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Microsoft Family Safety Filter Blocks Google
mike.rimov writes "I saw that part of the brand new Windows Live package is the Family Safety Filter, so I decided to give it a spin. Turned it on, set it to 'basic filtering' (their lowest level), and went to Google ... oops, it blocks Google! So I logged into the settings and added Google as an exception. Google still wouldn't come up. Just in case, I turned off the family filter: voila, Google. As we all know, 'Don't be evil' is not part of Microsoft's motto! Oh yeah — and with the filter on, Microsoft's own search engine, live.com comes up." Anomaly?
Google is evil so thank you Microsoft!
You got the touch!
It probably wasn't intentional, most likely they pushed developers to focus first on microsoft based search engines, but really, I also find it hard to believe not a single person would have tried google first. I doubt it was a big conspiracy, but rather they knew about it but didn't want to spend anytime fixing it.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
...because you can find PR0Ns on Google. Seriously!
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
Google is unsafe... for Microsoft's monopolies.
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
...websense was blocking google one day at work because Google was blocking us...
Would a company now lead by a chair-throwing, sweating dancing monkey who once shouted "I'm going to fucking kill Google!" do something as unimaginable as blocking Google?
Yes.
Never, ever trust Microsoft. For ANYTHING. They have never been trustworthy since their beginnings, over three decades ago. If you still trust them, you're fucking insane.
It's the "O"s in Google. They look like boobies.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Just a wild guess: Perhaps the family filter talks to Live.com in order to filter "inappropriate" results out. Other search engines not owned by Microsoft don't support this integration, so the filter blocks them as they would otherwise be a trivial way around the filter.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
Until MS boocks Google in Windows, or pays the US government to block it and/or shut it down.
Subtle, Microsoft.
Doing the things a hypotenuse can.
I dont't know mike.rimov but the word anomaly in the English Oxford dictionary is defined as
so no its not an anomaly for Microsoft, if thats what you getting at. No news here move along
This is a classic filter issue, and a prime example of why using filters like this is a retarded waste of time.
A simply Google search probably will tell you how to work around the filter completely, as such Google is a banned website.
This isn't anything new, all of the filters out there do this sort of thing, this one just seems evil since its Microsoft blocking Google, but it happens with all of them.
The real solution is to realize that the person you're trying to prevent from seeing stuff on the Internet is going to find a way to look at it anyway. If you're doing this to stop kids from looking at something then you better keep them locked in a basement cause they'll just go somewhere else to find what they want. You can bet one of their friends doesn't have a porn blocker.
The solution to these problems for parents is to actually be a parent and remember that YOU are responsible for your children. Not Microsoft, not the computer, not your ISP, not the Internet, YOU. You can spend an entire lifetime trying to stop them from doing something and they'll spend their entire lifetime showing you how you can't. Unless of course you just ignore anything they do when you aren't watching them. Perhaps you should try a little education instead.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
From a post made in December, it also apparently blocks AdSense ads (which would make sense, since they're part of Gooooogle). Anybody else know what this "Safety Filter" blocks?
This guy's the limit!
Told you Google is evil :)
Why is it that Slashdot posts such opinionated summaries at times? This is worse than the typical Apple bashing that goes on. It's also rather immature.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
I'd love to know WTF the author has done. It's never blocked Google on the three lappies its installed on here.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
I'd imagine that they're not intentionally blocking google because they're a competitor (although it could be a contributing factor). I would think that they consider Live.com to be more compatible with family filter and google allows access to cached pages which the family filter may not be able to block.
Of course, one way that MS could show good faith would be to open up the family filter's API in some way so as to let it play nice with google and allow google to disable cached pages for users of the filter.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Google redirects to other TLDs based on the user's location. If the filter runs through some proxy in the US it's entirely possible he was getting redirected to the block-list google.com from the allowed-list domain of google.fr or whatever. However seeing as the "story" is a one-para barely-there bug report I doubt we'll ever actually know.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Block it all. Scrub through proxies. Obfuscate queries. Hire a cookie monster.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
They're probably just trying to stop people from downloading the new Wolverine movie
Summation 2
I seem to recall a much older filtering software package (I don't recall which offhand - DansGuardian, maybe?) that will block Google if you have disabled "SafeSearch" in the Advanced Preferences - that is, if you have it set to "Do not filter my search results."
