CyberPatrol wackiness (was: Filtered by WebSENSE)

[Brian Smith]

At 08:07 AM 1/12/00 -0800, John Kupersmith wrote:
<snip>
>I'm not qualified to comment on WebSENSE in detail, and am not 
>endorsing it or any other product.  For what it's worth, though, 
>our library system has used Cyber Patrol since April 1998; it 
>does not block my site, and our patrons have not complained about 
>inappropriate blocking or asked us to block or unblock any other 
>sites.  For details on our policy, procedures, and Cyber Patrol 
>settings, see < http://www.washoe.lib.nv.us/staff/#Public >

My website, "The Laughing Librarian," is hosted by Internet Trash, and may
be accessed as http://www.netjunk.com/users/lafnlibn/ or
http://www.internettrash.com/users/lafnlibn or under several other domain
names Internet Trash uses.  

I've found that CyberPatrol blocks access to www.internettrash.com, but
lets www.netjunk.com through.  Exact same material, just different domain
names in the URL.  (At one time, internettrash.com hosted porn, but all
adults-only subsites were spun off into a separate hosting domain at least
a year ago.)

BTW, I think the Washoe policy of optional filtering is quite reasonable,
although it doesn't seem to mention that some sites which do not meet the
filtering criteria may be blocked.  I also hope parents are being educated
about what "not guaranteed to block everything" really means --  My
personal tests of CyberPatrol indicate that a teen with basic knowledge of
Web searching would be able to find non-blocked porn in a matter of minutes
if he so desired.


Brian Smith
Assistant Head of Adult Services
Villa Park (IL) Public Library
http://www.villapark.lib.il.us/
bsmith at linc.lib.il.us
... But writing only on my own behalf
===========
"If you didn't want them to think, you shouldn't have 
given them library cards." -- _Getting Straight_ (1970)