Content Filtering

The Internet is not controlled by any one body/person which is why we have seen the growth it has experience in recent years. This has immensely increased information and communication throughout the world but it is not all good. With each region and and country in the world having different laws, 'undesirable' content is available readily to anyone. This can be concerning with respect to the effect it could have on our youth.

While children need to be able to access the internet to gain relevant information and skills required for later life, we want to ensure that they are not exposed to this undesirable material.

Tricks are employed by some companies to get people to visit their sites by disguising the content until you are actually there so it can be very easy to stumble across this undesirable content. It can be the case also that curiosity get the better of a child and they will actively seek the sites, either way it is not an easy task to prevent this from occurring.

There are many strategies to try and overcome this problem but even powerful bodies and government organizations have difficulties in trying to provide a solution. The difficulty in filtering content is that computers have trouble interpreting the context of a word. For example on first glance at the problem, it would be easy just to but a block on the word 'sex'. Unfortunately by doing this nearly all scientific site would be blocked as they may refer to a creatures habit by their 'sex'. Their is also the problem with cultural and slang meanings of words.

Below are some strategies that can be employed to filter content but by far the most relevant and useful strategy is education and supervision. Speaking from a 10 year teaching background, if children are aware of what is right and wrong, mixed with some supervision, most problems can be avoided. It is true that a child could stumble across inappropriate information, but if the child realizes that the content is inappropriate and then avoids it, then the child has also learnt a valuable life skill. This would apply to not only content, but to chat rooms etc.. as their is unfortunately also problems apart from content such as  pedophiles and stalkers.

The Australian Broadcasting Authority (www.aba.gov.au) initiated research by the CSIRO into this matter in 2001 and accredit the software below as being effective. You can read the full report by clicking on the link above.

Arlington Custom Browser
Cyber Patrol 5.0
Cyber Sentinel 2.0
Cyber Sitter 2001
Eyeguard
I-Gear 3.5
Internet Sheriff
N2H2
Net Nanny 4.0
Norton Internet Security 3.0
Smart Filter 3.0
Too C.O.O.L.
X-Stop 3.04

Unfortunately like most things in life, it comes at a price, but most of the software is available as a free trial version so you can try 'before you buy'.

Should you require further information on this matter, please feel free to contact DESCnet support to discuss the matter. In addition, in some cases we can take direct action against content providers, so if you are concerned please contact our support department.

Des Coles

3/5/2002