Re: [EXT] Re: [SECURITY] Access to Porn sites?

[Gary McCullors <gary.mccullors () ATHENS EDU>]

We’ve been blocking porn sites for years using Barracuda’s web filter.  I think they call it Web Security Gateway, now.

The only pushback we had was from the library.  They tried to say that a student researching breast cancer would be 
blocked from accessing valid breast cancer sites because of the word breast.  A quick demonstration to the 
administration showed that the library’s argument was not valid.

We took the same approach as Norfolk State for academic access to porn sites.  The have to make a formal request and it 
must be approved by the Provost’s office.

We get a few false-positives a month, but not enough to make it unmanageable – benefits of being a small school.

Interestingly, when we started blocking porn sites we did not find any faculty or day-time staff in the logs for 
attempting to access porn sites.  The only consistent facility showing up in the logs was the library.  Once the public 
visitors found out they couldn’t get to porn sites from our network, they quit coming to our library and the entries 
dropped to almost zero.

Gary

--

Gary W. McCullors
Director, Information Technology Services
Information Security Officer
Athens State University

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of King, 
Ronald A.
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2019 7:47 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [EXT] Re: [SECURITY] Access to Porn sites?

We block it here. Have done so since I first started in 2006. This is because we have significant state oversight. 
Should a professor need access for academic reasons, they can request it. We use Palo’s URL filtering which blocks 99%. 
We also block gambling.

Ron

Ronald King
Chief Information Security Officer

Office of Information Technology
(757) 823-2916 (Office)
raking () nsu edu<mailto:raking () nsu edu>
www.nsu.edu<http://www.nsu.edu/>
@NSUCISO (Twitter)
[NSU_logo_horiz_tag_4c - Smaller]

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV 
EDUCAUSE EDU>> On Behalf Of Babak Oskouian
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2019 7:08 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Subject: [SECURITY] Access to Porn sites?

Hi All,

We at Mills College have been kicking around the idea of blocking access to porn sites on our network. Needless to say, 
we have gotten some push back. Our plan (if it is green-lighted) is to use the built-in "adult" filters that our Palo 
Alto firewall provides.
I am curious as to how many of you block porn sites, and if you do and especially if you use a Palo Alto device, have 
you had to do a lot of fine-tuning of your filters to eliminate false-positives?

Thanks.

Babak


Babak Oskouian, Ph.D. | Campus Network Engineer | Information Security Officer

Mills College | 5000 MacArthur Blvd | Oakland, CA 94613-1301

Office: Stern Hall 007; Phone: 510-430-2224<tel:510-430-2224>

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