Comments on: Why I’m Blocking Bing.com on my School’s Network

By: Damien Barrett

Damien Barrett — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:12:41 +0000

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.

By: Stace

Stace — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:04:43 +0000

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.

By: DocFreud

DocFreud — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:35:18 +0000

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.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:32:24 +0000

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.

By: Fort Lauderdale Photographer

Fort Lauderdale Photographer — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:14:55 +0000

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?

By: Alex G

Alex G — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:49:54 +0000

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!

By: anyony

anyony — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:07:38 +0000

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.

By: Damien Barrett

Damien Barrett — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:14:16 +0000

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.

By: Stace

Stace — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:07:21 +0000

You’re aware you can do this with Google search as well, right?

By: Chad

Chad — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:05:24 +0000

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?