Solid Oak Software, Inc.
http://www.cybersitter.com
Product Type
Client-side filtering product. There is also a proxy-server version of the product. Only the client product was tested.
Product Description
CyberSitter primarily uses exclusion lists of banned sites – black lists. Known sites are classified into a large number of different categories, and the user can select which categories should be allowed and which blocked.
Users are free to add sites to either the exclusion lists, or ‘white’ inclusion lists (which are initially empty) of sites that should be allowed.
CyberSitter also attempts to examine and modify unclassified Web pages to filter out objectionable content. See the notes and effectiveness evaluation sections for more comments on this dynamic filtering technique.
System Requirements
Windows 95 or later.Ease of Installation and De-Installation
Installation and de-installation are both straightforward.Ease of Use
Once installed and configured, the product is very easy to use. The user simply goes about their business as usual and, if they wish to use the Internet, must identify themselves and log in using their individual password.
Configurability
CyberSitter is very configurable. The user has a lot of control over what should be filtered. CyberSitter recognises 30 categories of Web content, and the user can specify which categories of Web site are filtered. One major drawback is that the product does not support multiple users, so users wishing to allow varying levels of access for children of different ages would need to reconfigure the settings every time a different child wanted to access the Internet.
In addition to providing a lot of flexibility in choosing which Web categories to block, CyberSitter also has good coverage of other Internet services, such as Instant
Messaging, ICQ (Internet chat), ftp, news, and email. The user is also able to limit Internet access times, and to log attempts to access material that does not pass the filtering policy in effect.
The configuration options available allow flexible configuration, and provide good filtering coverage of most Web services. Despite the flexibility of configuration, it is still easy to configure the product, although a little more documentation and/or online help would make this even easier.
How updates are handled
The product can be set up to download updates automatically, or the user can request updates whenever they wish by clicking the appropriate buttons.
Performance and Stability
There was no noticeable effect on stability or performance.
Documentation and Support
Free email technical support 7 days a week on [email protected]. Phone support in the US only. Comes with good online documentation and help. There is a newsgroup set up for CyberSitter questions (which you can subscribe to at
www.cybersitter.com), and on-line Web forms you can fill out if you have a question to ask and do not have email.
Response to filtering violation
Attempts to access objectionable material are blocked. Access violations are also logged.
Notes
CyberSitter is unusual in that it uses both a black list of sites (split up into separate categories) and content analysis to filter out objectionable Internet content.
When CyberSitter does not recognise a Web site as one in its black list, it examines the page, looking for objectionable words and/or phrases. These words are either just deleted if they are found or they can trigger truncation of the page. CyberSitter regularly made such drastic changes to Web pages that they were either not displayable by our Web browser, or severely truncated. Despite truncation, some undesirable content made it through at times.
Price
$US 39.95 for 1 year (from vendor Web site)
Usability Assessment
Category Score or Result
Ease of Installation
Detrimental to system performance? No Detrimental to system stability? No Ease of Use
Easy to use 10
CyberSitter was tested on its default ‘out-of-the-box’ settings.
CyberSitter’s performs dynamic content analysis and attempts to alter or truncate Web pages that contain offensive content. This truncation can be minor (offensive words censored out of the page), or major (the page is altered so markedly that it is not viewable). In the first analysis below, where a truncation has occurred, and that truncation results in a significant portion of some Web page being un-viewable, we count the site as having been blocked, even though part of the page may still be viewable. This is not an ideal solution but it allows easier comparison with other products.
23 In our limited testing of this feature, we entered the IP address version of several URL’s that the product blocked. The product failed to block these equivalent IP address versions, but in many cases, the text content analysis resulted in the page being censored or truncated anyway.
24 Searches are redirected to the CyberSitter search engine.
CyberSitter
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Pornography/eroticaArt/PhotographyNudism Glamour/Lingerie modelsFiltering InformationGay Rights/PoliticsSwimsuit modelsDrug EducationMedical/HealthSex EducationContraceptionSexual HealthFree SpeechDrug policyAbortionPolitics Racist/supremacist/nazi/hateBomb-making/terrorism/…History of facism/racismMacabre/Gross contentAnarchy/revolutionary/Atheism/anti-churchAge-of-consent etcAnti-racism/hateDrug AdvocacyRedirectorsProfanityCults
Blocked Passed
CyberSitter blocked access to two of the redirectors and sites that support anonymous Web access. It blocked access to a pornographic site accessed through a redirector, indicating that the returned page was blocked or the outgoing URL was analysed.
The next analysis chart shows the impact of the dynamic analysis and the resulting truncation of Web content.
CyberSitter
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Pornography/eroticaArt/PhotographyNudism Glamour/Lingerie modelsFiltering InformationGay Rights/PoliticsSwimsuit modelsDrug EducationMedical/HealthSex EducationContraceptionSexual HealthFree SpeechDrug policyAbortionPolitics Racist/supremacist/nazi/hateBomb-making/terrorism/…History of facism/racismMacabre/Gross contentAnarchy/revolutionary/Atheism/anti-churchAge-of-consent etcAnti-racism/hateDrug AdvocacyRedirectorsProfanityCults
Blocked Truncated Passed