My crusade for web content filtering

Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:24:13 -0700

Heh, I'm not trying to create a totalitarian network where the filtering is
absolute.  All I'm trying to do is provide some guidance for kids and avoid
the accidental filth from popping up on the browser.  If kids want to seek
it out, it's not within my power to prevent it...  they _will_ find it.
That's a parental guidance issue, not a technological one.  I'm only
interested in preventing the accidental exposure to inappropriate material
(as defined by the party in charge of the filter) for the younger ones.

If you don't believe this is a problem, consider this little incident that
got me started down this road.

A child was web surfing with her mother looking for a friend's birthday
gift.  The child had seen www.generationgirl.com advertised on a box of
cereal.  She mistakenly typed in www.girl.com and gave her mother quite a
shock.

Anyway, philosophy aside, my understanding is that squid does _not_ provide
access to the data stream.  ActiveGuardian has serious compile issues and
JunkEx (once I finally got it installed with help from the developer in
Germany) doesn't work for this purpose.

I am now considering writing my own proxy that will simply pipe the
datastream through a perl script or something before delivering it to the
browser.  Any page that matched one of the keywords would have the entire
contents between <html> and </html> replaced with a text message.  Simple,
but probably very slow.  Not to mention, I have NO idea how to code this.

...Kevin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of
> sinck@owmyeye.ugive.com
> Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 7:50 AM
> To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> Subject: My crusade for web content filtering
>
> \_ I am trying to create a web content filter at the choke point
> of my network
> \_ that will provide a safe web surfing environment for children
> downstream (on
> \_ the internal LAN).
>
> My particular bent on this is that you shouldn't filter *at all*.  If
> little Jack is interested on how the birds and bees fit together, he's
> gonna find out one way or the other.  Maybe visiting the library and
> looking at the 'art' books.  If Jill wants to find out about doobies
> and gnapster isn't providing her the brotherly answer already, then a
> side trip, again, to the accursed public library will.  Or, as
> mentioned before, jargon + JLF-proxy....

---[snip]---