Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives
Re: Query on content filtering
From: Cal Frye <cjf () CALFRYE COM>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 12:46:55 -0500
Good luck. I was in a position to use a web filter in the past, some six years ago. Since the situation has surely changed and hopefully improved since, I'll be kind and not name the application, but they're still in the game. There is no joy in content filtering. You get beat up from the libertarian side for blocking too much (or at all!), and you get beat up even more from the other side for the stuff that gets through -- and lots will get through. If you go looking at the sites that are "unclassified" by the software that your users have located, you'll want to use a non-essential computer, preferably not Windows, and keep your browser window tiny -- lots of those sites contained stuff I didn't really need to see :-( -- and I'm not being prudish, really. I believe that if I were to implement something like this at Oberlin, I'd be drawn, quartered, boiled, stomped on, and buried in soft peat for three years to "mature." Your mileage might vary. --Cal Frye, Network Administrator, Oberlin College www.calfrye.com, www.pitalabs.com, www.ouuf.org "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it down again on something solid." --G. K. Chesterton. Don Murdoch wrote:
Greetings. I am interested to know if other Universities are using content filters – products like Web Sense, Blue Coat, Cisco Content Engine, and the like. We have a forthcoming state policy (in draft, subject to change, who knows where it will end up) which may require some sort of web / traffic content filter to be in place.
Current thread:
- Query on content filtering Don Murdoch (Jan 31)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Query on content filtering Chad McDonald (Jan 31)
- Re: Query on content filtering Gibbs, Aaron M. (Jan 31)
- Re: Query on content filtering Tracy Mitrano (Jan 31)
- Re: Query on content filtering Valdis Kletnieks (Jan 31)
- Re: Query on content filtering Cal Frye (Jan 31)