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Clever Girl Bess
You can blame the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), passed by Congress last year over the violent objections of educators, civil libertarians and librarians. The election-year law takes control of children's online information lives away from schools, parents and local communities. Instead, CIPA requires all schools and libraries that want federal E-rate funds to help pay for Net access to install blocking and filtering software. This is the same dreary, censorious software that can't distinguish between porn sites and poetry passages, not to mention intelligently discriminate between breast-cancer education pages and breast-ogling sites.
Nearly half of all schools and libraries now use some sort of filtering software, according to research firm International Data Corp. N2H2 Corp.,the makers of Bess, has about 20 percent of this market, the Wall Street Journal reports. That means that Bess controls the Web choices of more than 12 million students kindergarten through high school, and the CIPA is expected to push those numbers much higher.
Now we learn that late last year, N2H2 began selling the data that Bess collects on children's Net and Web use. The information, called Class Clicks, is aggregated, says the company, meaning it can't be used to identify the habits of individual specific students, or even of specific schools. And Bess is a clever girl. Schools use the program as a gatekeeper, and nobody knows more than she does about where kids go, for how long, or which sites they try and access.
But for $15,000 a year, marketers and Web site operators can receive regular reports detailing exactly where kids are going on the Net, along with aggregate estimates of their ages and race. The company insists there's no way for users of this data to figure out precisely who the students are, but it isn't clear whether N2H2 or makers of the filtering programs know, or if so, what they are legally allowed to do with that information.
How do the info-peddlers feel about it? "This is a real nonissue for us," a spokesman for N2H2 told the Journal. "This information is so anonymous and vague."
But if it's so vague, why would anybody pay thousands of dollars for it? And it is definitely an issue for others, including the Electronic Privacy Center in Washington, whose general counsel, David Sobel, told the Journal: "Students just should not be contributing to marketing tools and subjected to profiling based on how they are using the educational tools of the Internet."
Nor, in fact, should anyone buy the notion that filtering software protects children. It doesn't. Statistically kids are in no danger on the Net. Their greatest source of harm comes from physical abuse from family members and people they know, according to U.S. Justice Department statistical abstracts on violence and the FBI Uniform Crime Report, and firearms and other accidents. Congress seems in no rush to block any of those dangers.
So far, just two clients have purchased the information N2H2 is selling. One is the New York-based education portal Big Chalk Inc. The other, strangely enough, is the U.S. DOD, which refused to tell the Journal what it plans to do with the data collected by Bess.
N2H2 says it began tracking kids' Net use in late 1999, believing the data might be useful to teachers and creators of youth-oriented websites. Last year, it began looking into other uses for this information, and began working with the marketing firm Roper Starch Worldwide to figure out what the two companies could sell.
According to the Journal, SurfControl PLC, another maker of blocking programs, said it doesn't collect data of any sort on its users' surfing habits and believes it would be inappropriate to do so.
Is this data-collection the kind of protection Congress had in mind when it compelled libraries and schools to install commercial censorship software, depriving parents, educators and local institutions and politicians of the right to make such choices?
Filtering software is a complex civil liberties problem on several levels, most unappreciated either by Congress or the general pubic:
- Most filtering programs don't disclose what they block or why, so the users have no real idea what level of protection is being offered. Parents think they are purchasing safety and morality, yet they have no idea what their children are being deprived access to.
- Blocking software doesn't protect kids, literally or morally. There is no evidence of any sort by any credible source that one single child is safer or more moral because of censorship technology installed on their computers, or because of limited access to the Net.
- Filtering software legitimizes censorship and invasion of privacy. Many parents buy filtering programs that permit them to re-trace the websites their children have visited. They aren't teaching kids morality but Orwellian intrusions of privacy, dignity, and, yes -- morality itself.
- Blocking sofware is an illusory technology. It permits the abdication of moral responsibility -- especially that of teachers and parents -- to supervise their children and provide moral direction.
What we have with Bess and CIPA is one more insight into the warped way American politicians exploit children while proclaiming that they're protecting their moral purity. William Bennett, our self-styled national "morals" czar, and a close adviser to President Bush, is a master at this, denouncing the immorality of music, TV, and the Net and Web and making millions off of books, calendars and stickers offering and celebrating "morally correct" stories for kids about hardworking bumblebees and frogs who can't wait to get to school.
Net use is statistically one of the safest things an American kid can do. When kids get in trouble online, it is usually adolescents drawn into powerful or obsessive relationships. Those are rare. Crime rates among the young have been dropping for years, and are now at their lowest levels in a half-century. Children are very rarely harmed as a result of going online. According to child safety experts, online safety rules are easy to learn and follow. So the idea of "protective" legislation is already spurious.
