Limiting browsers to sites -Reply -Reply

[Toens Bueker]

On Mon, Dec 29, 1997 at 09:57:52AM -0800, KAREN SCHNEIDER wrote:

> Though some client software may be unavoidable in some
> situations, acquiring more of it is not usually a goal, due to the
> maintenance overhead each program incurs.   (That's why you
> see librarians pausing to consider thin clients--I almost wrote think
> clients--and network PCs.)  Anything you have to install on each
> and every workstation  is usually much more labor-intensive--you
> have to run from machine to machine to configure and fix stuff. 
> This (hardly a new point) was observed many times over by
> people I interviewed who were using some type of filter on their
> library workstation(s).  A number of other products for managing
> and/or monitoring Internet content are server-based (not that I
> am suggesting that they don't often have problems in *other*
> areas).  

In my opinion the most effecitve way of filtering
web-content is a transparent proxy (that what you use,
when you browse the web via AOL or CompuServe).
Quite easy to implement with a Linux workstation (as your
gateway to the net), which transparently takes traffic for
port 80 (http-traffic) and guides it through a
caching-proxy on the same machine. Deny access to
everything and just open those sites, which should be
accessable.
For access to usenet-news have a local server with only
the groups you want to serve.

In respect to thin clients: if Microsoft didn't buy Citrix
a thin client with a win95/nt4 gui would already be
available. Wait for Hydra from Microsoft and pIcasso from
Citrix, which will give you the thin client you desire.

> Regarding Library Channel being "easier to administer than a
> web page" and "a simple tool"--well, no, I didn't find that to be
> true, either, but that's one of those subjective experiences only
> the buyer can decide.  You have to learn to administer Library
> Channel, and if you're maintaining a website, do you want to
> additional overhead of doing so?  

Administering the above setup should be via a
web-interface or a tcl/tk-application.
You should be able to find somebody who can manage and
implement such an installation in your local Linux user
group.

By
Töns
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