Have you ever googled boobs, tits, or 2girls1cup? Makes sense to block google if you have some strict parents, like the kind that would install the family filters.
I tried to visit redhat.com and a chair shot out the back of my machine!
Good people go to bed earlier.
Anomally?
Sounds like smart marketing to me. Just block your biggest competitor.
I wonder if they blocked Mozilla too?
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
Google is a pirate site and MS and everyone else should block any site that can lead a user to copyrighted material. We all now know that because TPB trial has proven that any site that leads to copyrighted material must be a piracy site.
The navigation bar of Google's Blogger website was blocked for me. Random things were blocked that weren't noticeable as missing, popping up every time, so it felt like spyware. I tried to turn it off through Ctrl+Alt+Delete (actually, Ctrl+Shift+Esc since I use Vista). The process would not let itself die and restarted itself over and over. Then it blocked Wikipedia, I think before or after I went to "Stop Service." I asked if the owner of the computer meant to install it, and sure enough, it was hidden in some automatic update crap. The same automatic update crap rolls back my graphics drivers to the lazily outdated computer manufacturer-approved one, rather than the newest Intel one. The former has a problem with rendering bumpmaps on 3D objects so that if you're looking at an object with a bumpmap in front of an object with a bumpmap, both bumpmaps are rendered on the object nearest the camera. The latter fixes it. It also used to replace my wireless card driver with a driver from the same manufacturer meant for wirelessly communicating with other computers in a local area network, though this hasn't been a problem since I stopped using that card.
gawd it's bad idiots know how to get on the internet
And use all the exact same lettering and look that Google has. People look at LiveSearch and instinctively recoil in the horror. It would be helpful if LiveSearch did something that Google did not do, which would be to not include google bombed link farms, or, for that matter, Experts Exchange, every time you do a tech search..
There's a lot of ways that Microsoft could leverage the desktop into search... and they are just being stupid. If you wanted a good search and wanted to go at Google, just bundle the search cost into the USA and have a search that does not bias its results based on advertisements in the way Google is perceived. Have it let users remove ALL advertisement from web sites....
Just being another Google, or Moogle, doesn't get you very far.
This is my sig.
WTF?
ilovegeorgebush
I have used Family Safety Filter in the past and have no problems with Google...
You could accidentally search for "Live goat Porn" on google. Microsoft's search engine doesn't index any porn (Or much of anything else,) that's why no one uses it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A simply Google search probably will tell you how to work around the filter completely
If someone wants to see the dancing bunny, then by God, they'll see the dancing bunny!
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Seriously, how many time have we seen something on Slashdot along the lines of "Many Windows users are reporting that a Windows Update patch (KB8763487) has caused [insert app name] to stop working". When you click on the link in the summary, there's like...3 people and a cat complaining that something has gone wrong somewhere, but there not really sure what/why. Later on, it turns out that the users fucked something up by editing/replacing a file to crack the software in question (because they're `337 power-user pirates!!!). We then have a shit-ton of comments (from people that skimmed the summary) about how Microsoft is evil, and that something like this wouldn't surprise "us".
Anyway, I bet "Mike" added Google accidentally, because "Mike" is a tit.
Perhaps your filtering preferences are integrated with the whole Windows Live experience in that searches on Windows Live Search are filtered according to your filtering preferences. They would not necessarily be able to do that with a search performed on another search engine. If you want content blocked, and they block it for you, that is fine, the content (search results in this case) is theirs to alter as they see fit. If you ask them to block the whole site, that is also fine, but once you request a site, the content belongs to the folks who created the site, in this case Google, and Microsoft does not have the right to alter Google's content to fit your will. So its easier to just block their site since they can not filter it, and force you to use a search engine they own the rights to.
I'm always interested in folks who share your opinion (waste of time, always a work around). I think that this is true in the case of a poorly implemented filter, but I can certainly establish a filter that you can not get around without physical access to the wiring closet. A very simple forced transparent proxy with DPI and whitelists makes it pretty trivial to completely control what you do and do not have access to. Even if I go the blacklist route, a good weighted phrase engine (DG) does an outstanding job. Anyway, I'm sure your much to smart to be stopped by such a setup...you and your '1337 skillz' and whatnot.
So why would that be so hard to integrate?
I'm not surprised it was blocked.. Think about it, Google has so many tracking methods. I personally block a ton of Google click and track methods. Matter of fact, I block almost all of them. Right now when WEB surfing, going to Facebook, etc there are always advertising AD's, trackers that come up saying Blocked. Its all over the WEB and not really specific to any one site either.
