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All Sourceforge.net Being Blocked by SmartFilter
An unnamed reader writes: "I just noticed that all sites. '*.sourceforge.net' are being blocked by all corporations using SmartFilter including mine. SmartFilter lists all of them as 'MP3' sites. Below is the error I get. How come they do not block Microsoft? I can download an MP3 player from there, too (Media Player does play MP3s)." Here's the error: "Access is restricted to the site (http://www.sourceforge.net/) you requested. Per the firm's Information Security & Privacy Policy, all Internet browsing is monitored and logged. Please contact the Information Security Center at ext 7114 for more information. SmartFilter Control List category MP3 Sites is restricted. " The aptly named SmartFilterWhere tool shows which sites are painted over by SmartFilter's broad brush; in this case, software development site (and Slashdot sister site) SourceForge is blocked by the latest SmartFilter versions -- 3.0, 3.0.1 and 3.1 -- but not version 2. You might also be interested in The Censorware Project's analysis of the efficacy of SmartFilter as applied to Utah schools and libraries, or Peacefire's explanation of how and how well SmartFilter works.
Couldn't Sourceforge sue for false-misrepresentation or libel? If you can, sue their frickin pants off.
I know, what else can corporations do, other than hire baby sitters for all the employees with net access.
But, in most cases, they are much more trouble than they are worth. Nothing lowers morale like big brother controlling where you go.
Sometimes the most useful sites are blocked. I remember working at a school district, I got NOTHING but complaints/questions about N2H2, the filtering solution we were using.
The evil open source will get you! Everybody celebrate because we've scared Microsoft!
My guess would be that even though it's listed under the MP3 category, it's really being blocked to keep people from working on their Open Source projects while at work. "The Man" most likely doesn't want to pay for your OSS work.
Haven't we all learned by now that free software is violation of intelectual proparty rights of proprietary companies? SF.net produces free software that will (if left un-checked) undermine the american economy, raise consumer prices for software and eliminate thousands of jobs. Not to mention helping the spread of terrorisim and threteing national security. They should be shut down and censored at all costs.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
Yeah they should change to rating to "criminal
skills", are those free software programmers
criminals ?
Dude, check it out! I just heard that this place called Sourceforge is like, totally blocked by our school's filters!
Man, we got to check this out. It must have some sweet porn or soemthing on it.
Yeah, we got to get there. All right, bypassing filtering software...oh, yeah. Here it is! Dude, we're in! Sweet porn, here we come!
Click that one - Jboss! Must be a dominatrix or something.
WTF - there's no porn here! It...it's just geek code stuff.
The filter tricked us. Dude, those filter guys are so sneaky.
Next thing you know, they'll be trying to get us to study or something.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
... before Slashdot is blocked at work too!
Call me paranoid, but I think when something as drastic as blocking Sourceforge happens, Slashdot is in danger as well! I would expect Sourceforge to be the last of all the OSDN sites blocked - it's not opinionated (*cough*), and provides hosting for tons of open source software projects.
Sad, sad day for the internet.
Hit their search page,
h er eV301.cgi
http://www.securecomputing.com/cgi-bin/filter_w
and search for sourceforge.net. In the results, you can suggest a recomended they be removed from the list.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Skip it and use COTSE's web anonymizer!
Not only will you get past that pesky filter, but you'll be anonymously surfing the web ala SSL!
www.cotse.com
(Yes, it is a pay service, but someone has to keep up the IRC server...)
Linux is dead.
LU
Go here and enter the sourceforge URL. On the right, "Suggest a Change" and tell them that it should not be on their list. Make your voice heard!
Your reality is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. - Baron Munchausen
The links to the filter lists allow you to look up what's covered.. you can look up sourceforge and send in a suggested change of "remove from list".
:)
I imagine that page should be crushed anytime now
I'm sure there is an easy way for people to get round this censorship. Trouble is that most corporate employees won't know/care about back routes.
For most people the mere fact that a site has been flagged as "dodgy" is good enough. If you have to go and ask for permission to visit a "banned site" and probably log a reason to go there with the authorities, I bet most people opt to keep their heads down and go along with it.
You know, I may badmouth Linux occasionally. .
Fuck filtering software. Can censorship ever be used responsibly?
His discussion of the legal risks of decrypting these blacklists is fascinating too, and (as he likes to say) "a topic in itself." He would like to open up the source to his SmartFilter-decryption tool but feels the legal risk is too high. How sad is that?
Here's Secure Computing's definition of the "extreme" category, and the examples they give ("Pixman's Vault of Porn Pix", "Bizarre & Maximum Perversion").
You can confirm Seth's findings using Secure Computing's own SmartFilterWhere.
It asks for your name and phone number; you have my permission to make some up. As of December 7, at 9:45 PM EST, that CGI operates with a Control List updated on December 5 and confirms all of Seth's results that I tried. By the time you read this, they may have quickly fixed all the errors he published, loaded in an up-to-the-minute Control List, and proudly announced that their software is now perfect.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I would imagine mp3 restricted really means P2P restricted. If this is true, I think it shows poor word choice, but at the same time it conveys a more clear (albeit misleading and broad) message for the average user.
sig
Just go to http://www.securecomputing.com/cgi-bin/filter_wher eV301.cgi, and search for http://www.sourceforge.net/. When you get the serarch result, suggest that it be removed from the list. If enough people do this, perhaphs the smartfilter folks will get the message.
They helpfully provide an option to suggest a reclassification for site. If enough people go along and suggest "remove from list" maybe they'll get a hint?
Maybe my company is just slow to get updates... But we have smartfilter here at work and for now I have no problem hitting sourceforge.
Anyone know why this might be?
Scott.
Is that a klez virus, no, its a beowulf cluster, no its SETH F to the RESCUE!!!
He'll save us from the evil lurches of the corporate smartfilter.
(I don't mean anything by it, Seth:)
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
I for one am glad that SmartFilter is blocking Sourcforge.net. It will keep impressionable websurfers away from the godless open source movement and all it represents. If it was up to me I would add Slashdot, Newsforge, and all the Linux distribution websites as well. It's about goddamn time that corporate America sends a message to the socialists that comprise open source. We say loud and clear: Open source is a threat to our homeland and god fearing patriots will not sit by while the GPL guts our free enterprise system! God bless Microsoft! God bless America!
Go here: http://www.securecomputing.com/cgi-bin/filter_wher eV301.cgi and enter www.sourceforge.net :-D
Click check URL and then suggest a change. Slashdot the hell out of the company and they'll change it
I am calling for a boycott of Michael Sims, America's number one enemy in the fight against anti-anti-censorware, until he gives me an apology for his rampant goatse'ing and usurping of the Censorware Project, my pride and joy.
Frankly, I'm shocked that I am not revered by all of Slashdot. My contributions to the world of anti-censorware research are comparable to the contributions of Jesus Christ to the field of religion. I won more awards from that project than Michael won in his whole damned life.
Do not underestimate me. I will be heard.
Oh well
We should not censor images of people having sex. We need to stop people from having sex. Many problems solved.
Sure. Your company probably doesn't block mp3 sites. And those who do, block sourceforge.
Start blasting this smartfilter as crapware that hinder's productivity and only costs the company money in lost productivity and overspending on worthless software (squid is a better solution than ANY commercial filter/proxy on the planet. oh and it happens to be FREE!)
blast it.... blast it mercilessly people...
take every step to blast ANY non-open-source filtering system....
OH, if anyone tries to tell me that squid is too hard to configure... Please let me smack you.. I never touched squid before in my life... last friday I was mandated to install a filtering system for our intranet (spawned by a user's need to view kiddie porn on company computers) I downloaded and installed squid today... it's working perfect and the porn filters that are freely available work just fine.. if they want to add other "naughty" sites, it takes exactly 30 seconds to add it to a flat-text file... even a MSCE coud do it.
paying for any type of filtering system is pure stupidity and would only be reccomended by incompetent sysadmins/netadmins.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
har har har. Anyway, he probably can avoid the filter by using the ip numbers to connect.
http://216.136.171.196/
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
1) Make sure people are doing their jobs. You can tell this by looking at whether or not they produce what is required in the time they have to produce it.
Unfortunately, it *seems* all too common to *me* that supervisors don't know jack about the people working under them. The novel idea of making a programmer a manager of the programming department seems to escape some people.
*sigh*
Note my sig...
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
1. Go to the URL and enter "http://www.sourceforge.net" into the 'URL 1' field. Hit 'check URL'
2. The next page should say "http://www.sourceforge.net MP3" if it is still listed.
3. On the dropbox on the right, select 'remove from list' and hit 'send request'
2600 is Political/Religious? Thats a bit of a stretch.
Now if Slashdot were rated Political/Religious, that would be perfectly understandable.