Moreover, even the sale of the aggregate behavior of children (almost always, says the Journal, without the knowledge of kids, parents or schools), has serious implications for privacy and free speech. It promises a future marked by ever-more-sophistiated digital tracking and eavesdropping. Obviously, aggregate figures can't be collected without access to individual statistics. What, exactly, is the boundary?
And once legitimized -- by the U.S. Congress, no less -- the notion of ever more specialized tracking of kids by business and government is now being built into the infrastructure of the Net as well as schools and libraries. It's an awful precedent, even though it's a "non-issue" to the corporation doing it. Even if Bess isn't tracking specific students or targeting specific schools -- yet -- who's to say that the next generation of software will do, or what a different company couldn't or wouldn't gather and sell, especially as Congress forgot to prohibit the marketing of this data in it's rush to "protect" kids from the Net.
Every significant law Congress has passed relating to speech and content on the Net, from the two Communications Decency Acts to the Sonny Bono and Digital Millenium Copyright Acts to CIPA has been offensive and menacing to privacy, free speech, and individual freedom to choose information. American kids seem much saner and more rational about technology than their so-called leaders and protectors. And this doesn't seem likely to get any better under the Bush administration, which has made the moral lives of children and the immoral content in TV, movies and on the Net a central campaign issue and policy priority.
The forced use of CIPA-mandated blocking (and tracking) software is bad enough, meaning that kids online have already relinquished much of their right to free speech, information choice and privacy. Selling the information that results takes away most of the rest of it, and is doubly appalling.
I'm not sure if that is a serious question, but anonymous information is worth a great deal.
If I know that the magazine I'm thinking of advertising in has the anonymous profile of mainly 20-30 year-olds, that it makes my decision as to whether, and how to advertise with them more effective.
Similiarly, if I know that lots of children visit Slashdot (or MSN), then I'll advertise things here.
It's good news, because it means the government don't have to pay as much for the filtering because the people make more money other ways.
It also means that advertising is better focused, which is better for the recipient (good ads will be clicked on, and might be useful).
There is no issue about privacy, simply because there's no personal data.
There's no problem here. It's just that people worry because it's on the internet. This has been going on for years.
The fact that advertisers know that most Economist readers are male and middle-aged is not a privacy issue, and neither is this - exactly the same thing.
What good is Bess? We use it at the Internet Provider that I work for, UpLink. It seems to work fairly well... I've played around wtih it in the office. However, there are ways around it... I've played with it, and have figured out some ways to get around the service with the settings in place.... using proxy services and what not.. that I was running on my home computer.... so if it's this easy to get around Bess... why do schools care?
Adult supervision is always better than software!! My kids go wherever they want, and I am always aware of what they do online. IT should be the same in schools with the teachers aware of what is going on. In a library setting, I don't agree that filtering software is needed.
Granted, some library users will be visiting sites that children should NOT see, so put the adult access computers in a separate area from the children's access systems. And have the librarian (and the kids parents!!!) supervise.
I certainly believe parental involvement results in acceptable behavior most of the time!! My kids certainly know what is right and wrong.... (I had to get rid of my .whatthefuck email address because they were checking up in my history!!)
-mom
because I said so
I'm sorry, but you just don't have a clue.
But if it's so vague, why would anybody pay thousands of dollars for it?
Quick question for you Jon,
If you were an advertiser, what information would you find more valuable:
a) Suzy Radcliffe age 9 likes to read Kuro5hin and keep abreast of the latest benchmarks on tpc.org.
b) Children who use altavista rather than yahoo also prefer pepsi to coke.
Well?
I think it's obvious that general information is more valuable than specific information.
--Shoeboy
So now we find out that not only are these guys bookburners, but they're spies as well. I suppose this should not surprise anyone.
But this is exactly why I'm almost thinking that censorship may be good in a single case: banning censorship itself. I'm sorry, but if parents aren't going to invest the time needed to teach their children right from wrong (and don't give me that crap about "I don't have time"; you know you do) then we shouldn't be allowing them to entrust their kids to a piece of mindless software that literally can't tell the Mona Lisa from the goatse.cx guy.
I really think we need to put more effort into compiling lists of blocked sites. Show the blacklists for what they are. Maybe that will get people's attention. It seems nothing else has yet. And who knows; maybe we'll finally realize that there is no substitute for simple responsible parenting and schooling.
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So if a cunning schoolkid were to set up a perl script that loads Slashdot 50 times a second all day from his/her school, does it mean that the school will receive free samples of Uncle Ben's Hot Grits in a week or two?
