A new firewall content filtering platform that employs both automated image and text analysis has been jointly developed by Biodata Information Technology and Cobion AG to help businesses better control Internet use by employees.
Called I-Watch, this filtering platform combines Cobion's visual detection technology with Biodata's firewall products - Biodata BIG Application, a firewall security product for company networks, and Biodata SPHINX PC Firewall, a new software for home PCs - to block sexually explicit, offensive and other inappropriate images. Text-based filtering techniques are also employed.
Biodata claims that this Internet filtering platform at the firewall and network security level is an industry first.
"This is the first-in-the-world firewall content filtering technology that identifies images and symbols, so that Web pages that contain nudity or subversive symbols are immediately recognised and filtered," a Biodata spokesperson said.
Current Internet filters use key word detection backed by manually prepared lists of offensive sites.
According to Biodata, I-Watch identifies both still images and moving pictures such as streaming videos. The Web filter is updated daily and its range is individually configurable by the user.
