Naomi 3.0 is an advanced internet filtering program

NAOMI 3.0 (en)
family-safe internet

© 2004-2006 Radiant Morning

uses madCodeHook © 1999-2005 Mathias Rauen

Table of contents
Introduction
Installing and uninstalling
User interface
Usage precautions
Final notes
License

Introduction
Naomi 3.0 is an advanced internet filtering program, easy to use and totally free, intended for families and parents in particular.

Naomi 3.0 is able to constantly monitor all internet connections, protecting children from inappropriate online material (such as obscene or violent contents; pornography and erotism in the form of images or texts; sites that popularize drugs; gambling games; terrorism; hate propaganda; occultism; sects; blasphemy, etc.)

The filter does not rely on a mere list of banned sites; instead, it examines all data that are transmitted or received from the internet using applications like web browsers, chat programs, newsreaders, file sharing tools, and more.

The filtering technology employed in Naomi 3.0 features:

Heuristic analysis capable of recognizing new sites automatically.
Semantic analysis of web pages contents and analysis of their addresses and links.
Recognizes the major languages.
Recognizes ICRA labelling system.
Monitoring is not limited to web sites, but covers the whole local internet traffic.
Works with any software application, and does not alter their settings.
Password-protected (the password is chosen by the user during the installation).
User interface is extremely easy to use.
Does not require configuration.
Can be used on slow connections (it does not perform any download in background and does not need to contact sites, proxies, databases, etc.)

Installing and uninstalling
Installation of Naomi 3.0 only requires a few seconds. You just need to launch its installation (setup) file. Then, you will be promped to choose a password, to prevent unauthorized access to the program. This password is essential for accessing the program’s interface, and also for deactivating or uninstalling it. You are advised to choose a password that is difficult to guess (e.g. you can use letters and numbers) and to remember it or keep it in a safe place.

The program is now ready and it immediately starts its monitoring activity. Whenever a potential access to inappropriate sites or material is detected, the application in use is terminated. If, for example, a pornographic website is accessed - on purpose or not -, the web browser is immediately closed, both to prevent further exploration and to avoid the user from seeing any partially downloaded material (e.g. photos, banners, etc.)

User interface
To access the user interface, you just need to click twice (left mouse button) on the flower-shaped icon near the Windows clock:

You will be asked to enter the password that you have chosen during the installation.

Once you have entered the exact password, you’ll see the user interface. The following buttons are available:

Hide: hides again the interface and keeps monitoring the internet connections.
Stop: temporarily stops filtering; the buttons name changes to “Start”. Pressing it again restarts filtering.
Uninstall: stops filtering and uninstalls definitively the filter.
Help: shows this manual.
Web site: to visit the official web site from where you can download updates and new versions (you must be connected to the internet to use it).

Usage precautions
In some cases, it is possible that the filter detects “false positives”, that is, it could result in blocking of legitimate sites. This may happen in the following cases:

Search engines: many porn sites use common keywords so they can get listed in the results of different searches and entice users to visit them.
Spamming (unsolicited advertising) received via chat programs like icq or mirc, and on forums, newsgroup, etc. (often they are obscene messages inviting the user to visit a certain site or to join a chat room for adults).
Advertisement of inappropriate material (for example, porn banners) on “regular” web sites.
If you find that a kids-safe site is erroneously blocked, or that an inappropriate site is not filtered, or if the program does not work for you, please contact me. Your report shall be taken into account for the next versions and updates of the filter.

Final notes
Using a software filter allows parents to exert less vigilance or internet surfing, but no program can be considered a substitutive of the parent’s action of education and control. Don’t forget that, unless internet access is limited to a few selected sites, it is not possible to block the 100% of inappropriate contents: programs, in fact, do not “understand”; they just make choices based on criteria that can prove to be more or less valid according to the different cases.

I dedicate this program to a dear friend’s baby girl; her name, naturally, is Naomi

http://www.naomifilter.org

What’s the Difference between DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM?

Q:

Dave, I have just installed a new DVD burner in my computer (a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105 internal drive) and am trying to figure out what kind of blank disks I should be using. There are apparently five different blank DVD formats. Do I want DVD-R? DVD-RW? or ??

A:

Well, there are really only two “families” of DVD at the moment (unless you want to count the red laser vs. blue laser stuff that’s starting to come on to the market at the high end), and one “outcast”. You’ve got the “minus” (”-”) formats (DVD-R, DVD-RW) and the “plus” (”+”) formats (DVD+R, DVD+RW), then there’s the older DVD-RAM format that’s harder to find these days. All of these are for data, of course — all but the newest DVD video players will choke on those, in the same way early CD players choked on CD-R discs.

A DVD-R is a write-once format: once you’ve burned the data onto that DVD platter, the disk is forever frozen with that information. Add the “W” to that, and you’ll find that DVD-RW can be erased or rewritten up to a thousand times. Seems kinda weird, but if you can do so, DVD-RW obviously has significant advantages over DVD-R. DVD-RAM was even more flexible, however, since it let you erase and rewrite sections of an existing DVD, something that you cannot do with DVD-RW.

Moving to the plus side is where things get a bit confusing, because DVD+RW came before DVD+R. The plus formats have the same data storage capacity as the minus formats (4.7GB), but DVD+RW offers faster writing, better internal linking (a technical obscurity you don’t have to worry about), and support for drag-and-drop desktop files, which makes it easy to compose the contents of a disk. DVD+R is a write-once format intended to be more compatible with more DVD players, though at this point it seems to be about even with DVD-R, which remains the most compatible computer-burned DVD format.

In your case, since your drive is a DVD-RW, you’re effectively limited to DVD-R and DVD-RW format discs. Stay away from any of the “plus” formats, as those won’t work with your drive (and being newer, they cost more anyway). As to whether you want to use DVD-R or DVD-RW, that depends on what you want to use them for. DVD-R is a write-once format, just like CD-R, and you can’t erase the data once it’s written. DVD-RW is rewritable, so you can use it somewhat like a 4.7GB floppy disc, for all intents and purposes. In general, I suggest that you use DVD-R for archival purposes — stuff that isn’t going to change, and DVD-RW for more fluid data. DVD-RW discs are more expensive than DVD-R discs, so that may also influence your decision.

How do you confirm what format your drive works with? One way, if you’re on a Mac, is to use the System Profiler application. You’ll find this useful utility in Applications -> Utilities. Launch it, then click on the “ATA” item on the list. If you have an internal DVD burner, you’ll see something like what I get: “PIONEER DVD-RW DVD-106D”. If it’s an external DVD drive, you might find it in SCSI, USB or FireWire, depending on how you hook it up.

As far as your second question, your data-burning application definitely has to be aware of the DVD format you want to use (i.e. DVD-R or DVD-RW in your case). For Windows, you can use GEAR for burning CDs, but you’d need to upgrade to GEAR Professional Edition to be able to burn both CDs and DVDs. Toast Titanium does burn DVD-R and DVD-RW so you should be set in that department.

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