>>>If you're doing this to stop kids from looking at something
I don't understand the big deal. So kids see nudity? So what? The human body is nothing to be ashamed of. Although I don't want my kids to see porn (sex), if they did would it be so horrible? By the time they're 13 they'll know what sex is anyway, and even if you shelter them completely, they'd better have SOME idea what they're supposed to do on their wedding night else I'll never get grandchildren! ;-)
American society seems to be built on the notion of keeping kids ignorant ("innocent") which is exactly the opposite of what our jobs as parents is meant to do. We're supposed to be teaching children about the world and preparing them to deal with it, not hiding it from them.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Really, it depends on the age of the user though.
For example, I have a 6 year old daughter who has discovered the wonders of YouTube videos on my iPhone. She knows how to do a basic search for things she wants to see, and finds all sorts of little cartoon segments and music videos for things she likes.
Unfortunately, there are also issues like her last search for "Easter bunny" bringing up a Charlie Brown Easter cartoon, overdubbed with all sorts of profanity, violent and racist remarks, in an attempt to be humorous.
She was still too young to understand all of it, but I had to wrestle the phone away from her before my mom overheard what it was saying and went ballistic.... She proceeded to try to find the SAME video 3 or 4 times after that, because she wanted to watch "Charlie Brown Easter" on there.
I found myself *really* wishing the iPhone had a family-friendly filter of some sort for YouTube viewing on it.
The younger kids really aren't going to go searching Google and figuring out how to use proxy sites to get around filters, etc. etc. All you really want for them is a basic "barrier" to things you don't want them accidentally stumbling onto. If it blocks known ad banner type sites that inject malware and so forth, that's a plus as well.
Microsoft is terrible at forecasting how their products and actions will be perceived by end users and the public.
If you're willing to block-by-default and whitelist then yes, you can make a working filter. Good luck having the time to whitelist any significant proportion of the internet, though. So you blacklist, at which point it's always going to be trivial to get around, because I and the internet as a whole can adapt faster than you can, and it only needs one anti-filter proxy to be around at any time for the filter to be useless.
I am trolling
They should rename it the "Parents That Can't Be Bothered To Pay Attention Filter" instead. The question "Do you want the government raising your children?" has already been put to the public, and the answer is obvious: a resounding "No!". Now I put this question to you all: Do you want Microsoft raising your children? Turn off the damned net-nanny and actually pay attention to what your kids are doing, damnit!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Google caches web sites. As such, the filter might block a web site, but you could get around it using google's cached sites. Still, I'd think that Microsoft would at least expressly tell people WHY they are blocking their biggest competitor's web site.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
We have been led to believe Microsoft does extensive testing of products and features. Even if the blocking was unintentional, certainly they must have noticed it and the fact they don't block there own server. As a result, they should have either, white-listed Google or at least expressly and clearly stated Google was being blocked. Given Microsoft's past history, this kind of "aw shucks look it blocks Google but let's just mirk and ignore it" behavior is not acceptable and is predatory in nature in keeping with past behavior. Convicted monopolists are held to higher standards than average companies because they are on parole.
Didn't Steve Ballmer say that using an iPod or Google in his house is a punishable offense?
Hmmm.... Whitelisting might work in a corporate environment where you want to tie people down to your website and a handful of providers. But it's not practical for a household; my kids do research on the web for their schoolwork. By definition, that's undefined; they're exploring.
So I use openDNS with moderate settings. We've talked the filtering in place and they've found some sites that they need access to that are blocked. (openDNS sometimes prudishly classes sites about sexuality as pornography. I disagree.) If they are skilled enough to compromise my DHCP and DNS servers, then we'll have a serious talk about a future in IT. I guess that they could get a list of IP addresses and enter those. But for now openDNS works.
I don't see a problem with kids knowing about sex (although I did hear a comedy skit recently that the amount of porn kids see nowadays is likely to lead to give them problems having kids of their own, because the boys will prod around for a while then pull out and ejaculate on the girl's face), but straightforward porn is far from the worst thing on the web.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Do know evil.
You know what they say 'if you travel far enough you will meet yourself'
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I tried it on my own machine. On Web Filtering Basic, it allows www.google.com, and on Strict, it does not. It logs my access to Google if Activity Reporting is on. It looks like Strict uses a white list, so blocking Google can be reasonably expected by a user.