..this is where we are going, I think. Look at the issues:
1. by making the congress approving such laws, it's demonstrated that parents have not only fear of the society *they* created, but also that they admit not being able to *grow* their kids
2. trying to level a generation to the same way of thinking is typical of a *closed* political system: nazism, communism, fascism, all those ways began with kids.
3. by the time they realized that nazism was bad, whops! too late! we already have a generation grown up in this state of mind
4. what is happening is that they'll try to make money from everything was thought as a way to protect 'children'
...I have grown watching pr0n sometimes, even when I was *very* young, 'cause of some friends of mine (I'm talking about age of ten or so). And no, I'm not a serial killer, nor a perv, or whatever they think their children may become. And I suppose I'm not the only one here.
I wonder if congress really cares about the next generation. It's already clear that US kids, due to an excessive protectionism, cannot be compared to kids in the rest of the world (in a matter of math, language, logic skills). I know there are exceptions, but for those of you who have been oversea what I'm saying will look reasonable.
I myself have been in the US for more than a year in college and I noticed how low the average was: all of my from-all-over-the-world friends noticed that US 'kids' do in college what we do five years before.
conclusion: excessive protectionism will only bring the US to demand for more and more 'talents' coming from other countries if they want to be a leader in world economy.
and sorry for the broken english
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
--
The problem is not explicitly that there are mass markets. (I like mass markets because it means cheap gear) The problem is that the mass markets snuff out niche markets, limiting choice. Choice good. No choice bad.
The wider problem is that capitalism is no longer about making money by building and selling valuable products, it's about making money by controlling and manipulating markets. (Yes, maybe I'm naive to think it was ever any different...leave me to my fantasies, thank you!)
In other words, I agree, and the problem's going to get worse before it gets better.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I think the worst thing about censorware is the fact that most parents:
a) have no clue about the software
b) frequently have the child install the software because the kid is more computer literate
c) the pc is usually in the kids room
My brother-in-law connects to the Internet via AOL (sign) and uses their Parental Controls feature (argh) to protect his kid from the dangers of the Internet. What AOL's Parental Controls feature does though is tick him off because he can't get to the sites he wants, but his kid can!
Most children abuse the Internet because they can get away with it. They have no body watching them or the pc is in their room. Rather than deal with the child, interact with the child, we'll put a tattle tale in their computer. This just makes me sick.
Censorware is just another means for parents to not be parents. They don't have to be parents. The computer will do it for them. Jon Katz is right about the morals it's teaching. How can we expect kids to grow up defending privacy if we are not willing to give it to them?
oh well...I guess this is a trol or redundent...frag it. Censorware SUCKS!
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
If you know the ip address of the site your are going to, but it's blocked try this.
Not the greatest trick in the world, but won't someone please think of the children.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
First, the aggregate log data would deal with IP addresses, computer names, workgroups, dates, times, attempted websites, and perhaps even a deeper explaination as to why it was blocked (Nudity, graphic violence, what have you).
One would also probably know which sites were most visited, and as such, which sites were set as the home pages for the school (if they were set to outside of the local network, at least). From there, ad affiliates would be listed, so one would be able to find out which companies (doubleclick, et al.) were most prevalent. From there, you could determine what cookies were being set on the browsers, and coordinate with doubleclick to see a refined view of what is being served.
So what we would have is, possibly parsed by school topology, what grade teachers and grade students (I've seen schools where grades are seperated by location) are going to what websites, what sites are blocked, how often the blocked sites are hit, and manages to go through.
Maybe DoD wants to know how many people are visiting /., reading JK's article, and trying to order a copy of Voices in the Hellmouth ;) I highly doubt that the DoD would be looking for successfully visited sites. Advertising wouldn't have much to do with National Defense. Of course, maybe they're in cahoots with the NSA in looking for brainwashing ad services. Who knows.
Let's deal now with sites being blocked. It's well known that most, if not all of the filtering software out there doesn't publish which sites are blocked. There's just a huge string database and a list of blocked domains and IP addresses, or what have you. Maybe further information is being blocked through there.
Let's also look at the issues at hand: the ruling about public facilities paid by the government will have to use censorware to continue receiving funding. Public facilities are exactly that: any Joe Schmoe can come off the street and get to a computer.
Toss a little paranoia onto the fray, and anyone could come off of the street and get instructions on building bombs, or somehow get some subversive material, hate-mongering information, etc at your local library.