Flame on Zealots!
Why are so many people suggesting that we help smartfilter by voting to remove sourceforge? This won't help discourage companies from using it.
Instead, vote to make NYTIMES.COM and CNN.COM a "Criminal Skills" site. When the bosses start finding that smartfilter is effecting THEIR browsing, maybe they'll think twice before interfering in YOUR browsing.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
My company uses SurfControl's web filter product. In my experience of trying to administer the thing, is that it *usually* gets the catagory right. Supposedly these filter makers are verifying their databases, of which you pay through the nose to subscribe to. I've found about a 3-5% error rate, meaning they've miscatagorized that many of the total catagorized sites and this usually draws some level of corrective action to change the blockage.
My hunch is that these guys (filter makers) wrote a search engine to do the catagorization and are just doing a dictionary score to wieght a page and make a decision on the results. So SourceForge probably scored high on the words "Download" and "MP3", or something like that, and since they both probably occur alot seeing as how there are alot of MP3 tools on that site for download it got catagorized as such. This doesn't make it right, but I'm willing to bet that no human said "hey let's block SourceForge because we don't like it and that'll piss everyone off".
Most likely, the admins using the big-brother-ware in question can override the catagory and/or create an exception rule to allow people through to mis-blocked sites. But that depends on corporate policy. My company adopted a "if it's something you use for work, we'll unblock it right away" policy that works pretty well and they've followed through on it too. However, there is a possibility that someone would place implicit trust in the filter and not want to change anything they block. This would be bad (IMHO) because, just like a search engine or anything else, it's not perfect and these things are subject to human error in the end. I can tell you it's cut down the amount of pr0n bandwidth being used on my network, which is really nice because my downloads take way less time now.
-s
I happen to work for your biggest competitor, and we've been wondering how we were ever going to compete against you. I'm glad to see that your innovation is going to be encumbered by this filter software in the future. Sell your stock now, because we're going to clean up all over you in the near future.
Oh, and tell the guys in Information Systems I said Thanks!
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
did you try it through an http tunneling tool such as anonymizer.com??
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Maybe you should check before you make such a stupid comment.
The editors were correct.
Just go and check out the smartfilter database.
I hear that if you run Linux, you never have sex. :)
Michael Loves Me!
[adam@missioncontrol adam]$ nslookup warez.slashdot.org
Note: nslookup is deprecated and may be removed from future releases.
Consider using the `dig' or `host' programs instead. Run nslookup with
the `-sil[ent]' option to prevent this message from appearing.
Server: 10.1.3.1
Address: 10.1.3.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: warez.slashdot.org
Address: 127.0.0.1
(but we all know 127.0.0.1 is localhost, so its a DNS admin joke)
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Not that this helps anyone that being blocked but
Websense still allows full access to SorceForge. Not that it really matters to me since I've got full administrator rights I can just unblock it.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
Here is where you can plug a URL in to see if it gets filtered or not. And indeed, sourceforge turns out to be a wicked MP3-peddler. Oddly enough, freshmeat is not in there yet.
They also have another interesting and potentially more controversial filtering category: "Anonymizer". Try plugging http://www.anonymizer.com into that box on the link above. Thin legal ice, if you ask me.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I don't know about some of the other sites, but you don't think Marilyn Manson is "extreme"????
If I was a parent I'd be thanking Zeus that they blocked that freak's site.
Just this morning I downloaded some CVS stuff there, for free, as we needed some version control software in a hurry (do not ask why). The work others have done saved my employer money and loads of my time.
Some IT security officers / Internet admins do have a clue. Then again, we generally do not need a diversion, like working on an OOS project in company hours, as our work is mostly fun.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Does SmartFilter gnu.org as a religious web site?
cpeterso
Perhaps your company's block list hasn't been updated. Or your firm doesn't block sites listed under 'mp3'. In any event, go to the search page on their site, and enter sourceforge. You will see that it is categorized as a 'bad' domain. Not only that, but it seems that all domains ending in .sourceforge.net are listed. For example, brewnix.sourceforge.net is listed, (for real. Used the search ~4:35 EDT) and there are no mp3 files or tools available.
/. stories of the past.
It's less bogus than several
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The headline and story is pure sensationalism. SmartFilter isn't blocking sourceforge, the individual company is. They use smart filter as a tool to filter out stuff, albeit sloppily and sometimes inaccurately. Just like guns don't kill people, people do. Bottom line, this story is much ado about nothing. Just because it affected sourceforge, slashdot goes apeshit.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
Well another ms cocksucker spills his feces
It is certainly on the list. The fact that your company doesn't choose to restrict that category or uses an older version of the software doesn't mean that it isn't on the list.
As an after thought, your company may have that category set to log. In which case you will likely get a visit from management wanting to discuss your mp3 habits during work hours.
- Make false statements of fact (or opinions that imply false statements of fact).
- Make those statements with negligence, recklessness, or with malice as to the truthfulness of the statements. Negligence does not apply to public figures.
- The statements must be published to a 3rd party.
- There must be damages. Damages are implied if criminal acts are stated.
I have detailed the requirements for libel (under Mass. law) in a motion for summary judgment.Fight Spammers!
I figured it should be listed under "Cult/Occult".
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
How do these filters work?
A quick ping or traceroute gives you the ip of the site. Can accessing it be that simple or is more required?
Help a commercial consorware company do business? I think not.
But it's properly listed as "Entertainment, General News" - So it's been fairly categorized.
It would suck to work at a place that actually turned on that category.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
We're sorry to hear that you are upset at a new feature built into our latest version of SmartFilter. We do, however, appreciate all feedback, and this has certainly been useful in locating a bug within our software.
It appears our QA department inadvertently made an error in the data files for SmartFilter. SourceForge is not, technically, banned as being an MP3 site, but is in a new category we added called 'Sites for Geeky Losers'. The pointer for this category has remained pointed at 'MP3 Sites' in our symbol table. We will be fixing this in our next release.
Regards,
Chuck "Jesus" Smythe
SmartFilter Corp. -- Banning the sites that we don't like.
mogorific carpentry experiments
SmartFilter labels goatse.cx as "Sex,Extreme". This is unfair! An outrage!
cpeterso
Do you need access to sourceforge for your job? Or are your visiting it for more personal reasons? Pardon me for being rude, but you do work for a business need , and if going to sourceforge is not a business need, then it makes sense for them to block it.
I know I will get flamed for this, but its true. If your ISP at home was doing this, I could understand being pissed, but you are at WORK.
(If you do need it for a business purpose, then I can understand your gripe).
Great Linux Site
I'm a practicing Baptist, and have some strong issues on some things. However, when my church was passing around a petition in support of mandating censorware on school computers, I spoke out against it. People looked at me like I had suddenly turned into a gorilla.
Honestly, when public schools are underfunded, and hardworking teachers are underpaid and under-rewarded, should schools really be spending money on software that has been proven time and again to be ineffective? I haven't got this program to test, but how much of google's cache do they block, I wonder? And the Usenet archives? Between those, I imagine you could get anything you wanted anyways. My experience with the censorware at work has been it even blocks Slashdot on some days, but never anything else. It blocks a few online game sites, like Sony's Station, but not much else. I don't sit at work and browse porn, but I've loaded pages before that had plenty of it (people really need to identify whats in the links they email me) and the censorware didnt stop it at all.
So I ask you: Censorware that arguably does as much harm as good? Or raises for teachers and administrative staff who could better nuture teens' growth away from questionable sites as it is? It doesn't take much for someone to walk thru a computer lab now and then, and anyone turning their monitor off quickly is rather obvious. Censorware is a leech-like entity, and rates only slightly above spam mailers in my opinion (only because they once had, deep down inside, an urge to do something good--or so I like to believe).
But taking an active role in childrens education about such things, and occassionally checking in on them while they're surfing are far better alternatives than spending money thats going to limit so much of the good with only a little of the bad.
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
URL 2: microsoft.com
click [Check URLs]
URL ___________ current category __ Suggest a Change
............... Remove from list ........ Criminal skills
sourceforge.net MP3
microsoft.com . NOT LISTED
click [Send Request]
Kills two birds with one stone.
I think /. might soon get listed as a pornography site.
Not to mention all the kinky stories about CmdrTaco!!
Linux is dead.
LU
The script is giving an Internal Server Error now. :)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Go to their website and enter sourceforget.net -- it's listed. Thanks for researching your data.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Haven't we all learned by now that free software is violation of intelectual proparty rights of proprietary companies?
I understand that you're being sarcastic, but what I don't understand is how they can make this argument. How does Free Software violate existing proprietary intellectual property rights.
Just because I make something that performs the same functions and has the same features as a proprietary application (ex XMMS vs Winamp), how am I violating intellectual property?
This space left intentionally blank.
