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Re: [ProgSoc] *IMPORTANT NEWS* ITD filtering using Websense



FOCUS Film Society wrote:
> 
> All sites relating to sexuality, sex and hacking are now being blocked off
> by ITD.
> 
> I don't know the extent of the "black list" but it's totally bad news -
> especially for a university of technology.
> 
> See for example, www.2600.com is blocked.
> 
> Sites related to safe sex are blocked.
> 
> I don't know who made the decision, etc. but this is a big issue.

This only seems to affect those who use ITD's "transparent" proxy
because if I go to www.2600.com from a SoCS/Faculty of IT machine (where
a different proxy is configured), I get the contents of the site (this
may change any moment now).

I agree that it isn't great but I suspect that ITD have done some
analysis of web traffic (and possibly other traffic, such as email) and
probably found that there was enough "non-academic use" of the link to
warrant the filter. (This may or may not be true - I'm only theorising
here). The page you get when visiting a banned URL does say the filter's
only "on trial" but what chance is there of it staying? I say pretty
likely but you might not agree.

Phil.

-- 
Phillip Tong

You were expecting some sort of quote here? Ha!

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