 30 hours of online time.
BESS can be reached at:
Phone: (206) 971-1400NETCOM, not a proprietary system, provides Surfwatch built-in to the NETCOMplete product. See the Surfwatch entry below for more info.
E-mail: bess@bess.net
WWW: http://demo.bess.net/about_bess/the_service.html
COMPUSERVE does not yet have parental control features available, but have announced two projects called KidNet and Internet In A Box For Kids. KidNet is planned to be "child-safe" online service that will contain closely monitored interactive games, shopping, messaging, and chatting areas. Internet In A Box For Kids will contain a program called Crossing Guard, which will allow parents to control their children's access to the by blocking access to sites that may contain inappropriate materials. Crossing Guard will also allow parents to monitor their children's online activities and set timers to control when and how long their children can surf the net. Both products will not available until Fall of 1995. The cost is not yet known.
NET NANNY is a parental control tool that allows screening of World Wide Web sites, newsgroups, and text messages (including Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and electronic mail). It is specifically parent configurable and screens material not only coming from the Internet but information your child sends back out to the Internet as well. It can also be configured to block access to files on the PC's hard drive, floppy drive and CD-ROM, to prevent a child from accessing and altering the parent's financial records, work related files, and programs and files intended only for adults. NET NANNY contains a log of all the child's activities for later parental review.
You can contact the makers of NET NANNY at:
Trove Investment CorporationThe Australian distributor of NetNanny is:
Main Floor - 525 Seymour Street
Vancouver, B.C. Canada, V6B 3H7
Email: netnanny@netnanny.com
URL: http://www.netnanny.com/netnanny/
Checkmark Technologies Pty Ltd
PO Box 6129, North Sydney NSW 2059
Telephone: (02) 9957 6970
Freecall: 1 800 504 025
Facsimile: (02) 9956 8742
Email: 100354.1755@compuserve.comNET NANNY is generally available for less than $US50.
PLATFORM FOR INTERNET CONTENT SELECTION (PICS) is an industry-endorsed proposal from the World Wide Web Consortium for author and third-party ratings done in a standard format.
The press releases can be found at http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/.
For more details on the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) refer to Robin Whittle's detailed analysis of how PICS will work.
CENSORMAN is a product written and designed at schoolsNET in Victoria to deal with some of the problems which schools have with allowing students unsupervised access. CensorMan runs on the school's server and can be adjusted to apply to different computers differently (so that staff access is different to student access) and the school can choose everything that is to be blocked as well as the preconfigured tables of offensive material. CensorMan keeps users informed automatically of what is being blocked by other CensorMan users, through a messaging system which keeps the time spent looking for sites to a minimum.
Further details available at http://www.schnet.edu.au/CensorMan
CYBERPATROL allows parents to restrict access to certain times of day, limit the total time spent on-line per day and per week, block access to specific Internet resources and sites by content (using Cyberpartrol's objectionable sites list), block or allow specific Internet resources and sites according to your own preferences, and control access to major on-line services and other local applications such as games and personal financial managers. You can contact the makers of CYBERPATROL at:
Microsystems Software, Inc.CYBERsitter filters pre-defined offensive Internet sites( WWW, Newsgroups, Chat Lines, FTP, etc) that are maintained in a filter file that is updated regularly(almost daily) and available for all users to automatically upload as often as they like, for free. It also uses smart phrase technology to anticipate offensive sites as well as to block offensive words and language in incoming and outgoing e-mail. CYBERsitter also monitors and maintains an alert file of any offense that occurs and optionally can track every internet site visited for the parent to review. You can contact the makers of CYBERSITTER at:
600 Worcester Rd.
Framingham, MA 01701
URL: http://www.microsystems.com/
Email: info@microsys.com
Phone: (800) 489-2001 or (508) 879-9000
Fax: (508) 626-8515CYBERPATROL is generally available for $49.95 which includes a 6-month subscription to their blocked site list. Subsequent 6-month subscriptions are $19.95; 12-months, $29.95.
Solid Oak Software, Inc.INTERNET FILTER is a parental control tool for Windows and Windows95 that can be configured to block or log all data transfers including World Wide Web pages, newsgroups, types of messages within any newsgroup, Internet hosts known to have material objectionable to children, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) sessions.
Post Office Box 6826
Santa Barbara, CA 93160
Sales 1-800-388-2761
Fax 805-967-1614
Email: info@solidoak.com
URL: http://www.rain.org/~solidoak/CYBERSITTER is generally available for $29.95.