Interesting to note that sf.net is not blocked. Of course, it gets redirected to sourceforge.net.
they block InsaneClownPosse.com [insaneclownposse.com], Tupac.com [tupac.com], Marilyn Manson [marilynmanson.com], and even Chumbawamba's Web site [chumba.com].
So, they have the new "Suckass" category up now?
From their filter checker everyone is talking about after entering the SourceForge URL
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webadmin@securecomputing.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
If I'm assuming correctly that SF doesn't archive illegal MP3 files, and only provides players to people, then access to SF is most likely being blocked for fraudulent reasons. There is nothing illegal about providing MP3 players for people to play their own legally-owned MP3 files on. By blocking access to SF on this basis, these guys have opened themselves up to a massive restraint-of-trade lawsuit from the multitude of people who depend upon the existence of ubiquitous access to SF for various aspects of their livelihood. --DM
Maybe they were too stupid to list the short form of the URL. (I can't check due to /. effect)
-- The Hoss Man
This page is all screwed up... it scrolls to the left/right.. and very far over I might add! Not related to the topic, just fix it.
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
I hear that if you run Linux, you never have sex.
If you run Linux, you never have heterosexual or lesbian sex.
They should list riaa.org as an MP3 site-- has more to do with MP3s than Sourceforge.net ;)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
easy little filter thingie too...
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
The headline "All Sourceforge.net Being Blocked by SmartFilter" applies perfectly to your statement: if an individual company chooses to use SmartFilter to block certain categories, all of sourceforge.net will be blocked, thus "all Sourceforge.net is being blocked by SmartFilter".
Personally, I think it's an interesting story that's worth posting. Many companies use open source software for their own development - I work for one. We're using at least one Sourceforge project, in fact. OTOH, many other companies might really wish to restrict access to Sourceforge, for the usual perverse legalistic and fascistic reasons. If it's true that Sourceforge was added to the Smartfilter list for those kinds of reasons, I think that's worth discussing.
Your manager installs filtering software. You may think that he is an evil asshole who want to make a feeble attempt to censor and spy on you. Well, chances are you're wrong.
Companies have all sorts of liability that they have to worry about. Management installs filtering software to cover their asses in sexual harassment situations, or in this case, intellectual property rights.
That way when the RIAA comes banging on the doors of your company because the employees are downloading mp3s, they can innocently point to the filtering software then bring down the hammer of god on the people who circumvented the filtering software.
Really, it's nothing personal and has very little to do with you.
The middle mind speaks!
We use SmartFilter at work. In fact, I'm the primary babysitter and representive of the Spanish Inquisition where it is concerned.
Traditionally, I've been against filtering software, under the "if you treat people like children, they won't dissapoint you" philosophy. Unfortunately, in examining logs BEFORE we turned on the filtering, people were doing a great job of acting like children beforehand. Reporting on a days worth of logs on the 'sex' category generated a 150 page (small print) report, covering about 50 employees. These were NOT banner adds and spam mail. After the filter went on, it went to about 20 pages. After a well placed firing for an extreme example, it went down to about 3.
There are a few things you have to consider when dealing with filtering software.
1. The people categorizing URL's and sites are not much better than trained monkeys. Just because a site gets blocked isn't part of a conspiracy. Just a TMIF (trained monkey input failure) event. Usually they correct it within a week.
(Side note: My favorite mis-categorization was when a dog breeding site was classified as a pornography site)
2. Filters are unfortunately a necessary evil in this day and age, since companies (mostly larger ones) MUST show that they are activly preventing the development of a 'hostile environment' toward protected groups, such as women and minorities. Filters are an easy way of doing that.
3. Filters by themselves are useless. Its amazing the number of things that they don't catch, and methods of by-passing them are out there. You have to keep the logs, and actually look at them. Filters are only alerts, not real preventitive measures.
4. Also, you have to take care that someone in your company won't use them for 'evil', like some middle manager on a witch hunt. You have to have good, fair policies in place covering Internet usage and trusted individuals with good ethics to see those policies are being followed.
In the last 18 months, my company has gone from having many gross violations of our Internet usage policies to very few violations. Most people can get to most the things they want to, and most, if not all of the 10K full time employees are pretty happy with the arrangement, or at least I haven't heard any complaints. For better or worse, the content filter and daily review of log reports is primarily responsible for that.
to anyone that works on a office using computers, you are working for someone else, it is called work for a reason, you are not there to play mp3 files and play in a chatroom or read & send personal email, you are working for someone else on their time, you have a obligation to do as your employer wishes...
so what part of "NO" do not understand???
IIRC, some CVS GUI and support tools are developed on Sourceforge as well as a number of projects of interest to programmers in business everywhere. I'm sure a rummage around sourceforge would reveal a number of non-gaming projects which would be of interest to a business software developer. Whilst businesses may not be likely to use GPL software as part of their products, they will happily use GPL development tools.
Filters are so damn arbitrary and time consuming. For example I'm currently working for a company developing satellites and satellite management systems, but often you have to waste time getting round the filter to access articles of interest. (For example, a large number of US papers are blocked)
The only thing a filter ought to block is p0rn, known virus afflicted sites, and possibly MP3 type downloads in the light of current litigation. Even then I could name some businesses which would be exceptions to the above rules
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
An MCSE would be asking "What do I click on to open this 'flat-text file'???"
In which case I would be helpful. Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad, then drag the file on an empty Notepad window. (Notepad NT, included with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, doesn't have the 32 KB restriction that Notepad 9x imposes.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yeah, I bet filterware projects never thought of that one. I bet they don't group anomalizers in a category that can be blocked if need be, either. Good job, fucktard.
Our school's (bess) filter blocks 2600.com and slashdot, even though they don't block www.kuro5hin.org.
I'm trying to work on a Anonymizer (anyone know a good php book?), becuase bess block them as loop holes. What's more anonying that the IP blocking is the keyword filtering, blocking simple words such as download, games, cache.
Delaware had Slashdot blocked as well. I had to email the higher ups to get it unblocked. I claimed it to be a legitimate source of research.
I then pointed out that this number was on the web page that had the explaination to why the site was being blocked and that it was posted on Slashdot. This corporate lackey kept up his charade and asked what Slashdot was. Seriously, what kind of fool does this person think I am? I said I wasn't going to put up with this type of corporate behavior and someone was going to set things right. He finally took my name and number down and said he'd get back to me. I hope that my actions will correct this situation.
Hmmm... some security personnel has just shown up at my cubicle wanting to talk to me. They no doubt want to congratulate me on my pro-active response to the situation.
Just because I make something that performs the same functions and has the same features as a proprietary application (ex XMMS vs Winamp), how am I violating intellectual property?
In many jurisdictions, you can easily step on a patent holder's toes (ex LAME vs Fraunhofer MP3 encoder) (ex GIMP vs Adobe ImageReady, w.r.t. GIF) (ex GIMP vs Photoshop Full Version, w.r.t. CMYK color space management).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Once the software my company uses wouldn't allow access to my homepage hosted by adaptive.net. I emailed the dept and told them what the site was, and they emailed me back saying that it was blocked because the host hosts a lot of porn sites. He was able to change the settings so it allowed me access. No problem. Dont' forget, the admins are geeks just like us, and if they knew about it blocking sourceforge they would probably change it if they could.
http://www.archive.org/
In addition to detecting and filtering out great site like SourceForge, how about trying to detect when your corporate computers try to send me this.
Coderz 4 Life
project.sf.net == project.sourceforge.net ...
Oops, sf.net does redirect to sourceforge.net
better it didn't
I was asked to put in a filtering solution for a local company to stop porn usage (which was rampaging through this small local firm). So I put in a IPF/OpenBSD/Squid with transparent http filtering. Itis cheap and effective, but not fullproof, it required a lot of monitoring in the begining and making sure sites were what they were, adding and removing sites from the list I was able to get to start with.
My advice, if you have a legitimate buissness reason for accessing SourceForge (which a lot of us do) then go to you IT department and get it removed, or added for you. Who knows maybe they had some problems with something on it, or more then likely they don't even know.
doesn't work.
thelikesofwhich.com
Hmm, I think you meant to say efficiency... Although efficacy sort of works there too.
What better time to demonstrate the allmighty power of the /. effect? I suggest pointing your browsers towards The Bastards and egaging the beast.
What filtering system do you use? Squidguard?
Last I checked, squidguard seemed to be languishing (and not surprisingly; keeping up with net content requires a truly exhaustive organization). Is there something else out there?
Just a confirmation that sourceforge.net is blocked by SmartFilter. I'm seeing the rejection message sitting here at work. How silly of them.
Well, the /.ing is complete. We have knocked their entire site offline (not just the cgi server handling removal requests). I hope their software isn't dependent on being able to contact their site, otherwise they're going to have quite a problem. Hooray for the /. effect, it ought to get their attention.
