Using the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS), users of Internet applications, such as the World Wide Web, FTP, and Gopher, can filter the material they encounter and accept or reject the material based on its ratings. This filtering allows parents, businesses, schools, or discerning individuals to block the access to inappropriate and objectionable material. For the most up-to-date PICS information, see the World Wide Web Consortium's PICS Web site (http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/). The specifications published at this Web site enable:
The Internet Connection Secure Server makes it easy for you to store and serve the rating labels for the documents you publish. It also allows you to act as a rating service or label bureau by providing a means for you to maintain and distribute rating labels for other Web sites.
Web sites can rate themselves or be rated by a third party, called a rating service. A rating service evaluates Web content according to their own published criteria and then distributes the labels through a label bureau. Often a rating service acts as its own label bureau and distributes its own labels.
Some rating services will also give you assistance in assessing and labeling your own site and documents. The World Wide Web Consortium publishes a list of PICS self-rating services at http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/selfrat.htm.
The PICS specification does not determine who can or will act as a rating service. The World Wide Web Consortium publishes a list of PICS third-party rating services at http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/pics.htm. In addition, anyone who wants to can set up a rating service. You can set up such a service by:
A rating service can choose any criteria on which to rate Web sites. While some might rate Web sites for their violence or sexual content, others could choose to rate educational content, political correctness, or even how "cool" the site is. Also, a rating service can rate any and all Web sites that it wants to rate.
Having your Web site and pages rated is often desirable. In fact, it may even be necessary for your Web site to be rated in order to be viewed by a PICS-enabled client. Understanding how Web clients use the PICS labels and ratings will help make this clear.
PICS-enabled clients allow the users to determine which rating services they want to use and, for each rating service, which ratings are acceptable and which are unacceptable.
For example, a family might choose a rating service that rates documents according to their sexual content. The rating service might have a low rating for romance, a higher rating for passionate kissing, and yet higher ratings for more explicit sexual activity. The parents might decide that documents containing romance are the highest acceptable rating for their household. They would then configure their browser to reject all documents that are unrated or contain a higher rating from this rating service.
In another example, the Hi-Tek Systems Corporation could label its own documents with a "For Hi-Tek Use Only" and could equip all its employees with browsers configured to accept only documents with that rating.
There are several steps in this process:
Faster response time is the main reason why rating labels for a site should reside at the site.
Whether your Web server publishes Web documents or you are a rating service and want to provide the labels for other Web sites, the Internet Connection Secure Server can help you manage PICS labels.
Note: If you are going to use your server to rate your own documents or to run a label bureau, we strongly suggest that you use the default server port (80).
As more browsers are configured to block access to unrated documents, it behooves you to have your Web site rated. And because it saves time when a browser can get the ratings when it sends its initial request, it behooves you to store the ratings for your pages on your own server. With the Internet Connection Secure Server's PICS support, you can manage the labels from one central file and serve them with requested pages and documents. These labels can be:
If you are establishing your own rating service, you can rate your own site according to your published criteria.
Voluntary rating services, such as SafeSurf (http://www.safesurf.com) trust Web administrators to be honest in the assessment of their own pages.
In this case, you might contact the rating service and request that they rate your Web site (if they have not already done so) and send you the label information. In fact, you might want to contact several rating services to have your site rated for different subject criteria. If the third-party rating services have the Internet Connection Secure Server, this process can be simplified with an electronic request. See "How to request PICS label information".
You can edit each of your HTML files and embed PICS ratings information in the meta element of the document header. This process is entirely manual and therefore time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to maintain. It does not incorporate any of the security mechanisms (message digest, digital signature, etc.) that would guarantee the validity of the label, if this is important to the requesting client. The PICS specification (http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/) explains how you can embed rating information in each document. It is not covered here.
The Internet Connection Secure Server's PICS support allows you to store the rating labels for all the documents on your Web site and manage them from a central file. The labels are sent along with your Web pages when a client requests them.
In addition to the rating labels, you must also have a PICS-compliant rating system description file that describes the rating system used to rate your documents. These are called RAT files, and rating services will provide them along with their labels.
Once you have both the labels and the RAT file, you can use the PICS configuration file to manage these labels from a central point. See "How to manage PICS labels from a central file".
Because many Web sites will want their pages rated, you have an opportunity to provide a service to a large number of Web sites.
The PICS configuration file provides you with the means to manage the labels for other Web sites and transmit them when requested.
