Web Filters

Protest logged in Australia on internet filter for illegal sites

THE Rudd Government is facing a backlash over its plan to ask internet service providers to test filters on a blacklist of about 1000 illegal websites.

The majority of online readers of The Courier-Mail yesterday angrily hit out at the Government plan, which wants to test how filters could effectively block illegal material.

A poll asking readers if they supported the proposed internet filter showed 88 per cent – or 3222 voters – were against the plan and likened it to mandatory censorship. Only 11 per cent, or 426 people, supported it.

Croydon [UK] libraries’ internet filth filters ban council’s own website

D’Oh!: The 267 new replacement computers were also meant to solve a seedier problem – that of some people using its old PCs to access internet child porn.
So when the computers finally arrived, expectations were high – but there was one snag. To begin with users couldn’t even access a range of innocuous websites – including the council’s own – because of its highly sensitive internet filter, which is being rolled out at the same time.

September 8, 2008 by Blake Internet Libraries Web Filters

Web Filtering Moves to the Cloud

For those of you spending your workdays posting videos of the cat to YouTube or trading messages with friends on Facebook, you’d better start cultivating another pastime.

Web filtering software is moving to the cloud — that all-knowing, pervasive, sometimes unreliable cluster of computers in the digital ether — and it’s going to watch your every move online and tattle to your boss.

Zscaler, a Santa Clara start-up created by serial security entrepreneur Jay Chaudhry, is publicly unveiling itself Monday. Over the last decade, Mr. Chaudhry has founded such companies as AirDefense (sold to Motorola), CipherTrust (sold to Secure Computing), SecureIt (sold to VeriSign) and CoreHarbor (sold to USinterworking.) That makes him kind of like the Brett Favre of security entrepreneurs –- he keeps coming back.

Zscaler’s idea is to relieve companies of the tiresome and costly burden of managing Web filtering and security on their own servers. Instead, the cloud-based service, which is rented to companies by the month, acts like a Web proxy, intercepting all incoming and outbound HTTP traffic from employees and scrubbing it for malware and online activity that violates company policy.

Full story in the NYT

August 4, 2008 by Bibliofuture EBooks Internet Web Filters

Firefox add-on Glubble too clunky and restrictive as a children’s Internet filter

Tina Gasperson reviews Glubble, a free proprietary Firefox add-on from Glaxstar that limits the activity your child can perform online by blocking access to Web sites and filtering Google search results. For parents, a tool like Glubble can seem like the perfect answer to the problem of protecting kids from the unsavory elements of the Internet. But as she discovered through her use of Glubble, the questions surrounding the idea of Internet filtering don’t come with easy answers.

July 22, 2008 by Blake Google Internet Web Filters

“Library computers must be filtered to protect children” Editorial Cut Off By Filters

This Editorial in The Oakland Press says there’s sound, logical reason for the ordinance in Royal Oak, MI, is wandering into some new territory. It could be one of the first cities in Michigan to pass an ordinance forcing the library board to install filters, according to the Michigan Municipal League. Other libraries leave only one terminal unfiltered as a matter of policy.

This editorial wouldn’t normally be very interesting, but I’m behind a filter (not sure which) that does some sort of keyword filtering (not sure how) that automatically stops loading pages with bad words. It cuts this editorial off midsentence somewhere near the middle (end?) of the page. That “sound, logical reason” The Oakland Press says will save our children won’t allow me to read this editorial. Should I assume this editorial has some kind of “obscene material” they say is blocked by those filters?

June 5, 2008 by Blake Librarians Libraries Technology Web Filters

San Jose councilman argues for filtered computer use at SJSU (For The Children)

San Jose City Councilman Pete Constant is concerned with children viewing “second-hand porn” while visiting San Jose’s public libraries, which includes the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library.

“Children can get porn anywhere. If they don’t see it at the library, kids will see it in other places,” said Sarah Jasso, a psychology major.

February 7, 2008 by Blake Libraries Technology Web Filters

San Jose councilman chides head librarian on porn-filter report

San Jose City Councilman Pete Constant accused the city’s head librarian Wednesday of foot-dragging and shoddy research on his proposal to filter pornography out of library computers. Constant told Library Director Jane Light he was “disappointed” in her progress report to a council committee on his October proposal for the city to reconsider Internet filtering on library computers. A final report is due in March.
“I don’t honestly feel we’re going down a path to finding solutions,” Constant said. “I feel we’re going down a path to finding reasons not to do this.”

January 27, 2008 by Blake Internet Librarians Libraries Web Filters

Filter Flap in Gwinnett County

In news that surprises no one reading this site, Gwinnett County Public Library patrons discovered that the library’s public internet filtering doesn’t always work.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the full story, but what got me was this line:

“At a public library in Norcross last week, it took less than 15 seconds to find pornographic photographs on a computer terminal.”

Really? 15 seconds? That seems to be a long time to launch a browser, bring up Google Image Search, and search for “boobs.”

November 19, 2007 by Cyberpunk Librarian Google Internet Libraries Web Filters

California library’s internet filtering strategy

Popular blog Boing Boing points to one library’s interesting method for dealing with library filtering, utilizing large signs designating “filtered” and “unfiltered” internet access. Says the submitter of the photo, “The ‘unfiltered’ side faces the reference desk so the librarians can monitor usage but they say it has reduced abuse and given adults uncensored access to the internet.” Pic and entry here. An interesting comment debate follows, discussing whether the signage constitutes a privacy invasion.

November 2, 2007 by michelle c. Internet Librarians Libraries Web Filters

Library porn filters would block patrons’ legitimate inquiries

The San Jose Mercury News Says Filtering was a bad idea a decade ago, and still is. Responding to a minor nuisance at the downtown library by dampening the rights of inquiry and speech of all patrons at every city library is an unacceptable trade-off.

October 25, 2007 by Blake Librarians Libraries Web Filters