Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 00:41:54 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Terry Zink" <tzink@metrocon.com> Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: freebsd box as a porn filter? Message-ID: <000701c114dd$467b53e0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <01072416080900.46539@coldstone.metrocon.com>
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In which case I'd say what's the problem? My guess is that the people that work on the playboy.com website routinely view porno on the Internet to see what their competitors are doing. Certainly you can think of environments where viewing it would be legitimate. But in most public libraries with children and parents running around I somehow doubt that your girlfriend would be able to do this for very long without being booted out. :-) I don't know about the employment market where the original poster worked, but I know that in the city that I live in, it's pretty lively. This enforces humanity on the managers of most companies. Heavy-handed command and control tactics generally don't work in most office environments here, and the ability to find out if your employees are viewing porno or not is no benefit when the price to pay to do it is to create a Big Brotherish atmosphere which drives away your best people. It's not to say that unblocked porno is going to be a requirement for the best people before they work for you, far from it. It's just that in my experience most of the time managers that are gunning for this are coming from either a very specific environment (like academic) or they are control freaks that want to substitute technology for getting off their butts and actually managing people. Of course the control freaks all think that their environments are specific and need it, because they are unable to see that they are piss-poor managers. Anyone with a brain can see that an environment where there's a lot of unsupervised access by people who have no particular personality investment in the organization is going to create a problem. In these cases, such as a school where the students are too immature to care, or a fast food joint where the employees don't give a rat's ass if the place gets in trouble because of complaints or not, porno filtering is a necessary self-defence mechanism. But your a fool if you think that substituting technical porno filtering in place of empowering your employees and getting their personal buyoff of the organization is going to work. A good manager doesen't need crude tactics like porno filtering because they can inspire their people to _want_ to do their best and get the most out of the time they are spending working for the business, and not wasting time with porno viewing. A poor manager that's unable to do this shouldn't be managing in the first place, and if they try filtering all that's going to happen is they are going to be effectively telling their employees they don't trust them, which creates an environment where it's impossible to inspire people to do more than the bare minimum necessary to stay employed. Such an environment creates a whole host of other problems and in fact works completely the opposite - it just inspires employees to screw the organization. You take the Squid option mentioned here - well to get it to work means your going to have to statically assign IP numbers for all your workstations to track them - so now we have just given up the benefits of DHCP for this. Then if the employees catch wind of it, what's to prevent them from sneaking into the managers office (preferably the manager that instituted the porno filtering to begin with) during lunch and spending a half hour cruising a bunch of porno sites. Then that person gets blamed for something they didn't do. Frankly, my advice to the CEO's of companies that want to do this is that if your network administrator has so little to do that he has enough time to play Network Cop, you ought to fire him and outsource your IT infrastructure, you would save a bundle. Then you ought to fire the managers that are clamoring for it and replace them with some people that understand how to be real managers - your organization's productivity will increase 100% at least. Think carefully before you put your system admin into a position where he's opposing users. These users are supposed to be going to the network admin for help, not running away from him because they are afraid of the latest electronic survellance technique he's going to use to rat them out. And network admins that _want_ to implement this: for shame!! You need to reconsider why the heck you ever got into IT work to begin with, your reasons obviously have nothing to do with helping users to use technology. Maybe you should have gone into dentistry! Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Terry Zink >Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 1:08 PM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: freebsd box as a porn filter? > > >Turning the displays towards the checkouts may work but not with everyone. >There are many people I know (including my girlfriend, what can i say, she's >weird n stuff :) Whho would sit there n go "Ooh, not bad.. nice boobs" on >her n look at silly porn related things when she came across them.. Actively >searching for them is another thing, but that wont stop people who have no >shame :) > > >On Tuesday 24 July 2001 03:59, you wrote: >> A number of years ago the public library here started putting in >> Internet-connected PC's with the idea that the community members >> unable to afford a computer or Internet access could use them for >> research, etc. The folks that originally installed them were well >> meaning but ignorant in the ways of the big bad Internet. (they >> obviously didn't talk to any network administrators before doing it, >> but that's par for the course) They almost immediately started >> having problems and tried various filtering software, etc. >> >> Finally about 3 years ago they finally managed to hire