Since I can use Google to find some really nasty anal porn and, what's even worse, those awful sinful bittorrents, why wouldn't the Family Safety Filter block it? Of course unless my parents lock me in the basement I can still find porn and all sorts of life-shortening stuff everywhere else. Since I'm so driven to get this mind-wrecking stuff, maybe they should lock me in the basement?
That is just pathetic.
Microsoft gave up on our generation, they're now hoping the youngster's not fall for Google just like we did, but they have failed to realize it's inheritable.
Google just sucks.
are all your computers using your router as their DNS (as a redirector)?
I would be suprised as most routers are VERY unreliable at doing this which means usually it's set at the computer.
are they using an account without privileges to edit the TCP/IP settings?
if not, it's trivial to bypass your openDNS
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
My first experience of internet porn was a babe and a dog. I really didn't want to see that! I had no idea anyone would want to do that let alone look at pictures of it. It was quite disturbing at the time.
But I was not damaged by it. You get over it.
The real problem with filters is that they don't work. There will still be some innocent looking link to a page thats far from innocent. I was not looking for porn at all when i found that picture.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Or was he an amerindian?
I run my own DHCP and DNS server; the computers get their IP address along with my DNS server IP. My DNS server uses openDNS as a forwarder.
So yes, if they gain root access, they could edit hack away. Of course, this would require learning about system administratin, which is a good thing in itself. If they get to that point, I'll walk them through it if need be.
As I don't run windows, ordinary user accounts don't have admin priveledges.
Windows Live Family Safety operates in two modes: basic and strict.
In BASIC mode, it uses a BLACKLIST to filter adult web content (porn). This mode is intended for teenagers, guests, etc. Google is available.
In STRICT mode it uses a WHITELIST limited to a small list of children's sites (Nick, Barney, Barbie, etc) plus custom sites the parent can add. This is designed for young children who really aren't going to care that they can't visit Google, nor CNN.com, nor Slashdot. This mode is to keep kids entertained.
The author of the post was probably running in STRICT mode and didn't realize the purpose of the software.
In addition, live.com and fss.live.com are available in STRICT mode because the family filter administration is done there. If you had actually performed a search on live.com you would have found out that the results page, search.live.com, is also blocked.
There is absolutely nothing nefarious to see here.
blocks AdSense ads
Now that's an interesting competitive tactic for Microsoft, which doesn't make much of its money from online advertising. Blocking as many ad sites as possible would be a useful and popular browser feature. Not only would the user not have to look at the ads, web browsing would be two or three times faster. Notice how often your browser stalls because the page renderer is waiting for some ad site. Perhaps "family filter" is Microsoft's foray into ad-blocking.
Our AdRater plug-in evaluates AdSense ads and labels them, but doesn't block them. We collect statistics on AdSense advertisers. Over a third of AdSense advertisers are sites that don't clearly identify who owns them. Google's validation of their advertisers is very weak. One could make a good argument for blocking a significant fraction of them on quality grounds alone.
Filter out Microsoft software from my computers. Problem solved!
This line made me want to ask you something, off-topic though it may be. I strongly agree that partisanship and the mindlessness that goes along with it are just as you describe, "dangerously infectious". What I'm not clear on is whether that is unique to the US. I am speaking in very general terms here, but I notice that in European countries with parliamentary forms of government, there are usually more than two political parties. Certainly the two-party "winner-take-all" system in the USA encourages the "us against them" mentality and I think it no coincidence that this mentality is so pronounced in the USA. Is this alleviated by having more than two parties with any chance of winning an election, or do you then have the same partisanship with X parties that the USA has with two parties?
A more fundamental question would be whether such partisanship arose because of the political system, or whether the political system is an effect of such partisanship and not a cause. I'm guessing this is like the "nature vs. nurture" debate where there is evidence for both.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
If you make filter software, you really do need to block google. Google's content filters (aka safe search) is outside of the control of filter software. And it's also not 100% reliable. If you want to keep the kiddies from seeing naked ladies, you really have to disable the entire site to stop the image searches and have some control over the searches. It's a matter of the software not being smart enough to take control of all of the content filters built-in to search engines out there. Or the companies making these filters being unwilling to depend on search engine's built-in filters (most companies find them less reliable than their own site blacklist filters).