The PICS specifications allow anyone to set up a rating service, define the criteria by which they rate Web sites and documents, and then provide the ratings. With the Internet Connection Secure Server's PICS support, you can establish your server as a rating service and maintain and distribute labels for other Web sites. You can rate documents at a Web site individually or use wildcard characters to quickly assign the same rating to all or part of a Web site's offerings. You will need to create these labels and your own RAT file. The RAT file is a PICS-compliant rating file that describes the rating system used to rate documents. Once you have both the labels and the RAT file, you can use the PICS configuration file to manage these labels from a central point. Your server will then be able to automatically send the rating labels you have assigned when a client requests them. See "How to manage PICS labels from a central file".
If a Web site that you have rated requests the labels for their pages, you can also provide them with all their current ratings. Unfortunately, the World Wide Web Consortium has not yet defined a standard for the label bureaus or rating services to send a Web site all their label information. This means that the method for this exchange will have to be determined by the rating services and the Web sites that ask for them.
If the Web sites and the rating service (or label bureau) both have the Internet Connection Secure Server, they can electronically exchange rating labels and label entries for their PICS configuration file. In this case, the rating labels will be automatically stored on the server and the PICS configuration file will be updated so that it can transmit the labels with the requested documents.
If not, we are assuming that the rating services will send a file of all the required label information to the Web site administrators. Once the administrators receive this information, they will use whatever method is available on their server to create PICS rating labels and enable their server to transmit them with the requested documents.
Managing PICS labels on the Internet Connection Secure Server requires three things:
If you are starting your own rating service or label bureau, you will need to create a file that describes your rating system. This file must be in the machine-readable format detailed in the PICS technical specifications and it should have the .rat extension. If you are getting your labels from a third-party rating service, you must also get a copy of their RAT file.
Whether you are maintaining labels for your own Web site or, as a rating service, maintaining labels for other sites, you will need to store the labels in your server's file system, one label per file. Rating services will rate documents on the Internet and create the rating label files themselves. Web sites will either rate their own site and create the label files or they will request the rating labels from third-party rating services.
If you are getting your rating labels from a third-party rating service that also has the Internet Connection Secure Server, you can request the labels electronically and they will be sent and stored directly on your system for you. Otherwise, you may need to do some editing of the information you receive before creating rating labels to store in your file system.
When creating PICS rating labels, be sure to follow the PICS specification. See "How to create PICS labels". We recommend you use .lbl for the extension on your label files and we have included a predefined AddType directive in the configuration file for this extension.
This file provides a mapping between the actual rating labels and the documents they rate. It enables the server to quickly respond to HTTP, FTP, and Gopher requests. If you are getting your rating labels from a third-party rating service that also has the Internet Connection Secure Server, your PICS configuration file will automatically be updated with entries for the labels you receive. If you are a rating service or if you receive rating labels from third-party rating services that have a different server, you will need to maintain the PICS configuration file yourself. You can use the online Configuration and Administration Forms to update and maintain this file or you can edit it manually. See "How to update the PICS configuration file".
You will need to store both the RAT file and rating labels in files on your server.
The RAT file should be available from a rating service's Web site. The rating labels must be stored one label per file.
You can use any directories, subdirectories, and file names that make sense at your site and for your implementation. We recommend that Web sites have a separate directory or subdirectory for each third-party rating service that they use. This is required for automatic updates when requesting labels from rating services that have the Internet Connection Secure Server.
Our examples use a file extension of .lbl on each rating label file. This is also the extension for any label files the Internet Connection Secure Server transmits electronically.
Follow these steps to store rating labels in your file system and configure your server so it sends these labels when clients request them.
If you are not getting rating labels from a third-party rating service that has the Internet Connection Secure Server:
Follow these steps to configure your server as a PICS rating service, store rating labels for other Web sites, and serve them in response to client requests.
The PICS specification has no requirements regarding these URLs; you may choose any URL that you like.
Add the Service directive to inform the server that you are a PICS service and specify where to direct the PICS rating label requests. For example:
Service /Ratings INTERNAL:PICS-Ratings
Replace /Ratings with the path and file name portion of the URL you will use for label requests. For example, if you publish the URL http://www.coolratings.com/CoolSite, you would only include /CoolSite in the Service directive.
Notify all your subscribers and users to send their requests for rating labels to this URL. PICS-enabled clients and servers will use this URL to contact your server for labels.
