Censornet - internet filtering on your terms

CensorNet: The Positive Filter

Published in Archived articles on June 11, 2009 by Administrator

If you ask many people why they install a filtering proxy they will first of all roll off the old adages of they want to block pornographic or other obscene web sites from being viewed and follow up with the need to control people. The CensorNet can, of course, be used in such a negative way, but we prefer to see it in a more positive light. I think we can all agree that web sites showing pornographic images or other material do get in the way of the working day, whether you be in an educational or office based environment. But as an interview with Tim Lloyd, our CEO, shows we don’t intend the filter to be something that is just there to block the negative, to the contrary, it is there to enable people to be able to visit the sites they should be viewing in order to do their work whilst blocking those sites that might otherwise pose too thrilling a view to some colleagues. If only the employers of the person described in this article had had such a positively discriminating filter in place, they would still have an employee, and more importantly, that employee would not have gone to jail, nor have been charged restitution fees. As this article goes on to make clear, you should have a rock solid Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) in place as part of your security armoury. Make your statements of acceptable use therein and then use the CensorNet to enforce them. That way, not only you, but your users, will come to see it as a benefit and not something that they consider as something that gets in the way.