People can pretend because it's very convenient for Microsoft to block google that is why they did it. but there are certainly technical reasons for doing so as well.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This story offends me. It is anti-Linux.
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
Sure you CAN make a filter that works, unplug the cable.
If you make the system in such a way that it is useful for everyday browsing however, theres always going to be a way around it. Just have your friend setup a web page with a relay to browse with.
If you make the filter so tight that you pretty much can only go to a few select sites then yes, you've filtered out the bad stuff, and the much more significant amount of useful stuff as well.
Its not a matter of if it can or can not be done, a filter can be made that will stop them from getting to bad sites, but its going to block so many good sites that you'll probably disable it yourself when it becomes too much of a hassle.
There is that whole matter of practicality.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
American society seems to be built on the notion of keeping kids ignorant
American society seems to be built on the notion of keeping *everyone* ignorant, and therefore better placed to continue buying the product/lifestyle/religion/viewpoint/votes some organisation wants to spread.
Given that they allow access to Live search, I seriously doubt their reasoning behind this was "oh no they could use Google to find a method to get around the filter."
Insert joke about how Live search sucks so much that you wouldn't be able to find a circumvention method with it.
From TFP:
Ok, the Summary is #1 wrong, and #2 people here have no idea what the hell they talking about.
The FAMILY SAFTEY is working as it is supposed to, as it is designed to setup for your freaking KIDS...
On Basic, it allows Google.com, and that is working as intended.
On Strict, it does not, as some parents wouldn't want their kids using Google that WILL RETURN DONKEY PORN VIDEOS because there is no way to intelligently filter the Google results.
If Google doesn't want to be blocked on Strict, they can provide RSS OPENSEARCH features, like everyone else is doing. However Google is intent of refusing to provide RSS OpenSearch features.
The BROKEN here is Google not supporting a web standard in their search engine results and method of returning results.
As for the whole MS is keeping people from Google, this is insane. They have no locks on Live search even for IE users (letting people use any search engine easily as their default Browser search engine).
MS has even had to 'code' around Google's lack of standards in the OpenSearch and other areas to allow 'Search Tips' and dropdown features from Google Search, since Google doesn't provide the standard 'hint' or 'search tip' features that ARE a standard and other search engines and even sites like Wikipedia provide inherently.
Google is the ones locking the doors here, in several ways, and yet someone the 'intelligent' people at SlashDot haven't even noticed any of this going on? Go look up Search Connector and RSS Search feeds, and RSS Search filtered results. Everyone and their dog supports them, except Google.
They are even integrated in Windows7 Explorer so users can search inside a Folder or Open/Save Dialog box and get web pages, video, images, links, etc from just about any online search engine or provider of content EXCEPT GOOGLE because they refuse to support RSS OpenSearch and RSS OpenSearch Filtering.
This time it comes down to MS doing the right thing, and Google intentionally not 'playing nice with others' and by proxy it breaks the abilities of the Live Family Safety features on the strict setting. If Google doesn't want to be excluded, provide freaking intelligent results or results that can be ensured to not have donkey goat porn, which apparently Google can't do or doesn't want to do effectively.
This time it is MS providing the standard web search technology and is the OPEN search engine when it comes to interfacing with all the OPEN standards.
Nudity is one thing. Child porn, goatse, shit-eating fetishists and sheep-fuckers are something else altogether. You think it's cool that kids see that stuff?
google cache.
next.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
You are exactly right, in my opinion.
There are no filters and will be no filters in my home, I'd much rather my children find stuff out and ask me about it than try to hide it from me.
At least if they ask me I can tell them the truth (at least as I see the truth) and help them understand whats good and bad. I would rather educate them because they won't always be under my umbrella, at some point they WILL be free to do whatever they want, and when they are I want them to make intelligent decisions about their life rather than making ignorant ones because they've never had any experience or guidance and are extremely curious because they've never seen this new thing.
We are a curious species, we are out there and we will learn new things. All we can do for our children is try to teach them as much as possible before they get hurt because it has been hidden from them and no one taught them to be weary of the freaks online. Either way, at some point they will be on their own, the best thing I can do for my kids is get them prepared to deal with life on their own.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I found myself *really* wishing the iPhone had a family-friendly filter of some sort for YouTube viewing on it.
Youtube's got a filter for this.
Just under the video, there's a bunch of links:
Favorites, Share, Playlist, and Flag.
The "Flag" one, is to flag videos as innappropriate, after which you need to sign in and confirm age and all that before you can see it again.
