What if a site is NOT filtered that should be?

What if a site IS filtered and should not be?

How can I bypass the filter?

1. What is CIPA?

Please see http://www.sl.universalservice.org/reference/CIPA.asp for details

The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires that schools and libraries implement Internet safety policies in order to receive federal technology funding such as E-Rate discounts. This Internet safety policy must include filtering or another "technology protection measure" that blocks access to "visual depictions" of obscene material, child pornography and material that is "harmful to minors".

2. What must my school system or library do in order to be "CIPA Compliant"?

a. Implement a "Technology Protection Measure" (e.g. filtering software)

A Technology Protection Measure is a specific technology that blocks or filters Internet access. It must protect against access by adults and minors to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or - with respect to use of computers with Internet access by minors - harmful to minors. It may be disabled for adults engaged in bona fide research or other lawful purposes. For schools, the policy must also include monitoring the online activities of minors by means determined by the local system.

b. Design and implement an "Internet Safety Policy"

The Internet Safety Policy must address the following issues:

1. Access by minors to inappropriate matter on the Internet and World Wide Web;
2. The safety and security of minors when using electronic mail, chat rooms, and other forms of direct electronic communications;
3. Unauthorized access, including so-called "hacking," and other unlawful activities by minors online;
4. Unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of personal information regarding minors; and
5. Measures designed to restrict minors' access to materials harmful to minors.

c. Public Notice and Hearing

The authority with responsibility for administration of the school or library must provide reasonable public notice and hold at least one public hearing to address a proposed Technology Protection Measure and Internet Safety Policy.

3. How does the AREN Content Filtering Solution address CIPA Compliance?

In order for a school system or library to be "CIPA Compliant" the steps explained by CIPA and briefly highlighted above must be followed. Simply utilizing AREN's content filtering option does NOT make your organization "CIPA Compliant".

Any AREN client for no additional charge may use the AREN content filtering service as the "technology protection measure" defined in the CIPA. The decision to use or not use AREN's filtering solution is entirely at the discretion of the individual school system or library.

4. How soon will AREN's filtering solutions be available?

During the Phase I implementation, filtering is either on or off for your institution. A single profile will determine which categories are filtered for all users. In this phase we will filter certain categories such as pornography, graphic violence, and hacking. There will be no customization of available categories in Phase I.

In Phase II much more flexibility will be provided to the institutions. AREN will provide up to 32 filtering profiles than may be selected based on your institution's policies. These filtering profiles will consist of different combinations of categories for which filtering is desired. Phase II will begin in the spring, but software releases may push implementation into the summer months.

5. What filtering product is AREN using to provide this service?

After careful review of several products, AREN acquired Netspective™ by Telemate to provide content filtering.

The web site for this product may be found at: http://www.getnetspective.com/

6. How much does it cost?

There is no cost for institutions that use AREN as their Internet Service Provider. AREN has negotiated flat pricing with Telemate that allows us to provide content filtering to all AREN clients.

7. How does it work?

Netspective™ provides web and ftp filtering through a sidescan technology that does not depend on the use of proxy servers and scales well for use in very large networks. Classification of sites is performed through the use of neural net analysis, review of linked content, and human review. Updated filter lists are downloaded daily.

8. Why didn't AREN use (insert your favorite filtering software) instead of Netspective?

The filtering requirements for a statewide network are broader than those of an individual school, library, or school system. Typical content filters require that web traffic be cached or at least redirected through a computer running content filtering software. Although this method is acceptable for individual institutions where relatively small amounts of traffic are being examined, such redirection can potentially slow down Internet access for a large state network.

Netspective™ was chosen for many reasons, but the primary two criteria that influenced our decision were scalability and cost. Because sidescan filtering is used instead of proxy methods, use of the product does not impact the overall performance of the network. Also, Telemate was the only company that offered pricing based on bandwidth utilization instead of per seat licensing at the time of our evaluation. Other companies with quality filtering products required licensing based on the number of users in a network. This type of pricing for our state network is clearly unacceptable as there are hundreds of thousands of users served by AREN.

9. What are the different classifications of web sites that can be filtered?

Advertising, alcohol, automotive, consumer information, criminal skills, cult and occult, drugs, education, entertainment, finance/investing, gambling, games, general business, glamour, government, hacking, hate speech, health, hobbies, job search, law, lingerie, mature content, military, news, nudism and naturalism, personals/dating, politics & religion, pornography, reference, science, sex education, sexual advice, sexual orientation, shopping, society, sports, technology, tobacco, travel, violence, weapons, web email, web search.

