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The study of which this workshop report was a part was supported by Grant No. 1999-JN-FX-0071 between the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education; Grant No. P0073380 between the National Academy of Sciences and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; awards (unnumbered) from the Microsoft Corporation and IBM; and National Research Council funds. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for this project. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the symposium presenters and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors.
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COMMITTEE TO STUDY TOOLS AND STRATEGIES FOR PROTECTING KIDS FROM PORNOGRAPHY AND THEIR APPLICABILITY TO OTHER INAPPROPRIATE INTERNET CONTENT
RICHARD THORNBURGH,
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP,
Chair
NICHOLAS J. BELKIN,
Rutgers University
WILLIAM J. BYRON,
Holy Trinity Parish
SANDRA L. CALVERT,
Georgetown University
DAVID FORSYTH,
University of California at Berkeley
DANIEL GEER,
@Stake
LINDA HODGE,
Parent Teacher Association
MARILYN GELL MASON,
Independent Consultant
MILO MEDIN,
Excite@Home
JOHN B. RABUN,
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
ROBIN RASKIN,
FamilyPC Magazine
ROBERT SCHLOSS,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
JANET WARD SCHOFIELD,
University of Pittsburgh
GEOFFREY R. STONE,
University of Chicago
WINIFRED B. WECHSLER,
Independent Consultant
Staff
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist and Study Director
GAIL PRITCHARD, Program Officer (through June 2001)
LAURA OST, Consultant
JOAH G. IANOTTA, Research Assistant
JANICE SABUDA, Senior Project Assistant
DANIEL D. LLATA, Senior Project Assistant (through May 2001)
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
DAVID D. CLARK,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Chair
DAVID BORTH,
Motorola Labs
JAMES CHIDDIX,
AOL Time Warner
JOHN M. CIOFFI,
Stanford University
ELAINE COHEN,
University of Utah
W. BRUCE CROFT,
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
THOMAS E. DARCIE,
AT&T Labs Research
JOSEPH FARRELL,
University of California at Berkeley
JEFFREY M. JAFFE,
Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
ANNA KARLIN,
University of Washington
BUTLER W. LAMPSON,
Microsoft Corporation
EDWARD D. LAZOWSKA,
University of Washington
DAVID LIDDLE,
U.S. Venture Partners
TOM M. MITCHELL,
Carnegie Mellon University
DONALD NORMAN,
Nielsen Norman Group
DAVID A. PATTERSON,
University of California at Berkeley
HENRY (HANK) PERRITT,
Illinois Institute of Technology
BURTON SMITH,
Cray Inc.
TERRY SMITH,
University of California at Santa Barbara
LEE SPROULL,
New York University
JEANNETTE M. WING,
Carnegie Mellon University
Staff
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist
ALAN S. INOUYE, Senior Program Officer
JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer
LYNETTE I. MILLETT, Program Officer
CYNTHIA PATTERSON, Program Officer
STEVEN WOO, Program Officer
JANET BRISCOE, Administrative Officer
DAVID PADGHAM, Research Associate
MARGARET HUYNH, Senior Project Assistant
DAVID DRAKE, Senior Project Assistant
JANICE SABUDA, Senior Project Assistant
JENNIFER BISHOP, Senior Project Assistant
BRANDYE WILLIAMS, Staff Assistant
BOARD ON CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES
EVAN CHARNEY,
University of Massachusetts Medical School,
Chair
JAMES A. BANKS,
University of Washington
DONALD COHEN,
Yale University
THOMAS DEWITT,
Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati
MARY JANE ENGLAND,
Washington Business Group on Health
MINDY FULLILOVE,
Columbia University
PATRICIA GREENFIELD,
University of California at Los Angeles
RUTH T. GROSS,
Stanford University
KEVIN GRUMBACH,
University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco General Hospital
NEAL HALFON,
University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health
MAXINE HAYES,
Washington State Department of Health
MARGARET HEAGARTY,
Columbia University
RENÉE R. JENKINS,
Howard University
HARRIET KITZMAN,
University of Rochester
SANDERS KORENMAN,
Baruch College, City University of New York
HON. CINDY LEDERMAN,
Juvenile Justice Center, Dade County, Florida
VONNIE McLOYD,
University of Michigan
GARY SANDEFUR,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
ELIZABETH SPELKE,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
RUTH STEIN,
Montefiore Medical Center
Liaisons
ELEANOR E. MACCOBY (Liaison, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education),
Department of Psychology (emeritus), Stanford University
WILLIAM ROPER (Liaison, IOM Council),
Institute of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Staff
MICHELE D. KIPKE, Director (through September 2001)
MARY GRAHAM, Associate Director, Dissemination and Communications
SONJA WOLFE, Administrative Associate
ELENA NIGHTINGALE, Scholar-in-Residence
JOAH G. IANNOTTA, Research Assistant
Preface
In response to a mandate from Congress in conjunction with the Protection of Children from Sexual Predators Act of 1998, the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) and the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine established the Committee to Study Tools and Strategies for Protecting Kids from Pornography and Their Applicability to Other Inappropriate Internet Content.
