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WebSense Patents Censorware System
Matthew Skala writes "As reported in SiliconValley.internet.com, filtering-software vendor Websense has received US Patent 6,606,659 on a "System and method for controlling access to internet sites". The new features in the patented system seem to revolve around using time limits instead of filtering sites out entirely; offering users a choice of viewing a site and having it logged, or not viewing it; and a scheme for automatically categorizing sites that looks very much like the "Bayesian filters" we've heard so much about in recent weeks. You may be interested in the filtering company's press release about their patent, or my own view."
If internet filters are going to cost money, then maybe schools and libraries will stop using them.
My local library blocks out anything to do with pregnancy (like the council run pregnancy advice service), anything with chat in the domain name (like the casual chat web forum) but doesn't block goatse.cx. Go figure.
The only news that could be better is that someone had patented spam emailling and was taking every spammer in the world to court.
Beep beep.
And why would I be interested in reading your view, giving you page hits, or otherwise allowing you to spew your nonsense everywhere?
I've heard of shameless self-promotion, but Christ, you take the cake, and I am now putting an entry in my hosts file for your site that resolves to goatse.cx. I'd rather see that than your ramblings.
Can anyone comment on the existance of prior "software" using these features. I seem to recall a "time limiting" software designed for Windows 3.1 back in around 1994 or 1995. There have been "filtering" software utilities for longer than that.
Is this another example of the abuse of software patents? I think I might move to the EU (assuming they stay sane and reject the ability to restrict software development through patents).
Stewey
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
It is allowed to patent bad things, too? Now, is this good or bad? *head explodes*
I don't want to use a censorware application anyway. Hopefully they price things high so that other people won't use them, an in particular, so that the government won't use them (in libraries, etc).
What about all those people who burned karma saying they wanted to protect our freedom by patenting censorship? You thought they were crazy didn't you?
That's what your original post should have been moderated as, but alas, that option doesn't exist.
I've been using the same basic web site access control algorithm for years. A description of my code reads very similar to the abstract.
My system maintains a database of Internet files, (not sites, though I don't know what the difference would be...)
My system does not limit the number of visits to a category a limited number of times, however, it does limit to download links once per user, which is (probably the same thing).
My system allows users to request access, and then have access granted.
I don't log which pages/sites users visit, but I know many apps that do (like nuke).
I'm not a patent attorney, does this mean that my access control code violates the patent?
Truly bizarre.
No longer will our children be hindered by censorware to discover the REAL face of mankind (pr0n)
...dont tell them about a firewall, its a super-secret secret.
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
Does this mean I have to turn off my Windows 2003 Server AD logon hour restrictions?
Will anyone attempt to actually answer that, or will everyone start immediately making linux jokes and insulting me because I use Windows?
# Erik
AOL can censor sites, and their bundled spyware logs where you go if you circumvent the block. Same thing?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The story seems to have almost no merit at all. it's YASAAP: yet another story about a patent. OK, so the patent office issued a patent that lots of people are going to think was either (a) obvious or (b) invalid because of prior art. Is /. going to start mainlining the output of the patent office to come up with stories?
We already know that the patent office is issuing what seem like silly patents, and we already know we'd like them to stop.
Does this particular story add anything to the debate or is it just a troll?
John.
Seems everything's patentable nowadays.
Can someone do me a favor and patent DRM? and closed-source? and antitrust? and that stupid L-shaped enter key?
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
I helped to sysadmin a Novell Netware installation back when I was at high school in '94.
I seem to remember that they had a time limiting system. Per user, you could set when that user was allowed to log on and access the network.
We used it make sure that users couldn't access the network when they weren't supposed to be able to - so kids didn't share their accounts with others or access the network outside of the allowed times (after hours unsupervised, etc).
I'm not sure how this would relate to the patent (I'm not a patent lawyer), but this was a form of network censorship based on time.
That's what happens when 12 yr old jerks moderate.
Yup, I'm being reduntant as others have probably have and will post about this but its a serious thing here. How many patents have we seen lately that have had mounds of prior art? How many of them have been so blatently obvious that even non-techies are shaking their heads? How many non-techies know that this patent was granted? There is the crux of the issue.