Don't know what the threshold is for this, whether one person has to flag it, 20 people, or what, but it's certainly a start....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Your filter will work fine, until I go next door and use their computer, or change my wifi access point to the neighbors.
Your filter will end up only filtering yourself, your kids will just go somewhere else. Unless, as I said, you keep them locked in the basement.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Do you have SafeSearch Filtering on or off on Google Images?
Does it block slashdot?
Makes sense to me since you can get around most content filters with Google's cache.
A California judge has ordered Microsoft to help a Colorado company revise its Internet greeting cards so they aren't blocked by the software giant's spam filter ..
.. the company also offers free electronic greeting cards through a site that has become one of the 15 most popular on the World Wide Web, according to Media Metrix. Schutz said there were no problems with the free electronic greetings until last month, when Microsoft set up a competing service as part of its MSN.com portal
davecb5620@gmail.com
I call PEBKAC on the author! I use this with my family and we can all use Google with the Basic filtering mode. With the Strict mode enabled it will limit you to a pre-defined list of kid safe sites but you can add an exception.
Please RTFM next time :)
WTF indeed -- The GP troll is based on an article I wrote for the Daily WTF. My version, however, had considerably less gay sex. I don't feel that this addition by the AC improved it that much.
Well, to be fair, you can do a google image search and find tons of vulgar images when it wasn't intended in your search, so it probably makes sense that someone wanting to filter all this from their kids would have it blocked and use MS's own search engine which they are responsible for.
The real problem with filters is that they don't work. There will still be some innocent looking link to a page thats far from innocent.
Oh, agreed completely. And there will be suspicious looking pages that contain important and relevant information. I understand there is something called "good parenting" which is claimed to be more effective than filtering. Unfortunately, it seems nobody makes a profit from it, which is probably why other techniques get more attention.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I see the true nature of M$, hope this ends up in court again showing their lack of respect for the law...they just don't learn! There is absolutely no good reason to block google, google is a search engine like windows live or yahoo, the fact they don't block the others means they are trying to say google gives yo other then what you ask for and that is totally NOT THE CASE!
"The FAMILY SAFTEY is working as it is supposed to"
:)
Yes, it's blocking Google, the evil empire
"some parents wouldn't want their kids using Google that WILL RETURN DONKEY PORN VIDEOS because there is no way to intelligently filter the Google results"
--
X-Astroturfing-Status: YES
X-Astroturfing-Level: 5
Key-words: donkey goat porn, donkey porn, features, integrated, live family safety features, open search engine, open standards, standard, web standard
davecb5620@gmail.com
WUT, ME?
NO WAI!
"It probably wasn't intentional, most likely.."
Yea, lets give them the benefit of the doubt, after all in the entire history of the company they never once sabotaged the technology to shaft a competitor, especially one that relies on their technology.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language"
'Windows NT, OS/2 2.0 including a "bad app" that corrupted other applications and crashed the system'
'The demos of OS/2 were excellent, crashing the system had the intended effect -- to FUD OS/2 2.0'
davecb5620@gmail.com
It's fine to say "oops I made a typo" when you're a nerd living in your mother's basement.
Microsoft, however, is one of the biggest corporation in the world, and a convicted monopolist under watch by the EU and US governments. "Oops I made a typo" doesn't cut it; they can't afford to make typos.
I hope this will get investigated and punished.
PEBKAC
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Google is not a safe site.
You can put in almost any search term and by the rule of 32, you see an adult site for it in the top results.
"innocent girl"-- top result- an adult site. With "safe moderation" on. You certainly don't want to search for "girl horses" because your aspiring equestrienne wants to find information about girls and horses.
I think that's fine- the internet IS an adult area. OTH, I'm jaded and I've still been squicked by some random images that come up and I have no idea how they got into a particular search results image summary page. The phrase "my eyes!" comes to mind at times like that.
If you are a concerned parent and you want to filter your children's internet experience, you want google disabled unless you are in the room.
Now on the anti microsoft rant... I bet the same thing is true of their search engine which they do not block.
---
I think it would be cool if web sites had an "appropriate age" or "rating" in their robots.txt file.
Then search engines would have the tools to allow users to search and get the appropriate "G" or "X" rated material they desired.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Why not just use OpenDNS Web Content Filtering and what about Family Safety if you are a Linux user?
