A few alternatives to ISP-level content filtering
- 11 July, 2009 06:31
- Comments 29
The Federal Government’s proposed Internet content filter plans have incited furore among the Australian public. The possibility of a compulsory clean-feed program and taxpayers’ dollars involved in trialling and implementing the scheme are some of the reasons for the vociferous response.
Despite the Government’s stated intentions of trying to protect children from being exposed to offensive and indecent material, it is a subjective matter. How do you define offensive and indecent? And who should have the authority to make the final decision?
But there are alternatives already in existence: Downloadable filter software. These kinds of programs usually cost nothing and users can play with the settings for a tailor-made Internet filter.
The following is a list of some popular web filtering solutions that are not only free to download, but gives people the freedom to choose what contents they want to block:
DansGuardian Touting itself as a ‘true’ web content filter, the DansGuardian is an open source program which works by employing methods such as phrasing match, PICS filtering and URL filtering. It also spurns the banned list approach. Although the default settings are aimed at a primary school environment, the product also allows for flexible customisation, with users being able to personalise clean-feed options. The program is free but it is not for commercial use. While it does not support the Microsoft Windows operating system (although users can filter Windows clients by running it on a server), it can be used on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX and Solaris. Download it here.
Poesia Partly funded by the European Commisson, the software is the brainchild of developers from the Poesia Project´s Consortium. Best used for educational institutes, the content filter can be customised for each user. The open source code can be reused or modified to perform specific filtering that, according to the makers, any commercial solutions offer. A range of mode of clean-feeding can be covered, including images, URLs, and Javascript. The developers’ website implores other programmers to collaborate to modify and reuse the software. Poesia is absolutely free to use. Download it here.
SquidGuard This software is a plugin for Squid HTTP/1.0 proxy and acts as filter, redirector and access controller. SquidGuard is a blacklist-based product and can restrict web access by following various orders defined by the user or administrator. This includes blocking access at specified times, to a specified group of users and redirecting certain URLs. Activities when surfing the web can also be logged. The official website also boasts that the software is fast acting. SquidGuard’s open source code is free to use, modify, distribute or sell and is compatible with most operating systems including Microsoft Windows. Download it here.
FoxFilter Working off user-defined criteria, the Firefox web browser add-on is capable of keyword filtering or even blocking content of entire site. Password-protected settings and security features are included to thwart unauthorised users from bypassing, uninstalling or disabling the software. Users can select the degree of sensitivity through the settings. Although security features are only available to registered users, the program itself is free to download. It supports Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems. Download it here.
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Comments
Anonymous
Thank you for bringing these applications to the attention of your readers. Now that Senator Conroy has cancelled the NetAlert scheme - which made commercial equivalents of these applications free for use by Australian citizens - it's good to know that there are still free alternatives out there.
Unfortunately, there is still a highly vocal minority of people who still believe that PC-based filtering is not the answer - either because they see it as being too easy to bypass (only true if configured incorrectly, or if applied to an older child who has clearly outgrown the need for such software), or, more alarmingly, because there is no way to FORCE every household to install such software. This, sadly, gives one a rather disturbing insight into the mindset of those who support the Kevin Rudd Labor Government's Rabbit-Proof Firewall.
Again, thank you, ARN.
Wisian Lundstr0m
On firefox filters...
I'm a 27 year old male, I have no kids at home. I keep my PC locked down and password protected, so any visitors don't stumble in and do what they please.
I also use the Blocksite plugin. Very basic keyword and website filtering of material I choose that I don't want to see. Is there crap out there? Yes. But it's my decision on what I want to see and what I want to block, no one else's. The same for everyone.
Dash
the ONLY way
These alternatives may be o.k as a second line of defence but they will only help protect those children of parents that actually bother installing them.As has been shown in the past, a vast majority of parents either lack the skill or money to install PC based filters.The only way to protect ALL Australian children from exposure to hard-core porn and graphic violence is to filter at the ISP level.
Also...... I'd be more disturbed by the mindset of those that compare Australian governance to that of Iran and China.I've heard of Conspiracy Theories before but they take the cake!
Anonymous
It is the responsibility of a parent to decide what a child can and cannot view. Different parents will have different views on this, and children of different ages must be treated differently - what a fundamentalist chooses to allow their 8-year-old to view is nessecarily different to what a liberalist chooses to allow their 15-year-old to view.
