EC Tests Show Windows Vista Is Above Average — At Blocking Content

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EC Tests Show Windows Vista Is Above Average — At Blocking Content

Posted by timothy on Monday January 17, 2011 @01:02AM from the bad-oysters-good-laxative dept.

littlekorea writes "Microsoft's much-maligned Vista operating system has been named in the top three of 26 tools tested by the European Commission to filter out web content deemed inappropriate for children. The EC tests found that none of the 26 products enjoyed a 100 percent success rate, failing to block over one in five adult sites. It also found that few tools could overcome the workarounds available through cache or translation sites."

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Windows Phone 7 is great too by phonewebcam · 2011-01-17 01:06 · Score: 3, Funny

Once its used up your allowance nothing gets past it at all.
1. Re:Windows Phone 7 is great too by PmanAce · 2011-01-17 01:20 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  From your link:
  
  It seems to be related to the automatic "Feedback" in the settings menu being enabled by default. It seems to periodically send MS large packets of data. Turn off the automatic feedback to eliminate this.
  
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  Tired of my customary (Score:1)
Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by AlexiaDeath · 2011-01-17 01:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

As long as you aren't ready to let your kid run free on the internet and see all there is to see, use white-lists. Anything else is doomed to fail.
1. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by xaxa · 2011-01-17 02:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If you read the report on this page "Risks and safety on the internet: The perspective of European children. Full Findings" you'll see that some children were negatively affected by what they saw on the internet -- mostly ones that saw violent pornography.
  I think there's little reason to block things if a teenager is actively searching for them, but there are good reasons to prevent a nine year old child seeing something unpleasant, for example children can have difficulty separating fantasy from reality. For the same reason, advertisers here aren't allowed to advertise a violent horror film during a programme children are likely to see.
  The blocking software/services are managed by parents, and I don't see any difference in principle between blocking web content and hiding your 18+ films in the back of a cupboard.
2. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by drinkypoo · 2011-01-17 02:42 · Score: 2
  
  The solution here is lower tech.
  I don't have kids, but I remember what it was like to be one. I consider being able to bypass a firewall to be a means of proving your readiness to view pornography.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
3. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by Yvanhoe · 2011-01-17 02:55 · Score: 2
  
  I would add that if your kids access pornography through google cache or translation services, it means they were actively looking for it, hence they are ready for it. The goal of parental control is to prevent kids from accidentally stumble on sexual content. But you will never manage to prevent them from getting it once they become a little bit tech-savvy.
  
  --
  The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
4. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by TaoPhoenix · 2011-01-17 03:14 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Let him. Just use a Whitelisted system. There are Kids Browsers out there. If he wants a site in his browser, "he has to ask IT". That's the mentality we should promote, not "the net is too big and scary".
  I'd rather a kid gets to do things without mommy and just know in the background that say when he turns 14 he can get "the adult internet".
  
  --
  My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
5. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by awol · 2011-01-17 03:20 · Score: 2
  
  My kids are heading towards this age and I feel this area is very complex.
  I don't want my kids to be afraid to surf anywhere, but by the same token, I want to know where they are going, but then again I can imagine that there are things they might want to research that they don't want me to know about. So my regime at the moment is... everything will be logged through the access proxy installed at our home. Except for periods of time where they can go and look at anything they want, but during these times, they must be supervised by an adult that we trust, of which we know enough that are sufficiently broad minded that I know there is nothing they couldn't go surfing for if they wanted to.
  In particular I am thinking sites about sexuality, drugs, medical issues or other controversial topics that theor parents could never understand.... :-)
  If this goes well, they will be allowed to surf unsupervised and unlogged as they get older.
  Some problems do not require technical solutions, or rather do not require gatekeepers but perhaps better chaperones.
  
  --
  "The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
6. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by vlueboy · 2011-01-17 03:57 · Score: 2
  
  A little known fact is that starting in 2006, MS gifted its Vista and later OSs with Parental controls enforceable for non-admin accounts. It blocks DVDs, games and even has time-of-day restrictions (uTorrent-like-scheduler GUI) and website white-lists / blacklists (the latter has logging avaiable to any Admin account also), the same as any modern TV's for off-the-air TV in the USA.
  The problem is that few people know or care to use these controls. Fortunately, you guys may benefit now that you know. I don't have Seven, and it rubs me the wrong way that the demo video I linked lacks the "Windows Web filter" button... they may have moved it elsewhere or "decided" we don't need this kinda power anymore.
7. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by Teun · 2011-01-17 04:06 · Score: 2
  
  Well worded.
  Besides, kids from slashdotters know how to run a Live Disk and, when necessary, use the old modem to access the net.
  
