September 15, 1999 Howard Rosenbaum hrosenba@indiana

Internet Access: Regular, Filtered, or Menthol? September 15, 1999 Howard Rosenbaum hrosenba@indiana.edu http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/Pres/filt99/index.html

I. Introduction • The problem: access to networked information II. Possible solutions • Legislative • Social III. Technical: filters • What are they? • How do they work? • How well do they work? IV. Conclusions

I. The problem Controlling access to networked information Schools and libraries are in the business of providing access to information Internet access raises difficult issues Should there be any restrictions on user access? Does the teacher or librarian have any responsibility to monitor children’s use of this resource? Is net access be treated as a collection development task?

Can and should the Internet be censored by filtering is a question bedeviling thousands of public librarians who have rushed to embrace this seemingly limitless and economical information source only to find that it includes a distinctly dark and dirty side. Bastian, J.B. (1998). Filtering the Internet in American Public Libraries: Sliding Down the Slippery Slope. First Monday 2(10) http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_10/bastian/

How bad can it be? 11/98: ~60,000 “adult” sites in the US The most frequently used keywords in web searches were sex-related A Family PC Magazine survey (n=750, 1/98) found that 68% of parents are concerned about children's access to pornography This does not take into account all of the other types of sites from which kids should be protected http://www-cse.stanford.edu/classes/ cs201/projects/online-pornography/index.html#graph

A scenario At a library or school Board meeting, a coalition of parents makes a strong case that the library or school should not be in the pornography business Free and open access to the net with children allowed to use the computers means that librarians and teachers are no better than the smut dealers They demand that filtering software be installed on all net-accessible computers that can be used by children The Board asks you to respond - what do you say?

Or: A parent asks to see your collection development policy They notice what the library or school will and will not buy They sit at the nearest computer terminal and access versions of the unacceptable material on the net They call you over and ask you to explain why it is that they (or their child) are can access this information with the library or school’s computer, but can’t find it on the shelves How do you respond?

Filtering…NO! WHEREAS,On June 26, 1997, the US Supreme Court issued a sweeping re-affirmation of core First Amendment principles and held that communications over the Internet deserve the highest level of Constitutional protection... ... RESOLVED, That the American Library Association affirms that the use of filtering software by libraries to block access to constitutionally protected speech violates the Library Bill of Rights ALA's Resolution on the Use of Filtering Software in Libraries [Adopted July, 2, 1997]

Filtering…YES! Filtering Facts promotes the use of filtering in libraries to protect children from the harms of pornography. All public libraries should filter the access of children. Filtering for adults should be decided on a community-by-community basis Goals of Filtering Facts: Educate the public and media about Internet software filters Encourage libraries to adopt filters Persuade the ALA to rescind its “Resolution on the use of filtering software in libraries,” and adopt a more tolerant view of filtering http://www.filteringfacts.org/faq.htm

II. Possible solutions Legislative Indiana House Bill #2069 Current Status: first reading; referred to Committee on Education If you (the school or public library) want your share of the money and provide a “public access computer” that minors can use, you must: Use software that limits the ability minors to access materials determined to be inappropriate for them Purchase net connectivity from an ISP that uses filtering to limit access to materials determined to be inappropriate for minors

At least once a year, the governing body of the school corporation or library shall hold a public meeting during which They will determine the range of materials considered inappropriate for minors This will allow the filters used by the school to be set to prevent a minors from gaining access to the materials This determination should reflect community standards regarding materials that are inappropriate for minors as evidenced during the meeting

A “public access computer” is defined as a computer that is Located in a public school or public library Frequently or regularly used directly by a minor; and Connected to any computer communication system Is this a reasonable definition?

S. 97: Childrens’ Internet Protection Act Requirement for schools and libraries to implement filtering or blocking technology for computers with internet access as condition of universal service discounts The school, school board, or other authority must certify that it Has selected a technology for its computers with net access to filter or block access to: Material that is obscene; and Child pornography; and Is enforcing a policy to ensure the operation of the technology during any use of such computers by minors

H.R. 543, 896: Children’s Internet Protection Act To be eligible for universal service assistance schools and and libraries must certify that they have Selected technology for computers with net access to filter or block material deemed to be harmful to minors; and Installed, or will install, and uses or will use, as soon as it obtains computers with Internet access, a technology to filter or block such material

3) Certification for libraries- A library with more than 1 computer with net access used by the public (including minors) shall certify that it has installed and uses filtering or blocking to restrict material deemed to be harmful to minors on one or more of its computers with Internet access A library with 1 computer with net access used by the public (including minors) can receive universal service assistance even if it does not use a filtering or blocking software It must certify to that it employs areasonably effective alternative to keep minors from accessing material on the net that is deemed to be harmful

S. 1545: Neighborhood Children’s Internet Protection Act No universal service for schools or libraries that fail to filtering or adopt internet use policies The internet use policy must address minors’ Access to inappropriate matter on the net/web; Safety and security when using email, chat rooms, and other direct electronic communications; Unauthorized access, (hacking) and other unlawful activities; Unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of their personal identification information; and It also must the use of technological means to limit, monitor, or otherwise control or guide minors’ net access

