One thing missing is an administrative override feature. E2guardian makes a best estimate about a URL's content and either fails to block something it should block or it blocks a URL it shouldn't block. One solution to the block when you shouldn't problem is to add the site to the exceptionsitelist, but only a trusted administrator should be allowed to add sites to that list. A user that gets the filter page in theory should be able to request the addition of the site to the exceptionsitelist. The selected admin should be receiving an email with the site name and possibly the time that the user was blocked so that in the blocked inappropriately case the admin can explicitly allow.
In theory, e2guardian could be enhanced to allow different users different exceptions. For example, mailing list foo may get filtered at times because of the content that occasionally comes up on it, but an adult may need to see that content on a web site. A child user on the other hand may not be of age or for whatever reason the content may not be suitable. This is where enhancing e2guardian so that the adult can enter a password to get to mailing list foo content makes sense. The child presumably will not know the password or for that matter, maybe the adult has a physical Yubikey and they have to authentic with that to get special exceptions. How would one go about enhancing e2guardian to maintain different exceptions for different users? A valid but dicey alternative approach to solve the filtering out sites that shouldn't be problem is to allow certain users access to squid without being filtered, but where there might be authentication to ensure that your accountability partner (or admin) approves. Maybe the access to squid unfiltered can be on a site by site basis and on a timed basis. An option is to let the admin monitor exceptional access in real time and even take a look at what you are currently viewing. After all, whatever it is you are looking at it is cached by squid. What I'm looking at for a use case is proxied and filtered by default for all users regardless of age. Direct to squid in exceptional situations with the admin explicitly allowed to monitor exceptions to the filter in real time. The admin should be whomever you feel comfortable being accountable to or in the case of a child a suitable adult, like mom or dad or their legal guardian perhaps. The type of network I'm targeting is a personal or home network with otherwise unfiltered Internet access (What most broadband subscribers have). As a computer professional out of work in the field, I have practically no choice about having Internet access almost wherever I am. As a Linux user, I am a second class citizen when it comes to services like Covenant Eyes that are Windows and/or smartphone targeted. What I am talking about, e2guardian, is costly to deploy and in my case less than ideal out of the box. Perhaps a lower power computer is good enough for a home network... I have the C++ source code after all and I am a programmer. I'd love to solve my use case at a lower price point for other people not to make money, but out of love for my fellow human beings living in the information age. Services like Covenant Eyes should be available for Linux, ReactOS, Haiku, BSD, HPUX, SunOS, Syllable, BeOS, MacOSX, MenuetOS... and maybe it shouldn't be a pay for service. I could see a non profit entity staffed by adults providing accountability services. If someone else doesn't get it done and establishing such a nonprofit is possible, I ought to do it. For a content filtered proxy to be helpful, it needs to let users see what they legitamtely need to see or it will not be used. On the one hand, the filter needs to be bypassable in special cases. On the other hand, even some adults want an accountability partner of their choosing monitoring what they are doing at all times especially in those exceptional cases. Just because a web site for mailing list foo talks about bar, this does not mean that an adult shouldn't see bar on that web site. A child may have no business seeing bar though. Putting the site in the exceptionsitelist when the proxy is supposed to protect children for the sake of certain adult users is not an acceptable solution. The filter should err on the side of blocking for children but for adults, this will not work. Adults may even want another adult monitoring them in the case of exceptions, but a child is not ready for bar assuming that bar is adult content of some form requiring a certain level of maturity and/or discipline. Not everything you can view online is a healthy thing to view after all. This applies for some users to gambling sites, pornographic material, and perhaps other types of visual media. One could go on to talk about about hate sites and propaganda sites that have caused some to become terrorists, but I'm mostly concerned with pornography alone. I need to keep the use case simple as much as possible. The complexity of child, adult with a high degree of maturity and self discipline, and adult with an addiction or vulnerable adult is a lot of complexity to deal with. It doesn't help for filtering out pornography that the pornography sites are being actively designed to resist content filters. I sense a lot of frustration on the part of the e2guardian maintainer. IMHO, some of these pornography sites that are hard to filter should be shut down forcibly if necessary. Filtering pictures is going to require AI and a lot more processing power than the first 64 bit multicore AMD processor had. I'm not sure what the limitations and dangers of AI are (Artificial Intelligence * Watson). I am by no means intentionally saying that Watson is the only supercomputer better than any other supercomputer in existence on the planet. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