What you are proposing is that one size fits all. Which size? Which rules? Who decides? You? Our "trusted" politicians?
My house. My rules. I don't forbid you from saying grace in your house.
Anonymous
ok, so your saying that for the people who want to access perfectly legal website such as myself, who doesnt have any children, is over 18 should be subject to the filter?
i shouldnt be allowed to view porn online, i shouldnt be able to buy video games online unless there under the MA15+ rating? since when is it ok for the government to tell me what i can and cannot view in regards to perfectly legal media?
it is up to the parents to take responsibility for there childrens actions.
you say parents dont have the techno-knowledge to install a home based filter or the money to do it, heres an option, have a government paid rebate that you can take your PC to a store to get them to configure the filter and install it for you, will work out a hell of alot cheaper aswell.
call me a conspiracy nut. i like being able to choose and take responsibility for what i watch and its about time the parents took care of there own kids aswell.
if it was an opt-in filter as it was originally proposed then i wouldnt have an issue with it. if it was only to stop child porn i wouldnt have an issue either, however they have already shown that this is not the case so how long do we let them go on with this c**p?
Anonymous
In response
"These alternatives may be o.k as a second line of defence but they will only help protect those children of parents that actually bother installing them"
Then I'm sorry, but if a parent can't be bothered to install them it must not be very important to them.
"I'd be more disturbed by the mindset of those that compare Australian governance to that of Iran and China.I've heard of Conspiracy Theories before but they take the cake!"
In point of fact, both China and Iran use almost the exact same wording that the Australian Government is using in order to justify their own censoring.
Also, you may be more disturbed to learn that the choices of what is censored is not open for debate or even disclosure to the public. It's not even regulated by an oversight board...just some guy in the Government makes these rather monumental decisions.
Anonymous
If parents are not "technologically savvy" enough to install filters than GTFO the internet.
Anonymous
Filter? What are our troops defending or fighting for?
If this filter goes ahead, all that it will mean is that our troops over in Afghanistan and other war zones lives were absolutely worthless, they are fighting for what? So our government can make our country like theirs?
Anonymous
This filter thing
[quote] Then I'm sorry, but if a parent can't be bothered to install them it must not be very important to them. [/quote]
I have to disagree with you there. No one needs a filter period. Parents need to install themselves into their childrens lives. Otherwise they are little better than an incubator/sperm donor.
Plus since when do kids play online games? Think CS:S, WOW, Second Life, and nearly every other multiplayer game. Heck in GTA4, the neutered Australian version, you could still pickup hookers, but although you didnt see anything isnt the message the same?
Any filters that are installed, it is guarenteed that I and a large number of fellow Aussies, will find a way to thwart them.
EvilGod
You obviously don't own any of the hundreds of companies that have been accidentally put on the blacklist.
Do you trust any government to not filter out sites with views opposing their own?
Your comments show quite clearly that you have little idea what's at stake and that you don't let your lack of understanding get in the way of you making your uninformed opinion heard and counted.
klaw81
NOT the only way
Did you use a filtered internet connection to post your comment? If not, you have no excuse and you don't even believe in your own statement.
PC-based filtering is not your only option - there are also several ISP's which can provide an ISP-level filter. Parents or concerned citizens such as yourself could easily switch to such an ISP with a simple telephone call - no tech skills required.
Of course, such a filter costs a little extra, slows down your internet connection and relatively simple to bypass, but you're obviously OK with that already, right?
Dash
all kids deserve protection
I agree all kids DO deserve to be protected from this form of abuse (exposure to porn) and you guys from Whirlpool , who are trying to hoodwink the Australian public can all go to blazes.I found this quote on page 2 of this Aust. Institute of Criminology report...
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti97.pdf
"...finding sympathetic ISPs appeared to be a significant consideration for paedophile activists. A major strategy was to rally support under the umbrella of free speech..."
The Anti-Censorship lobby has been riddled with Paedophiles right from the beginning if you ask me!
klaw81
The internet isn't a kid's playground & we shouldn't think it is
@ all kids deserve protection
You've obviously been reading from Conroy's hymn-book..."anyone who opposes this filter must be a pedophile." - a statement which is both completely untrue and deeply offensive.
