How to Filter and Block Inappropriate Content Online

What is Content Filtering and Blocking Software?

Content Filtering and Blocking Software, also known as censorware or Content-control software, is a term for software designed and optimized for controlling what content is permitted to a reader, especially when it is used to restrict material delivered over the Web. Content-control software determines what content will be available.

The restrictions can be applied at various levels: a government can attempt to apply them nationwide, or they can, for example, be applied by an ISP to its clients, by an employer to its personnel, by a school to its students, by a library to its visitors, by a parent to a child's computer, or by an individual user to his or her own computer.

The motive is often to prevent persons from viewing content which the computer's owner(s) or other authorities may consider objectionable; when imposed without the consent of the user, content control can constitute censorship. Some content-control software includes time control functions that empowers parents to set the amount of time that child may spend accessing the Internet or playing games or other computer activities.

In some countries, such software is ubiquitous. In Cuba, if a computer user at a government controlled Internet cafe types certain words, the word processor or browser is automatically closed, and a "state security" warning is given.

Content filtering and blocking of email

Content filtering is the most commonly used group of methods to filter spam. Content filters act either on the content, the information contained in the mail body, or on the mail headers (like "Subject:") to either classify, accept or reject a message.

Content filters can also refer to parental controls software that analyzes data and either restricts the data or changes the data as with chat filtering. Depending on where content or packets are filtered in the OSI or Internet model, content filtering will refer to technologies designed to ascertain the logic of data and that depends on the application, spam, viruses, computer worms, denial-of-service attacks, trojans, spyware, human understandable subject of data and much more because to an extent it depends on the application or user requirements, hate websites, swear words, chat application subject matter.

It is important to note that the Internet does not have a clear security model standard designed to limit the extent of security incidents such as worms which could potentially overload the Internet causing a global denial of service. Developing intelligent and sophisticated content filtering technology with standards and cooperation among ISPs may be the solution.

Content filtering and blocking of web content

Content filtering is commonly used by organizations such as offices and schools to prevent computer users from viewing inappropriate web sites or content, or as a pre-emptive security measure to prevent access of known malware hosts. Filtering rules are typically set by a central IT department and may be implemented via software on individual computers or at a central point on the network such as the proxy server or internet router. Depending on the sophistication of the system used, it may be possible for different computer users to have different levels of internet access.

Content filtering software is sometimes also used on home computers in order to restrict access to inappropriate websites for children using the computer. Such software is typically described as parental control software.

Youth Internet Safety Survey Results

If you put your teenager and four of their friends in a room, chances are, one of them has been solicited for sex online. This alarming statistic was released on Tuesday, by the Crimes Against Children Research Center. The study reports that almost one in five U.S. teenagers have had unwanted solicitation for sex while online.

The study was funded by the U.S. Congress through a grant to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. It consisted of a telephone survey of 1,501 teenagers between the ages of 10 and 17 who were online regularly. The participants were 53% male and 47% female.

Of the 20% that had unwanted solicitation for sex, one-third were male while the other two-thirds were female. One in thirty-three participants of the study were aggressively pursued which included the solicitor asking to meet them somewhere, calling them on the telephone, sending numerous emails, gifts and/or money. Other alarming statistics included the fact that 25% (one in four) had unintentional exposure to pornographic images while online in the past year.

Surprisingly, only about 25% of the teens that were solicited told their parents about their experience, while 40% told their parents about seeing pornographic images. Less than 10% of solicitation and 3% of unwanted pornography incidences were reported to a law-enforcement agency, an Internet service provider, or a hotline. According to the study only one-third of surveyed homes that had Internet access had any filtering or blocking software installed.

So what can you do to protect your children?

* Talk openly with your children about the dangers and what they should do if they encounter a solicitation or disturbing images. Sign an Internet Safety Agreement with your entire family that spells out what you should do and say while online.

* Install filtering software to help block out unwanted pornography.

* Learn about the dangers that are online.

* Report unwanted sexual advances and unwanted pornography to your Internet service provider or the CyberTipLine run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. If the situation is serious it should be immediately reported to a law enforcement agency.

Although you may be tempted to disconnect the Internet from your home, remember that benefits outweigh the danger if you use the resource correctly and conscientiously.

Surveilstar- Filtering and Blocking Inappropriate Content

SurveilStar comes with an advanced content filtering module which allows you to block web sites on-the-fly. SurveilStar’s content filtering module perpetually scans web pages, in real-time, for blocked words and terms that you set.

Using the keywords filtering and blocking capability of Surveilstar, you now can specify any keyword that you want blocked. Then if child tries to go to any web site that contains that tagged keyword or keywords, Surveilstar covertly intervenesand automatically displays an error message, thereby making these sites appear to be "unavailable" or "off-line" for some reason. After several unsuccessful attempts to access these sorts of sites, your child will naturally assume something is wrong with their ISP and get bored and surf off to find a more suitable topic or web site. The best part is that because Surveilstar blocks these sites without the child's knowledge, they'll never know that you are monitoring what they can and can't access.

The web content filtering settings let you create varying levels of protection, including a very restrictive Kids filter that only allows the safest web sites to be viewed, and a few medium-level pages that are just right for teenagers, and then a no-restriction level that's perfect for parents. You can also modify the default settings to add or remove sites at your discretion.

Surveilstar Features:

• Real-time Monitoring
• Email Monitoring
• Instant Message Monitoring
• Website Visit Monitoring

It is impossible that you can keep an eye upon your kids online activity all the time. But with the Surveilstar parental control software, it's available to have the ability to track their Internet activity when you're not around, as well as other types of computer usage such as IM chats and email.

SurveilStar Parental Control will take screenshots of your system every few seconds, and then lets you view it in a video-like display whenever you want to check up on your kid's computer activities. Besides, it will logs all computer activities including startup/shutdown, logon/logoff, hardware changes, software changes, application usages, website, document, printing, shared file logs, email send/receive, instant messages, application statistics, web statistics, traffic statistics, and more!