3 Ways to protect kids online

PROTECTING CHILDREN ONLINE
Finding Real Solutions

3 real ways we can get started …
* An exclusive domain extension for kids
* Technology education forums for adults through schools
* Co-operation of user generated content websites

To protect children in the real world, we group them together and put up a fence. When we leave our children at school, libraries, sporting fields and day-care centres we accept that certain rules apply to this location which is designed to protect children. We would not drop our children off in a park or street or with a stranger and leave them alone for hours on end and expect that they would be safe.

The Internet is new, and it doesn't yet have an effective system to provide safe areas for children. While free speech groups, religious leaders and governments argue over semantics of non-existant law, child pornography has grown into an epidemic. Law enforcement around the world is fed funding scraps, until recently when Americans finally voted to increase the money and resources for those that work against the production and distribution of child pornography online.

The recent government censorship plan is reaching for the impossible – filtering of all websites which might be unsafe for children. Not surprisingly, ‘objectionable’, ‘questionable’ and ‘offensive’ websites will be filtered for all adults as will the discussion of actions which are illegal such as suicide and euthanasia. It is a thinly disguised attempt to filter adult material and other subjects which make the government uncomfortable, but it also wastes another $100, 000, 000 under the false idea of protecting children.

Blacklist filters do not work on file sharing networks, which is where almost all child pornography is traded. Blacklist filters don’t protect children from online chat predators, who show up in ALL chat rooms where children hang out. Blacklist filters don’t block all websites which may be inappropriate for children as proven by recent trials.


An exclusive domain name extension for kids

There have been 4 applications for the right to sell license to the domain extension 'dot kids' (i.e. www.websitename.kids) but each application has been rejected for different reasons - ranging from objections by free speech groups to rejection on the basis of commercial bias.

What that means is that free speech groups have spoken loudly against it because it could open the door for other subject related extensions like 'dot sex', which would allow adult and political material to be easily filtered. In my interpretation, commercial organisations have been deemed exempt from applying due to the previous applicant’s potential to be biased when distributing licenses. (see icann’s latest “Criteria for Assessing TLD Proposals”)

This leaves the Governments. Australia. America. United Kingdom. Between these governments over $1 billion has been spent on subjects related to the filtering of the Internet. To setup an entire business dedicated to the management of the domain extension 'dot kids' would cost somewhere between $1 million and $25 million. Even if we double it, triple it or quadruple it to allow for bureaucracy’s stuff ups, the solution is still cheaper and more effective at protecting children from material that may be harmful.

The Dot Kids domain extension would be licensed for around the same cost as a dot com dot au extension, which is 4 times the price of a dot com domain extension. The application for a domain would be accompanied by a completed website which would be assessed based on a set of criteria which are suitable for children.

To be issued the right to license the domain www.disney.kids Disney would simply have to submit their existing website, as they present their material in an age appropriate way already. Most organisations that target products and services at children would simply need to register the new domain extension and use their existing website. However some websites, such as those advertising video games to a variety of age groups, may be required to submit a new website for their dot kids domain which just features G rated material.

With all sites which are safe for children existing on the same domain extension, it is easy to filter these websites via software, browser settings or filtering systems. This is the first step to creating an Internet which reflects our society – including the way we protect children.

Technology education forums for parents

My parents were amazed by Tetris back in 1990 – orange boxes on a black screen. By the time I graduated in 1994 the Internet was a commercial tool and the digital age was well underway. Then came the new millennium and technology is like a snowball, changing so fast that I wonder how I will ever keep up. And I’m only 31!

My parents have a computer now – a full colour one in fact - and have recently returned from a trip around Australia where they blogged their digital photography from the middle of the country via wireless broadband. Children are teaching their parents how to use the tools we now need to get by in our everyday lives. If kids are teaching their parents, who’s teaching the kids?

Parents don’t need to be computer experts to understand the basics of how they can protect their children, so if there is $189, 000, 000 in funding available to help with filtering the Internet then free Internet classes for parents shouldn’t be a problem. The right collection of experts and 3 hours in a school hall would be more than enough to arm most parents with the tools they need to start digitally interacting with their children.

There’s a very simple way to keep an eye on your child’s MySpace or Facebook account, and that is by having one of your own. If that doesn’t make the sites ‘uncool’ for the kids it will certainly help you keep up with the lingo – for example getting poked on Facebook isn’t what you first thought!

An ideal technology forum would feature speakers to teach parents about free filtering software available from the government, which might help counter the appalling take up rate of the $84, 000, 000 software.

