Claiming to top the Google and Yahoo/Overture/Altavista image search indexes, Internet Security Systems today announced that the company’s Web content filtering technology has identified and stored the one-billionth Internet image, making the ISS database the most comprehensive listing in the world. Google currently maintains a database that holds approximately 880 million images. Customers use this database to block or control undesirable Web content through ISS’ Proventia(TM) Web Filter software and Proventia content filtering and multi- function appliances.
ISS’ content security services group operates a 1,000 CPU server farm around the clock that uses automated techniques, similar to modern search engines, to crawl the Web and identify new sites or changes to existing sites. After a new image or Web site has been identified, the technology then analyzes the content, using algorithms including image and text recognition, to automatically classify it into one of 58 distinct categories, ranging from lifestyle, e-commerce, and information technology to criminal activity, drugs and extremist sites.
In addition to automated web crawling, ISS’ customers contribute to enriching the content database through the ISS WebLearn(TM) program. If a customer participating in the WebLearn program encounters an unknown URL, that URL is automatically sent to ISS where it is immediately crawled, categorized, and added to the content database and redistributed to all ISS customers.
ISS customers receive automatic daily updates of additions made to the database to ensure their filtering measures are able to block or control the most current Web content. With the average addition of 100,000 new or modified Web sites per day, the ISS database ensures customers are always up- to-date.
