[clug] OT: Protesting the proposed clean feed?

[Steve Walsh]

Robert Edwards wrote:
> What is our "best practice" for home Internet filtering?
>
Probably unrelated, I got the enviable task of making wireless happen 
for the World Youth Day events.

We started with Dans Guardian and a full set of filters (word, content 
and picture) wound to the lowest common denominator ( a 16 year old who 
had had a strict moral upbringing ), and within an hour people were 
complaining that German Webmail sites were blocked (The page in question 
displays full frontal "pink bits" next to the webmail login box), or 
they couldn't get to their Myspace page due to inappropriate content. By 
the end of the first day with the Pilgrims being on campus, the helpdesk 
that was running requested that the filters be turned off, and shortly 
thereafter the 8 box cluster that was filtering became an 8 box cluster 
that was just proxying.

I, thankfully, was at Royal Pines Resort attending Questnet08, so I just 
disabled the filters, filed the email request under "Break Seal In Case 
of Court Summons", and spent the rest of the day in the bar.

When it comes to filtering internet, the people on the pointy end 
(helpdesk workers) who have to put with the abuse tend to take the 
shotgun approach, and either want it all turned on, or all turned off, 
and as the "Peter Principle" is used to select helpdesk staff, it won't 
take long before a content filter is turned off, if only to make the 
voices stop.

my 2cents.

-- 
--==--
Steve Walsh
RHCE
Vice President / SysAdmin Team member- Linux Australia
Networks and Technology - Linux.conf.au 2008
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'