In general, a label file is a text file containing a label. Carefully review the format of labels given by the PICS Rating Services and Rating Systems specification (http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/services.html).
The Internet Connection Secure Server has added extensions to this format to save you repetitious data entry and to allow you to add comments.
Note: Do not use this variable on generic labels (those that apply to multiple files).
If a third-party rating service has the Internet Connection Secure Server, you can electronically request rating labels for all the documents on your Web site that the third-party service has rated. As a response to that request, you will receive both rating labels and PICS configuration file label entries. Both types of information will automatically be stored on your server.
To electronically request rating label and entries for automatic update:
Note: The third-party rating service must have the Internet Connection Secure Server for you to use this feature. If not, the request fails.
If the third-party rating service has rated your Web site, it will return both the rating labels and label entries for your PICS configuration file. The rating labels will be stored in the directory you specified on the form. The label entries will automatically be added to your PICS configuration file.
If the third-party rating service has not rated your Web site, it will return a response indicating that it does not have the information you requested.
The Internet Connection Secure Server provides the PICS configuration file for you to manage PICS labels from a central point and serve them when clients request them. You can use the online Configuration and Administration forms to add, modify, and delete the label entries in the PICS configuration file, or you can edit the file and maintain the data manually.
If you are maintaining labels for other Web sites:
The exact name and location of the PICS configuration file is WINNT/ICS_PICS.CNF (where WINNT represents the directory where Windows NT is installed)
The configuration file consists of a list of paragraphs. There are three types of paragraphs.
Specifies the ratings given by a particular rating service for documents on a given Web server. For example, one LabelsFor paragraph could cover ratings according to the RSAC rating system for documents on the local server, while another paragraph could cover ratings according to the The Best rating system for documents on the local server.
Lists local label files associated with a third-party rating service.
Lists local label files associated with your own label bureau or rating service.
Note: The PICS configuration file associates Web documents with files containing labels. The labels themselves are stored in separate files, not in the PICS configuration file.
The first line of the paragraph consists of the keyword LabelsFor, the name of the server on which the rated documents are found, the name of the rating service, and an opening brace. The body of the paragraph specifies labels for sets of documents. Each paragraph ends with a closing brace.
LabelsFor servername servicename {
/WebPath1/document1 /path/LabelFile1
/WebPath2/document2 /path/LabelFile2
...and so on...
}
Note: You can use wildcard characters (*) to rate multiple documents at once. See "Using wildcards in the PICS configuration file".
You cannot use wildcard characters in file names.
A special keyword, NOTLABELED, can be used in place of a label file name. This indicates that the given file(s) cannot be labeled; it serves as a shorthand way of creating a label file that contains a "not-rated" label. In the example above, a not-rated error message will be returned to any clients who request a rating for the file /Unknown.html.
For example, an actual LabelsFor paragraph might look like this:
LabelsFor LOCAL http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html {
/Naughty/Image1.gif d:\www\pics\labels\AdultsOnly.lbl
/Clean/*.html d:\www\pics\labels\AllAges.lbl
/Unknown.html NOTLABELED
}
The first line of the paragraph consists of the keyword DefineService, the rating service URL, the quoted name of the rating service, the location and name of the service's RAT file, and an opening brace. The body of the paragraph lists the label files associated with this service, specifying each one with the keyword LABELFILE. Each paragraph ends with a closing brace.
DefineService servicename "name-of-service" ratingfile {
LABELFILE /path/LabelFile1 "description"
LABELFILE /path/LabelFile2 "description"
...and so on...
}
For example, an actual DefineService paragraph might look like this:
DefineService http://www.abc.org/rate.html "The ABC's of Ratings" d:\www\pics\rat\abc.rat {
LABELFILE d:\www\pics\labels\AdultsOnly.lbl "rated XXX"
LABELFILE d:\www\pics\labels\AllAges.lbl "rated GGG"
}
This paragraph has the same syntax and format as the DefineService paragraph. The only difference is that it uses the DefineLBService keyword and the RAT file and labels that it lists are for your own label bureau and rating service.
You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard only in the LabelsFor paragraphs of the PICS configuration file. When using wildcards, remember that the order of entries within a paragraph is important. For each paragraph, the Internet Connection Secure Server breaks the list of rated documents into two parts: those that contain wildcards, and those that do not contain wildcards.
For example, if you want an entry that gives /* as the WebPath/document, serving as a catchall for documents that don't have another rating, then make this the last entry in the paragraph.