You can contact the makers of INTERNET FILTER at:
Turner Investigations, Research and CommunicationSURFWATCH is a parental control tool that blocks access to web, gopher, and ftp sites that SurfWatch's team of net-surfers have deemed objectionable. SurfWatch's list of "not-for-children" sites is a subscription service updated through their site on the Internet. Updates are done automatically; frequency of updates is configurable by the parent. SurfWatch has announced a partnership with AOL and will be incorporated into AOL's proprietary interface. You can contact the makers of SurfWatch at:
Box 151, 3456 Dunbar St.
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6S-2C2
Phone/Fax: (604) 733-5095
internet: bturner@direct.ca
URL: http://www.xmission.com/~seer/jdksoftware/INTERNET FILTER 1.0 is generally available and costs $49.95 (Canadian funds). INTERNET FILTER Version 0 blocks everything but e-mail and can be obtained free of charge. To obtain Version 0 go to: http://www.xmission.com/~seer/Turner/
SurfWatch SoftwareISCREEN from NewView Communications is a third party ratings system that is coming up to speed. Although their WWW site has a lot of information, it still does not seem to answer the burning questions: is there a product, how much does it cost, and where can I download it? Never the less, the product, which employs a client/server approach, looks exciting. NewView can be contacted at:
105 Fremont Avenue, Suite F
Los Altos, California 94022
Phone 415-948-9500
Fax 415-948-9577
Email: press@surfwatch.com or info@surfwatch@com
URL: http://www.surfwatch.comSurfWatch is generally available for less than $50 with updates available for $5.95. Netcom's NETCOMplete subscribers receive the initial software free of charge when they sign up for either a six or twelve month subscription to SurfWatch site updates. The NETCOMplete price for a six month subscription to the SurfWatch site updates is $19.95 or twelve months for $29.95.
NewView CommunicationsNETSCAPE Communications sells a proxy server which can be configured to restrict access to the gopher, the World Wide Web, ftp, and telnet on the Internet. Users are prevented from accessing sites which have been explicitly been disallowed. No pre-screened list of sites is provided with the product, as the product is aimed at institutions. You can contact the makers of the NETSCAPE proxy server at:
558 Brewster Ave.
Redwood City CA 94063
Phone:415/299-9157
Fax:415/299-0522
Email: cji@newview.com or als@newview.com
URL: http://www.newview.com/demo/
Netscape CommunicationsWEBTRACK is designed to allow institutions to provide their employees with restricted Internet access. Sites on the Internet are classified into 15 categories of World Wide Web, Gopher, and ftp sites (including sexually explicit material, games, gambling, job search information, drugs, online merchandising, sports, humor, and others). Institutional administrators then choose which categories they wish to restrict (if any). Logs of Internet access are also kept for later review. You can contact the makers of WEBTRACK at:
415/528-2555
Email: info@netscape.com
URL: http://www.netscape.comThe cost of the Netscape proxy server is unknown.
Webster Networks StrategiesAUTOMATED COLLABORATIVE FILTERING (ACF) is a proposal for linking up different users with common tastes (and distastes) and helping them share their collective Web page ratings. The proposal is of extremely interesting to fans of filtering technology, but offers no immediate assistance to parents wishing to control their childrens' access to the net. The proposal can be found at URL: http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/rate-proposal.html .
1100 5th Avenue South, Suite 308
Naples, FL 33940
Phone: (800) WNS-0066 or (813) 261-5503
Fax (813) 261-6549
E-mail info@webster.com
URL: http://www.webster.comWEBTRACK is generally available for about $7,500. Updates of the site list are available on a subscription basis for $1,500 per year. WEBTRACK is FREE TO ALL K-12 SCHOOLS (kindergarten through 12th grade).
The HOME & SCHOOL INTERNET FOUNDATION is being created under the a charter that would include both third-party ratings and an Internet author ratings system. They can be contacted at:
David Porte, Sr. Managing PartnerNoCeM (pronounced "No See 'Em") is a system whereby a person can post metadata to Usenet about other people's postings. Given the amount of spamming that's been happening lately, NoCeM is certainly an exciting possibility for controlling not only that, but all forms of content without actually impacting the poster of such information. Don't take our word for it though, learn about NoCeM at URL:http://www.cm/org/faq.html
Astrolabe Group, Inc.
Voice: 800.910.0227 or 206.814.9441
faX: 206.814.9442
e-mail: astrolabe@astrolabe.com
URL: http://www.astrolabe.com/home_and_school
An IETF WORKING GROUP has been formed to address the possibility of advancing an Internet Draft for providing ratings of Internet resources. The working group mailing list moderator can be contacted at owner-vac-wg@naic.nasa.gov.
SAFESURF is a proposed rating system and software development effort. The software is not available yet, but you can self-rate your pages through their WWW site. You can learn more about it at URL: http://www.safesurf.com/wave/
The updating of this document to reflect the Australian situation was undertaken by James Nunn of EFA (james.nunn at efa.org.au).