.sig, what's that?
There's no sig like SIGSEG
With the exception of The Prodigy and Weird Al, these are some of rock's best bands but there are bands in musical genres other than rock.
Jazz has had, I would argue, bands which rival and perhaps surpass the bands listed here. What about Count Basie And His Orchestra, possibly one of the more influential groups in jazz. Someone else mentioned the second Miles Davis quintet.
On the jazz-funk side, how could you forget Sly And The Family Stone which helped to influence jazz musicians like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock towards their jazz-funk fusions of the 70s. Or what about James Brown's band the J.B.'s which produced many of the most-sampled rhythms to date and continued to be funky even when Fred Wesley took over for a spell.
Let us not forget hip-hop from which similarly great bands have sprung: Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, Public Enemy, BDP, Executioners AKA X-Men, The Invisibl Skratch Piklz, etc.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of non-rock bands, but there are great bands out there which aren't rock!
True one can petition to get the stuff taken off, but what if you dont know whats being blocked?
How would you know you are missing something ?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://033042125704/
The upshot of all this is that sourceforge.net will (probably) be unblocked, and hundreds of companies who didn't know about this context-controlled censorware product will (definitely) look into this further. This story is (definitely) a black eye for free speech.
Seriously, that's been common knowledge for sometime that all you do is start up a sourceforge "project", put it at pre-alpha version 0.000001, then have a bunch of "source files" (cough cough) for "developers" to use. Pass around the download location on IRC and presto - instant hi-bandwidth mp3 hosting.
tends to be an equally sufficient means of making a statement.
Ok, for you dumbasses, morons, and zealots that haven't figured it out YET (and yes, that includes that moron timothy, because he apparently doesn't read the response comments after he posts his inane drivel) despite this same story being posted the third time:
a) Secure Computing/SmartFilter provide some pre-made lists. They do not enforce the lists. The administrators at your company turn on/off the list of blocked sites.
b) Some of you may think that Seth Finkelstein is cool for partially decrypting some of the lists of blacklisted sites. While what he has done is an interesting exercise and points out some miscategorizations, think about this: This product monitors activity to the entirety of the internet. Do you think that Secure Computing has some monkey locked into a cage with a terminal and a T3 looking at each and every site possible and categorizing it? I think not - it's more likely they have automated dig/search/crawl software that recognizes keywords and automatically classifies sites. Hmm, perhaps that's why they even have the URL feedback form? Yes, that is way too logical for the zealot to understand.
Dorks. Despite what the article and some of you morons imply, it's not Secure Computing that is the cause of your angst - go hunt down your local firewall admin if you are peeved about being blocked at work.
Maybe they should filter out slashdot as "Criminal Skills" because they have had stories about *shiver* circumventing copy-protection!!
Wouldn't getting an anonymizer account undermine any censorship attempts?
Nope... I use squid as it sits...
there are several people/ org's that maintain icky-nasty-bad-porn and regular porn sitelists. squid can handle that easily without extra junk.
Now only to make Squid give out a special denied page when it's a porn rule that's violated.. I would love for a large red letters stating "PORN ACCESS VIOLATION" across their screen... that'll teach those pervert sickos...
Why do you think we have filtering software? To give slashdotters a reason to rant and rave and ultimately do nothing?
There are legitamate uses of filtering software. And in some places (elementary schools, unsupervised children) where its a choice between filtered internet or no internet.
Just like 12-year old Kenny can't go into Wal-Mart by himself and by the latest Eminem CD.
And guess what? My internet isn't filtered and neither is yours (you are reading a slashdot forum after all), and I don't think anyone is interested in filtering you net usage anyways.
So please, keep the desk-chair militias at bay.
So, SmartFilter is at least smart enough to block its critics...
I evaluated bunch of filter products a few years ago for a customer. Smartfilter nudged out SquidGuard because of the lower admin overhead.
They run it in audit mode on a small amount of categories considered inappropriate. The user has a choice to continue to the site after receiving a warning, and must explain their choice if they appear in our weekly reports.
Porn surfing at work went from about 1% of traffic to about 1,000 hits a week (counting ads as well).
They have been catching big downloaders for about two years before that. It certainly keeps those MP3 and warez doodz at bay. I can't undestand the economics of downloading. To download a CD in Australia costs A$90 or more for most sites. If you can get away with someone else paying for it, then it is "free"
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
I administered a server running Smartfilter at my last job.
The software is garbage. Really, it's a pain in the rear. Worse, huge numbers of sites are misclassified. Every time I updated the control list, half a dozen employees would call because some legit business site had been incorrectly classified as pr0n and they could no longer access it. A great deal at only ~$4k per year (blech).
I tried to get them to use an open-source solution with no luck. If it didn't run under Windows and cost a fortune, they weren't interested. Pity.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Hey keep up the good spirit and wave the red flag, they are bringing China to the US :)
--
Jake
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
Ping the domain name Sourceforge.net. The paste the IP into your browser. Works every time for me. You may have to do it a few times when you get redirected to a hard link.
I'm not entirely sure, but I can't seem to think of any reason why someone would want to be looking at porn while they're at work ...
..
..
What can be worse than sitting at your desk in your cubicle/office, with a boner and one of those "urges" to pull the "manual override", and not being able to do anything about it (without risking charges of indecency, at least)
And what would happen if your coworker (or boss?!) came in while you were viewing porn, and asked you to get up and walk to a meeting or something, while you were still 'in the mood'
I know most of us guys have good control over our erectile functions, but... come on, it's gotta be a *bit* uncomfortable to be in that state and to try and talk business or something..
Maybe it's only me, but I just don't see the allure of viewing pr0n at work.
anyway.. tiz just my little rant
ìì!
...but I do think this person absolutely has a point.
:-)
As the CTO of in international company, I see a lot of people around me who cannot spell. Some are VERY clever people, but indeed, some of them will probably never grow to become managers (let alone CEOs), simple becuase they cannot write (and that includes spelling).
Now this may not bother you - in which case, that is fine. But if you ever want to become the pointy-haired guy who earns US$150k instead of being the tech who "knows more" but earns $50k, things like spelling, as well as knowledge of geography, politics and current affairs are exactly the things that make a difference.
Being the pointy-haired guy means being able to put together a good presentation, being able to sit next to another CEO on the aiplane and talk intelligently about the state of the industry, and being able to address 100 people confidently.
The good news is: this stuff is learnable. If you can learn C++ or Java, you can certainly learn "English". Advice: this "English" language is as important as those other languages if you want a good resume.
Again, no value expressed here: it is perfectly OK to want to be the guy who makes less but works fewer hours and says what he thinks.
Mike
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
No, not anymore. ;)
SmartFilter offers four possible results for each category when a user attempts to visit a site on the filter list:
- Permit. Access is allowed, but logged by user-IP, URL, and category (if any)
- Deny. Block access, return a HTML page explaining what was blocked, and why. Same logging.
- Delay.. Access is permitted, but page returns after a delay (default 30 seconds). Same logging.
- Coach.. Access is blocked, but permit the user to 'click through' to the actual page. Either way, log access.
With the 'Coach' option, nobody is actually blocked from accessing any web site. However, for each new access to any 'questionable' site (based on categories from the SmartFilter database), the user is presented with warning page, and the opportunity to choose to continue, with the knowledge that their actions are logged and may be reviewed.Here is the interesting one:
The default HTML pages that SmartFilter ships with are rather boring. I've made a few changes to the 'Coach' page HTML to make it very clear what is going on -- bright icons and background, big WARNING banner at the top, and the text of our official "Internet Access Policy" (just in case the user somehow missed it when they signed their employment paperwork).
I'm hoping that 'coaching' will cut down on web access abuse and wasted time, while still allowing people to get to sites that they really need to access for their job, without getting people fired.
And best of all, the warning page breaks the never-ending cycle launched by those damn porn-site popup ads!
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
> And in some places (elementary schools, unsupervised children) where its a choice between filtered internet or no internet.
I have two more choices. You could *gasp*, supervise the children. Or, far better than ineffective black-list filters that let porn through while blocking Dick Armey's web site, you could provide a white-list filter that only allows pre-screened URLs through.
Of course, when I was a kid, we could buy albums by the Dead Kennedys without our parents holding our hands.
Getting pr0n was a lot tougher back then, but you can trust that I was able to find it despite the fact that I couldn't go into a store and buy it.
> My internet isn't filtered and neither is yours
Not yet at least...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
....and there IS a difference between typos and spelling. Typos (like writing "simple" for "simply", and typing "becuase", when you are in a hurry) are allowed even for CTOs. They are easily differentiated from actually not knowing the spelling.
:-))
Honest.
