IntegrityNet

Many people are concerned about the content of the Internet and whether that content could possibly be viewed at their homes or businesses. HUBServ is dedicated to contribute to the positive development of the Internet as a public resource to be used by educators, employers, organizations, individuals, and families.

Integrity Net was designed to filter out Internet content deemed objectionable, and potentially dangerous, according to moral and ethical values. Integrity Net will filter out Internet content whose sole purpose is to: shock; be erotic; convey potentially dangerous information, or encourage separation of relationships. Integrity Net will respect the rights of others to express their views and to use the Internet as a public forum.

HUBServ will not participate in the distribution of harmful information. HUBServ will not "host" sites considered objectionable by standard family values.

The Internet is reported to have 45 million users and over 300 million pages. The Internet is doubling in size every 53 days. Within 2 months there will be over 600 million web pages. The Internet is a huge repository of information. You can find almost anything on the Internet. Most of this information is free. Through the Internet you can plan family trips, book flights, rent cars, book activities and reserve your rooms. Investors can buy or sell stocks on the Internet, and realize substantial savings on commissions. Students have available to them more information than can be found in the largest library at the largest university. Along with this information comes pictures, animations, sounds and video clips. All of which can be stored by the student on their home computer and placed in school reports. Future book reports will be handed in on computer disks. The Internet combines entertainment with education. Students are more eager to do their research assignments because the Internet takes them around the world as they seek out information. Students can become "producers" as they put together live animation with photographs and sound files as they complete their homework. The Internet is truly the bridge to greater understanding. For the price of a computer and a connection to the Internet, students, employees, and the average person can explore the world of knowledge, now freely available.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to the Internet. The Internet is an "electronic pipeline". Anyone in the world has the freedom to put whatever they want into that pipeline...and it become instantly available to everyone else. Pornographers are no longer restricted to dirty book stores. People looking for affairs can find each other without leaving the safety of their homes. Pedophiles can exchange photographs of young children engaged in sex with older people. People wanting to know how to make "home-brewed" drugs or bombs can easily find it. The information is there and it tends to be found by teenagers, students and unsupervised employees who have access to the Internet. And, they tend to know more about computers than their parents, teachers, or bosses.

You can filter out the objectionable material! There are two ways of doing it. The first way requires you to purchase a filtering software program and install it on your computer. You need to know how to configure the program and be willing to download new blocking tables on a continuing basis. You must routinely update the information since the Internet is doubling every 53 days. If the end-user goes this route, they are assuming a major role as the "Systems Administrator" for their home, office or organization. Unfortunately, this role, and the knowledge required, is beyond most people.

The second method of filtering involves an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as HUBServ. As your Internet access provider we put you on the Internet through our computers which automatically filter out the objectionable material for you. There's nothing more for you to do! What's the difference between the two methods? The first method is involved and requires someone who understands computers and can actively manage the program. Also, the software you buy can be easily disarmed and turned off without you knowing it. There are numerous websites and bulletin boards hosted by teenagers who explain how to do this. The Integrity Net service cannot be turned off. The filtering is permanent. HUBServ has provided its Integrity Net service to provide the cleanest Internet content to everyone, regardless of their position within the school, the home or business.

HOW Integrity Net WORKS

WHAT IS FILTERED OUT:

This philosophy reflects HUBServ's criteria in identifying known objectionable Internet material. The general criteria to block or filter a website are listed below.

Nudity: The absence of clothing or exposing any and all parts of the human genitalia. Exceptions: Classical art (ie: Michaelangelo).

Adult Content: Any material that has been publicly labeled as being strictly for adults.

Sex: Description or depiction of sexual acts and any erotic material.

Violence: Graphic depiction of violent or illegal acts including murder, rape, torture, or injury.

Drug Use: Usage or encouraging usage of any recreational drugs including tobacco or alcohol advertising. Exceptions: Material with valid educational value (ie: drug abuse statistics).

Bad Language: Crude or vulgar language or gestures.

Discrimination: Denigration of a person's race, religion, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation.

Crime: Encouragement of, tools for, or advice on carrying out any criminal act. This includes lock-picking, bomb-making, or hacking information.

Tastelessness: Excretory functions, tasteless humor, graphic medical photos outside of medical context, or extreme forms of body modification (cutting, branding, tattooing, or bizarre body piercing).

Chat Sites: Public chat websites. (personal or private chat sites with invited groups are permitted)

High Risk: Websites with lack of editorial control which then may fall into one of the other filtered categories.

HUBServ does not filter political opinions, involve itself in boycotts, or competitive services.

HOW IS IT FILTERED? HUBServ purchases its filtering service from N2H2, Inc. located in Seattle, Washington. N2H2, Inc. is the leading provider of filtering services to Internet service providers, corporations, and organizations that understand the logic of filtering objectionable material at the source (the web server) instead of at the workstation (the computer). By filtering out objectionable material at the source, individuals who may want to "disarm" the filtering service are prevented from doing so. N2H2's staff searches through the Internet each day for new objectionable sites (see filtering philosophy) and each day downloads the new list onto HUBServ's filtering server. Additionally, N2H2 has added a "Request Page Review" button to all pages, blocked and unblocked. By doing so subscribers are capable of requesting that a blocked, or an unblocked, page be further reviewed by both the N2H2 and Integrity Net review staffs. By adding the "Request Page Review" button to all pages, both blocked and unblocked, the total review staffs including both N2H2's and HUBServ's, are increased by the total number of subscribers. This makes the total review staff locating objectionable Internet web pages the largest in the world. N2H2's list of inappropriate web pages is the largest, and most accurate, list of objectionable sites available today. Before initiating the filtering service, the staff of HUBServ conducted extensive research into vendors providing ISP filtering services. From that research, the staff of HUBServ concluded that the filtering service provided by N2H2, Inc. was unsurpassed and was capable of meeting the strict requirements we had agreed upon. These requirements are generally agreed upon by school and religious administrators, public officers, employers and concerned parents.

