January 31, 2002 — Technology reporter Tom Lawrence has found a Triangle company that markets a new, "smart" filter that really works in filtering filth on the Net.

It's called

Filterworx

, and it's aimed directly at preventing pornography on your computer.

Alexander Steele, CEO of Raleigh's Filterworx, says existing filters can't keep up with the growth of porn on the Net.

"The problem is, over a thousand sites a day are born on the internet that are pornographic, so what this does is it blocks on-the-fly using artificial intelligence and neural networks."

Filterworx uses the unique BAIR filtering system developed by Exotrope of Elmira, New York.

All sites visited are scanned before they get back to your computer.

Everything, e-mail and Web sites, are checked by Cray supercomputers.

Girls.com didn't show anything during a demonstration.

"It'll actually bring this up and allow the site because there's nothing there; but once it re-directs, because of the on-the-fly filter, it will block it," Steele said.

Filterworx's BAIR filtering system uses artificial intelligence to filter out more than just pornographic text.

Says Steele, "it will search out the image and actually scan the image and determines if it's inappropriate."

The service is available now for $6.95 a month for individual use.

How good is it?

"99.8% effective in independent tests," according to Steele, "and that's been done for the last two years."

Hate, race and terrorist sites are also blocked and the company is training the BAIR system to do even more.

Steels says, "This allows you to be online without being on guard and I would think 100 percent of families would want this."

A newer version of the BAIR system, due out soon, will also filter chat rooms and Instant Messages.

Systems are also available for corporate networks and Internet Service Providers.

Related Story: