By David Lott

Before I start, I wish to apologize for the tech speak in this article. While technical in nature, the information is vitally important for parents wanting to protect their children from online predators, pedophiles and pornographers. Please bear with me.

Traditional internet parental controls use site blocking technology to filter access of pornographic material to our home computers. Pornographers, pedophiles and predators are adapting to techniques to thwart the controls that parents put in place. The most common method used by these criminals is to encrypt their messages or images and send them to our computers with ever changing web addresses. They use pop up windows, misrepresent links to their objectionable web sites, websites that feed off misspelled words when our children are conducting searches and automatic links buried in emails. These criminals can and do change their addresses rapidly and randomly. Simple site blocking and parental control software is not capable of stopping these criminals from reaching our children on the internet. Fortunately, newer technology that monitors and filters content on the computer has been developed which does not rely on site blocking technology. These new Content Monitoring technologies are far more efficient in protecting our children from these criminals.

How Site Blocking Works:

Site Blocking applications are based on what is called pass-through filtering technology as the method of Internet filtering. Pass-through filtering requires all web page requests to pass through an Internet control point such as a firewall, proxy server, or caching device. These control points inspect any request, such as a web page link, to determine whether it should be allowed or denied. Site Blocking filters Internet content by working in with a master database of approximately 3 to 4 million web sites, organized into 70 to 100 categories including: adult content, MP3, gambling, shopping and online trading. For each content category, site blocking can be used to entirely block access to the content, permit access to content, or provided limited access to content. If a parent subscribes to an update service, new internet sites are added to the master database daily, and in most instances updates are automatically downloaded to the database every night to ensure you are keeping up. Pornographers are constantly changing and morphing their websites to circumvent these filters. Additionally, if an outside service is not subscribe to, it is up the parent to determine what sites they want their children to have access to and which one access is not permitted. A parent simply cannot keep up with the professional pornographers. The game is lost before it began.

How Content Monitoring/Filtering Works:

The key to Content Monitoring/filtering technology is its ability to monitor and filter content from the Internet, chat rooms, Instant Messaging, e-mail, e-mail attachments, Word, PowerPoint, and all other Windows applications. This technology literally evaluates every word or image regardless of the source and determines whether to allow it to be displayed on the screen or not. A library of terms, words, slogans, phrases, images and other information is used by which everything is tested. Thus when accessing, receiving, or sending content, the information is analyzed against this library, and if a match occurs the data can be filtered, captured, blocked, and the application closed, or any combination thereof. Content filtering requires software on each computer or computer network that checks the content data to determine whether it violates the library list. If the content violates the library, a capture of the violating screen is stored on the server with user, time, date, application and violation stamp for reporting and review purposes.

The use of a library of explicit terminology allows a family to focus on specific content rather than simply blocking whole websites. For example, MySpace has many wonderful uses and much useful information. However, predators, pornographers and pedophiles misuse MySpace to reach your children. Site Blocking blocks any usage of MySpace. Content Monitoring looks at the information and tests it against the library. Only violations are stopped, not the entire website. Also, Content Monitoring/Filtering technologies will allows those words that used within a scientific or medical context to pass through the filter without causing a violation to be reported or logged. An example of such content is the word "breast". This word is perfectly acceptable in a medical or scientific sense but unacceptable in a pornographic sense. Content Monitoring technology prevents the unacceptable uses. Additionally, the library can also include any personal information a parent does not want to be released such as addresses, names, phone numbers, social security numbers and other personal data. Effective Content Monitoring software contains a library of terms, slogans, phrases and words created by law enforcement agencies to combat this online problem with pornography.

Advantages Content Monitoring Software:

1. Content filtering allows filtering in all applications including: Internet, chat, instant messaging, e-mail, e-mail attachments, Word, PowerPoint and all other Windows applications. The software operates deep within the operations of a computer so that anything displayed on the computer screen is compared against the libraries to determine if the content is inappropriate. For example, simply opening a file in Explorer will cause the Content Monitoring software to filter all the information in the file before the file contents can be displayed on the screen.

2. Content filtering fills the largest security hole a family faces when they use the internet. Statistics (CSI) state that 70 to 80% of all release of personal information from a computer occurs because of breaches in the computer security software. Content monitoring can monitor for and stop the accidental or intentional disclosure of any personal information stored on the home computer.

3. Content filtering takes a snapshot picture of the screen whenever a violation occurs and captures with each violation the user name, date, time, application and violation stamp, for review by parents.

4. Content monitoring is ideal for establishing child awareness program. When inappropriate data is discovered, families can choose to make children aware of the family rules and block the offensive content. Children know immediately if a violation occurs and whatever caused the violation on the computer is terminated by the Content Monitoring software. Therefore, if a pedophile in disguise is attempting to communicate with your child and makes a statement that violates the library terms, then the email, chat room or instant messaging program is immediately shut down and communication ceases. This is proactive protection of our children that early parental control software simply could not do.

5. Does not require the daily updates to keep the database effective and current.

6. Content filtering does not filter out the good content with the bad. Content filtering libraries have been developed to distinguish the difference between pornographic and sexually explicit material vs. material that is scientific and medical in nature. Content filtering also eliminating the need to block out vast amounts of educational material to stop small amounts of pornographic material found on a particular site.

New Content Monitoring technologies are now available that allow families to effectively and proactively monitor all activity on their home computers and terminate any activity that threatens the family. When evaluating parental control or third party software solutions, it is recommended that the family determine what method the software uses and demand that it uses the newest version of Content Monitoring technologies. Stop the pornographers, pedophiles and predators before they enter our homes.