We at Hillingdon use Websense from Net Partners in California
(http://www.netpartners.com). It was recommended to us by our ISP, who
supplied and installed it. It is updated nightly with newly discovered
sites, and is fairly flexible in terms of categories of material you wish to
block. You can specifically allow access to sites which would otherwise be
blocked, and you can block sites which are categorised in such a way that
they would otherwise be allowed. In our case, we use Websense as our proxy
server to the Internet.
You can set up different profiles for different machines (we haven't, so
far), so that for instance a PC in a children's library might have different
restrictions to one in the reference library. You can also, as you ask,
password protect nominated sites or whole categories. Again, we haven't gone
down this road, which I think would give a lot of administrative hassle if
you were going to change passwords regularly.
We are shortly going to begin reporting from the system to try to analyse
the most popular sites, and those which are being blocked.
Hope this helps, Duncan Westlake (London Borough of Hillingdon)
-----Original Message-----
From: philip cooke [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 23 August 2000 10:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Internet Filtering
We at Halton Borough Council Libraries are now leaning towards introducing
filtering on our Internet access for the public.
Our main concern is the quality of filtering software available, and
associated freedom of information issues.
We want to use a software package that blocks 'offending sites'. However,
it must be possible to overe this block with a password - known only by
staff. This would eliminate any situations where valid sites were not
accessible. Does anyone know of any software that posseses this function?
In general, is there a filtering product that is used widely by public
libraries in this country, that people are satisfied with? I hear tha I-Gear
is used by several authorities.
Thanks a lot
Philip Cooke
Systems Officer
Halton Libraries
[log in to unmask]
01928 715 351
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