"If you want to keep the kiddies from seeing naked ladies, you really have to disable the entire site to stop the image searches and have some control over the searches"
Adult Site Blocking from St. Bernard Software 'OpenDNS Web content filtering uses the iGuard database from St. Bernard Software to power all categories relating to "Adult" content'
Somebody might actually think you know what you're talking about.
It is *NOT* an automatic update. It is available through Microsoft Update, but it is an optional update which is unchecked by default. Unless you go and actually look for it, Microsoft Update will never install it. Leaving the computer on automatic updates, like most people do, or even just accepting the default options for manual update, will leave this one out.
As for your driver, it's vaguely possible that it is set to update automatically - a few driver updates are - but usually only if you don't have any driver installed for that device at all. (For example, Windows would happily give me a Intel Pro Wireless update, but - like the Windows Live Essentials option right below it - the box is unchecked and will stay that way until I personally check it. In any case, if you're computer-savvy enough to actually know the meaning of what you just posted, you're also probably sufficiently competent to click the "Hide update" option in the context menu of every listed update, which will prevent that update from installing.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Remember when Microsoft pulled the stunt of changing MSN so it gave Opera users a broken page instead? Opera retaliated by releasing a version that went around Microsoft's block and rendered the MSN pages in the 'language' of the Muppet Show's Swedish Chef. http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1584361
If Google still had a pair they could cause their search engine to detect when IE is being used and return all Microsoft related results with 'weasel weasel weasel' inserted in the summary and/or subsequent page views.
As for the earlier response that accused Google of being at fault for not following standards, we've heard that song before. It translates from MS-Marketoid to English and comes out as "not following what Microsoft says standards should be, which usually differs from what the rest of the world says." As for returning results with donkey porn, a Live Search for 'donkey porn' returns a t-short company that uses copulating donkeys as their logo, and shows t-shirts saying "You're F*cking Out" and "Jizz In My Pants". I take it Microsoft has decided that these results are suitable for kids. I don't know which is worse, the hypocrisy of allowing ads with donkeys fucking (though not of non-ad fucking donkeys; ads are too important to block I guess) or the paternalism they show in taking the decision out of the hands of parents of what is suitable for their kids and what is not.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
My kids aren't getting anything like an iphone until they're high school freshmen (at the earliest).
I didn't know that there was DansGuardian at a former job. I always disable SafeSearch because it is my choice to decide whether some information is relevant or not; in principle, how do I know it doesn't give stupid false alarms? Anyway, I used this setting without any problem, until one day I searched for "lithium aluminum hydride" (LAH). This compound is a strong reductant commonly used in total synthesis of natural products; a powerful but expensive and dangerous reagent. This search was suddenly blocked, and I was confused what this means. It turned out that the first page of Google search results featured one use for LAH, synthesis of periplanone B, the "cock- roach sex hormone".
On the contrary. I find many of Yahoo's ads extremely offensive. As I remember, I asked them to eliminate the ads, and they showed me how to block certain classes of ads. It was half effective, but not very.
Then they took that back.
Now, this last year, the ads got bad enough that I found myself dreading the normal task of checking my email.
So I tried out google mail... the interface is new to me, but not bad at all. Definitely not as evil as Yahoo.
Perhaps Google is evil. IMO, Yahoo is eviler.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
removing accidental mod
The Machine stops.
Quite Stating the obvious
They seriously expect the average teenager to be unable to circumvent a simple blacklist ?
Of course, Microsoft will send out a spinmeister who will explain that there is a bug in their code somewhere, and that Microsoft would never, ever, do anything like block a competitor like that.
There is no way that was not intended. It never would have passed QA...
What is curious is their reasoning, my bet is the safe search function is easily bypassed, and in MS search it cannot be.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
Their motto , if I recall correctly, is "Don't get caught being evil."
If you're doing this to stop kids from looking at something then you better keep them locked in a basement
Basement Dad, is that you?
Teach your kids "critical thinking". Teach the kids Microsoft Family Safety Filter is teaching adults and kids alike that we should not to think critically. Teach the kids that Microsoft wants everyone to trust Microsoft because Microsoft knows what is best for everyone in the world. Everyone in their right mind understands this to be false. Then teach your kids how to install Linux and promote digital freedom and go to any web site they want whenever they want in order to truly cultivate their spirit.
But pro-anus. Hmm, tough choice...
