New Survey of 1,500 Education Professionals Reveals U.S. Schools Rife with Serious Internet Infractions

Teacher Soliciting Minors through MySpace Just One of Many Anecdotes that Highlight an Alarming Trend

ORANGE, Calif. – August 29, 2006 –K-12 educators and administrators are advised to take caution this Back-to-School season when it comes to Web use at schools. 8e6 Technologies, a security company dedicated to Internet filtering and reporting, today announced the results of a survey conducted at the recent National Education Computing Conference (NECC) that reveal disturbing breaches of Internet Acceptable Use Policies by students and teachers alike. 8e6 conducted the survey to better understand the issues confronting K-12 educators and technologists who are tasked with ensuring a secure learning environment at a time when social networking, Internet pornography and other online threats continue to plague school networks. More than 1,500 teachers, school administrators and IT professionals responded to the survey, sharing their concerns, views and real-life stories about what takes place at schools, where attentions quite often stray from textbooks and approved online curricula.

Among the most glaring revelations uncovered in the survey is an incident concerning a middle school student who stole the school band director’s password—a password that provided unlimited access to the school band Web site, the band director’s church Web site and his personal home page. Armed with this “universal password,” the student posted pornographic content on the band site, transformed the church site into a satanic worshiping page, and created fake pornographic images of the director’s wife, turning a personal homepage into an online red-light district.

Another alarming anecdote concerned an eighth grader who emailed a threat to the President of the United States. The student was tracked down by IP address and school seating chart. The Secret Service went to the school to question the student, who was ultimately expelled.

“The anecdotal responses from NECC attendees put a spotlight on the extreme Internet use challenges K-12 educators and administrators face on a daily basis,” said Paul Myer, president and COO of 8e6 Technologies.  “When 8e6 started in the Internet filtering business more than 10 years ago, student access to inappropriate content was a top concern. Today, educators still grapple with that same issue, but also have to deal with the ramifications of dangerous and often illegal online behavior, from both staff and students – significantly upping the ante in legal liability and student safety.”

Students are not the only ones guilty of violating school Internet Acceptable Use Policies. Of the hundreds of anecdotes conveyed in the survey, a significant portion of incidents involved serious misdeeds perpetrated by K-12 teachers. One teacher became physically involved with several students while communicating with them via MySpace. Another educator was caught scanning online dating sites during school hours and soliciting student input on potential suitors.

Survey Highlights

• More than 82 percent of school administrators and staff polled are very concerned about children being protected while using the Internet.
• 58 percent of respondents cited criminal acts such as threatening others or attempting to hack into the school network as the most common offenses of students.
• 63 percent of respondents said that the most common offense by teachers is viewing pornographic content. 
• While 73 percent of those polled believe that parents should be responsible for students’ home Internet activities, more than 91 percent of respondents believe that when students bring home school laptop computers, the laptops should be protected by Web filtering and adhere to the same Internet Acceptable Use Policies as found in the classroom.
• Over 31 percent of IT administrators are required to provide detailed Web use reports to school principals and other administrators on a weekly or monthly basis. Eighty seven percent need to submit reports on an as-needed basis.

Of the responses from more than 1,500 participants, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook were considered the most troublesome to security administrators. Pornography and other inappropriate content were deemed the second most problematic. Those surveyed also expressed concern about YouTube and other video download sites, music/P2P download sites and other streaming media programming that drain network resources. To learn more about how MySpace has impacted the K-12 learning environment, 8e6 Technologies has created a podcast series called “Perspectives on MySpace,” which include individual interviews with a network manager from an ISP serving the K-12 market, a secondary school teacher, a student and a parent. The podcast series is available on iTunes and other leading podcasting sites, and can be accessed from the 8e6 Website at http://www.8e6.com/education/podcasts/index.htm.

“Kids nowadays have access to everything on the Internet,” said Jim Culbert, information security analyst, Duval County Public Schools. “With parents away most of the time and schools issuing laptops to students, who’s protecting our students and making sure they don’t inadvertently get into trouble with the click of a mouse? With 8e6, it’s nice to know that children are unable to access inappropriate Web sites no matter where they take these laptops. Not only does 8e6 block inappropriate Web sites, but the reporting feature also allows me to generate reports easily.”

About 8e6 Technologies
8e6 Technologies is a security company dedicated to Internet filtering and reporting. We are the only Web filtering company that uses a unique "pass-by technology" on a highly scalable appliance. Our standalone reporting appliance is easy to use and provides extremely detailed information, faster than any other product on the market.  Our standalone security solution achieves a dramatic reduction in the cost of hardware, subscriptions, maintenance, and support, and produces a substantially lower total cost of ownership. A Web filtering pioneer since 1995, the company maintains headquarters in Orange, California, with offices in Taipei and Beijing, as well as a network of channel partners worldwide. For more information, please call 888.786.7999 or visit www.8e6.com.

For More information:
8e6 Technologies
Eric Lundbohm 714.282.6111 Ext 161