There is an interesting article on the Norwich Bulletin that gives a sense about how parents feel about pornography in small communities. The article also shows what most "techies" already know--filtering software is not very effective against the "wits" of young people in this day and age.

You can read the entire article by following the link. Here are a few excerpts:

-State police have confiscated two computer hard drives from the Griswold Middle School after the parent of a 12-year-old student found a picture of a man's erect penis in her daughter's back pack.

-"We were completely shocked," the mother said. "Parents assume, I assumed, that the Internet at school was blocked from harmful material. That isn't the case."

-According to the seventh-grade girl who printed the picture, she and many of her friends have been using instant messaging at school to have sexually explicit chats with strangers since January. It is a trend, she said, among some of the popular students and those who would emulate them to gather around a computer while one person chats and the others look on. A child engaged in an explicit conversation gets positive attention.

-She said the picture she received last week was the first time she had seen a picture of a man's penis.

She had told him that she was 13-years old and put personal information in her Yahoo profile, including her real name and address. She thought that information was private, but it was not.

-"I don't blame the school. It's the parent's responsibility," said parent Michelle Rile of Griswold. "In seventh grade they should know better. I like that my daughter has access to the Internet at school, but I don't want her IMing or using chat rooms or any of that stuff."

"It does concern me, what happened, especially in this day and age," added another parent, Anita Brown of Griswold.

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