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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.
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!
I say we use the filters to throw alerts but not block anything. Log the alerts and check them out. If someone seems to have a problem then deal with them personally.
Coding Blog
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
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.