This filter proposal is deeply flawed and inefficient, and there are better, cheaper and more effective ways of preventing children accessing adult material. Every internet expert (except the filter sellers) agree that this filter will be vastly ineffective, slow the internet considerably and is manifestly unnecessary. Why do you think Australia will have a good, viable system when China and Iran can't effectively filter their internet with their massive Government-funded infrastructure.
Genuine pedophiles must be laughing their heads off, because this filter will make absolutely no difference to their filthy trade, while crippling the internet for everybody else.
If you're worried about smut on your computer being seen by kids, install a PC-based filter or sign up to a filtered ISP. That's your choice as a parent, and it's not difficult to do....you can pay for the extra service, and you can have a slow, crippled connection.
tedzah
huh
"The Anti-Censorship lobby has been riddled with Paedophiles right from the beginning if you ask me!"
Thank god nobody is asking you..
Anonymous
You sir, are a nut job. Take some time to explore the whole censorship issue and you will see that it is not pedophiles complaining about the filter. In fact it will have little if not no impact what so ever on them - to understand this, you must first look at how content filtering works in the first place. But it will have a major and profound impact on government control of free speech and has already been demonstrated in the pilot of the filter program. I don't think anyone against the filter has a problem with stopping kiddy porn but the proposed system just wont do it and instead will give the government a powerful tool in which to censor information on political issues that it does not want the public discussing. Once you look in to the whole mandatory filtering thing from an engineering point of view, it becomes quite obvious its doomed to fail.
Anonymous
i am also deeply offended that you think that everyone that opposes the filter is a pedo, that would make it at least 5,000,000 peaple worldwide that are pedo's
so your saying that because i like looking at legal XXX videos im a pedo?
if it was just for CP i wouldnt have an issue, nor will alot of other people on places like whirlpool.
the issue is its gone from an OPT-IN system to mandatory system targeting legal sites aswell as political views,
also lets see the rest of the qoute
"A major strategy was to
rally support under the umbrella
of free speech and to construct
mirror sites (duplicate pages at
other locations). In addition,
some declared a stance against
child pornography and argued
that their intentions towards
children were platonic. However,
this veneer was shattered by the
suggestive nature of WWW
picture galleries and reference
links to child pornography (for
example, sex stories and newsgroups
where child pornography
was distributed).
these people are caught out easily due to a thing called evidence, based around the statement "innocent until proven guilty"
all this filter is doing is going. everyone is guilty and we wont let you prove otherwise,
that pdf also goes on to state that these pedo rings mainly use encrypted newsgroups (a peer-to-peer format). wait guess what, the filter doesnt touch that, it doesnt go into email, it will only scan port 80 (that the standard port the http sites use ie: most websites.
and for the CP sites on the www? tests have already shown that these sites can be pulled down with 2 days once a complaint has been sent to a host, however it takes atleast 6 weeks for the site to be added to the ACMA filter list.
how about you read the entire pdf and come back when you understand the terminology of the article. yes a filter would help stop it, if they planned on filtering other protocal besides http. but there not,
Anonymous
@all kids deserve protection
You claim the Anti-Censorship lobby has been riddled with paedophiles from day one.
Do you dare to extend that claim to Save The Children, an intenational organisation that has been in operation for over ninety years??
http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technology/internet-censor-plan-blasted/2008/11/28/1227491813497.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
You say the Whirlpool community can go to blazes. Whirlpool has over 300,000 registered members. The Australian Christian Lobby claims only 100,000, and the true number is known to be closer to 3,000. And don't try to pretend that you represent all Christians, because most Christians want nothing to do with extremists like you.
Anonymous
ur so dum
I don't agree with compulsory internet filtering until I think about the Australian people that voted in the Rudd labour government.
When I think about the waves of idiotic vermin approaching the ballot boxes; Its clear to me that we need all the restrictive, sanitized, mind washing propagada we can swallow. Obviously education, self integrity and discipline are not somthing this population is known for.
Anonymous
>"I found this quote on page 2 of this Aust. Institute of
>Criminology report...
>
>http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti97.pdf
>
>"...finding sympathetic ISPs appeared to be a significant
>consideration for paedophile activists. A major strategy was
>to rally support under the umbrella of free speech..."
Strangely, that link doesn't work.
Was this whole post a troll?
Dash
he was right..