Phase I will filter (default profile): cult and occult, drugs, hacking, nudism and naturalism, pornography, sexual advice, violence, and weapons for all participating institutions.

In Phase II designated coordinators or network managers will be able to select from a list of up to 32 profiles. These profiles will provide common combinations of the above categories appropriate for different age groups.

10. What if a site is NOT filtered that should be?

The Netspective™ filtering software automatically reviews unclassified sites and updates the filtering lists. This review and update process can take up to 72 hours in some cases. In order to expedite the process, Technology Coordinators can manually submit sites for review to Netspective™ via the following URL: http://www.asc.edu/cgi-bin/newgraphs/index.cgi(this link may change in the next few weeks)

If a site is not filtered within 72 hours of initial access or within 48 hours of a manual request for review, technology coordinators, superintendents, or network managers may request an immediate block via the AREN helpdesk. Please realize that AREN has been subject to the same funding issues that have affected all education entities in Alabama and has a limited staff. If at all possible, allow time for Netspective™ to update their master filters before requesting an immediate block via the AREN helpdesk.

Please refer to the "AREN Content Filtering Policies and Procedures" document found at http://www.asc.edu/html/CIPApolicy.shtml for detailed information on how to manually request updates.

11. What if a site IS filtered that should not be?

Technology Coordinators can manually submit sites for review to Netspective™ via the following URL: http://www.asc.edu/cgi-bin/newgraphs/index.cgi(this link may change in the next few weeks)

If the site is not available within 48 hours of submission for review, technology coordinators or superintendents may request an immediate override via the AREN helpdesk. Please realize that AREN has been subject to the same funding issues that have affected all education entities in Alabama and has a limited staff. If at all possible, allow time for Netspective™ to update their master filters before requesting an immediate override via the AREN helpdesk.

Please refer to the "AREN Content Filtering Policies and Procedures" document found at http://www.asc.edu/html/CIPApolicy.shtml for detailed information on how to manually request site reviews.

12. Do I have to use the AREN solution or can I do my own thing?

Use of the AREN filtering solution is completely voluntary. If you decide to utilize the AREN solution, please read this FAQ thoroughly and be aware that although there is no charge for the filtering, there are limitations with this filtering solution that may not exist with other systems. If your school system requires more flexibility, you should consider using another product.

13. Can I use the AREN solution in conjunction with my own solution?

Yes. Many AREN clients have expressed interest in maintaining their existing content filtering solution while also using our system. It would be possible, for example, to keep some existing systems for their reporting and monitoring capabilities but cancel an update subscription. In this scenario the legacy system would catch, classify, filter, and report all old sites that are blocked, while the AREN solution would filter all new sites.

14. How can I specify what types of sites will be filtered for my individual system?

In Phase I of our implementation, a specific combination of classified sites will be filtered. In Phase II, 32 separate profiles will be available that provide filtering for various combinations of classified sites. Please see question 9 for more information on types of classifications.

15. How can I bypass the filter?

If a site has been correctly classified but filtering needs to be disabled, the technology coordinator or superintendent may submit a request to AREN to disable filtering for a specific user's IP address. This allows users of this specific address to completely bypass the filter. Due to the nature of AREN's filtering solution, filtering of correctly classified material is either on or off. Consequently, once a request is made to disable filtering, NOTHING is filtered for the submitted IP address until a request is made to reactivate filtering.

According to CIPA this override can only be activated "to enable access for bona fide research or other lawful purposes". CIPA also states that this should only be "during use by an adult".

Please note that if your site uses Network Address Translation (NAT), we will not be able to override filtering for correctly classified sites as such an override would disable filtering for your entire site.

For specific information on the process that must be followed to bypass content filtering, please refer to the "AREN Content Filtering Policies and Procedures" document found at http://www.asc.edu/html/CIPApolicy.shtml

16. Are reports for blocked sites available to the individual systems?

During Phase I no reports will be available. Starting with Phase II we plan to make reports on blocked sites and traffic available to individual institutions via a web interface. This interface will use the same username/password that is currently used to access bandwidth utilization data. It must be noted that if your school system uses NAT, the reports will show what sites were blocked but will not be able to tell you which individual computers accessed the various sites (since all traffic will appear to come from the NAT pool).