[cobalt-users] Re: blocking software

[Johan-Kristian Wold <jkwold@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In cobalt-users digest, Vol 1 #950, Yohans Mendoza wrote:
> hi all,
> what are isp's using to block porno to their clients when they request it?
> I'm interested on server side solutions rahter than clinet side such as
> net nanny and cyberpatrol.

Hello, Yohans.

I'm a bit sceptical to filtering software, since, in essence not 
enough gets blocked, and too much is blocked. I.e. you won't be able 
to filter everything that should be filtered, and some content that 
should be allowed gets filtered.

In addition, very many of these blocking lists seem to have other 
agendas in addition to blocking what they should block - i.e. 
blocking information sites for gays and lesbians, abortion sites etc 
under completely different categories.

Some thoughts on this can be found on  <http://www.eff.org>, for 
instance 
<http://www.eff.org/pub/Censorship/Academic_edu/Library_filtering/HTML/19981214_ifea_nclis_statement.html>

That said - on to your question: Filtering like you want is usually 
done in a proxy server or in a firewall. To make the proxy server 
method effective, the firewall should shunt all web requests via the 
proxy server.

The Watchguard LiveSecurity System (firewall) has built-in content 
filtering abilities, that implements the CyberPatrol list.

For more info, look at <http://www.watchguard.com/products/webblock.asp>.

I can't really give you info on any other systems, since I'm not 
familiar with them. You might check if the CacheRaQ has any 
provisions for this...

Kind regards

Johan-Kristian
--
Johan-Kristian Wold, M.Sc.     |
Computer systems administrator | Recursive: Adj. See recursive.
Nor-Trykk Narvik AS            |
jkwold@xxxxxxxxxxx             |                            SAM007HM02