Michael
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
I run Spread Spectrum Scene, a site devoted to RF and wireless technology. It was listed as an Online Sales site. We will see how effective the request for removal is!
(This sig intentionally left blank)
There is no excuse for such filtering software in a corporate environment. It should be opposed there as a criminal restraint. Companies and sites that are excluded by this ridiculous piece of software should sue. Just having the users "vote" says that it is a debatable issue in the first place whether site X should be blocked and worse, it legitimizes such blockage in such environments in the first place.
Keep asinine comments about "militia" to yourself when people are simply attempting to get some action out of the apathy that surronds us.
If I was a parent I'd be thanking Zeus that they blocked that freak's site.
Marilyn is no more extreme than Alice Cooper or Lou Reed or freakin' David Bowie. Sure, he looks pretty crazy, but no crazier than the dude that works in the local video store (and he's spent a lot more on his wardrobe). I'm no fan of his music, but reading interviews with him he is hardly "freakish" or "extreme"; he votes Republican; his views are not that far out of the mainstream, and after his music was blamed for Columbine he wrote one of the most intelligent responses to the tragedy that I came across in the media that spring (including on slashdot; my apologies JonKatz). The only reason he's so controversial is that he's intentionally giving the finger to the religious right, which is most likely his family background. So he takes a lot of his symbolism from Christianity and performs in a manner that is provocative and mocking. Of course it pisses those people off, it's meant to, but it's hardly a threat to your children unless you want to keep them closed-minded. (It's definitely not a threat to your children if you believe in Zeus, as the parent post implies!)
You got to admire how clever he is too (though admittedly he's picking on an easy target); in response to many of the criticisms of his treatment of Christianity he promised in this interview to "balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading" so fans can "examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide, and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me."
How come they do not block Microsoft
Given all the porn spam I get, why the hell is Hotmail not listed under the Sex category?
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
It would almost definitely end up sounding really bad, like the ones in this article on bad porn awards but it would be worth it to make something that was unblockable by any type of systematic filter.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
So they've delegated that task to a retarded electronic babysitter.
Suck it up and be a good drone or update your resume and start looking for a better place to work.
A competent professional doesn't need to have his/her time and efficiency wasted by this kind of crap. Competent management doesn't hire people who need electronic babysitters.
Tech Public Policy stuff
just look for the IP number and use it instead
the name.
At least in their cgi checker they don't
know that http://sourceforge.net/ = http://216.136.171.196/
Yup. I realize it may not be a good thing to explain
this trick publicly, they may sue slashdot and
at the same time implement something to avoid
IP numbers...
I guess the site isn't about MP3's then :)
http://www.mp3-howto.com
-P
If the Sourceforge folks are getting blocked by CensorshipInc., do they have grounds for a lawsuit for things like restraint of trade or libel? It's one thing to block them for "hacker tools", a category which some lameoid censorware products do, but blocking them for MP3s sounds blatantly negligent at best.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Why is it that "occult" is considered a category that merits censorship? Would people not be outraged if they had a category like "Episcopelean" or "Jewish" and censored stuff in that category? "Occult" is even less specific; why is it considered legitimate, in a nation that values free speech and liberty of thought (not to mention free choice of religion), to suppress ideas based on a label like "occult"? To my reading "occult" is a category of knowledge that encompasses a variety of mystical traditions, ancient and modern. Why do people feel we must protect children from the "occult," and why do we not frown upon people who feel that way the way we would frown upon those who felt we must protect our children from Jews, for example?
Actually, I think Dick Armey's web site does much more damage to children than a lot of the porn that's out there.
As a former student at a utah school, let me just say how ANNOYING that stupid proxy solution is. I figured out many ways around it, so its pretty much pointless to begin with. I was doing a report on hacking, and i went to neworder (if you know what it is, great, otherwise, you'll understand when you're older) for some useful information, but it said "denied due to reason: Criminal Skills" and i was like Duh, i'm doing a report on criminal skills wtf do they expect? So then i included in the report the way to get around it, and got in further trobule, needless to say. It shows how messed up the UEN is.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
However, I have had no success finding such a beast.
Can you point me at a stable URL (not IP) blocking package which will run with (Solaris8|FreeBSD)+Squid, and for which we can purchase a subscription to a oft-updated list of "non-business use" sites, sorted by category?
Until then, Secure Computing will get their $$,$$$/year for SmartFilter.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I suggested www.securecomputing.com(the companies website) to be listed as "Criminal Skills".
After suggesting sourceforge be removed, i made the following suggestions:
s ecurecomputing.com
c s
Your suggestion to re-categorize the following URL(s):
URL Suggested Categorization
www.securecomputing.com
oc
www.
po
www.securecomputing.com
thats cult/occult, politics, and criminal skills, for those of you who care. And all of them are true. Death to censorware!
This is the rare post which is both informative and funny.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Wow, amazing, I've lived in Delaware for forty years and never knew the state was blocking information access. And even weirder, I've never had any trouble getting on Slashdot!
How about that.
Post some examples or be branded a lying AC.
Just like 12-year old Kenny can't go into Wal-Mart by himself and by the latest Eminem CD
Actually, he can. Wal-Mart doesn't sell naughty music as-is. Instead, they censor it by muting out anything they deem unfriendly to "families" and sell it that way. That's why I will never buy any media (CD, DVD, etc) at Wal-Mart.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
The article linked to mentions how the sites must be banned by computers, not by humans as the company claims. Here's some evidence that a stupid human must be at least partly involved: www.theonion.org : General News www.theonion.com: Adult Humour They're the same exact site. The content is 100% exactly the same at both TLDs. If a computer where categorizing these things they'd both be the same. Only puny humans could mess up this badly.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Sourceforge getting blocked ey? Well since Open Source is a virus and companies don't like viruses... then you must block the source: a site that offers virual software!
As it happens, I am using Squid... with the SmartFilter plugin. This took a bit longer to install than Squid by itself, and is considerably more expensive ($4K/year for a 100 user license).
Okay, where do I go for a list of porn sites?Now then, where do I download equivalent lists to the couple of dozen additional categories that SmartFilter offers? Games? Drugs? Sports? Mp3? Chat? Investing? Dating? Webmail? Anonymizer? Politics/Religion? Cults/Occult? etc, etc.
Paying a subscription for updated filter information is not stupid if (and only if) you can trust the commercial entity that is maintaining the list to do a good job and not let any of their bias (religious, political, etc) show in how they rate sites.
I wish I could make it my job to surf for new Mp3 and porn serving web sites to add the URLs to a corporate filter list, but the reality is, paying $4K+ per year to subscribe to a list of sites/categories is cheaper and more effective than paying me to do the same job by hand (pun intended).
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
to sites@smartfilter.com. I'm writing one right now.
If you enter an URL with a trailing '.' i.e. foo.com. instead of foo.com it says invalid URL, I don't know if that means it will block it anyway, or whether it may not check it. I don't have dumbfilter running to see.
People that need to use that sort of chastity belt shouldn't think. These are the actual users of digested products like M$, and all the like.
They think that if they pay, it must be correct.
Is it possible to fence the mountain?
Rwe obliged 2 save our future by choosing:O3 hole-greenhouse effect instead of accepting everydays gossip-nonsense chat?
They sell a bogus product that makes it easy for corporate dickheads to enforce stupid policies. They're as blameless as heroin pushers.
You defend them, you're part of the problem.
They're in the business of filtering smart, after all.
The shareholder is always right.
The WSJ, Barrons, Finacial Times, et al should be listed as a "criminal skills" site, since I could probably guarantee you 100% readership of one or more of those publications among the executive classes of WorldCon, Enron, Arthur Anderson, Adelphia.
I mean, all those pubs just do is encourage criminal business practices, yes?
When I was in Highschool, I hated the Novell censor software. My Highschool's Cisco teacher was the school's computer admin, and he was going insane trying to changing the list that Novell uses to block 'improper' sites out with. Students that were doing reports in the library and tried browsing to appropriate sites could never make it to the research site because of Novell. He would get about 23492234 requests to unblock websites from the Novell system a day.
rm -rf sig
If the program catagorizing your logs was not full of it, your company had serious problems to begin with. Chances are that SmartFilter or some sister program told you just what you wanted to hear. Did you really sample those sites? Did you have another program to verify your employees were really going to those places? Scepticism helps here, because I find it hard to believe that anyplace with 50+ of how_many_hundred_? employees dicking around all day with porn can stay in business for 18 months. The other problem your comany has is you. Your statement, " Most people can get to most the things they want to.." reveals the fact that you don't care if a few can't get what they want or need to do their jobs.
You've got 10,000 employees like I've got half Bill Gates's shares of M$.
This one really cracks me up:
You have to have good, fair policies in place covering Internet usage and trusted individuals with good ethics to see those policies are being followed.
