FW: [LINK] SurfControl woes

[Daniel Rose]

I have been to sydney for a day's training with SC and it's not very
hard to adjust the settings for one's own network at all.  However,
getting surfcontrol themselves to remove sites from their own lists is
probably harder than it should be.

We use SC's "Riskfilters" here to cull almost all the incoming spam.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at anumail0.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at anumail0.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Howard Lowndes
> Posted At: Wednesday, 24 January 2007 6:54 AM
> Posted To: Link List
> Conversation: [LINK] SurfControl woes
> Subject: Re: [LINK] SurfControl woes
> 
> 
> One of my clients that I do the Linux work for, has SC on its 
> W2K3 server, I don't know why because it doesn't provide any 
> useful functionality as far as I can see, other than 
> monitoring emails - they don't proxy web surfing through it.  
> That's probably because it's a church school and the holy 
> honchos sold the idea to them as a Good Thing (tm).  The fact 
> is, that the Windows sysadmin really doesn't have a clue 
> about how to tune it, even configure it, so my bet is that 
> the problem is not stubborn sysadmins, rather incompetent 
> sysadmins, but there again, what else can you expect from 
> Windows sysadmins...
> 
> Ivan Trundle wrote:
> > Esteemed Linkers
> > 
> > Having just discovered that a major commercial website that 
> I've been 
> > working on has been classified by SurfControl.com as a 
> > 'personal/dating site', I'm asking Linkers if they have 
> experience of 
> > or is using SurfControl in their work environment (or home, I 
> > suppose...) and has information or experience of what it 
> takes to have 
> > a domain re-categorised (yes, I've checked out their website, and 
> > submitted my site for 'consideration', on bended knee with all due 
> > deference - I've had zero feedback to date).
> > 
> > I find it remarkable that sites are categorised in such a slipshod 
> > way, but then I suppose I should have known better coming from a 
> > background of libraries (and anti-filtering). Some years 
> ago, my boss 
> > was continually frustrated by the various levels of filtering that 
> > prevented her from communicating, all because her first name was 
> > 'Virginia' (a good thing that she wasn't trying to sell shitake 
> > mushrooms at the same time). We even took the whole exercise to a 
> > rather memorable Senate Estimates Committee on censorship 
> matters, but 
> > the end result was not as cut and dried as we had hoped.
> > 
> > I digress. I'm keen to get some anecdotal evidence about 
> SurfControl's 
> > methods of assessment, deployment, etc: if only so that the 
> business 
> > that I work for can have a chance to compete. I even began 
> to wonder 
> > if a competitor submitted our site's URL...
> > 
> > Looking for quick solutions, I've considered offering clients who 
> > can't get around their IT department's insistence on using 
> SurfControl 
> > without fine-tuning (does it offer any on a local level?) 
> the option 
> > to access our IP address instead, but have no idea if this 
> is futile or not.
> > Further, I was even considering setting up an alternative 
> nonsensical 
> > domain to circumvent the problem for those with stubborn sys-admins.
> > 
> > And no, the site in question is NOT a personal/dating site, 
> but rather 
> > a forum for collaboration and exchange of ideas. Oddly, SurfControl 
> > would have very limited access to the site that is 
> currently blocked, 
> > since it is all wrapped up in a layer of password-protected - apart 
> > from the home page, which extolls the virtues of online 
> collaboration etc.
> > 
> > iT
> > 
> > --
> > Ivan Trundle
> > http://itrundle.com ivan at itrundle.com
> > ph: +61 (0)418 244 259 fx: +61 (0)2 6286 8742
> > skype: callto://ivanovitchk
> > 
> > 
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> > 
> 
> --
> Howard.
> LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people 
> <http://lannetlinux.com> When you want a computer system that 
> works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system 
> that works, just, choose Microsoft.
> --
> Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the 
> Australian states.
> 
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