Inside Internet Filtering

More on the topic of .xxx domains.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/06/tech-tuesday-xxx-clean-internet/

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On Friday, June 25th 2010, ICANN approved the .xxx domain extension after many years of debate. They claim that this is helpful because by creating an “adults only” section of the Internet it will make it easier to filter. Instead of having to block sites one by one, like we must on the .com extension, they say filtering companies could just block any domain with ending in .xxx.

This just isn’t the case:

1. Just because .xxx now exists, doesn’t mean all the porn sites with .com addresses will change to .xxx. So we still have to filter .com sites one-by-one.

2. Porn sites likely won’t stop buying .com and only buy .xxx. I expect them to buy both the .com and the .xxx. So there will likely be more porn domains in the future.

3. .xxx domains aren’t limited to just adult sites. Non adult sites will buy the .xxx site to protect their name, and many are already reserving them. So, a blanket block of .xxx by an Internet filter could result in over blocking.

In the end the .xxx domain won’t make Internet filtering any easier, but it won’t necessarily make the job any more difficult either.

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Google recently rolled out a new feature for Google searches that enabled secure searching via https.  While this was a step forward for privacy, however, it was done in a way that was a step backward for Internet filtering.

Many parents, schools and businesses filter Google base on search terms.  Additionally, many Internet filtering products, like Safe Eyes, automatically enable Safe Search by altering traffic destined for Google.  The encryption gets in the way of these type of features.

ZDnet is reporting that Google has been alerted to the problem as is working on a solution.  I’m glad to see Google working on a solution to this issue.

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Yesterday Google announced its new Google TV platform.  Given our recent expansion into online TV filtering the first thing that popped into my head was to wonder about parental controls.

This morning I find an editorial by Lance Ulanoff, PC Magazine’s Editor in Cheif, asking 8 Big Questions about Google TV.  His 3rd question is: What about parental controls?

With the whole Internet now on your biggest and best screen, parental controls become more important than ever. Google never talked about how, without any kind of security software on these boxes, you’ll be able to filter out bad and offensive results. Before you race out and buy the first Google TV device this fall, you may want to check that you can either filter results or simply lock down the system so your children can only use it when you’re around.

Parental controls need to be a basic feature of any new platform emerging today, yet most companies totally bypass this area of social responsibility.  Consumer electronics manufacturers need to provide the security industry with the hooks necessary to build parental controls, or build them into their products themselves.  Not doing so is irresponsible and endangers our children.

Each manufacturer building parental controls poses another problem though.  A parent has to learn the controls available on each device, which is a difficult undertaking.  The solution here is for the manufacturer’s to expose these controls to parental control software developers via API’s.  This then allows the existing products on the market to create a consistent parental control experience for parents across all these new devices.

You can see this trend starting to appear.  In Safe Eyes 6, we added integration with iTunes parental controls for the types of music and video content a child can access.   It is a great example of the future role of software like Safe Eyes, to help parents navigate the myriad of parental controls on the market.

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Simultaneous with the April 3, 2010, release of Apple’s iPad, Safe Eyes Mobile for iPad made its debut becoming the first Internet Filter specifically designed for the iPad.

The iPad version of Safe Eyes Mobile filters in the same way the iPhone version does.  However, the larger screen opened up new possibilities for the user interface.  So we set to work creating a new user interface for the iPad version that incorporated true tabbed browsing.

Full Press Release

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Greetings from Las Vega and the Consumer Electronics Show 2010.

Today I am excited to announce the latest revision of Safe Eyes, which includes another industry first.  Safe Eyes 6 is able to filter online TV sites on a show by show basis.  This means that you no longer have to block or allow an entire website like Hulu, but instead you can allow specific shows based on the TV rating for that show (TV-G, TV-PG, etc).

We have some other great stuff packed in this release too.  You can learn all about it on the Safe Eyes 6 preview page.

Other enhancements include:

• A new activity-centric interface
• Smarter Activity Reports
• Integrated Safe Search and Search Term Reporting
• Integration with iTunes to block songs and content with explicit lyrics

More on Safe Eyes 6 later.  If you are at CES stop by our booth for a demo (#3128).

Official Press Release for Safe Eyes 6 from InernetSafety.com

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Yesterday Google announced a new locking feature for Safe Search.  Here is a video on how it works:

This is a good step forward from Google.  Due to the implementation, I expect that this will work better for young kids than it will for teens.

The most robust way to control what content your kids can access online is through a parental control software like Safe Eyes. Safe Eyes allows you to control content by category, so even if the search result pops up in Google, your child still won’t be able to get to the site.

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Forrest Collier, CEO of InternetSafety.com, will be participating in a federal hearing in Washington, D.C. today as part of an all-day meeting by the Online Safety and Technology Working Group established under the auspices of the Federal Trade Commission to promote a safe Internet for children. The topic of the meeting is “Parental Controls, Child Protection Technologies and Content Rating Methods.”

Full Press Release:
http://www.internetsafety.com/press-ceo-speaks-at-federal-hearing.php

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Safe Eyes is among the first parental control products to earn the “Compatible with Windows 7” Logo from Microsoft Corp. The certification ensures that the software is able to block access to objectionable websites for upgraded or new Windows 7 computers utilizing both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows Internet Explorer. Most content filters will not filter the 64-bit edition of Microsoft’s browser even if they are successfully installed on a Windows 7 machine, leaving children vulnerable to pornography and other inappropriate content.

The Microsoft “Compatible with Windows 7” logo indicates that a product has passed Microsoft-designed tests for compatibility and reliability with its newest operating system.

64-bit computing is entering the mainstream, and many parents may be buying 64-bit computers without realizing it. Unfortunately, most parental control software is still only 32-bit compatible, so it doesn’t work with the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer. Parents need to choose filtering software that carries the ‘Compatible with Windows 7’ logo to be sure that their filter does the website blocking it’s supposed to do.
—InternetSafety.com CTO Aaron Kenny

If your filtering software does not have the Windows 7 logo and you want to be sure your kids are protected on all browsers, just visit internetsafety.com/switch to take advantage of a special offer.

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David Burt of filteringfacts.org posted a good roundup of the trend over the last few years by filtering software to address social networking.  You can read the full article here:

Filtering Industry Adapts to Social Networking with Monitoring

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