Annual parent and teacher forums held in schools featuring volunteer guests should cost no more than $500 per school depending on the resources required. There are approximately 10, 000 schools in Australia bringing the total expense of an annual seminar campaign to a maximum of $5, 000, 000.

Did you know? The last time our Government attempted to solve child
pornography with a filter was a few years ago – it could be downloaded for free
from a website and was cracked by a 16 year old in 30 minutes. They spent $84M
(Yes, $84,000,000 of tax payers money) to develop and license filtering software
which was download less than 150,000 times and installed less than 30,000 times.

That’s $2800 per installed copy.

In addition to the real world education forum, an online forum would also help provide parents with a place to get the latest information about filters, learn about new dangers and provide input on child protection issues. Parents, teachers and the community can share their knowledge with each other via the very tool they are learning about.

A website like this would cost no more than $15,000 to develop and would require the services of 1 to 2 full time webmasters on a salary of $50, 000 to $85, 000 per year.


Co-operation of user generated content websites

YouTube, Blogger, WikiPedia, MySpace and FaceBook are just a few examples of websites which exist due to ‘user generated content’, meaning the website is made up of content added by its users. This includes sites like the above along with chat forums, picture posts and blogs.

The business model of a user generated website is generally to sell advertising like newspapers or magazines, without the expense of actually generating content to fill the site. Thanks to MySpace profiles added by members the site has millions of images, blogs, music of every style and videos from all over the world.

In order for these sites to protect themselves from legal issues they separate themselves from their responsibilities with clauses in their terms and conditions that most members have never bothered to read. These sites can’t filter much content due to free speech but they use this as an excuse to take no responsibility for the content on their websites and who access it.

YouTube offers a warning that a video contains adult material which fits within the guidelines, but I’ve stumbled across far too much porn (not within guidelines) on YouTube to accept that this policy is strictly upheld. I have attempted to have fake Facebook and MySpace profiles disabled in the past and have followed all instructions only to wait almost 12 months for action.

There will be many changes in the law over the coming decades to accommodate the rapid changes in technology, so somewhere along the line these sites will be forced to abide by stricter and stricter guidelines.

A proactive approach would involve taking responsibility for the content on their websites by introducing stricter monitoring, better response to complaints and increased co-operation with law enforcement.

A rating system would work on a site like YouTube where a submitter could rate their video on submission for anything outside of a G rating. Parents could setup a single profile with multiple sub accounts so they can change the user’s age in a single click. These basic additions to popular, existing websites would help parents to identify material which may require supervision or discussion.

If all online communities take some responsibility for the protection of young children from material that’s intended for an adult mind then the problem instantly becomes smaller – as does the cost of finding a solution to protecting children from the very content these sites host, store and broadcast.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP

"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road," he said. "If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."

Aaaaah I see what you did here Mr Conroy! If we disagree with your poorly structured Internet Censorship plan, we must want to watch child pornography! A most excellent way to manipulate silence in a democratic society – but also a dangerous sign of the weakness of your ‘plan’.

Australia has reached our place in the queue – it’s time for our two-yearly Internet Censorship attempt, where the Government spends in excess of $100 Million each time to educate, filter, administer, prosecute, fix and block ‘the problem’. While politicians argue about filtering ‘objectionable’ and ‘questionable’ material, and what these words even mean to the average citizen, child pornography has grown and spread like a virus.

A common pattern exists in many industries which hover on the edges of moral and legal boundaries – sex, guns, drugs – to name just a few. As laws become stricter, the underground economy grows, fed with unchecked crime and violence. Child Pornography has become such a big industry that global networks now exist to HELP pedophiles molest children – for profit! Isn’t this the very thing the last round of filtering was supposed to fix?

So it would be safe to say filtering hasn’t worked so far to prevent the transfer or production of child pornography. Our latest attempt reminds me of the definition of stupidity – to continue to do the same thing expecting a different outcome. This time our Government will spend nearly $200M - because somebody believes twice as much money will surely be twice as effective!

The issue of Internet censorship is hovering dangerously close to Government propaganda – the government is twisting facts and logic with statements that accuse anyone who is against censorship of being a pedophile to gain the support of the Australian family.

I will not sit back and accept being labeled as a supporter of child pornography because I expect my government to respect the rights given to me under a democracy. I resent being accused of defending child pornography websites because of my belief that consenting adults should be able to have sex. I am appalled that complex, controversial subjects like euthanasia and suicide are being classified as illegal simply because the acts being discussed are illegal.

Suicide is illegal - should we stop people from entering into online discussions about killing themselves which may in fact prevent their actions? Euthanasia is illegal - should we prevent people from around the world from connecting and talking about their pain, beliefs and experiences? Sexual abuse is illegal – should we stop people from talking about rape? Genital mutilation is illegal – should we stop victims from sharing their stories? Gay marriage isn’t legal in this country – should we jail anyone who dares to discuss the subject in a public forum?