Hey, that guy was right, only the link is here....
http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/8/D/C/%7B8DC57715-E250-43B1-91BD-D04752499CA8%7Dti97.pdf
I'm pulling out my support for the GetUp campaign until I look this up more closely!
Anonymous
Just because a few paedos try to hide behind free speech advocates does NOT mean free speech advocates support child abuse.
The Rabbit-Proof Firewall will not prevent ONE SINGLE CHILD from getting raped.
Net Eng
ISP-level filtering made easy.
Mandatory ISP-level filtering is easy for illegal content.
There could be a simple scheme where every ISP with its own overseas links was required to participate.
If illegal content was detected within Australia, the police would be sent to investigate. If illegal content was discovered overseas, then a /32 null route would be injected into the major ISP routing tables. This would effectively drop the problem host off the Internet (from an Australian perspective.)
The /32 null routes would be served from a route-server similar to the Bogon route servers that exist on the Internet now.
This technology has no throughput impact. This technology is already in use by ISPs for other purposes. Nobody needs to buy anything, so nobody is pushing this simple solution.
Anonymous
Re: ISP-level filtering made easy.
"then a /32 null route would be injected into the major ISP routing tables". It's really, really not as simple as that.
For example, what happens if one page on a site such as youtube or wikipedia needs to be censored? - the entire site is censored.
What happens when a single host runs/routes multiple websites and one page on one of the websites gets censored? - they all get censored.
And it still doesn't solve the problem all of these filtering technologies have, ie. they can be bypassed using proxy servers or VPNs etc.
THAT is why nobody is pushing the idea. Did someone just teach you what /32 means?
Anonymous
RE: ISP-level filtering made easy.
It's always funny when the censormongers try to astroturf the comments section.
It's even funnier when you analyze the pro-censorship comments on this particular article. It's really a microcosmic representation of their entire plan of attack.
1) Start by playing the children card, everyone wants to protect children, right?
2) Try branding the opposition as paedophile supporters (Conroy would be proud!)
3) Try to convince everyone that the technology's really quite simple, honest injun!
4) ???
5) Profit!
Remember, folks, that's all these people want. Profit. These companies have been lobbying in secret for years, first to the religious groups, then the politicians. It's all off the record, under the radar, completely unaccountable. And all they want is "their fair slice" of that lucrative captive market of eight million Australian internet subscribers.
Anonymous
omg - this is a debate?
Yeah, it is amusing when the godbotherers instruct their faithful fundamentalists to flame a legitimate debate.
Not so amusing is their blind technical and social ignorance as they continue to try running water uphill with their blind assertions.
Despite the lockstep Conroy/ACL rhetoric that the filter will save the children by stopping pedophiles, the reality is it will do nothing of the sort - the scum will go straight round it.
Many parents will get a false sense of security from the govt spin and will stop vital supervision of their kids online.
Conroy may not be very bright, but he is cunning enough to know all of this. So exactly what is his real agenda for imposing a secret censorship regime on Australia? He should withdraw the flawed concept or resign immediately.
Anonymous
The Anti-Censorship lobby has been riddled with Paedophiles right from the beginning if you ask me!
Maybe, but all the paedophiles that were caught were from the Christian Right.
Man from Philippines
Re: ISP-level content filtering
Guide and educate your children about the ill effects on these not only porn sites but other sites as well which contains derogatory remarks, flaming and swearing. Internet is not different from the real world we live-in, except that Internet junks can eat-up more what we have in-still in our children both mentally and spiritually. Its up to us parents to protect our children and look after them. Everyday is an education for our kids. School stops teaching after 4 or 5 in the afternoon, but at home it stops only when they are sleeping.
Let them spend an hour or two in front of a computer on a schedule which you are always around. The more they spend time on the internet, the more susceptible they are on these internet junks.
Anonymous
he was right..
> <em> I'm pulling out my support for the GetUp campaign until I look this up more closely!</em>
What a blatant troll.
Over a decade old reference which doesn't even mention 'Getup' and has nothing to do with child abusers hiding behind civil liberties advocates.
Hey but here's one for you religious ratbags. I'm pulling out my support for christianity as it turns out that paedophile priests have been hiding behind the BIBLE and all its wild ideas.
чaтЪлaн4ик
Отлично
Просто отлично. Подпишусь-ка я на РСС пожалуй. :)
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