Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report (Second edition; fully revised and updated)

No sooner was the Internet upon us than anxiety arose over the ease of accessing pornography and other controversial content. In response, entrepreneurs soon developed filtering products. By the end of the decade, a new industry had emerged to create and market Internet filters....Yet filters were highly imprecise from the beginning. The sheer size of the Internet meant that identifying potentially offensive content had to be done mechanically, by matching "key" words and phrases; hence, the blocking of Web sites for "Middlesex County," or words such as "magna cum laude". Internet filters are crude and error-prone because they categorize expression without regard to its context, meaning, and value. Yet these sweeping censorship tools are now widely used in companies, homes, schools, and libraries. Internet filters remain a pressing public policy issue to all those concerned about free expression, education, culture, and democracy. This fully revised and updated report surveys tests and studies of Internet filtering products from the mid-1990s through 2006. It provides an essential resource for the ongoing debate

Assessing the validity of western measurement of online risks to children in an Asian context

Before the advent of the Internet, television with limited channels was the only media choice that most children were exposed to, and took place under family supervision. Children’s television viewing was controllable and the risks were limited to watching sexual and violent content. Nowadays, children are surrounded by a variety of digital media and are exposed to many different risks, many of which are still unknown and under-researched. For many children, the Internet is fully integrated into their daily lives, along with the potential risks. The present study aimed to (i) describe the level of risks children are exposed to, and (2) test the measurement validity of a total of 45 items assessing nine scales online risky behavior in children were adapted from studies carried out in Europe and the United States. The study comprised 420 school going children aged 9, 11, 13, 14, and 16 studying in Malaysia. Descriptive analyses showed that children were more exposed to ‘unwanted exposure to pornography’ and less to ‘conduct risk’. Boys and older children were more exposed to the risks compared to girls and younger children. The study validated five dimensions (inappropriate materials, sexting, contact-related risks on, risky online sexual behavior, and bullying/being bullied) assessing children’s online risky behavior by using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Further research is needed to investigate the measurement of children’s online risk, since the scales developed in Europe and the United States are not wholly suitable to an Asian context

Artificial intelligence and UK national security: Policy considerations

RUSI was commissioned by GCHQ to conduct an independent research study into the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for national security purposes. The aim of this project is to establish an independent evidence base to inform future policy development regarding national security uses of AI. The findings are based on in-depth consultation with stakeholders from across the UK national security community, law enforcement agencies, private sector companies, academic and legal experts, and civil society representatives. This was complemented by a targeted review of existing literature on the topic of AI and national security. The research has found that AI offers numerous opportunities for the UK national security community to improve efficiency and effectiveness of existing processes. AI methods can rapidly derive insights from large, disparate datasets and identify connections that would otherwise go unnoticed by human operators. However, in the context of national security and the powers given to UK intelligence agencies, use of AI could give rise to additional privacy and human rights considerations which would need to be assessed within the existing legal and regulatory framework. For this reason, enhanced policy and guidance is needed to ensure the privacy and human rights implications of national security uses of AI are reviewed on an ongoing basis as new analysis methods are applied to data

Aspects of internet security: identity management and online child protection

This thesis examines four main subjects; consumer federated Internet Identity Management (IdM), text analysis to detect grooming in Internet chat, a system for using steganographed emoticons as ‘digital fingerprints’ in instant messaging and a systems analysis of online child protection. The Internet was never designed to support an identity framework. The current username / password model does not scale well and with an ever increasing number of sites and services users are suffering from password fatigue and using insecure practises such as using the same password across websites. In addition users are supplying personal information to vast number of sites and services with little, if any control over how that information is used. A new identity metasystem promises to bring federated identity, which has found success in the enterprise to the consumer, placing the user in control and limiting the disclosure of personal information. This thesis argues though technical feasible no business model exists to support consumer IdM and without a major change in Internet culture such as a breakdown in trust and security a new identity metasystem will not be realised. Is it possible to detect grooming or potential grooming from a statistical examination of Internet chat messages? Using techniques from speaker verification can grooming relationships be detected? Can this approach improve on the leading text analysis technique – Bayesian trigram analysis? Using a novel feature extraction technique and Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) to detect potential grooming proved to be unreliable. Even with the benefit of extensive tuning the author doubts the technique would match or improve upon Bayesian analysis. Around 80% of child grooming is blatant with the groomer disguising neither their age nor sexual intent. Experiments conducted with Bayesian trigram analysis suggest this could be reliably detected, detecting the subtle, devious remaining 20% is considerably harder and reliable detection is questionable especially in systems using teenagers (the most at risk group). Observations of the MSN Messenger service and protocol lead the author to discover a method by which to leave digitally verifiable files on the computer of anyone who chats with a child by exploiting the custom emoticon feature. By employing techniques from steganography these custom emoticons can be made to appear innocuous. Finding and removing custom emoticons is a non-trivial matter and they cannot be easily spoofed. Identification is performed by examining the emoticon (file) hashes. If an emoticon is recovered e.g. in the course of an investigation it can be hashed and the hashed compared against a database of registered users and used to support non-repudiation and confirm if an individual has indeed been chatting with a child. Online child protection has been described as a classic systems problem. It covers a broad range of complex, and sometimes difficult to research issues including technology, sociology, psychology and law, and affects directly or indirectly the majority of the UK population. Yet despite this the problem and the challenges are poorly understood, thanks in no small part to mawkish attitudes and alarmist media coverage. Here the problem is examined holistically; how children use technology, what the risks are, and how they can best be protected – based not on idealism, but on the known behaviours of children. The overall protection message is often confused and unrealistic, leaving parents and children ill prepared to protect themselves. Technology does have a place in protecting children, but this is secondary to a strong and understanding parent/child relationship and education, both of the child and parent

Australian Governments and dilemmas in filtering the Internet: juggling freedoms against potential for harm

This paper examines proposed internet filtering policies in Australia from the 1990s to 2014 and discusses some of their ideological underpinnings. Executive summary The Internet is a revolutionary source of information and its dissemination; and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals without regard for geographic location. Since its inception, however, concerns have been raised about the potential for unsavoury characters to use the Internet as a vehicle for distributing pornography and material of a violent nature to young or otherwise vulnerable individuals. Governments across the world have attempted to deal with such activities by various means and to varying degrees. These have included imposing mandatory filtering at an Internet Service Provider (ISP) level and optional filtering at the computer level. In Australia there has been considerable debate about what degree of filtering (if any) should be mandated. The Howard Government favoured an approach which emphasised self-regulation by ISPs combined with a legislative component and education and freedom for families to choose between either computer or ISP filtering based on a list of unacceptable content. The Rudd and Gillard Governments preferred the option of a mandatory ISP level filter, although this too was to be based on a ‘blacklist’ of prohibited content. Both options have been criticised as being expensive and inefficient. In addition, it has been argued that the Rudd/Gillard option would have had a detrimental impact on Internet speeds and that it would set a precedent for future governments to widen filtering to other forms of expression. The Howard Government’s programs were largely discarded by Labor after it was elected in 2007. However, Labor’s own filtering option was abandoned prior to its defeat in the 2013 election. In conjunction with their filtering options , both Coalition and Labor Governments have supported education and information campaigns to assist people, particularly children, to deal with online predators and both have introduced successful programs. The current Coalition Government’s policy on Internet filtering appears to favour light-handed legislation combined with education and information programs. This paper examines the iterations of internet filtering policies from the 1990s to 2014 and discusses some of their ideological underpinnings