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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.
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.
No, not at all. IT's a private company, and they aren't accusing them of anything illegal. I could make software and block every site with the word "the" in the URL. Or block all sites and give the reason as "This site has content which I want to block."
I recommend not jumping to sue every chance you get, there are too many lawsuits anyways.
The real solution is, of course, for companies to drop their contracts and un-installing the software.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Maybe, but wasn't sourceforge making money by selling the advanced version to companies?
Rather bad when your customer can't reach the demo..;)
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
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
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!
Blaaaahhhhhaarrgggh!
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
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.
...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:>
- took everyone at my place of employment,
- showed them a random sampling of 500 websites,
- and asked them to categorize them as appropriate or inappropriate for filtering at work,
you would find that everyone agrees on the apropriateness of about 490 of those sites. The problem is doing that with 5 billion pages, which may not even be the same tomorrow. There is also the fact that what is appropriate here is different from what is appropriate at an elementary school, so you can't use the same list everywhere. (the same experiment at an elementary school would also yield similar agreement, though on a different set of pages)However, there sure are a lot of things that obviously should be blocked. You whine and complain that there is a small fraction of sites that reside near the critical cusp (and truly it is a small fraction when you consider the amounts of easily categorized commerce, puff, drivel, and unfettered debauchery on the web). What is the alternative? No filters? I would argue that easily half of the web should properly be blocked from schools, up to and including high schools.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
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.
The article: http://censorware.net/reports/utah/
:)
http://mailer.fsu.edu/~wwager/index_public.html
classified as gambling, see it? A computer made that mistake!(wager is the guys name, no _human_ whould miss that!)
>Now that your mind is hopefully on -- how well do you think an automated system (an AI) is going to classify millions of websites into 30 categories? That's 30^2 combinations.
How well? Really badly of cource. And just because there are (ahumn...) _2^30_ combinations, does'nt mean you have to search 2^30 space to find the answer. If we say that searching a page for a list of keywords is one operation. Then it is only 30 operations(having one list per category). Not 2^30 operations.
>Turns out I actually know a couple of the humans that do this categorizing, so I'm pretty sure I didn't just dream it up.
Maby you could have a friend post and admit they made the error the article gave as an example?
"This document last updated on Thursday September 07 2000."
Yes the article IS old. But that is no reason to go make math errors all over the place.
FRA: STFU GTFO
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? "
They seem to rate them by the amount of political power that the factions can mobilize (both for and against). There is no other justification that appears to match the criteria in a (reasonably) predictable way.
You can justify this on commercial grounds as well as on grounds of prejudice. What's really unfair is that you can't find out what the criteria are. I wouldn't really mind if the KKK put out some blocking software, but I'd sure want to know before I accidentally gave them some money. (Well, actually I'd want the purchasers to know, but that wouldn't include me. I'd rather choose for myself. [Might be worth buying as a source of sites to check out though, if you could read the filter files.])
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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?