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SurfControl announced updates to its SuperScout Web and SuperScout E-Mail content and access-filtering applications on Tuesday, adding such features as limitations on Web access, enhanced context-sensitive word filtering, internal e-mail filtering, and a new engine for determining whether an image contains inappropriate content.

SuperScout Web Filter 4.0 is a rules-based application that offers companies that ability to block employee access to individual Web sites, groups of sites, or to keep employees off the Web altogether.

The new version adds Threshold Blocking, to give employees a preset amount of time or data downloaded on the Internet every day, new reporting features, and customized Web "Deny" pages, says Bob Kessinger, product marketing manager for SuperScout Web at SurfControl.

SuperScout Web's ability to set thresholds on the amount of Internet access users have not only ensures productivity but can also help ease bandwidth usage, Kessinger says. SuperScout Web can also be set to block certain file types, he says.

The software comes with more than 50 new, built-in reports for administrators and can be used to create custom Deny pages, the pages that load when a blocked Web site is requested, to allow companies to refer employees to their company's acceptable use policy, he says.

The list of blocked Web sites now stands at over 2.3 million sites and is constantly growing due to the 40 researchers who work on it, Kessinger says. That list, however, can be overridden by customers, he adds.

The software is built around a drag-and-drop interface for building rules. Rules can be quickly built or modified, he says.

SuperScout Web Filter 4.0 runs on Windows NT/2000 and Microsoft Proxy Server and will be available on October 15. The software costs $23 per user based on a 100 user installation. Prices go down as the number of installations rises. Customers can also subscribe to a frequently updated database that contains newly categorized Web sites for blocking. That database is free for the first year and costs $1150 per year afterwards.

SuperScout E-mail Filter 3.5 performs much the same function as its Web counterpart, acting to block e-mail based on its contents or the files attached to it.

The new version adds support for the filtering of internal e-mail messages via a plug-in to Microsoft's Exchange 5.5 mail server, blocks spam, and e-mail suspected to be spam with Risk Filter. It also aims to improve the accuracy of its blocking with the new LexiMatch context-sensitive scanning tool and the Virtual Image Agent which determines whether an image contains inappropriate material or not, says Paris Trudeau, also in SurfControl's product marketing division.

LexiMatch enables the software to perform Boolean searches (searches that involve the use of words such as and, or, near, etc. as modifiers), thereby decreasing the number of instances in which the filters incorrectly block or let content through, she says. The technology can be used to block chain letters, hoaxes, spam, rumors, and more, she says.

Along with filtering based on words, SuperScout E-Mail can block messages with attached image files, she says. The software's Virtual Image Agent can examine images and the proximity of combinations of colors and shapes, thereby more accurately determining whether objectionable material is contained in the file and whether it should be blocked, she says.

Blocked or questionable e-mail can be held in a "quarantine" area for later examination by administrators, Trudeau says. This feature can also be used for bandwidth management to send nonessential e-mails at off-peak usage hours, she adds.

The new version of SuperScout also incudes new reporting features and Web-based administration, Trudeau says.

SuperScout E-Mail Filter 3.5 runs on Windows NT/2000 systems, though a separate server is recommended for the software. The software will be available October 15 at a price of $30 per user for 100 users. A subscription to the Risk Filter service, which offers a spam database, runs $1150 per year, though it is free for the first year.

Though e-mail and Web content filtering applications have come under fire over the last few years, earning the derogatory nickname "censorware," Trudeau asserts that the software is not the problem.

"The tools are neutral," she says, adding that it's how they are used that determines their value.

Kessinger agrees, saying that "if people want to know what other people are doing [online], they're going to."

The solution, he says, is to "be upfront with your employees, respect your employees."

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