get the complete CYBERsitter filter file

[Julie Meyer & Carl Todd]

	 Seems like the entire list of blocked sites that Cybersitter uses 
can be decoded with the software listed below.  I tried it and it 
seemed to work fine.  I found a few surprises -- for example, these 
pages are listed as blocked (and I checked by using Cybersitter -- 
yes, indeed, they are blocked):

The National Organization for Women ( NOW ) Home Page 
GLAAD, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation 
Smith College Astronomy Home Page 
Godiva Chocolatier 

--Carl



------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Mon, 21 Apr 1997 00:37:12 -0500 (CDT)
From:          bennett at peacefire.org (Bennett Haselton)
Subject:       get the complete CYBERsitter filter file
To:            caci at cygnus.com
Reply-to:      caci at cygnus.com

CYBERsitter does not disclose the list of sites that is blocked by its
program, allowing them to block sites like Peacefire and The Ethical
Spectacle (http://www.spectacle.org) without their customers'
knowledge, and in violation of their stated blocking policies.  The
following procedure, for obtaining a list of sites that CYBERsitter
really blocks, was created in the interests of truth-in-labelling and
truth-in-advertising.

To get the complete list of sites, words and phrases that are blocked
by CYBERsitter, download csdecode.zip from:
http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/CYBERsitter/csdecode.zip or
http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~haseltbt/csdecode.zip

and get CYBERsitter from:
ftp://ftp.pow-dist.co.uk/pub/demos/cybsetup.exe
or
http://www.pow-dist.co.uk/solidoak/cyber.html

The CYBERsitter installation program that is distributed from Solid
Oak Software's web site
(ftp://ftp.solidoak.com/anonymous/cybsetup.exe) now includes a license
agreement that prohibits obtaining information by "decompiling,
decrypting, trial and error, or activity logging".  The wording of the
agreement is a subject for another thread -- but you can avoid the
license agreement entirely, by downloading the installer program from
POW distribution in the UK, at the URL above.  At this writing, the
free trial installation program available from POW distribution does
not include a license agreement.

Alternatively, you can get the encrypted CYBERsitter filter file,
called "cywin0.opt", by anonymous ftp to ftp.solidoak.com.  They're
not going to pull that file any time soon, since it is the copy that
CYBERsitter customers use to update their filter file over the
Internet.

csdecode.exe is a program that takes the CYBERsitter filter file as
input and writes a decrypted copy of the file as output.

Instructions on how to use the filter file codebreaker are included in
the csdecode.zip file.

It is important to note that I did not have this program in November,
and I had not seen a decrypted copy of the filter file until two weeks
ago, when this program was written.

        -Bennett
---------------------------------------------------------
bennett at peacefire.org    (615) 421 6408     http://www.peacefire.org