By the time they're 13 they'll know what sex is anyway ... they'd better have SOME idea what they're supposed to do on their wedding night
Your children got married when they were 13?!
Presumably what you meant was, "Because my kids will get married when they're 26 (median age of US first-time newlyweds), therefore there's nothing wrong with them watching Debbie do Dallas when they're 13."
I don't think that argument requires a rebuttal, but what the heck :-)
If it's OK for them to view porn at 13 because they'll eventually need to know all about the birds and the bees, then why not 10? 8? 5? In utero?
Unless that's your argument, then I think we're agreed that there is an age-inappropriate level for this stuff. The only thing left to debate, then, is what "that age" and "this stuff" are. I think most folks would balk at X-rated after-school specials, but allowing a 17 year old to watch softcore (say, your average primetime soap) gets into greyer areas.
As a parent I have a problem with my teens watching porn not because I object to them being exposed to sex, but because pornography presents sex in the wrong moral context at a time when my kids are still trying to figure out where their moral compass points. As their parent, that's my job, not Bambi Woods'.
I would tend to believe most parents agree with me. It's why most parents support sex ed in public schools -- so our kids do learn their biology in an appropriate context -- while at the same time those programs can still generate heated controversy. Because that controversy is almost always about context, not content.
In short, objections to, as you frame the argument, kids seeing a naked boobie or the act of sex have little to do with "hiding children from the world" or equating ignorance with innocence. They're about my right and responsibility as a parent to control the moral context in which my children learn.
Dude, get over yourself. Maybe I don't want my four year old *accidentally* seeing dead bodies or titties or whatever?
>>American society seems to be built on the notion of keeping kids ignorant ("innocent") which is exactly the opposite of what our jobs as parents is meant to do. We're supposed to be teaching children about the world and preparing them to deal with it, not hiding it from them.
Its much more general. Not just kids and not just American. Every society is built around keeping majority of people ignorant. Every level of protection is added for the ignorants in society. Be it speed limits, warning on coffee cup, internet filters, ban on guns or so on. Society as we know it today would not survive if it not of wide spread ignorance.
I personally do not care about any of these protections. Just as a lock is meant to keep honest people (or people without lock picking skills/tools) out. So are these protections meant to keep ignorants continue to be ignorant. And they serve their purpose.
Whether these protections are good or bad is a completely different story and in different contexts, they maybe good or bad.
Typical. Typical Microsloth. And the company wonders why their reputation is worse than Jack the Ripper's.
>>>Child porn, goatse, shit-eating fetishists and sheep-fuckers are something else altogether. You think it's cool that kids see that stuff?
Child nudity is no different from adult nudity, and it goes back to what I said about not being afraid of bodies. As for the other stuff, teenagers are young adults and should be able to handle it, so long as the parents are available to discuss it with them & provide guidance.
BTW I've never seen the pictures you talk about. Yes I've seen naked children, but not child sex, or shit-eaters or sheep-lovers. If I haven't ever seen this stuff, despite being an internet user since 1987, I have my doubts a child will stumble upon it by accident.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>If it's OK for them to view porn at 13 because they'll eventually need to know all about the birds and the bees, then why not 10? 8? 5? In utero?
Okay.
In fact many couples have sex while married, so many babies are already born having seen sex in action. Something to think about. BTW I saw my first naked topless woman at age five, and first sex video at age 15 on a Commodore=64. It didn't kill me or traumatize me.
>>>pornography presents sex in the wrong moral context at a time when my kids are still trying to figure out where their moral compass points.
That sounds reasonable. Just make sure you explain that it's not the sex that's wrong, as my mother did with me. It's the way the men treat the women that you object to. My own personal preference is for "solo" films which I think are far healthier portrayals for young adults, and it doesn't bother me if they wish to watch them.
>>>In short, objections to, as you frame the argument, kids seeing a naked boobie
I'm sorry but still don't see what's so horrible about a naked breast. Or crotch. I see those things in my backyard every morning (wild animals running-around and mating) and don't see why it's okay for them to be naked, but not for humans. Why do we fear the sight of our own bodies? It isn't logical, and in my opinion is a mental disease. We don't want to give our children/teens an irrational fear of their own or other person's bodies.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Awesome train of thought you've got here. Parents teaching children that them turning on a filter to prevent the children from accessing certain internet sites is the fault of the people that make the filter as opposed to the people that apply the filter. It's the perfect way to increase the amount of misplaced litigation in the future.