Open source, collaborative filtering blacklist?

[wil0]

yeah i had this idea a few months ago, posted it on rm communities.
I came to the conclusion that it should allow people who have been verified to add initially proxy addresses to a list and that subbmission would then be checked, by a script searching for the words phproxy, proxy, unblock ect, then added or if fails, would be entered but flagged as not verified, or similar.
The list would then be compiled into a basic text file, and served. scripts would be available for people to add to their smartcache that would add cron jobs to fetch the files daily...
The service could remain free by getting schools to serve the files and make the webserver distrobute the load amongst the mirrors.
Or you could build a huge database, then start charging

Then i realised that stuff like protex ect probably does this?

[Mr_T]

Perhaps a collaborative whitelist would be easier to maintain?

[TornUp]

600GB space
6,000gb GB bandwidth

at the desposal of this project.. i brough some hosting. but never really thought what i would use it for....

id be intrested in building a project like this!

[kerrymoralee9280]

@Localzuk: Great idea - I hope you can get the ball rolling

@Everyone else: Why is everyone so negative on this forum - The lad has had an idea that could be worth something to schools and all that we do on here is throw boundaries at him. Give him some support. Don't say you can't do this because..... Say you can't do this because but here is a work around.

[bonald]

You should try opendns.org

Use these DNS as your forwarders. Go to their website , setup an account, checkmark the websites categories you want to block and bingo!

[dbrown]

An interesting thread of great relevance to me at the moment.
But I just *have* to complain about,

You're reinventing the wheel.

This must be the most stupid (apologies to geoff, but that's the word) comment ever made in a discussion. Strangely, it nearly always occurs in discussions about IT, where we have some of the most buckled, eccentric, square, rusty, etc and generally unusable "wheels" in creation.
My bank holiday Monday treat was a trip round Coventry Transport Museum (v.v.highly recommended imo). if you think the perfect wheel has been invented, just look at the dozens of different types of wheels there: fortunately the engineers who made them were (are) not shy of "reinventing the wheel" again & again & again .....
Why are IT people always so convinced that their inventions are so perfect that no one can ever improve on them?

[zag]

Good idea, the current companies that do it are slow and expensive.

All you need is a good php based website that is user updateable and creates an xml list or something.

I have good experience with running user updatable websites so let me know if you need any help. The simple way to do this would be to allow users from this forum at first.

You could also have a rating system for blocking sites, so people vote yes or no if they agree with the block.

[klawd]

I think the biggest issue is one of liability.

Its no problem setting and maintaining a list, but who is responsible if filtering provided by this list, lets through unsuitable material to pupils.

In our case filtering is down by the LA and although it is far from perfect, we have the luxury of deferring completely to them, should the filter let things through.

To be able to say that "The filtering is sanctioned and provided by the LA" is a nice escape clause, I think.

[localzuk]

I think the biggest issue is one of liability.

Its no problem setting and maintaining a list, but who is responsible if filtering provided by this list, lets through unsuitable material to pupils.

In our case filtering is down by the LA and although it is far from perfect, we have the luxury of deferring completely to them, should the filter let things through.

To be able to say that "The filtering is sanctioned and provided by the LA" is a nice escape clause, I think.

Saying that is not a legal cover though. Legally, the school is still 100% liable.

[richard.thomas]

I've mentioned this in another thread. It would be quite useful if we had somewhere we can just copy + paste our blacklists to and the system automatically removes duplicates.

As mentioned though, there would need to be a limit on who can add things. I'm sure non of the members here would do that, but someone could join up to do it. Is there a way of linking it to edugeek so only people that have made a certain amount of posts, or been on here a certain amount of time can contribute?

Other contributions would have to be checked to see if it's in the list, and if it isn't moderated before being added.

[dwhyte85]

I think this is a fantastic idea & best of all managed by the people who are in the know... the IT guys at the schools.

It'd be great if integration was a possibility but I guess CP, Sophos and SW wouldn't like you integrating anything third party into their software (understandably).

Time permitting this is something i'd love to get involved with & if this is still very much on the cards please do send me a PM, very happy to help in the development side of this.

I can understand the worry of liability, this would surely be an overlay/added bonus to any protection you do use already - it wouldn't be a fullblown solution - the aim is not to replace filtering but help maintain it?