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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.
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..
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
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!
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
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.
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'
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
Does SmartFilter gnu.org as a religious web site?
cpeterso
- 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.
I like these filtering products.. they are GREAT for telling you WHERE all of the good stuff is.. I love looking through the sites that they block.. they are always the best sites.. FREE pr0n ;)
WaReZ, they got it all!
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
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.
They should list riaa.org as an MP3 site-- has more to do with MP3s than Sourceforge.net ;)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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.
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.
use this link to request sourceforge removal directly
and
use this to list microsoft.com as hate speech site
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."
They're in the business of filtering smart, after all.
The shareholder is always right.
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.
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.