Public Policy Statement Children’s Internet Protection Act (C.I.P.A.) Craig Perry – Marketing Coordinator C.I.P.A. v. Internet – Is C.I.P.A the best solution for America's Youth? Background One way that question is answered is a series of laws targeted at protecting Americaís youth from online predators. Those predators being the massive amounts of harmful content and websites that are readily available on the World Wide Web or the internet. Between 1998 and 2003, we have seen a 1,800% increase in the number of pornographic websites alone, an estimated total of 260 million+ pornographic sites. There is a daily assertion from the heads of pornography companies to understand the latest in web security, and how to get around filters, security measures and email spam guards. The pornography industry is valued at over $4B annually in the U.S. alone, with the cybersex industry already surpassing the $1B level. An industry so large and powerful, that it is impossible to not pay attention to. Many pornography companies work with net margins that exceed the understanding of historical economics. Sadly, one of the fastest growing industries is one of the most damaging to our society and its youth. A growing effort to put computers into classrooms – along with the development of new and specialized e-learning applications, the emergence of the Internet, and the falling prices of computer hardware, software and services – is tilting education from paper and chalkboards toward pixels, keyboards and the worldwide web. From kindergarten to college, students of all languages and ages turn to the web and PCís to expand their minds and capabilities. Internet technology is impacting the lives of our young Americans daily; both in and outside of the classroom. As that trend grows, so to does the concern about personal safety and information security. Protecting our children from potentially harmful content needs to be discussed openly and often; if we are going to allow technology a seat in the classroom. Problems with meshing technology and children do not solely point at technology and its flaws. For as long as many of us can remember, teaching methods have changed very little if at all. It is not uncommon to walk in classrooms all over the U.S. today, and still see the chalkboard and pens being the number one resource that kids are using. Teachers still to this day have aides that assist them in massive amounts of photocopying of lessons out of books. Kids still spend a majority of their time during the school day doing the same things that were being done in classrooms 50-60 years ago. Why has status quo become ok for arguably the most pivotal of professions? As businesses and government strive to become more efficient, how did education get passed up? We certainly can’t fault the children in this equation. The PC and more so the internet quite conceivably is the most intriguing tool you could ever introduce to a highly inquisitive mind. For the most children the word “why” is not good enough anymore. The internet is the one stop shop for answers to all those once asked why questions. Better than any library and more powerful that the curiosity of prior mentioned minds, the internet is a goldmine of knowledge for a kid today. As children spend their days filling in blanks on sheets of paper in the classroom, getting home and getting online are now second nature. From email to checking out sports scores, kids would rather read about it on the net than the local paper. Kids quickly learned that the internet is a vast wealth of information, news, games, fun and yes, bad things as well. From Shanghai to Dubai, and all points in-between, there are no rules on the net. The least regulated, yet largest and most widely used "product" of our time, has no boundaries. If anyone has figured that out right away, it's the children. Problem Similar to that of anti-virus solutions that are updated frequently, the same solution is needed for proper C.I.P.A. compliance. Although the Federal Act does not call for a managed solution, we believe that unless a solution is updated with consistently new information, how can a filter watch out for the unknown? Out of the box solutions are only as good as there last update. That is simply not good enough for our children. Management of the network also provides an additional level of security as it relates to prevention of web hacking, bypassing of firewalls and proxy servers and out of the box solutions. Furthermore, a remotely managed network solution allows districts and I.T. management to know that there is a independent third party that is consistently monitoring the network for performance, stability and reliability. Further identified problems are the disadvantaged school districts within the country. The number of disadvantaged districts highly outweighs the number of affluent districts. Statistically disadvantaged districts have lower standardized test scores; they also do not often receive new books or technologies until years after those wealthier areas. Disadvantaged districts arguably are in need of C.I.P.A. compliance and internet access more so than affluent districts. If children in districts that can not