This patent might actually be good for us as it may jack up pricing on current programs but one has to think, how far reaching will they allow this to go in a court? Hey, I filter out port 135 traffic (gg people patch your machines!!) and some known spam networks at the core end, will they now come after me for filtering? It seems that more and more the patents are being granted on the overly obvious and are being abused to the hilt by the company to which it is granted.
I see mass law suits in our future over this one and with the state of the clueless judges presideing over the cases this could turn sour.
I guess in the rest of the world outside of USA (is Canada included?) we can be live just fine, keeping our development of similar web applications without paying any fee to the company, which has just abused even further unfamous American IP laws.
Less is more !
My school district uses WebSense to block out 'inappropriate' sites which includes porn, and instructions on making bombs as well as gaming and chat sites. It's pretty damned easy to bypass. Just find the google cache OR if pictures/files are needed find the foriegn version of the site. The de extension seems to be really good for downloads. Another idea would be to setup your own web server which had a form so that you could give it the URL of the site you wanted and it would then dl everything and serve it up under http://yourip/website_ext/
Something like this would require replacing all the hyperlinks but that's not too difficult.
Can anyone tell me if their filters check port 81? 45? etc?
-Tim Louden
The management overhead of this system would result in the obvious: 1) anyone who could remotely need access to the internet as a job function would get unlimited access which may or may not already be logged. 2) anyone who doesn't would either be completed blocked, if they are not already, or using this system would simply modify their behavior, either choosing to be logged, or reducing their activity to below-radar levels. Any manager with an I.Q. above fifty would realize that an employee dicking-off for hours will fail to meet performance metrics. Doesn't matter if that is the internet or three hour lunches. All this system does is increase the cost and complexity of supervision.
Abolish all patents. Thus, the software patents will no longer be valid. Simple, isn't it?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
The patent is GB2366891. The crux of it is that programs that use more than a certain percentage of the CPU (eg: 50%) are incrementally slowed down by quickly pausing/unpausing their threads at short intervals until their CPU usage is reduced below the threshold.
How does this qualify for a patent? It's self evident! Things like this have been done in real time control systems (software and physical) for decades. It is nothing more than a high-frequency 1-bit DAC controller. Just because instead of controlling chemical reaction rates, the system is used for controlling processor usage, suddenly this method is worthy of a patent? Take a look at one of their diagrams. Is that the standard for new and inventive developments in the software industry? A flow chart with four, count them, four steps?
The patent system needs an overhaul, and fast.
In his article, Skala tars Bayesian spam filters with the same brush as website filtering. He touches on the differences but seems to miss the main one - one has to actively seek out material on the web, while spam is pushed onto you by third parties. If my child happens to type in a web address that shows pr0n, I may not like it, but short of typosquatting, the site is not in the wrong. However, if a spam merchant sends email to my child's account that includes images of sex acts, the child has no choice to not view it. So Bayesian filters are great for spam, because they are freeing me from seeing crap I don't like, and would waste my time to delete. Web filters prevent me from accessing stuff (good or bad) that I know may be out there, and must actively seek.
Does this particular story add anything to the debate or is it just a troll?
It most certainly *does* add something. If you say something once, people will be very unlikely to remember it. If you say it twice, a few will remember it.
If it's repeated every week or so for a year, most everybody will have gotten the point. It's called "repetition".
I'll paraphrase Hitler: "Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it to be true".
Except, in this case, there's no lie, except maybe at the patent office.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
PN/6618857
And guess who it was?
Somebody get my tinfoil hat, quick!
As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
U.S. Patent has just issued me Patent 6,606,660, which states that I now own exclusive rights to the following keyboard keys..
Enter, Spacebar, Ctrl, Alt, Esc, all function keys, Tab, Shift (both left & right), Caps Lock, all Page Scrolling fuctions, the Numeric Pad, and directional arrows. You are still free to use alphanumeric keys without my permission.
Obviously this is sarcasm, but it's heading there... Real fast..
Slashdot.. Land of nerds, trolls, and FlameBait..
Here is a patent application for a pepper shaker shaped like a dog where the pepper comes out of the dog's ass. That's what is being patented: the fact that the pepper comes out of the dog's ass and that it can be called a 'pooper shaker'.
I would love to read Matthew Skala's view but Websense at work here blocks it as "Non-Traditional Religions and Occult and Folklore"
They don't seem to like criticism, do they?