Let's go full scale in paranoia. Our own governmental facilities would be its own falldown! Criminals (or potential criminals) could come off the street, fire up IE or Netscape, and go to bombs.com or nuke-your-government.net or maybe suicide-bombers.middle-east.gov or something. And that would be a sad day in history, my friends, a sad day indeed that another domestic terrorist attack goes on that could have been prevented, if only we had the sense and decency to remove that demon-spawn, evil-filled internet!
If only we knew from whence that evil was spawned! ...oh yeah, that's right. ARPAnet. Something about government. I don't remember. But it wasn't OUR government. Must've been them damn Iraqis or something. Saddam Hussein's granddad did it.
Anyways.
My guess is that DoD is looking for aggregate ratios of visited to blocked sites. Maybe comparing that against information received from Pinkerton, comparing that against the Student Violence Prevention hotlines or whatever they're called. Find out where the next Columbine is going to go down. Maybe figure out what grade said students are in, and what area is most likely to break out. Then put a little more pressure on the Hive Students to rat out the 'dangerous' ones. Who knows. All kidding aside, I believe it's more for the blocked site information than kiddie marketing information. Don't look at the Black Text on the White Background, look at the White background itself. Something like that.
Which brings another issue: if the DoD is buying this, than we as taxpayers are paying for this information as well. I'm going to spend some time going over the Annual Defense Report for 2001 and see if there's any reason, or any other possible links, for buying this information.
This result on searching for "Children" shows survey results for of-age teens going into the military, and how often they thought about it. Maybe DoD is doing some research. If a lot of .gov hits are coming from one school, toss a few more recruiters there? About halfway down on that site is a listing of 10 objectives that the DoD has on youth support. It's a good read, I won't toss em on here. Let's get a lot of seperate IP addresses hitting a few specific gov pages, just for fun ;)
Actually...I may have found it right here.
And later on...
And on the costs...
And once more...
This report was dated the 10th of January, this year.
Anyways...if anyone finds anything else, please reply =)
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Hmmm..once N2H2 markets a sample of data obtained from students, it is engaged in research. There are very strict guidelines about the rights of human test subjects in research including the ability to opt out of studies such as those being conductec by N2H2. The rights of human subjects to opt out of such studies are especially enhanced when the subjects are captive audiences such as students in school.
Unless N2H2 is offering students a way to have their data excluded from the aggregation, this would seem to be a straightforward violation of numerous laws governing human test subjects.
I discovered that Bess not only blocks the expected pronography, explicit language, etc, it denied access to sites such as Peacefire.org. While this site now offers software for download that will disable net censoring, when I first checked it out it was nothing but a simple site advocating freedom of surfing as an extension of freedom of speech. I understand that this is against the very concept of Bess itself, but when does the advocacy of the enforcement of the American constitution constitute a threat to our nations youth? Clearly the act of blocking peacefire.org was malicious and spiteful, the only reason being it threatened the moral stance of the corporation. What does this say about N2H2?
Vilk, from the ranks of the freaks
Something tickles the back of my brain... large software that many are forced to use... sucks... manipulative marketing... Oh yeah, this is why we write open source software!
So, let's put up or shut up. Here's some specs, anyone up for implimentation and organization?
I'd start coding this myself, but I'm working on another mostly-open-source project in my free time, which I think a lot of people will like, and which might even end up being as socially relevant if I do it right.
I wholly agree that it is the parent's responsibility to teach morals, ie, the 'knowledge and guidance so they can understand why something is inappropriate'. It is the school's job to supply teachers with the resources they need/want to impart lessons to the children who attend that school. If XYZ Filtering software rids a given teacher of a good portion of the distractions (and disruptions) available on the web, but still makes available desired content, then I see no problem whatsoever with that arrangement. If the software is filtering desired content, then the teacher will be the first to complain, and the system can be tailored to fit the teacher's wishes.
It is no more a teacher's right to tell a child which websites are appropriate, as it is for them to teach that multi-racial marriage is wrong
I disagree. It is a teacher's DUTY to tell a child EXACTLY which websites are appropriate for a given lesson. If I'm teaching a class in Earth Science and some kid is kicking back reading an issue of Penthouse, I'm going to rip the magazine out of his/her hands and send the kid to the Principal's office. If the kid is kicking back reading Scientific American, I'll take the magazine out of his/her hands and demand to see them after class, at which point I'll return the magazine, express genuine interest and appreciation for their interest in extra-curricular science, but ask that they persue it on their own time and not during class which is disrespectful.
It's the same with web-content. You want to read Slashdot? Fine. Do it on your own time. Want to look at porn? Neo-Nazi propaganda? Pokemon chat sites? Have a ball, but not here. XYZ software will help reduce the likelihood of these disruptions? Cool. Hand it over.
**>>BELCH