afford textbooks are at least given access to the internet and rich learning content, then they will at least have some chance of getting the same level of education as those children that are in the wealthier areas of the country. These disadvantaged districts are not just in rural areas, many large metropolitan cities fall into the disadvantaged schools categories due to the large number of families living at or below the poverty line. Solutions The proper solution that C.I.P.A. needs to call for is a technology protection managed solution. Significantly different than that of a boxed solution or software that many districts are currently turning to. A managed solution similar to that of an anti-virus protection is the only conceivable way that districts will properly be able to protect children while using the internet to access rich content. Rich content being content that enhances the environment in the classroom. With classrooms sizes increasing and budgets being reduced almost yearly, children having access to the internet is going to become more and more important not only for their education, but also for educators to be able to be the most effective. The proper solution does simply call for an updated filtering service. What is truly called for is the ability to fully monitor the network, to ensure that someone from the outside is not working to by-pass the filtering solution or software. If just a single port is left open to the net, that is the sole gateway needed for a web hacker to make their way into a system and either expose that open port for hacking / by-passing software or complete data corruption. • 74% of adult commercial sites display free teaser porn images on homepage (Child-proofing on the World Wide Web: A survey of adult web servers 2001, (NRC Report 2002) • 345% increase in child pornography sites between 2-2001- 7/2001 (N2H2, 8/02) • 260 Million Pornographic websites 1,800% increase from 5 years prior (N2H2, 8/02) • 60% of all website visits are sexual in nature (MSNBC Survey 2000) • 25 million Americans visit cybersex sites between 1-10 hours per week (MSNBC Survey 2000) • The U.S. Customs Service estimates that there are more than 100,000 websites offering child pornography - which is illegal, worldwide (Red Herring Magazine, 1/18/02) YOUTH • Study of 4 million children aged 7-17 who surf the net, 29% would freely give out their home address and 14% would freely give out their email address if asked (NOP Research Group, 2002) • Adult industry says some traffic is 20-30% children (NRC Report, 2002) • 26 popular children's characters, such as Pokemon, My Little Pony and Action Man, revealed thousands of links to porn sites. 30% were hard-core. (Envisional 2000) ONLINE SEXUAL PREDATORS • 1 in 5 youths received sexual solicitation or approach in last year (NCMEC, 2000) • 70% of children between ages of 0-6 have used a PC (K.F.F., Fall 2003) • Nearly 56% of children between ages of 0-6 have access to the internet alone for at least an hour a week (K.F.F., Fall 2003) • Nearly 73% of children between ages of 4-6 have access to the internet for more than 1.5hrs a week without parental supervision (K.F.F., Fall 2003) Netarx, Inc. Netarx has extensive experience in network convergence, security and management. The combination of how Netarx can interact with school districts truly makes their solution the answer for districts that want to protect their children from predators. Out of the box and yearly annuity solutions have a definitive advantage from a cost perspective; however Netarx doesnít believe that children‘s safety has a tangible price tag. Allowing children to access powerful, rich content for learning purposes is the goal of many people at all levels of government; doing such in the proper manner has to be the focus of school administrators. Netarx wants to work to bridge the gap between government and schools by demonstrating how Netarx SecureKids solution addresses C.I.P.A., network security and affordability for school districts. By providing school districts and their IT administrators a fully managed and secured network, that also addresses C.I.P.A. compliance and content filtering; Netarx embraces the challenge and rewards of protecting America's youth. Netarx believes that the best remedy is to immediately amend C.I.P.A. and nationally mandate managed monitoring and filtering of school networks. The current Federal Statute does not provide enough protection for the children of America, and Netarx believes that we have the right solution. Our solution needs to be endorsed federally, and made the benchmark for every school district in America. |
thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic growth starting in the early to mid nineties. Companies surfaced all over creating, solving and integrating into every part of our consumer and business lives with technology. Yet, as history continues to show us, the education field as a whole did not embrace much if any of that technology. Now in the year 2003, schools are just now starting to embrace the ever powerful internet and PC related tools. How was / is the traditionally hyper conservative educational field going to adapt to the internet?