666...
Sorry, not true. 666 is the IFUDD (International FUD Database) number of SCO's claim that they own this patent, becuase the source contains Unix code, which we all know they own.
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
A day ago I received patent 6,606,659: The act of pressing the three keys Ctrl, Alt, & Delete on a keyboard simultaneously to achieve a desired effect.
:)
I believe your patent infringes on my patent so you must get permission to use those keys. In fact earlier I was issued patent 6,606,658, a patent that patents patent infringement. I will be expecting two big cheques.
So this patent is a very bad thing.
Wake up!
I'm reporting you to the FBI for making threats of arson. These threats also constitute possible terrorism, and I'll be sure to inform them of this, too. I encourage anyone else who despises terrorism to also report the parent post to the FBI. I think most of us would prefer to read Slashdot without reading the terrorist viewpoints of a few very sick individuals who think they can use any means necessary to achieve their sick and twisted view of the world they desire.
... and I'm serious, how come for the last 15 or so slashdot story headers (and the text below too) I felt like going "fuck you, that dosn't concern me at all".
There is no way to save this post to go be mod'd into "-1 Flamebait" oblivion anyway, so I'll just post my theory: I don't live in the land of the alleged Land Of The Free.
BTW, if you're offended by this, don't bother to reply.
Please.
my
listen dude. I owned an amiga and its a helluva thing. you should see the intro demos by the game hackers! nvidia still can't get there.
oh, and btw, in two days it will be 811 aniversary. prepare material to post.
I just sat in a sales pitch from these guys and they expounded upon the "open" nature of their solution.
I, for one, <censored>.
"...offering users a choice of viewing a site and having it logged, or not viewing it"
This may sound like quite an elegant solution, especially compared to the outright blocking of sites not recognised by their master database but this could well end up creating a far more dangerous climate of self-censorship.
For instance, if a perfectly legimate but not "mainstream" site, say an anti-war one, hasn't yet made it onto their database, you have to accept that your boss will be notified of your visit and made aware of your doubts about the government.
In that situation, most people will just give up and put the corporate propaganda feed-pipe back in their mouths.
Donnacha
I used to write those amiga intro demos.
They were crap
So find the su executable and chmod it to 754, chown it to root:wheel. It's not as fine-grained as the 'only-wheel-can-su-to-root-while-others-can-su-to- other-users' usage, but I have a hard time imagining why normal users should be allowed to su to other normal users anyway. Proper permissions can generally be set up to allow the correct access without all that malarkey.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
SquidGuard changelog
Stupid lameness filter blocks me from posting more, but you can easily see it in the changelog.
New Window
Karma is like sex. I can't remember the last time I had either of them.
I worked at a company who used websense.
Sure it blocked sites...
*evil grin*
HOWEVER: Sites that have a https copy of their main site (or a proxy server at home) are invisible to websense since well *ahem* it is encrypted.
"Why, Gannoc", you might be claiming, "Wherever did you hear such vicious slander against Websense?"
Why, right on their goddamn website. They're proud of it, of course, because the type of people who invest in a company like Websense are the type of people who don't mind the idea of a few people going to jail for going to a politically progressive web site, as long as the stock price goes up.
Bah.
Now, build a "PNG-Proxy" web-site. Enter a URL, it grabs the page and renders it to a snapshot of the website... so Bayesian (or other text-based) Filtering does nothing... you're looking as a screen shot (maybe even convenience image map as well) of the web page.
meh
I used to work for a company that sells a blocking appliance (WebFilter by TeleMate.Net) and pitched the idea of using Beysian For categorization shortly after Paul Graham's "A plan for spam" in september of last year.
Also pitched the "hey, I'm a big boy, let me go to the blocked site, but log it" idea.
Since they were already had a long term contract with another company for the categorization (which works pretty well) no one was very interested in re-doing that component. The other idea got an "interesting, but there is already to many other features the customer is asking for" response.
Ah well.
Many an enlightened employer has put in an unrestricted DS3 connection for the office and expected that the employees will do the right thing (call it self-censorship, call it responsibility, whatever), only to start reviewing usage reports and discover that the sites that get hit most often are autopr0n and QuietSurfer.
