Some schools find Internet filtering software blocks legitimate sites.
Cybercrime legal analyst Alex Wellen looks at why some filtering software programs are blocking students from viewing the items like the Constitution, the Bible, and the Canterbury Tales. A research study called The Censorware Project examined hundreds of hours of surfing logs from Utah's public schools. Michael Sims, the primary author of the report, admitted that the software didn't block all versions of the Web pages in question, such as the U.S. Constitution. Sims believes the staff of institutions using filters should consistently check on what kinds of material is being blocked, taking a hard look at why it's being banned. Secure Computing, whose filtering software was scrutinized by the study, claimed that their staff examines 98 percent of all material filtered, that only .4 percent of Web content is ever filtered, and that errors are extremely rare.