By TAMI OLSEN
In 1997, families spent an average of 14 hours per week using the Internet. USA Today said children account for roughly 16 million Web users, and Emerging Technologies Research Group predicts that by 2002, over 45 million children will have online access.
Children are becoming frequent participators in this new medium. Unfortunately, creative sites for companies like Crayola and Barbie are as accessible to children as sexually explicit photos or other inappropriate sites.
With Gov. Mike Leavitt’s Internet safety mousepad program kicking off last Thursday, Utah schools and families are working to diminish the risks of Internet use. In light of the increasing availability of internet truth and trash, leaders have urged anyone responsible for children to closely monitor Internet use.
After the Communications Decency Act bill was rejected, President Clinton urged parents to use monitoring software programs and screen what their kids can access on the Internet. But studies have found that few parents follow this advice.
FamilyPC magazine conducted a survey in December 1997 of 750 families with children and Internet access. It found that only 26 percent of those surveyed used some form of parental-control software, mainly built in their Web browsers or Internet Service Provider. Only 4 percent of parents used monitoring software they had to buy, install and maintain on their own, to the chagrin of the Clinton Administration and computer industry.
Nearly 78 percent of those surveyed said they “always know” what their children access online because they watch them while they are browsing.
Utah schools began using a filter program for all computers with Internet access in August 1996. The system detects when students try to enter any sites that have been disapproved of by category (crime, drugs, hate speech, sex, gambling, etc.), by Web site or by words in a search, said Garth Gooch, data processing specialist for the Provo School District.
Gooch maintains the Provo School District’s program, SmartFilter. He said he receives weekly inappropriate-site updates from the company and reviews those sites which people find they can access through the program but shouldn’t be able to.
The SmartFilter program keeps a record of every individual and where he or she goes, he said. Each school reviews these reports and deals with violating students independently.
He said the system works well because it keeps kids from accessing things they shouldn’t. Though this had not yet become a big problem, “We don’t want it to be,” Gooch said.
Students must sign a school policy stating they will not misuse their access, Gooch said.
“People have lost their jobs over this. Students can lose all privileges over visiting improper sites.”
BYU presently uses Webster’s Webtrack, an Internet blocking system, but will soon be changing to H2N2, said T. Jay Humphries, BYU network security manager. He said the system works by proxy — it closes open Internet access and puts in a gateway that all users must pass through to access their sites. Webtrack, operating as the gateway, mostly blocks access to sites that have been predetermined as inappropriate, using a list supplied by the company and also suggestions from users for sites that should be blocked or opened.
Humphries said the Board of Trustees was concerned with students using tithing money for inappropriate computer use, so they implemented the blocking system. BYU does not use the same monitoring/tracking system Utah schools do, it simply blocks out improper sites.
Humphries said if a student finds a site that should or should not be blocked by BYU’s program, they can e-mail the site to for review.
If filtering sounds like a good idea, parents can also participate in monitoring their child’s Internet activities through various “net parent” programs.
Cybersitter, Cyber Patrol, Net Nanny, SurfWatch and Net Blocker Plus are just a few of the many programs there are.
The main idea behind each of these systems is the same: they allow parents to choose which categories, sites and/or words they do not want their children to access. The program then monitors all Internet interactions, and if an undesired area is requested it can send an alert to the user, block access to the site, or both.
Many programs send regular updates of new sites that may be questionable. Cyber Patrol has its “CyberNOT” list of sites with questionable material, a “CyberYES” list of sites with only appropriate material for children, and “HOTNOTS,” a daily updated list of blocked sites.
These programs can also filter chat lines and newsgroups, and many can stop children from giving their name, address or phone number on-line by changing the words into nonsense characters when they are attempted to be sent.
Cybersitter has an option that allows parents to even scan incoming and outgoing e-mail for inappropriate material. When it spots a violation, it logs the computer user and attempt for parental review at a later time.
Parents should remember that no system is foolproof, the software distributors warn. Cybersitter, one of the most popular filtering programs and a recipient of many recommendations by computer and parenting magazines and companies, said on its Web site, “Although it took several hours, we were able to bring up three sites with inappropriate content ourselves.”
They recommend that the best line of defense, along with the program, is spending time with the children and watching where they surf.
Filtering Web Sites:
www.cybersitter.com
www.netnanny.com
www1.surfwatch.com
www.cyberpatrol.com
