The Cutting Edge: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : SurfWatch Helps to Stem Tide of Obscenity

As justification for a bill that would outlaw “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent” communications on the Internet, Sen. James J. Exon (D-Neb.) points to the fact that it is important to keep this type of material away from children.

But an alternative has been developed by SurfWatch Software, a Los Altos, Calif., start-up company. The firm has created SurfWatch ($49.95), a piece of software that keeps children from accessing sexually explicit material on the Internet. The program is now available for the Macintosh, and a Windows version is expected in about two months.

The program works only for those who have a direct (SLIP or PPP) connection to the Internet, not on commercial on-line services such as America Online, CompuServe or Prodigy.

The software contains a list of about 1,300 sexually explicit Usenet news groups and World Wide Web sites and blocks access to such sites. (The list is hidden, so you cannot use it to locate such sites.) The program also blocks File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites that contain sexually explicit photos and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) locations that typically allow live explicit discussions.

The adult who installs the program enters a secret password, and only those who know the password can bypass the program’s filters. Children can access any part of the Internet except those blocked by the program. The program attaches itself to the software that dials the Internet so it is “extremely difficult to defeat,” according to SurfWatch Software Vice President Jay Friedland.

The program only blocks areas that contain sexually explicit material. “It wouldn’t block an academic discussion on sexuality or sites with basic (non-explicit) sex education information,” Friedland said.

It is not foolproof. Friedland says that the program blocks “between 90% and 95% of the readily accessible sites.” The company offers a subscription service ($5.95 per month), which updates the program with new sites.

“We see SurfWatch as a real alternative to Internet censorship,” Friedland said. “It gives parents and educators the opportunity to limit unwanted material locally without restricting the access rights of other Internet users.”

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Protecting Children

* Parents concerned about the availability of mayhem manuals and sexually explicit content on the Internet can access the Net via TimesLink, while blocking their children from doing so without supervision. For details, call (800) 792-LINK.

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