If you trusted them, you would never need a filter, would you? Obviously, you company is filled with people that can't be trusted. It's too bad you don't apply the same scepticism to makers of snake oil. For all that, you still end up combing the logs to improve the filters. Don't you have something better to do? Like provide information services?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Hint to moderators: when a post refers to people in general as "dumbasses, morons, and zealots" in the first line of the post, it should be moderated -1 Troll, not +1 informative.
I havd DSL at home I run an ISP, so I have no limitation, but I have never found any pr0n on the internet. It is all crap, and you end up giving your email address to million of spammers.
This is strange, man help me out here.
Interestingly enough, www.slackware.com (yes, the Linux Distro.) is listed in the most recent 3.0.1/3.1 as a "personal" site. DUH.
Also interesting, is that while www.slackware.com is listed, slackware.com is not.
Hm, interesting. Is it correct that this kind of censorship is copyrighted and being protected by US law, so you are not allowed to make the list public?
Whoa, that sounds extremely uncool in my ears... (they're German ears)
And what about http://www.microsoft.com@sourceforge.net ?
From your post one can infer that each of those four conditions must be met for an act to be considered libel. However, in this case, one can argue whether a "statement" was made or not.
But let's generalize this from making a statement to any other act. Suppose I perform any action, with negligence, in such a way that damages are caused to someone. Isn't this enough cause for either a civil or criminal process? Morally, at least, one is not allowed to perform any acts with negligence, recklessness, or malice that will cause damages to someone. "Libel" would be just one of the many ways in which such acts could be made.
Wow this many colons, I didnt know micro$oft had that many "assholes".
Keep fiing assholes (Dark Helmet)
A good programmer is not necessarily a good manager. Unfortunately, when the average company promotes someone, they take the best programmer to manage the department.
My solution to this problem: make pay independent of position. A good programmer should get paid more than an average manager.
While doing research at my new job, I ran across the TinyCobol project on Source Forge. When I tried to click on the link (tinycobol.sourceforge.net), I got a filtering error back too. Category: Sex.
I don't even want to know.
Thanks for the URL. As I was voting, I notice sf.net isn't blocked. OSS Developers can use sf.net in place of sourceforge while we all vote.
They definitely offer "online sales". I once bought a "DirectX SDK CD" online from them.
Or borrow one of those flash porn ads with sound, and put that on the page. Or even just a loud siren and a voice saying "NO PORN FOR YOU".
The second cathegory in the list mentions:
Art Exhibits/Artists/Art History - Web sites in this category contain virtual art galleries and other cultural topics, such as museums and country customs. Some examples of sites and topics include:
Visual Jazz Art Gallery - Contemporary art
Cartoon Factory Animation
A lesson in Native American Funeral Rituals
If that kind of site should be censored, then what is the purpose of the internet, anyhow?
I wonder if anyone's ever been sacked because of erroneous censorware logs? (Or ever will be sacked...)
Suppose someone visits SF.net every day while at work, say in their lunch break or after hours. This would show up in the SmartFilter logs as the person visiting an mp3 site. Once the boss decides to make an example and sack them, what chance have they got of arguing that the site's legit and it is in fact SmartFilter that's wrong?
Take it a step further: Suppose someone visits a site about children's books that has incorrectly been listed as a child porn site. Their boss spots this in the logs and calls the cops. The investigation would presumably draw a blank but still, the harm is done to the person's reputation. No smoke without fire...
Ummm, I happen to work for the same company as "An unnamed reader" does. That, or someone else's Information Security department has the same telephone extension as mine does. :-)
However, if you _even_ happen to know whose company is mentioned, I doubt I or anyone else will lose sleep over a smartmouth's rant.
(FWIW, this company actually does utilize Free Software in production. We also have an overzealous Information Security department that deploys McAfee and SmartFilter, but that's another story.)
Man, was I ever disappointed. I typed in my URL, and it said "NOT LISTED". Jeez; what's a guy gotta do to get on such a list?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Arghh....
This after a week on the phone to those clueless plonks trying to figure out why I couldn't *(*&%^%%$^% see *&^*&^*&*& Sourceforge. (the suggestion being that I was obviously violating corporate policy, because the PHBs would *never* block something useful by mistake, "maybe because it's a h4X0r site...").
I should have known better than to expect anything other than default brokeness.
My next project shall be a script using a large block of DHCP addresses to shape Smartfilter's source statistics. I know just the code base... oh wait... SourceForge is blocked!...
The Gelatinous cude hits! The Gelatinous cube Hits! You are still frozen in the gaze of the Beholder! The Gelatinous cube Hits! You die!
On a more serious note, will the default policy on this sort of blocking eventually to be, "block it unless it is a RIAA or MPAA certified domain"?
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
The filtering company Smartfilter has found out sites not only need to be blocked for server-client but also client-server.
With this attempt this company tries to selectively filter out any attacks that take away massive network resources (also called the Slashdot Effect and Denial Of Service attacks).
With this move newssites that do not like filtering software will be blocked out to protect the valuable network resources.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I'll generously use your lower estimate, 3% error rate. Now calculate the compounded probability. If you need to access 24 different sites in one week, you have a better than even chance of an error blocking you: (1.00-.03)^24 = 48% probability of success, 52% chance of failure. Maybe you can accept performance that poor, but I can't!
sites@smartfilter.com
/. their mailserver with emails.
Make the case that they've made a totally inaccurate categorization that is blocking software developers from accessing the leading open-source software repository.
I mentioned it's possibly a libelous miscategorization to call it an mp3 site.
Probably best not to be too rabid, but we shouls
The possibility of obsession is also no excuse to deny access to information. People can be obsessed with many things, including the currently dominant superstition.
Actually, access to information is, most likely, the best antidote against obsession. For instance, do you think the 9/11 terrorists would be so willing to suicide if they had ready access to alternative ideas and theories about religion and the afterlife? Limited access to information is the best recipe to fanatism I know.
I got pulled up by the log checkers by one of the admins at my school for looking up porn when I was browsing freshmeat.net. It didn't really occur to them to actually try loading the page to see whether it was in fact porn. Sheesh.
When will people ever learn that if it has "Smart" in the title it isn't.
This means that anything that uses "SMART" won't be.
If it says "smartsomething" , it isn't.
The only thing SMART is if folks start staying away from things that say "smart."
I hope you all are smart enough to understand what I just said.
12-year-old Kenny can. Though I'm sure I could come up with reasons why you shouldn't be allowed to, any more than you should be allowed in an adult discussion of public policy.
Censorware in the workplace is a band-aid fix for bad management. As for its use in schools or libraries, I suggest getting the facts about the databases this class of crapware uses before whining about how nasty we are all about it in public.
The purpose of school and public library Internet access is education. The assignment of site ratings is at best arbitrary and at worst a reflection of a political agenda the management of these companies refuse to share with the public because if it were public knowledge, no institution could afford to be publically associated with these products. Censorware interferes with the educational process.
While I'm sure that given the miserable failure of the educational system in your case, you have no problem with this, the rest of us who pay for it do.
Degrading the operation of these sites to the point where even the PHMs who buy it see that it has problems is something I have no trouble with at all.
Tech Public Policy stuff
#!/usr/bin/perl -we reV301.cgi?new1=1&url_string1=sourceforge.net& amp;results_string1=MP3&category_request1=rm&a mp;url_request=Send+4 .5");
use LWP;
$url= "http://www.securecomputing.com/cgi-bin/filter_wh
Request";
$browser = LWP::UserAgent->new();
$browser->agent("Mozilla/
for($i=0; $i<500; $i++){
$webdoc = $browser->request(HTTP::Request->new(GET => $url));
if($webdoc->is_success){
print STDOUT $webdoc->title, "\n";
}else{
print STDERR "$0: couldn't fetch $url";
}
}
- Any of the state Republican Party organizations I tried (for example, cagop.org, which is California
- The Democratic Party (democrats.org) or any of the state organizations
- The Green Party (www.greenparty.org)
I submitted all of these in the interests of completeness. I also submitted the following:- The Free Software Foundation (fsf.org) which is decidedly political
- The American Baptist Churches (abc-usa.org)
- The Southern Baptist Convention (sbc.net)
- The Vatican (vatican.va)
- The White House (whitehouse.gov). Definitely political
- securityfocus.com, home of Bugtraq. This carries things like exploits, so it goes under Criminal Skills
- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) (aclu.org). Political
- securecomputing.com itself should technically be under Online Sales
I could go on. In fact, I suspect each of you can think of at least one site in each category off the top of your head that they don't have.Let's help SmartFilter accomplish its goal of making the Internet useless.
I've spoken to the Unnamed reader after recognizing the phone number and the phrasing of the block page, and given him our apologies. It will be fixed asap. We get regular updates from Secure Computing, whose effects we can't know until the complaints start rolling in.
