dhicks Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 Someone wanted to know if there are any solutions to filter an entire home wireless network? Oddly, I had exactly the same question asked of me at around the same time yesterday - a bunch of parents must have bought children laptops for Christmas! The situation described to me was basically the same as with Dos_Box: a parent, without enough technical know-how to even know where to start, wants to control their child's access to Facebook, etc. The child is likly to be more technically capable than the parent. I could set up a PC with Squid / SquidGaurd / DansGuardian on, but that would need a constantly-updated list of URLs to block and could probably be gotten around quite quickly by a child bright enough to ask a friend about proxys. Does OpenDNS have the same issues as above? Certainly from the point of view of what we use in schools, £1,000 a year or whatever SmoothWall costs is quite a bargin for something that stays up-to-date and can block URLs, proxies, etc. I've pointed out before that I think the average home router might develop over the next few years in to a more complete server, with better filtering capabilities and file storage facilities. Wasn't there some mention at some point of SmoothWall setting up a cloud-based service? -- David Hicks
steveg Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 The BT router we got with a BT business broadband connection supports exactly this. It lets you set the default filtering that any new pc gets (groups like children, young teens etc, or you can make your own groups from their filtering lists) as well as specific filtering lists for pc's once they are connected. The blocking page gives the option for someone with the password to override it for a set ammount of time. We used this very successfully at a nursery for 2 years until we managed to link them to our main site with a wifi link. Steve
dhicks Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 The BT router we got with a BT business broadband connection supports exactly this. Can it block all proxy sites (i.e. does it examine traffic in some way and block access to random proxies set up on, say, someone else's ADSL connection), or does it just block content by URL? -- David Hicks
Willott Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 Wasn't there some mention at some point of SmoothWall setting up a cloud-based service? I seem to remember mention of this, and I know that they've got someone working on Smoothwall on a nice Xen cluster (which I think may be the base for a cloud-based service).
steveg Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 Can it block all proxy sites (i.e. does it examine traffic in some way and block access to random proxies set up on, say, someone else's ADSL connection), or does it just block content by URL? -- David Hicks I think it blocks based on url, but gets its list live from BT somewhere. Its never going to be as good as a proper proxy based solution, but it never let anything bad through in the couple of years we used it. - very young users though, so no one determined to bypass it! Steve
Guest Guest Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 You can buy little sonicwall firewalls with filtering. Network Security, Firewall & Wireless - The New TZ Series - SonicWALL, Inc. This isn't a critisism on you but have you seen the throughput on them? Realisticly you are looking at the top model if you want any future proofing, and even then thats only 50mbps, which given that virgin and BT are looking at rolling out 100mbps shortly isn't a great deal. It is a hard one this. Maybe theres a gap in the market here for a cheap router/inline filter. Anyone fancy making their fortune?
dwhyte85 Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 I've used privoxy along time ago when I used to do very naughty things, can't say it's for home filtering though good for keeping yourself anonymous... add that to TOR and wunderbar, better still VPN and a SOCKS chain
mac_shinobi Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 I've used privoxy along time ago when I used to do very naughty things, can't say it's for home filtering though good for keeping yourself anonymous... add that to TOR and wunderbar, better still VPN and a SOCKS chain Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy, modifying web page data and HTTP headers, controlling access, and removing ads and other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and tastes. It has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user networks. see above comment from the privoxy site
dwhyte85 Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 (edited) Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy Basically removes annoying JS, Google Adword, adbrite, flash if it is asking for information, stops cookies... trust me on this one People use it for surfing porn and not leaving a trace... amongst other things, it can't be compared to a home internet filtering solution... it's more an anonynimity tool. Edited January 12, 2011 by dwhyte85 1
mac_shinobi Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy Basically removes annoying JS, Google Adword, adbrite, flash if it is asking for information, stops cookies... trust me on this one People use it for surfing porn and not leaving a trace... amongst other things, it can't be compared to a home internet filtering solution... it's more an anonynimity tool. Used to use Internet Junk buster which worked on linux / windows and was meant for the same thing but used it for blocking all sites except those that you added as an exception to an ini file. Did the trick and was pretty simple to setup - only reason I put privoxy is cos google found that as an alternative to internet junk buster
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