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With the internet being an essential business, educational and social networking tool, it is almost impossible to imagine life without it – it is easy to see its numerous benefits and applications in our daily lives, but what about the many dangers associated with unprotected internet use? Whether we choose to believe it or not, the number of young people and adults repeatedly exposed to pornography, violence and other forms of harmful web content is alarming – and the consequences of such exposure have proven to be instrumental in numerous cases of rape, violence, unhealthy addictions and other unacceptable behavioural patterns that are often learned online.
The reality is that the internet has the potential to be an extremely powerful communication medium, however, if left unchecked can also be one of the most destructive forces to families – likewise it also poses the same threat, although on a far wider scale to any educational facility that provides internet access for larger numbers of people.
Fortunately, VirtueNet is able to provide real solutions to real problems that undermine the safety of internet facilities in any environment, removing the guesswork and breaking away from traditional methods of web-filtering that are often complicated, outdated, or ineffective in light of new communication technology platforms that are now emerging at a rapid pace.
New technology demands new solutions, and typically, many educators and parents are not up to date with the latest technology trends thus placing themselves and their learners at further potential risk to harmful exposure |
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that can often result in irreversible psychological damage as well as legal liability.
VirtueNet has taken a unique approach to online safety with simple yet effective filtering solutions specially designed to protect against the growing hazards that our ever-changing online world presents. As technologies evolve, so do we, and it is for this reason that our core focus to provide safe internet access to schools and homes regardless of the various types of devices or platforms that are used to connect.
With the new advances in mobile technology, smartphones and other handheld devices are fast becoming the preferred choice for web browsing – unfortunately, commonly available computer web-filtering software is no longer an effective method to ensure a safe online experience, and therefore it has now become necessary to filter using a variety of methods, whether using filtering software, hardware, or ISP-level web-filtering / parental control.
In the educational environment, it has now also become crucial to protect and manage students whether they are using the internet at school or at home, having onsite and remote safety & web management solutions that ensure compliance with your Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) at all times.
While safety is our primary concern, another is the misuse of class or study time, therefore web management systems are essential not only for online protection, bandwidth saving, and protection against legal risk, but also to ensure that time spent by students in front of the computer translate into increased learning without the associated productivity loss that occurs when hundreds, even thousands of working hours are wasted as students use the internet for personal reasons.
In addition to this problem, too many schools rely on internet blocking software alone to keep their students safe, while cyber-bullying, racism, sexting, predator grooming and other “offline” misuse goes undetected. The only solution is to choose a family-safe service provider such as VirtueNet, who are able to remain at the forefront of web-filtering & e-Safety technology, thus providing up-to-date online protection that works.
Here are some of the reasons why VirtueNet is the only choice for schools & families who are committed to their safety online –
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VirtueNet is the first and only local Internet Service Provider (ISP) to introduce SafeConnect DSL, an innovative “Clean-Feed” ADSL solution that filters all data traffic at ISP-level before it arrives at your school or home. Our “in-the-cloud” architecture ensures that you will benefit from the world’s largest and most up-to-date URL database which currently contains over 5.3 billion categorized websites, with thousands of new websites added daily. |
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Until now, most schools have traditionally been forced to implement costly onsite web-management solutions that are difficult to deploy and manage – typically they are also only capable of managing users while on the school network and provide zero protection for students using devices remotely or at home.
For this reason, VirtueNet’s “in-the-cloud” solutions are strategically located in secure hosting environments throughout SA, with state-of-the-art data centres guaranteeing 99.9% uptime. This cloud-based architecture not only reduces the cost of implementation & support (thus making these premium solutions affordable to smaller organizations), it also provides unparalleled power & flexibility in enforcing your Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) for all computers users, on all devices, at all times. |
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VirtueNet in partnership with Watchdog (New Zealand) have joined forces to deliver cutting-edge e-Safety solutions to the education sector that have not yet been seen in South Africa until now. As New Zealand are many years ahead of South Africa in terms of new technologies and how they affect education & learning, Watchdog are perfectly positioned to provide a wealth of experience & expertise, having been appointed as the official service provider by the Ministry of Education (NZ), with proven solutions that have successfully protected & managed students in over 1800 schools.