We're not about keeping people from doing their jobs, just protecting the company from unnecessary lawsuits. BTW, we don't determine what's legally unacceptable. Others, far higher in the food chain make that determination.
Also, we do a lot of investigation of the alleged "Abuse" before bringing those reports up the ladder. We don't just look at the logs and determine guilt or innocence based on them. We'd like to think that we protect all innocent parties.
How do we determine who's not innocent?
Repeated abuses after investigation of the websites involved and multiple warnings.
Probably not enough to satisfy a minority, but them's the breaks when your work for a big company.
I just did the same to /. ;)
Help, I can't get through to slashdot to complain about the filter.
If you read his later post, you will note that his figure was only measuring accuracy *of blocked sites*, not total accesses. If blocked sites were actually 1 percent of requests (just a random guess) then 0.03 percent of requests are incorrectly blocked.
I liked your analysis, so I'll rerun the numbers. Given a 3 percent error on blocked sites, and 1 percent of requests are blocked, accessing 24 sites:
(1.00-0.0003)^24 = 99.3 percent chance of unimpeded access along with accurate blocking, 0.7 percent chance of being unfairly blocked. That's a lot better.
On the other hand, the success rate would be even closer to 100 percent if the subject quits their job and goes to work someplace that doesn't put obnoxious filtering software between them and the web.
-=Ivan
Darn he got here before I could. And yes it is true. These guys are very helpful.
;-)
My post was actually toward securecomputing. I would rate our InfoSec department above other IT departments in our organization.
And no, I do not have a barrel agains my head
Torvalds uses Windows .NET Web Server Edition, Beta 3 exclusively.
Perhaps that's a triffle strong, but not by much. Censorship is bad, but when you hide what you are censoring you have no justifiable expectation of understanding or sympathy.
I don't care what justifications you create. They don't excuse the actions. This isn't murder, this isn't grand theft corporation. But it's on the next tier down.
Censorship that is justifiable must be able to say and prove what it is censoring. Reasonable and trusted people must be able to check, and if you want to limit the number of people who are allowed to check you had better have an excruciatingly good reason. (Weaponizing anthrax comes to mind.)
The "web censor programs" don't meet, or even approach, the bare minimum acceptable criteria. They seem to deny that there could possibly be any doubt that they are moral, despite many past instances of their abuse of the trust that some place in them.
As they were constituted the last time I checked (a brief look, I must admit) none of the ones that I noticed appeared to meet reasonable criteria for being allowed to continue to operate. Several seemed to be clear examples of fraud. Some engaged in political manipulation.
I don't trust your arguments, because those you are asking us to trust have proven untrustworthy, and refuse to prove differently.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If one runs Losedows one never has the chance to have any kind of sex... re-installing Losedows takes up all the available time. Anyway, Losedows sufferers can only have it away when BILL says they can, and if they pay for a "Service" pack.
(I have two Losedows boxen and they cause ALL the problems in my life. I am currently reinstalling LD on my DAW 'cause it got all reg-munged.
Roll on Audacity on LINUX - I might be able to get some work done.
Lucius Sour
I don't care what justifications you create. They don't excuse the actions. This isn't murder, this isn't grand theft corporation. But it's on the next tier down.
Censorship that is justifiable must be able to say and prove what it is censoring. Reasonable and trusted people must be able to check, and if you want to limit the number of people who are allowed to check you had better have an excruciatingly good reason. (Weaponizing anthrax comes to mind.)
Um, in order to be censorship, this must significantly hamper the ability of the users involved to access information/speech, yes?
They can look up anything they please at *home*.
How is the work filtering policy censoring what they have access to?
The company presumably has terms of service along the lines of "the company's computers are to be used for work-related purposes only". Where's the problem?
Much as I hate censorship, there are legitimate reasons to block access/record the attempt. Like at a middle school. Or High School. Or primary school. Or work. But not the public library.
Now, my personal view is that I'd rather my kids go see some porn rather than, say, Mission Impossible or Die Hard. But have you seen some of the porn these days? See B###### RAPED AND THEIR TENDER PINK P###### TORN TO BLEEDING MEAT. That is somewhat upsetting to me.
Face it. There are some sick puppies out there, and I don't want my kids meeting up with them.
Now, as far as filtering at work: Listen, I pay you to work, not putz around on porn sites. No, I don't care if you are on break or not, bandwidth isn't free and others need it to do what I pay them to do. If you have a problem with that, then the door is right behind you, don't let it slam you in the a## on the way out.
This isn't about freedom to do your own thing. This is about getting the job done or school work. You want to surf porn, go right ahead. At home you fool. At home.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
It would seem to me that the internet archival project would be on their target list. To block sites like this.
Hmm. They need to fix some of their categories!
2600.com is listed as "Politics/Religion".
attrition.org's security page is listed as "Entertainment,Mature".
Plus, many security sites are listed as "Criminal skills".
It SHOULD be VA Linux protesting against blocking of sourceforge.net by SmartFilter, rather than expecting thousands of /.ers to do the job for them.
In my experience, the absolute best filter possible is a combination of dsniff, ntop, and a few ngrep scripts for triggering on certain keywords and dumping the output to a text file overseen by a pissed off admin who wants to see the morons in accounting get fired. Works every single time, let a few idiots get hella-fired and your work is done.
Frankly, as far as "occult" goes, Harry Potter is as much a threat to your daughter as Marilyn Manson (and in fact Mr. Manson remains far more Christian, if that is an issue). The "occult," and the reasons we accept censorship of ideas that fall in that category, is precisely what this discussion is about. You're the one who's been bringing up irrelevancies such as what happens if your daughter is bombarded by animal sex on the internet.
Also, just an aside: I'm no angel on the internet, but I have never come across animal sex, unless you count the goeatse guy. I think unless your daughter is specifically seeking out animal sex sites, she's unlikely to be constantly bombarded by them.
I am so tired of reading that. Wal-Mart does not censor or mute anything. They do however, reject products that they consider unsuitable, as do all retailers everywhere. Their one-step-further is simply to tell the suppliers what changes would make their products acceptable to them. It is up to the supplier to make those changes or not. If the changes piss you off, complain to the labels, for all the good it will do. But stop repeating nonsense.
This in in accordance with the rest of the blocks on the site. Edonkey2000, kazaa, imesh, gnutella, all are blocked as MP3 sites ...
are they mp3 sites? NO.
Do they have software for the p2p sharing of files? YES.
Does sourceforge have any p2p appz for d/l? YES.
Following that resoning, should it be blocked ? YES.
I am NOT saying i would block it. But according to those rules it should be. Its might be easier to block the ports all of these use but it helps to prevent ppl waisting company time and bandwidth neither of which are cheap.
Not intended as a flamebait, just facts.
Thanks. I added the removal request for sourceforge.
But I also evilishly added a new one: www.microsoft.com to be filtered under Cults,Occults.
Happy Birthday Microsoft.
OK, maybe it's because I've woken up at 6 in the morning, and for some reason started reading /. instead of getting some sleep, but I feel the need to point out that if Microsoft(tm) are paying the royalties for the MP3 decoders being downloaded then they're doing nothing wrong^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^ h^h^hconforming with the Thomson(tm) licensing requirements.
:-)
Obviously 'doing nothing wrong' is a bit of an over-wide statement
"I bow to your expertise in the area of stupidity, and I'm sure the rest of slashdot feels the same way."
Sure, so you feel messing up the voting system is a constructive action?
"12-year-old Kenny can. Though I'm sure I could come up with reasons why you shouldn't be allowed to, any more than you should be allowed in an adult discussion of public policy."
Kind of a hypocritical suggestion, wouldn't you say? Oh, sarcasm I'm sure...
"Censorware in the workplace is a band-aid fix for bad management. As for its use in schools or libraries, I suggest getting the facts about the databases this class of crapware uses before whining about how nasty we are all about it in public."
I'm sorry, but the burden of proof is all yours. If you have some articles that you'd like to link to, I would be interested enough to read them. Not that your tone would cause me to respect your position, anyway (I am aware that most of that is my fault).
"Censorware interferes with the educational process."
Without, children do not get access to the internet. While it is possible that the schools would use this tool as a means to a political agenda, I think even this is better than the few textbooks they will be taught with anyway.
The post I responded to was a silly suggestion and I responded thusly.
12 year old Kenny can buy Marilyn Manson, etc. at WalMart or more likely, Best Buy.
Sure, so you feel messing up the voting system is a constructive action?
In this case, certainly. The only way a PHM/PHB who decided to buy the filterware is going to be persuaded that something is wrong with it is from experience, if he's even capable of learning from that. If his favorite news-related sites are inaccessible, that might actually make him wonder what the hell he's bought.
