Webwasher versus Web Content Creators?

rjnagle asks: "While trying to access a recipe web page of a friend Mary Anne Mohanraj from work, I was dismayed to find that Webwasher, my company's content filtering application, had blocked it. It's true that Mohranraj's site contains some tastefully written text-only erotic stories, (Mohanraj has published several distinguished books and anthologies ), but apparently Webwasher's filtering rules block everything from the domain--including her writing diary, Sri Lanka travel photoessay, poetry and yes, her reading list of Indian writers. Leave aside for the moment the question of whether employees should do personal surfing on company time or what type of material is appropriate to view from work. Please answer these questions: How can content creators prevent their entire domain from being blacklisted because of a small amount of controversial content? Given that Webwasher's corporate customers rarely tweak Webwasher's default blacklist settings, doesn't this imply the need for Webwasher to make their filtering algorithms readily available? (Apparently, even the product's installation documentation is password-protected). If content filtering programs like Webwasher have a tough time distinguishing between a teacher's educational philosophy and hardcore erotic fiction, shouldn't the software company offer an online form for content creators to appeal being blacklisted? Having lived in Eastern Europe, I've seen firsthand how content filtering (ostensibly for reasons of social utility) has produced a society of ill-informed, unquestioning citizens."

Comments

There's always a way

[max born]

Start here: open proxies

Writing a simple solution

[Saiai Hakutyoutani]

If you have access to a web server with PHP, all you heed to do is to create a simple PHP document that includes the blocked page.

First of all, make your script take the parameter $url. Then make it spit out the entire document up to and including .

Then have it spit out (You might have to escape those quotes):

Then have it spit out the rest of the document, and hey presto, your PHP script will act like a mirrored version of whatever page you put into $url.

Of course forms and other dynamic content will not work.

Let me just clarify that.

[Saiai Hakutyoutani]

It should spit out the entire document up to and including the head tag.

Then it should insert a base href tag into the head tag of the document you're accessing that points to php_self()?url=$url , which makes your script + the url parameter the base URL for all links and images in the document. Basically, the script is telling your browser to pass any file through itself instead of going to the blocked site.

Then include the rest of the document.

You migth want to add some autodetection so that it doesn't look for head tags in images and such.

Re:Plugging

[m.koch]

This Slashdot post was rather unnecessary and pointless. Mostly it seems that this Mary Anne Mohanraj's friend has written this to plug the site's various pages.

I would second this. It wasn't necessary to include 7(!) links to original site just to state that he is not able to browse recipes at work and to cry 'censorship'.

From the other side...

[Jonny 290]

as a manager, i must say that my company filters stuff for a reason. all of you slashdotters 'helpfully' suggesting that he circumvent his company's firewall are quite possibly writing this poor guy a pink slip. he'd be getting one from me if he was my employee and we found out - that is abuse of company resources. Respect your employer a bit, for god's sakes. surf on your own time.