H.R. 543, 896 A bill to require the installation and use by schools and libraries of a technology for filtering or blocking material on the Internet on computers with Internet access to be eligible to receive or retain universal service assistance; to the Committee on Commerce H.R. 368 A bill to require the installation of a system for filtering or blocking matter on the Internet on computers in schools and libraries with Internet access, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce

Social Do nothing Wait and: Get sued to install filters Get sued to prevent filters from being installed Develop a strong internet AUP Require parental consent Ask patrons to regulate their own activities Install filtering on all net computers Install limited filtering Move computers and/or use privacy screens Refuse to install filtering

What librarians want: Freedom of choice Web management software should allow people to choose for themselves and with their children what they wish to view Guided search It should guide users to quality sites Librarians should know the criteria used for site selection and who is doing the selection Data quality If a library uses filters, the software should allow librarians to review blocked sites It should provide a mechanism to notify the company when sites are blocked inappropriately

Privacy The software should clear the screen after each use Users should not be able to not know what previous users have viewed (health information is a particular concern) Ease of use The software should be multi-functional, easy to administer and integrate well with existing products March 12, 1999 meeting of librarians and filtering companies at ALA in Chicago

Another social solution comes from industry There are several self-regulation initiatives Web site owners will require verification or will label their own sites Internet Content Summit http://www.stiftung.bertelsmann.de/internetcontent/english/frameset_home.htm Standards These solutions are largely voluntary and involve a considerable degree of sophistication on the part of the user to work PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences)

The Internet Content Rating Association was formed in April 1999 as an independent, non-profit organization Its mission is to develop, implement and manage an internationally acceptable voluntary self-rating system which provides net users world wide with the choice to limit access to content they consider harmful, especially to children The Recreational Software Advisory Council has formally folded into ICRA which now manages and operates the RSACi rating system http://www.icra.org

The Recreational Software Advisory Council is a non-profit based in Washington, D.C It empowers the public (parents) to make informed decisions about electronic media using an open, objective, content advisory system The RSACi system provides consumers with information about the level of sex, nudity, violence, offensive language (vulgar or hate-motivated) in software games and Web sites RSACi has been integrated into browsers and Cyber Patrol CompuServe (US and Europe) has also committed to rate all its content with the RSACi system http://www.rsac.org/homepage.asp

How PICS works Content Service A label Parent selects rating method Service B label Publisher’s label Child using the net Label reading software http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/iacwcv2.htm

P3P: web sites express their privacy practices and users exercise preferences based on those practices Users to be informed of site practices when they access the site They can delegate decisions to their computer when possible They can tailor their relationship to specific sites Sites with practices that fall within the range of a user's preference can be accessed seamlessly If the site is outside the range, users are notified of a site’s practices They can agree to those terms or other terms and continue browsing or leave

How P3P works The site sets its P3P preferences Click on a link Request a page Check them against your P3P data Site sends P3P data If not OK, negotiate You set P3P preferences If OK, accept page If OK, accept page, if not, leave

Filters: “are mechanical tools wrapped around subjective judgment.” Schneider, K. (1998). Internet Filter Assessment Project http://www.bluehighways.com/tifap/

Technical Hardware These solutions are built into the machine and are designed to work without user intervention Clipper chip Vchip Machine ID# Software Filtering and blocking

Why are you filtering? What types of materials will be blocked? Where will the software be located? Who will make the decisions and control the software? When will the filters be turned on?

Filtering software works by controls access to the net It allows access to a restricted subset of the net They can be placed on clients, on the LAN, or on a proxy server LAN The net

Simple filters block URLs Complex filters check all on-line activities Advanced filters can block access to web sites, chat rooms, e-mail, file downloading, general browsing, newsgroups This can be based on addresses, protocols, file types, and text They can log time spent browsing and keep records of online activity and some offline computing

Submit URL The filtering process For this user? At this time? This type of site? This type of file? Filter reviews request Is this site allowed? Yes No See page See denial page

Companies compete on the size and quality of their databases which are compiled in a variety of ways Inhouse, outsourced, or solicitation from clients They compete on the ability of their products to withstand assault and hacking Most contain an encrypted database of “objectionable” locations Only company producing the software knows exactly what is blocked and what isn’t They decide what content is “bad” and what is “acceptable”

Types of databases Blacklists: these files list all sites that are blocked A site is brought to the attention of the company, examined and compared to a list of criteria Offending sites are placed into one or more categories, (profanity, full nudity, drug use, violence…) These categories differ among filtering products Most commercial filter vendors do not publish their blacklists Most users never see the full list of pages that are blocked Some products now allow limited editing of the list

Keyword blocking: software developers (or others) come up with a list of objectionable terms A page can’t load if it contains any word in the stop list (or it will load with the ________ blocked) Current commercial products do not handle exceptions where otherwise acceptable pages are blocked because of a word that appears on the stop list Breast cancer, sexually transmitted diseases The problem is that keywords have no context