The following set of procedures outline how the review and filtering service is performed. An extensive staff reviews thousands of new web pages each day by N2H2, Inc. The filtering service uses state-of-the-art software to continuously "browse" the Internet. This process identifies thousands of suspect sites every day, helping to find new web sites to filter and to discover changes to existing sites. The filtering list provided to HUBServ is updated automatically everyday by N2H2. Any customer can automatically request an additional review of a site they think is objectionable and should be blocked, or a blocked site they think should not be blocked by simply "clicking" on the Request Page Review button found on all web pages. The entire system is "cached" to greatly enhance access speed.

Common FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

1. Why does HUBServ offer filtered access?

We believe there is a large segment of the public that either has avoided the Internet, or is concerned about using the Internet, because of the ready availability of pornography. HUBServ provides an alternative to "unrestricted" Internet access, to allow these people to use the Internet free from such concerns.

2. Aren’t parents the only ones who need to be concerned? Adults can’t get to pornography unless they want to, can they?

This is a common misconception. Whether you simply follow an interesting link from one site to another, or search the Internet using "keywords," you can discover unintended sites. Here’s a good example from a mother of teenagers:

"I was trying to locate some information on the missions organization, Youth with a Mission, and put the terms ‘youth’ and ‘mission’ in a search engine as keywords. I was horrified to find, without warning, that one of the sites the search located was a site for homosexual teenagers, complete with graphics of sexual activity."

Integrity Net’s filtering prevents this kind of surprise.

3. Isn’t filtering a kind of censorship?

Certainly it is. It is one of the best kinds of censorship. It is a misunderstanding to think that all censorship is evil. Whenever a newspaper editor decides that a story is not worth printing, that story has been censored. Censorship is simply making choices about what we want to see, or allow our families to see. By choosing filtered access our users are deciding not to view pornography, and to let our filters keep them from having to do the work of reviewing each site personally.

4. What does a user have to do to use the pornography filtering?

Not a thing! All the filtering is done by a computer at HUBServ’s facilities, and it is updated daily by automated searches of the Internet. There is no software for the user to buy or configure, and nothing to maintain. And there is no danger that the filter can be bypassed on the user’s computer!

5. Does Integrity Net provide a bypass to the filter for users who want it?

Yes.

6. What about users who find a site improperly blocked?

HUBServ’s administration tools allow us to check any site that a user feels should be blocked, but isn’t, or (more often) to check any site that a user feels should not be blocked, to see if it should be opened up. We can manually make changes to the database of blocked sites, adding or deleting sites if that is appropriate. All the user needs to do is submit our Filtering Report Form.

7. What kind of material does Integrity Net filter?

HUBServ filters out access to pages on the world wide web containing nudity, sexual material, graphic violence, and favorable reference to drug use, favorable reference to criminal activity and chat rooms. Although chat rooms are extremely popular sites, the vast majority of them are designed for the exchange of obscene and pornographic material, as well as other forms of illegal and inappropriate material.

The Internet is a tremendous resource. With our Integrity Net filtering solution, HUBServ provides access to this wealth of knowledge and information to individuals who are concerned about exposure to inappropriate material. Filtered Internet is also a huge asset to businesses who desire the Marketing and Communication Potential of the Internet without the distractions, liabilities and loss of productivity

Disclaimer: No filtering system can block every objectionable web site. Integrity Net is no exception. We believe that our system provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date protection of any product or service available. However, due to the ever changing Internet including the addition and changes of new sites daily, we cannot guarantee that ALL inappropriate materials will be blocked.

We do provide:

Automatic daily updates

We monitor your filtering system 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Filtering override feature

Daily detailed Internet use statistics

Most extensive filtering list in the business

Caching

Caching stores frequently used web sites

Standard part of the filtering system

Increases bandwidth performance

Speeds network transmissions

Allows hierarchical network caching configurations

Custom caching configurations available

Advantages of using Integrity Net

The filters reside on a computer in the HUBServ office. Our filters require no maintenance or updating by your system administrators. HUBServ does that for you.
Because our filters reside on the network hub there is no software to update or maintain.
Only one installation, NOT one on every computer.
Configurations exist for any size network whether it has 15 or 15,000 workstations.
Our system actually enhances your Internet performance by providing large caching space for your users.

Integrity Net Delivers Exhaustive Internet Filtering And Blocking Support

Our filters block entire domains containing large amounts of sexually explicit or otherwise objectionable material.
They also block individual web pages containing similar material.
Inappropriate language is "X"ed out.
Chat and Usenet newsgroups can be blocked
We update our filters constantly. We can block any newly found site quickly and efficiently. Our filtered site lists are being updated daily, not just once or twice a month.
Custom filters are available.
Unlike other filtering programs, students can't get around the filtering because it is simply not accessible.

SPECIAL NOTE: When a proxy-server is located on-site, like a local school district or ISP, they have the option to manage a secondary database which can customize the filtering to LOCAL community standards.