The Napster craze of swapping music over the Internet may be waning, but newer file-sharing networks are making pornography readily accessible to children, a House investigation revealed last Friday.
Calling the proliferation of Internet pornography "a cancer in our country," Representative Steve Largent and Representative Henry Waxman said a recent study by the House Government Reform Committee underscores the importance of parental involvement in curbing kids' access to lewd media.
While credit card fees serve as a barrier to most graphic content on the Web, the study found more children than ever are taking advantage of the fact that file-sharing networks provide the same product for free.
These "peer to peer" networks don't store material on a central server, but instead help users find and exchange files kept on each other's personal computers.
Although Napster has been kicked off line, programs such as BearShare, Aimster and Music City Morpheus are even harder to control.
Unlike Napster, they do not maintain a centralized directory of files for police, regulators, or others to target. The new networks also let users do things Napster could not, like swap pictures and video files.
CNET, the leading Internet software clearinghouse, recently reported that more than 3.1 million copies of those programs were downloaded in one week.
The committee found that on one day, six of the top 10 search requests on Gnutella were for pornography.
The study also showed that searches for legitimate music files can turn up explicit material. When the committee looked up Britney Spears videos on Aimster, more than 70 percent of the results were pornographic files.
The congressmen said commercial anti-pornography filters don't work with many networks.
"In this case, parental awareness and parental involvement matter more than legislation," Waxman said.
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