CompuGuardian

Sexting and Sexcasting at School

Many students do not realize the devastating effects of sexting, the uploading of indecent pictures of oneself, or sexcasting, the uploading of images of indecent acts with others.  For example, a young woman in Ohio sent nude pictures of herself to her boyfriend.  When they broke up, he sent the pictures to several people at school.  She was devastated and ended up committing suicide. ¹

Sexting can ruin reputations and prevent future opportunities for a lifetime.  What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet… forever.  Once it propagates, it cannot be erased.  In many states, students involved in sexting can be arrested for three felony offenses: manufacturing, possession and distribution of child pornography.

Sexting can pose a serious threat to school administrators.  An assistant principal was recently accused of child pornography after confiscating a cell phone from a student with an indecent picture of a minor on it and downloading the image as evidence against this student. ²  Sexting is not limited to cell phones.  Images can be emailed or uploaded onto school computers.

Having a monitoring service like CompuGuardian not only helps schools prevent this problem, but it can provide a clear record of who sent which picture to whom so that administrators are not falsely accused of inappropriate actions when disciplining students involved in this activity.

Portal vs. Client Monitoring for Schools

Is it better to monitor and filter school computers at a centralized Internet portal or at the computers themselves with client software?  Some would argue that a centralized solution is easier to install and maintain than software that needs to be installed on every computer, but it is not enough.

Portal filters are effective at URL-based blocking as well as monitoring where Internet traffic is going and who is using it.  Content analysis however, such as keyword filtering and keystroke logging, is limited to unsecured web sites.  Portal monitoring cannot tell which applications are running on clients or track non-Internet related activities.  Portal monitors are useless if computers are able to connect to an outside network such as a neighboring wi-fi signal, a virtual tunnel connection through the portal or to an off-campus Internet connection when computers, especially laptops, are taken home, on travel or stolen.

Client filtering and monitoring can control and record many things that portal software cannot.  For example, video games, pornographic images, pirated media and hacker software can be brought into the school on USB sticks or CDs and would never be detected, let alone filtered, by portal software.  Client-based CompuGuardian takes screenshots, logs keystrokes and monitors application usage.  It blocks unauthorized application usage even when it does not connect to the Internet.  Reports can be run to identify problem students based on activity logs or to reduce wasted software license costs by identifying who uses which software how much.  Computers can be tracked even when they connect to an outside network.

CompuGuardian gives you the best of both worlds.  Centralized web-based administration with the power of client-based monitoring and filtering.  It is the only monitoring and filtering solution with patent-pending Teenagerproof technology that prevents it from being disabled or bypassed.

School Internet Filter Problems

Most schools have Internet filters to protect students from inappropriate online content and to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act.  However, Internet filters are not enough.

First of all, with hundreds of new pornography and other inappropriate sites surfacing everyday, it is a losing battle to try to create a database of every bad web site on the Internet.  Keyword-based filters like CompuGuardian can be used to provide a second layer of protection, but even these do not block all improper web sites.  Predators, pornographers and drug dealers are actively reaching out to students, using every technique at their disposal to trap young computer users.  Filters are just not sophisticated enough to thwart all the actions of online criminals in their quest for new victims.

Second, while filters help prevent accidental exposure to adult content online, they typically block valid educational web content as well, more often than not throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water.  A recent study showed that “filters overstep their bounds in many cases … and teachers simply are too busy to follow up with technology staff to request access to legitimate sites, or–worse–technology staff aren’t responsive enough to the needs of classroom teachers, too often educationally useful sites aren’t removed from these filters’ block lists, despite the ability of administrators to remove them at the local level.” ¹

So how do you relax the censorship of Internet filters that are frustrating and preventing students from doing online research, while protecting them from online dangers?  The answer lies in teaching students, at a level appropriate to their age, to learn how to deal with improper web content and follow up on this training with monitoring software that can catch problem situations where students are actively seeking pornography, violence and drugs online.  CompuGuardian provides powerful reporting tools to examine millions of activity log entries in a matter of minutes and raise red flags that warrant investigation and disciplinary actions.

Cyberbullying Threatens Schools

Online harassment of students can ruin reputations and cause psychological damage.  Cyberbullying can even drive students to commit suicide.

One study showed that online messages posted by middle and high school students in the Los Angeles area were found to be:

“…full of sexual innuendo aimed at individual students and focusing on topics such as ‘the weirdest people at your school.’  …prompting a sense of despair among scores of teenagers disparaged on the site, and frustration among parents and school administrators.… One crying student, whose address and phone number were published on the site, was barraged with calls from people calling her a slut and a prostitute.” ¹

As psychologist Kelly Dedel told the Los Angeles Times about cyberbullying:

“It’s not just a few of the kids at school; it’s the whole world.…Anybody could log on and see what they said about you…. What’s written remains, haunting, torturing these kids.”

Just as schools have been sued for not protecting students from traditional bullying, cyberbullying is becoming a real legal liability for schools.  Providing a safe environment for students is just as important in the computer lab as it is everywhere else on campus. 

CompuGuardian provides powerful logging and reporting tools to schools to proactively prevent cyberbullying before it escalates into a serious problem.

Pornography on School Computers

Could schools face legal liabilities by allowing pornography on school computers out of negligence?

In March, a teacher was caught viewing pornography on his computer while he was teaching a class of 13-years olds¹.

Just two months ago, at another school a class of eight and nine year-olds were watching a computer presentation when a pornographic video “accidentally” began playing². What was it doing on the teacher’s computer to start with?

Protect your school from legal threats and protect your students from “accidental” exposure with CompuGuardian. Know what your teachers are doing with school computers, even outside of the school firewall. Prevent incidents before they happen.

What Is CompuGuardian?

CompuGuardian protects students and schools from the dangers and liabilities of online school computers. Internet hazards threaten the well being of student body, staff and administrators. CompuGuardian lets you know exactly what is going on in real-time on any school computer or laptop inside or outside the school firewall. It also lets you remotely control these computers. Contact us for more information.

Powerful Reporting and Organizing Tools

Powerful reporting tools help you to sift through logs to identify problems. Web-based computer controls allow you to assign computers to groups and subgroups to make monitoring and controlling hundreds or thousands of computers manageable. Create accounts for staff with customizable permissions and assigned computer subgroups so that teachers can monitor their own classes or parents can monitor their own children at school.

Teenagerproof

CompuGuardian is the ONLY monitoring and control software for schools with patent pending Teenagerproof^® technology to make sure that your students won’t be able to bypass or disable it. It does no good to invest thousands of dollars into a software product that is easily shut down by students.

What Is the Children’s Internet Protection Act?

The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is a federal law that helps protect children from inappropriate content online on school and library computers.  Schools and libraries that comply with the law may be eligible for federal funding to help pay for Internet access costs.

The following are requirements of the act:
1- Implement technology to block or filter obscene images, child pornography and content that would be harmful to minors.
2- Educate minors about appropriate online behavior, including social networking and cyberbullying.
3- Monitor the online activities of minors.
4- Restrict access to minors of inappropriate and harmful online content, make sure their electronic communications are safe, prevent the illegal use of computer resource by minors including hacking, and prevent the dissemination of personal information of minors.

For more information, visit the CIPA web site.