The Internet is a new tool and has spawned a new era of digital technology that nobody saw coming, bringing with it a unique set of issues that we have never before had to address. Before progress can be made, both sides need to find a common ground … can’t we can all agree that solutions are needed for protecting children online and move forward from there?

Firstly, let’s eliminate some popular myths in both social and political discussion …




FACT 1: PORNOGRAPHY IS NOT CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

It’s one of those really subtle situations where a single word makes a world of difference. Pornography to me is defined as sexual entertainment involving consenting adults in both the production and viewing process. Child Pornography is a sexual, physical and emotional crime against a defenseless child. When did consenting sexual entertainment and pedophilia become the same thing?

The official definition of Pornography is:

Pornography or porn is the explicit depiction of sexual subject matter, especially with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer. It is to a certain extent similar to erotica, which is the use of sexually-arousing imagery for mainly artistic purposes. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography

creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The adult entertainment industry is governed by many strict laws – most of them ridiculous shades of grey, but some are simple and necessary to create boundaries between legal and illegal activity. 2257 was passed a few years ago, formalizing existing guidelines to ensure all producers of adult material kept strict records to prove the age and consent of their stars.

It created a big expense for existing content producers who had to attempt to track down past models, but it was accepted by adult webmasters eventually and would seem to most like a logical global law for adult content producers. The exception was the many content producers who shot models who were 18 and consenting at the time, as outlined in the 2257 law, but didn’t have the documentation in the exact format required by the new guidelines.

This meant all content shot before a particular date was no longer ‘legal’, a clever way to put porn producers out of business. The flaw in that process is that those who were already following a common sense law were subject to the most expenses and losses, some going out of business, while giving a clean slate to those who had previously broken common sense laws - such as not checking thoroughly that models are over 18.

The official definition of child pornography is:

Child pornography refers to pornographic material depicting children. It has been described as a form of child sexual abuse and is illegal in most countries. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child pornography

While we discuss and debate this important subject, we must be careful not to look for a solution to a single issue. Pornography and child pornography are not the same, and using an illegal activity to manipulate a law against legal activity is simply unreasonable – and useless in actually protecting the children. While child pornography is illegal in most countries, the variations on the ‘legal age of consent’ provide plenty of grey zones for criminals to operate.

Did you know?
The last time our Government attempted to solve child pornography with a filter was a few years ago – it could be downloaded for free from a website and was cracked by a 16 year old in 30 minutes. They spent $84M (Yes, $84,000,000 of tax payers money) to develop and license filtering software which was download less than 150,000 times and installed less than 30,000 times.

That’s $2800 per installed copy.

FACT 2: FILTERING DOESN’T FIX EVERYTHING, OR MUCH AT ALL

I know its been done to death, but let me quickly eliminate the keyword filtering debate by explaining that by filtering the word ‘sex’ we also filter: all discussion about ‘sex’, forms with ‘sex’ instead of gender, ‘sex’ education websites, and the popular salt’n’pepa track “Lets Talk About ‘Sex’” … oh and don’t forget ‘breast’ and the entire breast cancer awareness campaign … ‘poo’ and colon cancer sufferers etc. Filters are more complex than that now, and in some cases are an excellent solution to controlling the flow of information, but they are flawed when used in a blanket movement.

When the keyword filter didn’t work in the late 90’s, the Government decided instead to apply more rules to the filters to allow more complex keyword combinations. It worked ok, but still did nothing to prevent the 2 main issues at hand - children accessing pornography or the trading of child pornography.

Now our Government has decided to eliminate a selection of sites – site by site – based on a set of rules defined by an already conservative Governing body ACMA. Initially the statement told us that less than 700 sites would be on the list, and only weeks later that number has crept to 10,000 websites with 1,000’s of new sites each week that wouldn’t pass the ‘law’. Today the figure of 1300 websites is being quoted, with around 400 child pornography or related websites on the list. What does the rest of the list contain?

Can I suggest something logical for a minute?

Wouldn’t it be quicker to manually approve sites which are ok for children to view rather than try to manually find every site which needs to be blocked? Aren’t we effectively just looking at this backwards? If resources must be assigned to monitor new ‘bad’ websites to add to the filter, wouldn’t it make more sense to just let in the ‘good’ sites while kids are online?

Why not just setup a family safe zone where sites are issued with the right to publish a website in that section? This could be achieved via a domain extension, rating system, browser block or the more commercially viable but totally unnecessary software purchase.