Whitelists: these are similar to blacklists except they comprise a list of pages that can be seen The developers gather a list of “appropriate” sites All others are blocked A whitelist provides a very limited view of the net However, it is almost 100% effective in blocking all pornography and other offensive material Whitelists are typically not published Some products allow the customer to add or delete certain sites

Examples: Cyberpatrol ($30.00 + $30.00/yr for updates) It provides parents, teachers, day care professionals - anyone who is responsible for children's access to the net - with the tools they will need to get a handle on an area which can be very dangerous for kids. CyberNOT block list - researched sites containing material parents may find questionable This list is twice as comprehensive as competitive lists, blocking OVER 15,000 Internet resources! CyberYES allowed sites list - 40,000+ researched sites containing only appropriate material for children http://www.cyberpatrol.com

Net Nanny ($26-200.00 - 20 users) Does Net Nanny allow parents full discretion over what is blocked? Net Nanny's screening lists are completely user- defined and allow parents to screen and block any words, phrases, sites and content according to their particular values - not a developer's arbitrary selection or the Government's! Does Net Nanny provide any site lists? We provide Net Nanny users with site lists, researched by our staff and other 3rd party children’s advocacy groups but they are fully editable They are always free and downloadable from our web site http://www.netnanny.com/

Surfwatch claims to be the leading brand of client and server content filtering products ($40-50.00) It provides your institution with a powerful and easy to implement solution to protect students from exposure to objectionable or harmful content on the net Using powerful filtering technology, it blocks access to more than 100,000 explicit sex, violence, drug, and gambling sites, including chat and FTP sites SurfWatch's NEW Educational Edition features “Secure Learning categories”, starting students off with access to only respected educational sites such as Yahooligans!, Children's Television Workshop, and others http://www.surfwatch.com/

Library Safe Internet System It is built for the library and the classroom environment LibrarySafe allows the librarian and teacher “Total Empowerment” in deciding which web sites should be blocked on which computer terminals, and at what time Is LibrarySafe 100% tamper-proof? Yes. Since the software is located at the network-level, only authorized personal have access to the filter Patrons cannot tamper with it http://ww.librarysafe.com

How can a library system implement its unique filtering policy using LibrarySafe? LibrarySafe allows the library its own "Private Internet Filter" to give you the EMPOWERMENT to decide what sites will be filtered, where they will be filtered, and when they will be filtered. Your staff can design their own list of sites to be blocked or allowed LibrarySafe has a special web page (which only an authorized person has access) where you are able to add and delete those URLs you have decided are appropriate or inappropriate

Filtering and blocking software Bess www.n2h2.com Cyber Sitter www.solidoak.com Cyber Patrol www.cyberpatrol.com Cyber Snoop www.pearlsw.com CyberLibrary www.jdltech.com EdView www.edview.com I-Gear www.urlabs.com The Library Channel www.vimpact.net Net Nanny www.netnanny.com Net Shepherd www.shepherd.com Smart Filter www.smartfilter.com Surfwatch www.surfwatch.com WebSense www.websense.com X-Stop www.xstop.com http://www.ala.org/symons/filtering/filterlist.html

How well do they work? Smartfilter was used in Utah public libraries and schools by the state educational network (UEN) It uses 27 categories, any or all of which can be activated UEN uses five: sex, gambling, criminal skills, hate speech, drugs It has no access to Smartfilter's blacklist, does not make additions to it and makes very few removals The Secure Computing Corp, San Jose makes the decisions as to what Utah students, adults and library patrons can view over the net http://censorware.org/reports/utah/methodology.shtml

A small percentage of sites are blocked: Time Period Total Accesses Total Banned 20 days 53,103,387 205,737 20 days (no banners 15,434,442 (.62%) 95,059 (.56%) or images) Sex Drugs Hate Criminal skills Gambling 193,272 1,588 791 4,934 5,772 86,957 1,298 526 3,753 3,649 But some interesting sites were among those banned!

All about oil exploration http://www.pollution.com/ Computer game reviews http://www.kickass.com/ Shakespeare’s Tragedies http://wiretap.spies.com/ftp.items/Library/Classic/Shakespeare/Tragedies/ Mr. Science (things that go “boom”) http://www2.southwind.net/~mrscienc/boom.html HateWatch (anti-hate speech site)http://www.hatewatch.org/frames.html Bloomington Brewing Company http://bbc.bloomington.com/brewing.html The Starr report http://www.abcnews.com/report/2toc.htm

Some resources used in this talk: The Internet Filter Assessment Project http://www.bluehighways.com/tifap/ IFAP: Internet Access Management Options http://www.bluehighways.com/filters/options.html Filtering Facts http://www.filteringfacts.org/ Censorware.org http://www.censorware.org/reports/utah/ W3C PICS http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/iacwcv2.htm FCC: Parents, Kids & Communications http://www.fcc.gov/parents_information/#browsing This presentation will be on the web at: http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/Pres/filt99/index.html

September 15, 1999 Howard Rosenbaum hrosenba@indiana