With a track record of over 12 years in specializing in e-Safety for schools, Watchdog are widely considered to be the de facto standard in the industry, the benchmark against which other service providers are compared. |
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Our industry-leading StudentProtect solution offers the next level of protection that goes beyond web-management – our exclusive technology will ensure that entire school network is constantly monitored for inappropriate language and alerts you if your students use bullying or threatening behaviour or if they use school computers for unacceptable personal reasons during lessons. It will also notify you of potentially harmful situations, such as signs of depression or suicide, predator grooming, sexual, racial or religious harassment, drugs, pornography or gambling. |
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Most schools that have some form of web protection at gateway level can only filter or manage their student’s online activities whilst on the school network and during class time. The problem arises when students use a school or personal laptop computer to download harmful web content at home which in some cases is distributed others, thereby defeating the purpose of commonly used web-management systems.
For this reason, VirtueNet provides fully-hosted web management solutions (or hybrid onsite solutions) that offer both gateway-level protection, combined with remote management client software for students working at home or using a mobile (3G) internet connection anywhere outside the school network. |
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Your web browsing experience is not hindered as with many commonly available proxy-based web filters that introduce high levels of latency into the browsing session while the content of the requested web page is analysed. While VirtueNet’s filters do in fact analyse content in real-time, this does not hinder browsing performance in any way. Furthermore, VirtueNet filters are highly accurate (97% - 99% multilingual) which prevents the unnecessary over-blocking of harmless websites or the allowance (under-blocking) of potentially harmful sites.
Should you currently rely on commonly available antivirus programs (with parental control included) or any other parental built-in / free parental control service it is very likely that the following problems occur – you do not have enough flexibility or customization options to suit your requirements, the software drains your computer hardware resources or interferes with other applications, the filtering is either moderately / under effective or too restrictive, the speed of your browsing session becomes unbearably slow, or even worse, the filter on occasion prevents you from accessing the internet altogether.
There are very few dedicated web-filtering solutions available today such as those offered by VirtueNet which are able to maintain a vital balance between performance, features, and usability which sets our web-filters apart from the rest. |
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A widespread weakness with many common web-filtering products is that they will often feature on internet forums and blogs, with instructions on how to bypass, disable or remove the software. In addition, most standard parental control technology that come with certain computer operating systems or antivirus programs have proven ineffective as they too can easily be disabled or circumvented. |
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Whether filtering at ISP-level or using VirtueNet hardware or software, our products are simple to implement and all employ the same industry-leading web filtering technology with real-time URL filtering, proxy anonymizer detection, comprehensive reporting & complete control over social networking (i.e. Facebook), instant messaging & file-sharing (P2P) applications. |
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Our residential solutions are designed not just to protect the kids, but you and your spouse as well. Should you require, VirtueNet is able to maintain full control over all web content that is accessed online, whether in the office or at home |
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VirtueNet provides practical on-going training and real-world advice for parents and teachers to help them to better understand and gain control of new technologies that their students or children use on a daily basis. We offer both brief and in-depth e-Safety presentations at no charge for schools using our services, equipping them with the necessary tools to manage and protect their learners. For parents, we offer the free and regularly revised VirtueNet Guide to e-Safety which can be downloaded from our website, along with many other useful resources.
In order to realize our core vision of creating a safer internet in South Africa, VirtueNet offers the “Protect The Home” initiative to all schools willing to partner with us through which we provide a VirtueNet WebProtect Filter for every student to be used on their laptop or home computer, thus ensuring that children are kept safe whether at school, at home, or anywhere in-between.
VirtueNet have partnered with various like-minded organizations such as Focus on the Family who are as dedicated as we are to the well-being of families. The key difference that sets VirtueNet apart is that we possess a true concern and care for the youth and families of South Africa, and this is the key element that drives us to provide next-generation e-Safety solutions, the dynamic that makes VirtueNet the new benchmark in online protection. |
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