There is already a G, PG and M15+ rating as defined by the ACMA which would make it easy for companies to produce websites aimed at children or teenagers within already approved (however conservative) guidelines. Each rating could be set using the parent’s password, so individual children will have access to different age-appropriate sites using a browser setting or controlled by external software. A website can pass hidden, encrypted information in the header which can be read by the browser. At the parents discretion the filter can be lifted so older teenagers can be given more responsibility.

It is a lot of work to hand edit a network of sites, but DMOZ has long been one of the most successful online directories because each category is moderated with love by its members. If there is a budget for staff to decide which sites to block, a never ending uphill battle with a dead end result, then it seems logical to me that a filtering system with manually approved content for children couldn’t possibly be more expensive.

As a society, we don’t send children to school in the back alley behind the pub and we do everything we can to keep pedophiles out of schools. To keep children safe, we define a zone for them and assign people to care for them age-appropriately while they visit that zone. This is how we must approach the Internet.

Safe zones for children. Free speech for adults.

Did you know?
Do you think cartoon porn is funny? Under current and new laws you could be arrested for the possession and distribution of child pornography if the cartoon characters are under 18. Yet genuine child pornography investigators fight for every cent of funding to catch and prosecute criminals with real victims.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1001729/latest-from-wire

FACT 3: CHILD PORNOGRAPHY IS RARELY PUBLISHED ON A WEBSITE

Long before the first web page went live, child pornography had been traded across the Internet. The Internet was invented to transfer information between 2 computers – the concept of a web page came later when business and hobbyists saw the benefits of a central place for their information.

A website needs a host – a business which offers the service of hosting the website files on their high speed computers to allow for high performance, 24/7 access. If you have a permanent connection to the Internet in your home, technically you could setup a website using your own computer as a host, but that opens up all sorts of security issues that someone else can tell you about.

To setup a website, you need a host. To setup a host, you need an upstream to provide you with data transfer services – much like a phone company who leases access to the cables of another company. For this reason, a website which is setup on a web host can be removed from the Internet within a short period of time as there is a chain of supply which can easily be terminated.

If a child pornography website was put up on a host within Australia, USA or England it would be removed as soon as it was reported because the hosting company would be directly breaking the law of HOSTING illegal material. Hosting companies within countries where the legal age of consent is less than 18 are much less strict however they risk having their entire network blocked by the rest of the world which might upset their other clients.

There is also the issue of the domain. To own a domain you have to follow a set of guidelines, which means at some point you are agreeing to the laws of the Government where the domain registrar is based. If I buy a domain from a company in USA, I have to follow those rules. If a webmaster were to publish child pornography on this domain, the registrar has the right to terminate the client’s license to the domain.

While there are still some websites out there which offer child pornography by slipping through loopholes, they tend to be very nomadic and rarely live at the same place for long. Visiting a website leaves a trail of statistics both on the user’s computer and on the host’s computer, so by visiting an illegal website pedophiles online movements can often be tracked - helping law enforcement.

In technical terms, child pornography is traded in the same way as another illegal activity – pirating music and movies. There is rarely a website, because that is too easy to close down, but the ‘back to basics’ usage of file sharing networks that music and movie fans love so much is also responsible for easy access to excessive volumes of child pornography available around the world.

File sharing networks can not be filtered like a website can. As yet, there is no technology which is freely available to scan files and accurately guess which are illegal images, although we're not far away. An Internet filtering plan might block out a few obvious networks but will completely ignore the file sharing issue.

This means that when a solution is discovered for blocking, filtering and intercepting content on a file sharing network that those who download movies and music will be traced and prosecuted. The very same technology used by much of the population to pirate digital content and hide the act from the authorities is used by pedophiles to do the same with child pornography content.

FACT 4: WE NEED REAL SOLUTIONS TO REAL PROBLEMS

The Christian lobbyists and conservative politicians will successfully bring this issue to the forefront regularly because it is a genuine problem that really does need to be addressed. Parents are genuinely concerned about digital safety for their children, making them vulnerable to word twisting by politicians – such as this cleverly structured censorship campaign which labels anyone opposed to filtering the Internet to be a supporter of child pornography.

While lobbying for the rights and freedoms we’ve grown to expect, we must also step up to offer solutions to the real problem of protecting children in the new digital age. If we expect our rights to be respected in our democratic environment, shouldn’t we also consider how we might logically fight to protect them through real solutions?

There are many ideas which could provide a safe haven for children online while letting adults maintain our freedom of speech. Domain extensions, rating systems, children safe site filters, white lists, education, research, funding for law enforcement … what’s your suggestion?