With respect to censorware, try Peacefire. It would work better if you had an open mind, but I'm not sure if you've got one to open.
I really don't care if you respect me or not. I can not respect you as a person, regardless of your technical expertise, if any.
Another fact you don't have straight. It isn't a decision between filterware access to the Net and no access in schools and libraries for children anymore, except in areas where the school board or library board of trustees are imbecilic fuckheads like you.
CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act) was shot down in flames by a Federal Court. The three-judge panel didn't buy the horseshit you believe, either. Despite the best efforts of DOJ attorneys to present your flawed arguments in the best possible light.
Hmmm... dumbest people with an Internet connect... are you an elected public official or do you actually work for a censorware company? You obviously aren't bright enough for Microsoft.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I work for a small company here in South Africa. I think the benefit of working for a small company is that your best friend is the firewall admin and blocking of sites is just a waste of time for a company with 7 employees. Bring on the downloads. :)
You mean Republicans?
When I joined my new place of work (as a games programmer) I was astonished to find that sourceforge.net was blocked by our firewall. When I raised the issue I was told that it was because it was easy to get filesharing programs or code for the above from sourceforge. I made the argument that Sourceforge was too valuable an educational resource (at the very least) to be blocked and the solution was much more careful port monitoring. Result: sourceforge was made accessible, and all ports except 80 were sealed up tighter than a thinggys whatsit. No more MUDs at lunchtime. Damm
/usr/games/fortune > ~/.signature
I couldn't check the link to Peacefire.
Smartfilter seems to think it usuitable material for me to look at.
Slashdot next!
'No rational religion claims "supernatural" exists, that's an atheist slander.' - seen on slashdot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If a project on SourceForge is working to Reverse Engineer SmartFilter, or other filtering programs, SourceForge will be blocked. The Filtering sites have tended to be VERY HOSTILE to those attempting to reverse engineer their technology, or even discuss it technically.
i still don't get it
I used to work for a company that had a web filter set up, but we could get past sometimes by using the IP address instead of the website name:
http://sourceforge.net/
would be rewritten as
http://216.136.171.196/
I'm not sure it works with smartfilter, and I'm not sure it works with sourceforge.net, but it's worth a try. If it does work, maybe you can modify a proxy filter like junkbuster to s/sourceforge.net/216.136.171.196/g all your incoming web pages.
--NerdMachine
Lets say an slashdotter posts here that he knows Bill Gates, Ballmer and the rest of the big guys are dumping tomorrow all their MS shares.
And the bozo works for MS.
Or for a financial advisor.
The company that employs him may be found liable if this individual used company equipment (i.e. Internet access) for his diatribe.
What about pr()n or racism?
TO open in the workplace some material deemed either sexist or racist and willingly or unwillingly expose coworkers to this could make the company liable as well.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If it's in a lab or something, put a speaker on the squid machine, make the 'blocked' page a CGI script and have it work out who accessed the page, and have it use some text-to-speech program...gets around the problem of people not having their speakers turned up loud!
If you've got a large list of sites to block, you should find CPU use should drop and page access time should be much faster by putting the blocklists into squidguard rather than in squid ACLs.
I stopped being all that concerned with spelling issues some while ago when I took a good look at my spelling talent.
... they may train your fingers that "teh" is the correct way to type "the". Long ago I turned off auto-correction in my word processors; since, I would misspell something, but in an instant the AC fixed it, leaving me to stare bewilderingly at the correct words on the screen. A bell went off, but there was no fire, causing me to doubt my alarm mechanism.
I am a very good speller and it happens all on its own, like balance while walking. When I am typing along and misspell a word, my mind immediately latches onto the event. When I see a misspelled word written out, it jumps out of the page at me, clamoring for my attention with StarTrek{tm}-like klaxons. The same whoop whoop happens when some word is mis-used in a sentence that I am reading. It's a talent.
I read a good deal, and have always done so since an early age, so perhaps that itself lends to the talent. I type a good deal, writing adventure scripts and online discussions. I am also a detail person.
But as a talent, I judged that I can't expect everyone else to be that good with spelling. If my reading/writing experience is the source of the talent, then I can't expect eveyone else to have had that experience. You can live a pretty nice life without all the reading I do; even people that I call "not readers" are still functional people all around.
With the advent of spell-checkers, spelling issues may have been alleviated somewhat. It's the auto-correctors that I am worried about
There is probably a bit of the ol' laziness in some fraction of the misspelling that occurs; and laziness is laudably opposed. But perhaps we should better concentrate on the fact that if the message got across, then the purpose of all that typing was served. If you can communicate effectively, then all the details of the communication aren't as important.
P.S. This is a hastily composed note, which increases the chances of a misspelling. I therefore invoke the Haste Disclaimer, although I can't for long (if at all) escape Murphy's terrible laws.
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
I am getting real tired of being insulted by you. And I never said anything about respecting you personally. I have this nasty tendency of giving people the benefit of the doubt.
Really, when I talk to people in online forums, respect is something I usually take for granted both ways. Without that, there really isn't any point in posting, is there?
Anyway, the most enlightening part of your posts is your sig, so good night.
Maybe you'll wake up not so cranky next time.
as-in
1. install software ( like DansGuardian
http://dansguardian.org/?page=whatisdg
only different
2. activate/run it
3. it checks category-specific web-directories to render inaccessable everything listed in the web-dirs ( say, everything in the "Adult/Galleries" or whatever it is, section of Google/DMoz ), and notice that I said web-dir s , since several of 'em would give more complete coverage of the subject-area ( be it political or porn, not that there is any underlying diff ). Oh, yeah, it'd need to limit itself to the specific subdirectories that pertained ( the "Adult/Galleries" section of GoogleDir is likely to link back to the root Google Directory, as well as have Society/Personals as a sub-link section etc. and blocking all the web would be a bad thing, eh? )
4. Dance With Glee[tm] at having suppressed information's life without checking/verifying what we actually are doing ( it'd be better than the commercial versions, anyways )
- It'd probably have to be freeware ( non-commercial ) to be legal ( or the directories would be able to sue its creator for unlicensed commercial use of their products ), but if it were freeware/GPL, then it oughta work.
How come no-one uses in-place filtering? ( make the working-someones the owners of the company/unit, keep unit-size below the 144-person unit-limit we're wired with, and simply allow peer-pressure between the working-someones/owners to suppress lossy practices. . . )
This is similar to the Japanese Keiretsu idea.
Messages to/for me ( in me journal )
I find it very amusing that most spelling or grammar flames I've seen on the net contain at least one spelling or grammatical error.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
WorldCom should go under "criminal skills" too ... for that matter they should classify www.nasdaq.com, www.nyse.com, www.sec.gov, the remaining big 4 accounting firms, and every publicly traded company in the Fortune 1000 as "criminal".
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
But apparently, https://www.sf.net is NOT blocked! At least at the company I work for, which uses SmartFilter, I can still get to SourceForge using SSL! Yay! Of course, 5 minutes after posting this message it, too, will also be blocked...... :-(
added http://www.microsoft.com under criminal skills.
microsoft.com does not stick, but oracle.com did
Also rather that a direct assault, label them accuratly but rather extremely, and rely on Human nature to do the rest.
so riaa.com is Entertainment, and Entertainment is likley to be commonly banned on commercial networks.
fast.co.uk become Political, and so does the bsa.org.uk.
Also relable friendly sites as unlisted.
I am so tired of reading that. Wal-Mart does not censor or mute anything.
I usually don't reply to ACs, but: Bullshit. My closest buddy owns a CD which was purchased from Wal-Mart. The naughty words are muted out.
They do however, reject products that they consider unsuitable, as do all retailers everywhere. Their one-step-further is simply to tell the suppliers what changes would make their products acceptable to them. It is up to the supplier to make those changes or not.
Let's see, a major multi-billion dollar retailer pressures suppliers to censor their product and you claim it isn't the retailer's fault? Hogwash. It is 100% Wal-Mart's doing. Perhaps they don't actually take the product into the studio and remix it, but they are directly responsible for the media censorship that goes on as a result of their policies.
My personal opinion: I have no problem with Wal-Mart carrying family friendly material. It's good that children can purchase music and movies at Wal-Mart and their parents don't have to worry about objectionable material. The problem is, of course, that censorship does no good: The kid still knows what they're saying. The core message (usually negative) of the artist is still there, and the kid is going to sing right along with it.
You either carry the material as-is or don't carry it at all. Censorship is frowned upon by most intelligent people and while I support Wal-Mart's right to do whatever they damn well please, I sure as heck don't agree with and I'll still protest their decision.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
If you check your logs you will find numerous abuses. Filtering software quickly provides user with feedback about "acceptable" content. Filtering is a lazy option.