  --
  "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
openDNS content filtering by doperative · 2011-01-17 01:21 · Score: 4, Informative

"OpenDNS gives you the option to block dozens of categories on your networks, for free. From social networking to job sites, from gambling to video sharing, from webmail to alcohol and more: with OpenDNS, you make the choice about what's available on your network" link
1. Re:openDNS content filtering by Feinu · 2011-01-17 01:59 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  OpenDNS Basic is ranked at 22 of the 26 solutions that were tested, scoring below average on all four categories: Functionality, Effectiveness, Usability and Security. The list is available here.
  Interestingly, Mac OS X ranked as the best solution, scoring better than all the tested purpose-built options.
Parental resposibility (and article correction) by tomknight · 2011-01-17 01:24 · Score: 4, Informative

Very interesting area. Before people start saying that parents need to take control themselves (instead of letting software do their job for them), I as a parent of a seven year old believe I should do both. Be around to help, as well as give my daughter freedom and independence. She's not daft, but there is always the chance (especially on flash-games type sites) for interesting popups to... diversify her web and life experience. I use k9 filtering to help avoid this sort of thing. Wow, this almost sounds like a customer testimonial, sorry....
Anway, the article sadly has a duff link in it. The report's *really* at:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/projects/filter_label/sip_bench2/index_en.htm
The full report PDF is:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/docs/sip_bench2_results/report_jan11.pdf
See also:
http://www.yprt.eu/sip/

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Oh arse
OS for webfiltering? by EEDAm · 2011-01-17 01:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

Hang on, so a superseded, widely meh-rated / derided OS, is the key to web-filtering? As the saying goes, might as well buy a jumbo jet for the peanuts...
1. Re:OS for webfiltering? by Zouden · 2011-01-17 03:01 · Score: 2
  
  They didn't investigate Windows 7; presumably this investigation was started when Vista was the newest OS, though that's a very long time to compile a report. In any case, the conclusion was that Vista's inbuilt parental controls are better than most other 3rd party filtering software, and Mac OS X has no parental controls.
  At a guess I'd say that Windows 7 would get the same result as it's kept most of Vista's features.
  
  --
  "A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Re:The only thing worse than Vista... by MareLooke · 2011-01-17 01:27 · Score: 2

Better marketing.
Re:100% is possible by leuk_he · 2011-01-17 01:41 · Score: 2

Don't forget the door to your room when you are in the act of creating personal backups with your better half....
Re:The only thing worse than Vista... by imakemusic · 2011-01-17 01:43 · Score: 2

why did everyone think 7 was better. I just can't figure it out.
Because it is. It sounds like you've got some troublesome hardware or a badly configured system.

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Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Black screen of death by flyingfsck · 2011-01-17 02:40 · Score: 2

Yah, nothing gets past the Vista black screen...

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Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Re:The only thing worse than Vista... by imakemusic · 2011-01-17 03:29 · Score: 2

I agree, Windows 7 is not perfect by any means but isn't bad and it's better than Vista. That driver story does seems like a strange choice of theirs.
Personally I think the worst part of Windows 7 is the search box. They appear to have removed as much functionality as possible in order to be able to fit it in the top-right-hand corner, like Apple did. Unless I'm missing something I can no longer specify case sensitivity or whether or not to search in sub-folders. They didn't even include an animated puppy to cheer me up!*
*this bit is a joke

--
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Re:The only thing worse than Vista... by drinkypoo · 2011-01-17 04:00 · Score: 2

The only real gripe I have regarding Windows 7 is some truly boneheaded decisions regarding drivers that Microsoft seem to have made, which we discovered a few months back.
There's hardware out there that just hasn't received proper Windows 7 support. It comes from the Vista era, and it would work great in Windows 7 if the driver's didn't suck, but you won't buy any new hardware if you can run Windows 7 on the new stuff. My Gateway "netbook" (subnotebook is more accurate description) with AMD R690M chipset is a great example. The graphics driver for Vista that works with it is newer than the graphics driver for Windows 7. The recommended Windows 7 driver makes my machine lock up and experience graphics corruption, and I am using a driver which doesn't say up front that it will work at all.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"