PDA

View Full Version : WebSense NonSense


dberg_usa
7th September 2007, 12:03 AM
Well for those of you yet to experience all that is the new coming of evil internet censorship, may I intoduce WebSense.

Seems the lame brains at this company don't know the difference between a game and a resource site. You guessed it they ban/block the Tower because it is a "game site" Actually, their definition of a game site is among other things anything that has to do with roleplaying. That means all WOTC stuff is blocked too. The filter they use sucks and its damn good at scanning traffic for sites and then keying in on catch phrases.

I fail to understand why you would list a resource site in a database as a game site unless it has games on it. That is unless they are merely censoring roleplaying as an evil of society that deserves in their minds to be trashed. They don't put other reference and resource material sites in any games categories. So why "roleplaying?" They even have a filter category for social hobbies. Why wouldn't roleplaying be listed under that?

Woz
7th September 2007, 04:44 AM
Ahh yes, WebSense! Our school used to use it and it was a horrible filter. It blocked all kinds of useful sites based on keywords (or even partial words) and let a whole bunch of bad stuff through. We junked it after a year. Sorry 'bout that friend.

mexal
12th September 2007, 09:57 AM
The college at which I worked tried that once... however our IT Services guy caved in when I pointed out that I would be teaching my web development class PHP code and if I could not access my own site (RPG Resource) to show them a live site in action they would have to delve into the college's own site. It was amazing how quickly access was restored ;D

I still maintain access to a proxy server to bypass his censorship when necessary, though.