mostly research stuff
what the shit? …got an email the other day from somebody informing me that my site for and about research wonks is not available at many libraries because of some crapola filtering software that’s tagged my site poorly…who knows - maybe it’s the ‘farging’ swears…a nasty little lett-ah is already en route to the company’s “customer advocate” team (cc’d Draco) …here’s the original letter to explain it:
Hi Dave,
Your website is being censored in most Ga. (Georgia) public libraries. Here’s the message that appears when a patron attempts to visit your site:
Forbidden, this page (http://www.passingnotes.com/) is categorized as: Chat.
The censorware product is called (irony alert) “Smartfilter” and it’s made by a company called “Secure Computing“, here’s the URL to verify this info:
http://www.securecomputing.com/sfwhere/
Sucks, eh?
Jack
this blog is mostly safe for work, though i sometimes throw around a 'fuck' or two. you'll find a bunch of my articles from CI Magazine, SCIP online, other research pieces and some other crap. enjoy. there's lost of content here related to getting information about, around, from and through people and organizations...
Dave
September 30th, 2004 at 2:08 pm
hmmm…got this reply earlier, but no follow up yet:
Hello Mr. Carpe,
Thank you for contacting the Customer Advocate. We are forwarding your inquiry to our SmartFilter Control List so that they may review the URL currently categorized as “Chat”.
Please contact sites@securecomputing.com with any categorization requests. And, also let us know if the Customer Advocate may be of further assistance.
Best regards,
Holly Robley
QA Engineer & Customer Advocate
Dave
October 6th, 2004 at 1:56 pm
well, finally got an explanation from the company - they were very nice, still need to see what happens, how long it takes to roll out in their filtering software…here it is:
Dear Mr. Carpe:
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The categorization of the URL
http://www.passingnotes.com will be changed to ‘personal’. This correction will be in the control list available from our ftp server on 10/08/04 after 12:00 p.m. CST. We are sorry for any inconvenience because of this site being categorized as ‘chat’.
Please note that we only categorize sites, and provide the software. It is the organization (in this case, the state of Georgia public library system) that determines which categories that they want to block from their users.
Depending on the Internet access policy of their organization, it is possible that this site could still be blocked from their users after the corrected control list is installed.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you.
SmartFilter Sites
Secure Computing Corporation
sites@smartfilter.com
Dave
October 6th, 2004 at 1:58 pm
oh, sorry - and my original letter….
hello mistah custom-ah advocate,
i got wind today that your craptastic software is filtering out my blog and research community site as ‘chat’ (www.passingnotes.com) - apparently it’s not showing up in libraries where your software is installed (like in the state of georgia)…would you please explain which draconian rum-chuggin’ butt-munchin’ leader at secure computing put my site under “chat” so that i may abuse him or her verbally in an upcoming blog post?
more important issue: please explain how the software scans my professional research blog and resource site (take a gander: http://www.passingnotes.com) and then filters it into some shit heap with the rest of the sites that can not be accessed in public libraries….even though it appears all over the internet without a hitch….are you working with the chinese government too?
thanks…and if it’s just the fucking swears in the blog postings, then tell me and i’ll try to clean those bitches out…btw, this is me being NICE when i’m annoyed with censorship types…
-dave