Thus the need for a censorware product (such as websense) that let's employees continue to access the sites they need to get their job done, without hurting productivity as would happen if questionable sites were just blocked with no option to "click through".
And what exactly are you doing accessing this site from work, using the shareholder's computer and bandwidth?If you can justify how your visiting this "perfectly legitimate but not mainstream site" serves to maximize shareholder value, then you should not have anything to fear from your boss.
Or just wait until you go home and access the "Dean for President" site on your own time.I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Are you seriously meaning the guy who did more damage to the anti-Censorware issue than anything or anybody else? The same Michael who unlawfully took the entire Censorware.org site down rather than admit he was being a silly little girl over a perceived slight?!
I don't know whether his coding skills come anywhere near that which you suggest, but his journalistic skills, ethics, and personal integrity SUCK!
If I remember correctly, the Child Internet Safety Protection Act requires many features simular (perhaps exact?) to be 100% compliant with the act. I doubt they would write such into the bill unless the technology was ALREADY widely available.
The filter we use in our district, Netspective (Verso) also has simular features, and needed them to claim to be compliant.
Fishy, fishy... I'll be forwarding this article to them.
At least this confirms my suspicions about whether our WebSense server at work knows how much time I spend on /.
On the upside, at least I don't have to see those horrible X10 spycam ads.
root 10956 5164 0 Oct 22 - 0:23 sendmail: rejecting connections: load average: 70 (isn't sendmail just too kind)
Please ignore this post. Don't even waste a mod point on it. It's just filler.
This is a very specific sort of filtering method.
It should also have been deemed obvious.
Certain viewpoints:
I am for software patents because:
(1) they demonstrate utility.
(2) the line between sw and non sw patents cannot be fully delineated.
(3) certain software research can be accelerated via patent protection.
That being said,
(4) sw is much more malleable than other inventions.
(5) because of (4) there is less of a cost of innovation.
(6) because of (5) the obvious factor for sw patents needs to be raised to only incorporate "costly" innovation (example: an improved speech recognition capability).
This patent exemplifies a minimal cost of innovation software utility.
The supposed basic point of novelty over the prior art involves time limit filtering involving:
insert start of time upon website entry.
insert end of time upon website exit.
compare cumulative time upon next website entry.
This involves creation of a table which links user + time to a catagory.
Plus 3 SQL statements.
This sort of thing prejudices people away from my arguments (1, 2 and 3) above that the patent system could be used to spur sw innovation.
If sites used https, instead of http for all pages it would do wonders to increase the privacy of web surfers. Sites could even serve up 500 Internal Server Errors to Websence crawler bots, and to people from IP addresses known to be associated with censorware companies to try and keep off the block list. What percentage of web traffic occurrs from people at work? Being monitor proof could really increase traffic to a site.
Eat at Joe's.
Websense blocks access to sites that mention 'proxy' servers and other work around methods. Fortunately I have access to a personal webserver with PHP. I simply wrote a script that would make my webserver download pages and images to it and post them to me, so the domain and content was innocuous to Websense. You could also set up a proxie from outside of work, and write down the information you needed when you went in to work to set it up on your computer- its really not very hard to get around Websense.
"Sorry Im not more user-friendly."
Johnny Slashdot still doesn't get it. This patent covers A censorware system. Not every censorware system. Not the concept of a censorware system. Just the implementation they have come up with.
Several aspects of this system are obvious and pre-existing, yes. But that doesn't mean the entire system is obvious or pre-existing. Combining existing components in a unique way has always been a form of innovation (and I don't mean in the sarcastic, Microsoft sense of the word).
"Why, the fax machine is nothing more than a toaster with a phone attached!"
My company uses WebSense and filters out just about everything WebSense offers to filter. It's nice to know that I get 70% spam (vs. legtitimate) email in my Inbox but I cannot view a site that uses profanity. My virgin eyes... However, that's what proxies are for ...
-----
Web Hosting @ HostForADollar.com
Do you buy bandwidth is kilobytes/sec or kilobits/sec? Hard disk space in binary gigabytes or decimal gigabytes?
Bigger numbers are easier to sell. I buy my bandwidth in bushels per horsepower, and that's how I like it!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
at my company by WebSense. Ironic, huh?