On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Eric Dencer wrote:
> You need to have a clear and enforcable policy that prohibits that
> behavior at work. You need to have TOOLS that let you know when those
> policies are violated and you need to enforce the policy through
> dicipline and expectations.
>
> Eric
>
> >>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2/28/00 >>>
> Far from raining on the parade, the faq response you reference ignores both
> the technology available to solve the problem and the human resource issues
> facing most companies today.
I don't see what good any of this content filtering does, because it's so
easy to open an encrypted SSL connection to a proxy server and then access
the web from there; and if you block SSL then noone can do commerce, and
if that doesn't work, most of the proxy servers that exist for public use
out there also anonomize on alternate ports.
Content filtering (AFAIK) is a technological solution to a human problem,
and people rely on it instead of educating their children / employees.
> co-workers. Civil libertarians have a real problem with this,
> unfortunately, they usually hire the same lawyers who are suing
> corporations for fostering hostile environments by allowing racist, sexist
> or other offensive material to be displayed in a browser or forwarded in an
> e-mail....
Um, this makes no sense.
> The best solutions available today are a combination of content filtering
> on the content of the pages themselves (there are several applications out
> there, including ours), coupled with a clear corporate policy on
> appropriate use of network resources.
How about just a clear corporate policy? Give your users some credit, and
if that doesn't work, fire them.
> The company is also better served if it is prepared to manage its
> employees. Simply blocking access with a block list or an appliance doesn't
> change behavior, it even presents a challenge to the more technically
Finally, some logic in this argument.
> inclined. But the technology exists to provide feedback to managers, and
> allow them to tell employees to knock it off,... before a small problem
> becomes a big problem.
Monitoring is probably better than blocking, in this case, but look at
what happens on search engines when you mistype a word, you're innudated
with porn. Porn and Gambling sites are, IMHO, the default search result on
the internet these days, and those who inadvertendly bring them up
shouldn't by chastized.
-john
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