someone >> smart enough to come in out of the rain, who immediately threw >> away all of the filtering software. Then they went through all >> the library branches and reoriented all of the systems in such >> a way as the screens faced the checkout desks and had unobstructed >> visibility. The porno problems disappeared. >> >> The interesting thing I thought was that back when some fools in Congress >> were considering mandating filtering software for schools, the library >> here testified against it, as it was expensive and didn't generally work. >> >> It's kind of a low-tech solution but effective for that environment. >> While you can't generally do this in a corporate environment with >> offices, most decent managers have their own methods of finding out >> what their employees are up to that are just as effective. >> >> Too many times we in the industry are too quick to attempt technological >> solutions to what are basically human problems. >> >> Ted Mittelstaedt >> tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD >> Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: >> http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >> >> >-----Original Message----- >> >> From: P. U. (Uli) Kruppa [mailto:root@pukruppa.de] >> >> >Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 2:12 AM >> >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >> >Cc: Clayton Tycksen; freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >> >Subject: RE: freebsd box as a porn filter? >> > >> >On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: >> >> VGA16?!??! What about the Hercules Graphics Adapter? There's a >> >> xserver for that! ;-) >> >> >> >> (they can dither down the hicolor images to 16 colors if they are really >> >> desperate) >> >> >> >> Or maybe you could designate a certain time period during the day >> >> as "free porno time" and let them go to town then. :-) >> > >> >Three or four years ago I'd made fun of this, too. >> >But if you care to have a look at my typical users on >> >www.2000d.de >> >you will see one sometimes has to respect other people's >> >sentiments. :-) >> > >> >Uli. >> > >> >> Ted Mittelstaedt >> > >> >tedm@toybox.placo.com >> > >> >> Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate >> > >> >Networker's Guide >> > >> >> Book website: >> > >> >http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >> > >> >> >-----Original Message----- >> >> >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >> >> >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of P. U. (Uli) >> >> >Kruppa >> >> >Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 11:17 PM >> >> >To: Clayton Tycksen >> >> >Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >> >> >Subject: Re: freebsd box as a porn filter? >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> >The best porn-filter is a good old vga16 video-card. >> >> >You simply will not be able to see anything. >> >> >Perhaps you can tune down XF86 ? >> >> > >> >> >If you whish to block a particular address you can just add >> >> >it to your /etc/hosts . Any request for it will be sent to >> >> >your own machine - and there is nothing undesireable. >> >> > >> >> >Place the workstations in a way that your users can't be >> >> >sure not to be watched. >> >> > >> >> >Uli. >> >> > >> >> >On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Clayton Tycksen wrote: >> >> >> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 15:58:47 -0600 >> >> >> From: Clayton Tycksen <clay@tycksen.com> >> >> >> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >> >> >> Subject: freebsd box as a porn filter? >> >> >> >> >> >> Dear FreeBSD, >> >> >> >> >> >> I'm relatively new to Unix. A good friend of mine has converted me >> >> >> to FreeBSD, and I'm enjoying it. >> >> >> I do have a question- as the administrator of a small network, I'm >> >> >> wondering if it's possible to set up FreeBSD on a box and have it >> >> >> perform filtering of pornography. I realise that I can set up a >> >> >> FreeBSD box to perform packet filtering (although I still need to >> >> >> figure out how to do that, exactly). But I'd like to prohibit nodes >> >> >> on our network from viewing pornographic material, and a few other >> >> >> general websites. I do not have an external 'router' per se - We >> >> >> have an ISDN connection to our ISP (which does not provide >> >> >> filtering). >> >> >> >> >> >> I've looked at available hardware designed specifically for spam and >> >> >> porn filtering for networks, but the price of the hardware is too >> >> >> high for my small network of 15 nodes and 2 servers. >> >> >> >> >> >> Any suggestions? >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> >> Clayton Tycksen >> >> >> Network Administrator >> >> >> Zoll & Tycksen, LC >> >> >> >> >> >> tel (801) 685-7800 ext 15 >> >> >> fax (801) 685-7808 >> >> >> cell (801) 913-2208 >> >> >> >> >> >> text msg: help@ztlaw.com >> >> >> >> >> >> ******************************************************************* >> >> >> >> >> >> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >> >> >> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message >> >> > >> >> >*--------------------------------------* >> >> > >> >> >| www.pukruppa.de www.2000d.de | >> >> >| Wuppertal - Germany | >> >> > >> >> >*--------------------------------------* >> >> > >> >> > >> >> >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >> >> >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message >> >> >> >> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >> >> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message >> > >> >*--------------------------------------* >> > >> >| www.pukruppa.de www.2000d.de | >> >| Wuppertal - Germany | >> > >> >*--------------------------------------* >> >> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > >-- >Regards, > >Terry Zink >System Administrator >Metrocon Communications >Phone: (212) 661-6800 x 1553 > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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