SOFTWARE WILL TRACK KIDS ONLINE COMPUTERCOP KEYS IN ON WORRISOME WORDS, SITES.

Byline: ERIC LEACH Staff Writer

With a criminal case this past week serving as a chilling reminder, Ventura County prosecutors plan to supply parents next month with computer software that gives them an easy way to monitor what their children are accessing on their home computers.

The software, called ComputerCOP, tips parents if their children have been in contact with pedophiles or are viewing material promoting violence, illegal drugs, hate groups or pornography.

``Today, predators can actually come into our homes via the Internet,'' District Attorney Greg Totten said. ``If someone is sending pictures to your child, this software will find them. It will find words and phrases known to be associated with predatory conduct.''

Totten's office recently prosecuted a former Los Angeles police officer who was sentenced to 11 years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to sex acts with boys he met on Internet chat rooms, the Myspace.com Web site and through a Los Angeles Police Department Explorer program.

The disc with the ComputerCOP software is personalized for Ventura County with a message from Totten saying: ``When our daughter was young, my wife and I warned her not to talk to strangers. ... Yet today, the very strangers that parents wouldn't want their children associated with in public can make contact with them through the family computer.''

Ventura County is purchasing 3,300 ComputerCOP discs at about $3.25 each, with plans to give at least 1,000 away through parent-teacher organizations, then sell the balance to make up the county's costs.

Although every family is different, Totten recommends that parents tell their children they will be using the software on the family computer. And it is meant for parents to protect their children, not for spouses to investigate how their husbands or wives are using the computer, he said.

``We would not encourage anybody to use it on their spouses,'' he said.

The program Ventura County officials want to distribute is a scaled-down version of more complex software that is used by law enforcement agencies and private detectives.

``This is a law-enforcement-grade tool, but without all features,'' said Stephen DelGiorno, president of ComputerCOP Software.

DelGiorno said although ComputerCOP provides information about downloads and other activity, it doesn't record the computer user's keystrokes and is not what is usually referred to as ``spyware.''

The software automatically searches for potentially offensive photo files and more than 1,000 red-flagged words. If a child accesses information about a certain date-rape drug, for example, the program not only brings it to the parents' attention but provides information through a built-in dictionary.

DelGiorno and law enforcement officials say the ComputerCOP program is legal for parents to use on their computers to monitor their children's activities.

``You need to make sure you own the computer,'' said Carol Baker, director of the Bureau of Crime Prevention and Youth Services for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, which has distributed thousands of the ComputerCOP programs to parents since 2003. ``You can't go around and plug it in to others' computers.''

When the initiative was launched, Los Angeles police said giving children unsupervised computer use would be like allowing a strange man into their bedrooms.

``We recommend that parents speak to their kids, explaining that using the Internet is a privilege, not an entitlement,'' Baker said. ``I've received e-mails from parents who have found all kinds of things on their kids' computers. This gives them a window into their kids' world.''

DelGiorno said in one case, the software was used by parents to find a runaway child who had revealed where she was going by using a computer-mapping site.

If the parent finds nothing objectional, he said, the ComputerCOP program helps provide peace of mind. But it might also tell them if a child is looking at pornography or buying drugs on line.

``The parent can use this to open up the doors of communication with their children. It empowers the parents,'' DelGiorno said. ``Most parents are very busy and both work. We don't block or filter, but help show them where their kids have been.''

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

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