To collect input and to disseminate useful information to the nation on this question, the committee held two public workshops. On December 13, 2000, in Washington, D.C., the committee convened a workshop to focus on nontechnical strategies that could be effective in a broad range of settings (e.g., home, school, libraries) in which young people might be online. This workshop brought together researchers, educators, policy makers, and other key stakeholders to consider and discuss these approaches and to identify some of the benefits and limitations of various nontechnical strategies. The December workshop is summarized in Nontechnical Strategies to Reduce Children’s Exposure to Inappropriate Material on the Internet: Summary of a Workshop.1
The second workshop was held on March 7, 2001, in Redwood City, California. This second workshop focused on some of the technical, business, and legal factors that affect how one might choose to protect kids from pornography on the Internet. The present report provides, in the form of edited transcripts, the presentations at that workshop. Obviously, because the report reflects the presentations on that day, it is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all of the technical, business, and legal issues that might be relevant to this subject. All views expressed in this report are those of the speaker (who sometimes is a member of the study committee speaking for himself or herself). Most importantly, this report should not be construed as representing the views of the Committee to Study Tools and Strategies for Protecting Kids from Pornography and Their Applicability to Other Inappropriate Internet Content; the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board; the Board on Children, Youth, and Families; the National Research Council; or the Institute of Medicine.
The report contains 17 chapters, each of which is essentially an edited transcript of the various briefings to the committee during the workshop. Questions and comments from the audience and committee members are included as footnotes. The first four chapters are devoted to the basics of information retrieval and searching. The next three (Chapters 5-7) address some of the technology and business dimensions of filtering, the process through which certain types of putatively objectionable content are blocked from display on a user’s screen. Two chapters (Chapters 8-9) then address technical and infrastructural dimensions of authentication— the process of proving that one is who one asserts to be. The next three chapters (Chapters 10-12) address automated approaches to negotiating individualized policy preferences and dealing with issues of intellectual property (and preventing unauthorized parties from viewing protected material). Chapter 13 addresses the problems associated with a dot-xxx domain for “cordoning off” sexually explicit material on the Internet. Chapters 14-16 cover various issues associated with business models for the Internet, and the final chapter, Chapter 17, discusses one legal scholar’s perspective on regulating sexually explicit material on the Internet.
Gail Pritchard was largely responsible for assembling the speakers at this workshop, and Laura Ost generated the first draft of the report.
This report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making the published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review com-
ments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their participation in the review of these workshop proceedings:
William Aspray, Computing Research Association,
Hinrich Schütze, Novation Biosciences, and
Frederick Weingarten, American Library Association.
Although these individuals reviewed the report, they were not asked to endorse it, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Peter Blair of the Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences. Appointed by the National Research Council, he was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
Herbert S. Lin, Senior Scientist and Study Director
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
Contents
BASIC CONCEPTS IN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL |
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TEXT CATEGORIZATION AND ANALYSIS |
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CATEGORIZATION OF IMAGES |
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THE TECHNOLOGY OF SEARCH ENGINES |
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CYBER PATROL: A MAJOR FILTERING PRODUCT |
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ADVANCED TECHNIQUES FOR AUTOMATIC WEB FILTERING |
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A CRITIQUE OF FILTERING |
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AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGIES |
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INFRASTRUCTURE FOR AGE VERIFICATION |
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AUTOMATED POLICY PREFERENCE NEGOTIATION |
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DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY |
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A TRUSTED THIRD PARTY IN DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT |
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PROBLEMS WITH A DOT-XXX DOMAIN |
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BUSINESS DIMENSIONS: THE EDUCATION MARKET |
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BUSINESS MODELS: KID-FRIENDLY INTERNET BUSINESSES |
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BUSINESS MODELS BASED ON ADVERTISING |
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CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND THE LAW OF CYBERSPACE |
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