dacs.doc electric

HOW DANGEROUS is the Internet? What can your children find when you are not home? How easily can someone find pornographic sites? How easy is it to block adult content from your machine?

These are questions, as a single, childless woman, I have never needed to think about. I am a teacher, but my main concern is my students meeting strangers over ICQ or in chatrooms. I received a pornographic picture via e-mail once. I deleted it, and nothing else ever showed up unwanted. To help you keep it out of your Net life, most e-mail and search engines programs now have screening devices.

I went on a search for pornography on the Web. There are two ways that most searches take place. The first way is to try to score a direct hit by typing in what you think is a logical URL. For example, if you wanted to find DACS online you would logically try www.dacs.com (The U.S. Department of Defense Software Information Clearinghouse); if that didn't work, you would try www.dacs.org and score a direct hit. The other way, more commonly used, is to use one of the popular search engines.

My favorite search engine is www.infoseek.com, which generally produces good results. I started with a search on "sex." A warning came up that asked me if I wanted to proceed or not. That is a pretty good sign, an option to turn back before adult content is shown. But I opted to proceed. The resulting sites included no pornography; they were all educational Websites. I was impressed! Of course, Infoseek is associated with go.com and Disney.

Then I tried the same search with www.yahoo.com, www.altavista.com, www.webcrawler.com, and www.excite.com, among others. None of these offered me a warning prior to revealing the list of Websites and categories relating to "sex." And with the exception of Excite, which offered links to a variety of sites including a quite funny r-rated comic strip relating to Clinton (www.gethappy.com), they all displayed links to heavily x-rated sites.

So I explored those sites. How much can you see for free on the Internet? Not much! Many of the sites seemed to be linked to one another. They all have a similar design: a few small x-rated photos with promise of free access if you "click here." Well, free access requires a credit card for identification. You must be over 18 to have a credit card, therefore you must be over 18 to enter the site--even for free. Other sites offered trial memberships for as low as $1.98, but again you must have access to a credit card.

Some sites had links to exotic stories, but none were more revealing than anything you could read in an adult novel in a bookshop. The most impressive features were sites with links to adult content filters that you could install on your browser. Many sites stated, "We strongly support parental controls on the Internet. These Web pages are not intended to be viewed by minors. If you are a parent and you want to block this site, please contact one of the following: RSAC, Cyber Patrol, CYBERsitter, Safesurf, or SurfWatch. Other sites had you "Click here if you are under 18," a link that led you to a list of sites appropriate for teens, or to www.goto.com, a content-filtered search engine.

Webmasters of sites featuring sexual material generally seem to be very careful of content, permitting sex sites that are not easy to access without a credit card. The sites provide links for people who have accidentally stumbled across them, and the viewable photos, while pornographic, mostly fall within the legal limits of what can and cannot be shown. I am not claiming that all content on the Internet is safe for everyone, but what I have discovered is that porn is not as easily available as many people suspect. Pornography is a multibillion-dollar industry. We must remember that while porn sites are competing heavily for surfers, they are first out to make money and are not about to give away their products for free.

In an article on idg.net by Douglas F. Gray entitled "Adult Content Still Tops in Online Info Sales," the writer states that "Adult content made up 69% of the $1.4 billion online consumer market in Western Europe and the U.S. in 1998, with 84% of all paid-content revenues going to U.S.-based sites, according to a new study." Refer to http://www.idg.net/crd_content_9-132472.html for the entire article.

For those of you concerned, here are some methods you can use to protect the users of your computer:

• In your e-mail setup options, opt to screen out junk and adult content mail.
• In your browser, MIE, or Netscape, you can also opt to screen out adult content.
• Install a kid-friendly browser such as Yahooligans, Lycos' SafetyNet, Super Snooper, or Ask Jeeves for Kids, Subscribe to Safe Kids for more information on _Child Safety on the Information Highway.
• For a comprehensive review of "filter" services, refer to http://www.safekids.com/filters.htm

In summary, Safe Web searching is easy to arrange for your family, a lot easier than it is to access most pornographic sites. While you can follow Internet links to more revealing pornography, you will not access it accidentally, and sites will generally provide you with links to leave the site. Ultimately, it is up to users to decide what content they want to view on the Internet. The adult content sites cater to a certain audience. Many of these sites are within the law and do not solicit via e-mail. In the true spirit of the Internet, censorship, instead of being a nationally controlled issue, is available to each individual computer user according to his or her own criteria.