02/12/96 CYBERSMUT: HOW TO LOCK OUT THE KIDS

CYBERSMUT: HOW TO LOCK OUT THE KIDS

Last fall, Robert Boisvert got a nasty surprise while cleaning out the hard disk on his PC. Sifting through the files, he came across Playmates of the Month for July, August, and September. ``I know I didn't download them,'' says the China Lake (Calif.) father of five. ``One photo can be an accident, but three months of centerfolds is no accident.''
Boisvert determined that one of his teenage sons had fetched the images from Playboy's World Wide Web site. But instead of trusting the kids not to prowl for porn, he turned to CyberPatrol from MicroSystems Software, one of a burgeoning breed of software products that promise to help parents shelter their children while they cruise the wide-open Internet.
GOOD JUDGMENT. Parents can hardly be blamed for wanting to protect their children from raunchy, obscene, or even violent content on the Internet and commercial online services. While posturing politicians and others may have overstated the actual dangers, there's no question that kids can wander into areas where they don't belong. The good news is that access-control software, while far from perfect and no substitute for teaching good judgment, can at least reduce the potential for children getting into trouble. This software is primarily an Internet-only access tool. The online services have some filtering capacities for their own content, but less for Internet newsgroups accessed through them. They can't police Web sites.
CyberPatrol (Windows and Macintosh), CYBERsitter (Windows only), and SurfWatch (Windows and Mac) are all variations on the same theme: Each company compiles a list of objectionable Web sites and newsgroups and blocks access to them. A subscription to keep the list up to date, downloaded from the Internet, costs $5.95 a month for SurfWatch, $19.95 for six months for CyberPatrol, and is free for CYBERsitter.
The contents of the Internet change faster than frequent updates can track, so the programs supplement their bad-site list by watching for words or phrases in the names of sites or newsgroups. This filtering function can often produce curious results. All programs have enough built-in intelligence to avoid the kind of absurdity that hit America Online last year when it banned the word ``breast'' and cut off online discussions of breast cancer.
During a recent test, the programs gave access to pictures of a cut-up chicken titled ``Big Breasts.'' CyberPatrol permitted, but SurfWatch blocked, access to a Web page called ``Name the Breasts.'' It turned out to be a picture of a scantily clad Ted Kennedy; the software doesn't promise good taste. The programs barred entry to Penthouse's explicit Web site, but not to a college student's page featuring nude photographs of herself.
SurfWatch allowed a search of the Web for sites discussing sex education but blocked any attempts to visit them. It also prevented reading the many sex-themed newsgroups but permitted backdoor access to some of them through archives on the Web. All three programs allow a parent in possession of a password to turn off the controls temporarily. But none of them lets you set different levels of control for different children.
SET LIMITS. The programs differ in the extent of customization they allow. CYBERsitter supplies a basic set of filters and bad sites but allows parents to customize settings to be stricter or looser than the default. It also offers parents a choice between outright blocking of access to certain classes of sites, just issuing a warning when kids try it, or quietly maintaining a log of access attempts. CyberPatrol offers less detailed customization but adds a useful feature of its own: Parents can set limits, by time of day or total hours, on when their kids can cruise the Net. Once the set time is up, then CyberPatrol will automatically cut off access to the Internet.
SurfWatch has a different philosophy. You can't customize the configuration of the current version, though an upcoming revision will add some options. But Jay Friedland, marketing vice-president for SurfWatch, says the company decided to trade flexibility for simplicity of setup and robustness of operation. Indeed, the Windows 95 version of SurfWatch was the only product that worked flawlessly with the new Microsoft operating system. The other software products had problems with installation, configuration and, in some cases, interfered with Internet access.
NetNanny (for Windows) uses a different means to a similar end. ``We don't believe in being a censorship company,'' says business development manager Graham Heal. ``We believe in people making their own decisions.'' Rather than a list of prohibited sites, NetNanny uses a dictionary of words and phrases. Parents download the dictionary then decide which words they want to edit out. Unlike the other products, NetNanny can monitor all non-Internet commercial online services such as America Online, bulletin boards, even access to files stored on the computer's hard disk. But it requires much more commitment from the grownups to set up the filtering. The NetNanny program is also tricky to install, especially on Windows 95.
If you don't already have Internet access, a couple of all-in-one products for Windows can get you started and build in access control at the same time. Internet in a Box for Kids from CompuServe ($50) combines Internet connectivity software and a special child-oriented version of the Spry Mosaic browser with SurfWatch. Unfortunately, it's quite hard to configure unless you arrange Internet service through CompuServe's sluggish InterServe network. For Windows 95 users, the $99 InterGO from TeacherSoft (214 424-7882) is a slick package that takes advantage of Win95's built-in networking to support a browser designed for children. InterGO seems particularly well-suited for use in schools.
Except for NetNanny, all of these programs are designed to restrict access only to the Internet, not to online services. In fact, they may not control access if you surf the net via America Online, CompuServe, or Prodigy. Whether or not the programs will work depends on how you connect with your online service; customer service should be able to give you the details.
Commercial online services provide some filtering features to give parents more control over how their children use the services. America Online allows parents to block access selectively to chat rooms, including conference and member-created rooms, news groups, and instant messages. Only the master account holder can use the parental controls that can be set individually for each of the up to five screen names on an account. Prodigy also allows individual options for each family member. CompuServe is the most limited: Users can block access to certain areas, but then all subscribers on the same account are restricted.
STANDARDS. If all of these arrangements sound ad hoc, that's because they have mostly sprung up in recent months in response to parental concerns and political pressures. The World Wide Web Consortium, the nearest thing the Web has to a governing body, is taking a more systematic approach. In about a month, it will issue the first standards for what's called the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS). The owners of Web sites will use the PICS standards to code their pages. And organizations such as the National Council of Parent Teacher Associations will create ratings standards. Access-control software could then use the combination of coding and ratings to decide who gets to see what. SafeSurf, a commercial operation, is also preparing its own third-party ratings of Web sites.
Some sense of order should be a welcome development. But no system of ratings or mechanical controls will, by itself, keep kids out of trouble. In the end, you'll face the challenge of parenting that long predates the Internet: Teach your children well.
Edited by Amy Dunkin By Steve Wildstrom and Toddi Gutner