Filtering Insanity hits NSW.

[Matthew X]

http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/25/1030053009698.html
Cyber censor to watch out for students' bad language
By Linda Doherty, Education Writer
August 26 2002
When NSW's 1.33 million public school and TAFE students and teachers log on 
to their new "e-learning accounts" they will find every keyboard stroke 
monitored to ban bad language.
"Sex" will be out as will the "wildcards" favoured by students who use 
asterisks or question marks to disguise swear words.
A range of filters to block sexually explicit and offensive material is 
being developed by the NSW Department of Education and Training and Unisys, 
the prime contractor of the $33 million roll-out of new email
accounts, Internet access, chat rooms, Web sites and bulletin boards.
One of the largest information technology projects in Australia, the 
e-learning accounts will connect 1.2 million students and 130,000 teachers 
by June next year to a massive bank of data servers in North Ryde. A trial 
of 5000 users in schools will start in October.
Chris Thompson, the chief Unisys executive on the project, said the 
filtering would include blacklisted pornographic or inappropriate Internet 
sites and searches for obscene language. It would be graded from 
kindergarten to year 12.
"You search for the obvious swear words, you can also pick up words like 
sex," she said.
"A classic is the Dick Smith Web site. Filters would normally pick this up 
because of the word 'Dick' but it is a legitimate Web site so it's put into 
an area where it can be accessed."
But year 12 students studying breast cancer, for example, may still be able 
to access sites containing "pictures of naked bodies" if the material was 
relevant to their studies.
Rodney Molesworth, senior vice-president of the NSW Federation of Parents 
and Citizens Associations, said the level of filtering was probably going 
to be "higher than is suitable" due to community fears about children's 
access to inappropriate material.
"It's important to have filters but parents need to recognise they are not 
completely effective. Web sites can be changed overnight and kids have 
always been wonderful at using codes to fool adults," he said.
"It can't be an exercise for restricting kids from material that may be 
challenging. We suggest parents work with their children and have the home 
computer in a public part of the house."
The e-learning accounts, announced in the May 2001 state Budget, will allow 
students and parents to email teachers. Schools and students will have Web 
sites, discussion groups and remote access from any location.
The project, originally estimated at $21.6 million over four years, rose to 
$33 million by last December when the Unisys consortium, of Microsoft, 
Nortel and Optus, won the three-year contract.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Education, John Watkins, said the 
project had been upgraded to include technical support, training for 
teachers and filtering equipment.