Why I’m Blocking Bing.com on my School’s Network
Like the rest of the IT industry, I noticed when Microsoft–the proverbial 800lb gorilla in the room–waded into the search engine market with what appeared to be a fairly sophisticated new product, Bing. Billed as a “Google killer”, it does actually show some promise: clean interface, fairly accurate results, decent customization options, and it’s fast–all things that a good engine should be. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s cluelessness has once again bitten them in the ass and rendered their shiny new search engine completely unusable by the vast majority of school systems in this country. Here’s why.
Like most schools, we have a content filter. Ours happens to be [redacted], but these filters all work the same way, by blocking content from known-bad lists of domains. Some use fuzzy logic as well, but most are fairly straight-foward category-based content filters. Before we go further, try this as a experiment:
1) Go to Bing.com
2) Search for “Jenna Jameson” or any porn star name
3) Click on Videos at the top.
4) Turn off “safe search” if you haven’t done so already.
5) Now scrub your mouse over each of the videos in the search fields.
6) Voila! Instant porn, available to anyone, regardless of a content filter.
Right, okay, so what to do? As an IT administrator in a K-12 school, I can’t very well allow this content on my network. I’ve contacted my content filter provider and they said this:
After doing some research, it looks like Microsoft has developed Bing is such a way that will make it very, very difficult to block the inappropriate and/or dangerous content on the video links.
Most sites like this will have a page for turning on adult content, will allow a parameter to be passed that enforces safe searches, or other things. Microsoft appears to have done everything in the most difficult possible way. Everything is parameter based and mostly driven by javascript and random id numbers with zero clue as to content. Whereas Google and others embed the URL of the site where the content came from, which allows a partner to filter individual pieces out of results, bing does none of this. As there is no current way to block individual portions of a page and/or tools to enable something similar to “safe search”, at this time our recommendation is to simply block bing.com in your policies if you are concerned about users accessing inappropriate content.
So that’s my solution. Microsoft has left me with no option except to block their entire search engine. Good job, Microsoft. You’ll never win the search engine game with solutions as clueless as this.
6-17-2009: A day or so ago, Microsoft changed how their search results are delivered. Virtually all porn content is now pulled from “explicit.bing.com” instead of from the main domain itself. Very simply, they’ve listed to the complaints (including mine) and have made it much easier for me to use my existing content filter to block explicit content without having to resort to blocking the entire domain. Today I’ve unblocked “bing.com” and blocked “explicit.bing.com”. In all my testing so far, our content filter is working exactly as it’s supposed to and Bing.com can now be a resource our students can utilize.
More: TechCrunch. FoxNews. Loic Le Meur
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June 3rd, 2009 at 7:05 am
I have K9 Web Protection software installed on my Macs at home, with filter settings set to prohibit porn. When I attempt to access videos in the manner you describe, the thumbnail videos are never displayed; I get spinning circles as it appears to be attempting to load.
Perhaps MS got it right and is actually now doing a “passthrough” so that the original video source/URL is passed directly. Did something change?
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:07 am
You’re aware you can do this with Google search as well, right?
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:14 am
Did you read the article, Stace? In particular, the response from the content filter vendor? Don’t you think that I’ve tested Google’s search engine for inappropriate content? Don’t you think that the content filter vender has tested Google’s search and determined how to prevent inappropriate material from showing up in search results? Don’t you think that I’d level the same criticism at Google if they had a search engine that behaved the same way (rending content filters ineffective)?
I guess it’s just easier to spout off a comment without even thinking about what you’re saying. Or prove me wrong and show me evidence that Google (or virtually any other search engine out there) behaves this way.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:07 am
There are multiple other content filters that work with blocking “bad” content on bing. Example Safe Eyes and CyberPatrol. Get a clue here –> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,524019,00.html
This only means your content provider is clueless and needs to be replaced. Or maybe you already knew this and were just trolling against MS like Apple fanbois tend to do. And why redact the content filter company? Cmon, out with the name.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:49 am
Coming from a blog named “Apple Technician” … obviously would expect such a reaction … blocking an entire school from an internet search engine because of your own lack of competence … I think MS messed up quite a few aspects of bing as well, but really, you need to get a clue about censorship!
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:14 am
Odd how the largest software company out there hadn’t thought about the implications of this part of their design. I’m currious if this will bug the hell out of Chinese censors also. Can their filtering software parse out the content from javascript?
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:32 am
anyony,
I’d like to state I have been in similar situations as the author. When dealing with whole schools you don’t mess around with per-computer products like cyber-patrol, you implement in-line or otherwise transparent (read WCCP) filtering via an appliance or dedicated system (i.e. Squid + Dan’s Guardian, WebSense, SmartFitler, iPrism) where traffic has no choice but to go through a single system that the user cannot control. Even on my personal network I have such a system in place. I live very near a public high school and unfortunately my wireless networks are almost the only ones in range of the school’s parking lot (thanks cisco.. I didn’t really need that strong of an antenna). So I setup a single public free access “network” on my AP and forced all its traffic to go to a proxy via my ASA. The short version is there are times where it doesn’t make sense to try implementing stupid things that are able to respond first, because the tried, tested, and true solutions that work at the network level do take some time, and they are built to maintain proper security at the same time.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:35 am
I’m not a fan of M$ and this is not a statement in support of M$.
I’m pretty sure they developed Bing knowing companies that develop content filters will provide the blocking mechanisms their customers need.
This will allow individual users the ability to “screen” videos (really, watch free porn) from home or from PC’s that are not subject to content filters.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Sorry, Damien. You’re right, I should have read closer.
I would like to point out, however, my comment was absent the snark present in your reply. Please consider a thicker skin.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Stace, you’re correct. I was overly snarky in my reply to you. I apologize if you were offended. I believe I was transferring some other reader’s criticism of my post onto you, and it wasn’t warranted.
I would like to point out that my point still stands. Due to community politics, we must have a content filter on our network (despite my and my Tech. Dept.’s reservations). We have one that’s been working fairly well for some time and see no reason to rush out and replace it just because Microsoft released a new search engine without doing adequate real-world testing for how it might be used.
Those people who blithely imply that me or my tech department are somehow incompetent because we continue to use our until-now-perfectly-adequate content filter are really just as clueless as Microsoft here.