WebSense uses a blacklist, not a whitelist?!



  • So wait a second... Most shopping sites are blocked at my work, but NOT amazon... Some forums are blocked, but NOT TDWTF... If they really wanted to secure this network, wouldn't they make a WHITELIST of allowed sites, not a BLACKLIST of banned sites?! I mean, if they go based on the site descriptions of its own content, then the only sites you CAN access are sites that LIE about their content! How much you wanna bet that by the end of the day, the entire Internet will be locked down at my work! Even microsoft.com and oracle.com and anything that is not on the LAN... Especially with you guys out there who are sure to hack WebSense... I'll probably get fired for even being here, but what the hell...



  • @ekolis said:

    So wait a second... Most shopping sites are blocked at my work, but NOT amazon... Some forums are blocked, but NOT TDWTF... If they really wanted to secure this network, wouldn't they make a WHITELIST of allowed sites, not a BLACKLIST of banned sites?! I mean, if they go based on the site descriptions of its own content, then the only sites you CAN access are sites that LIE about their content! How much you wanna bet that by the end of the day, the entire Internet will be locked down at my work! Even microsoft.com and oracle.com and anything that is not on the LAN... Especially with you guys out there who are sure to hack WebSense... I'll probably get fired for even being here, but what the hell...

     

    At my school, they used a 3rd party filter software to block websites from students. What I noticed is that regularly the software would update itself with new entries from the software website. What I also noticed is that you could report a website to them and they would add it to the blocked list. Long story short: I posted our school website as well as the school's website used to track tests, attendance and such into the filter and managed to block our school from accessing itself.

    Next friday, I got a message that from morning until noon, the whole firewall had been shut off. Noone knew why...

     



  • @BlackMan890 said:

    @ekolis said:

    So wait a second... Most shopping sites are blocked at my work, but NOT amazon... Some forums are blocked, but NOT TDWTF... If they really wanted to secure this network, wouldn't they make a WHITELIST of allowed sites, not a BLACKLIST of banned sites?! I mean, if they go based on the site descriptions of its own content, then the only sites you CAN access are sites that LIE about their content! How much you wanna bet that by the end of the day, the entire Internet will be locked down at my work! Even microsoft.com and oracle.com and anything that is not on the LAN... Especially with you guys out there who are sure to hack WebSense... I'll probably get fired for even being here, but what the hell...

     

    At my school, they used a 3rd party filter software to block websites from students. What I noticed is that regularly the software would update itself with new entries from the software website. What I also noticed is that you could report a website to them and they would add it to the blocked list. Long story short: I posted our school website as well as the school's website used to track tests, attendance and such into the filter and managed to block our school from accessing itself.

    Next friday, I got a message that from morning until noon, the whole firewall had been shut off. Noone knew why...

     

     You win the Internet today!



  • DUDE!!

    Yuo broke the Internet!!



  • @BlackMan890 said:

    At my school, they used a 3rd party filter software to block websites from students. What I noticed is that regularly the software would update itself with new entries from the software website. What I also noticed is that you could report a website to them and they would add it to the blocked list. Long story short:

    I thought this story was going to end

     "Long story short: I reported the website they use to update itself with new entries. Next week, the software stopped updating itself."



  • @cdosrun said:

    I thought this story was going to end

     "Long story short: I reported the website they use to update itself with new entries. Next week, the software stopped updating itself."

    I half expected him to say he noticed the updates were in plain text/xml/whatever and he pushed a fake update to the software.


  • Garbage Person

    @Soviut said:

    I half expected him to say he noticed the updates were in plain text/xml/whatever and he pushed a fake update to the software.
    They probably are. This would be a fun experiment. I can't be arsed to fill out their evaluation download form and thus be bombed by salesgoons, but if someone else wants to do it, I'll use my Copious Free Time (and vmware) to see what holes I can find.



  • If you live in Thailand you have to suffer their Internet censorship. As of the last time I checked, Playboy Magazine was blocked. But, insanely, Penthouse was not and Hustler was not. They block things they know about. It turned out that a huge number of pornographic sites on the Internet were not blocked simply because the prudes in the censor's office hadn't ever heard of them.



  • My school's filtering software is client-side rather than on a proxy server.  There is no validation that the client is actually  running the software, and many students actually use their own laptops on the school network.   I know several people who take advantage of this for playing Flash games, downloading proprietary software illegally, et cetera.



  • If you're talking about Websense Web Security, it's category based. "Uncategorized sites" is one of the categories, and the admin can block or allow it the same as any other category. So whether it uses a blacklist or a whitelist is entirely up to the admin. You can also make exceptions - maybe someone decided there was a really good reason to allow Amazon and TDWTF.  It's not the software's fault if the admin gives it a crazy policy to implement.

     




  • I've no idea what software is used at my place of work, perhaps someone could help:

     

    Production can only access the companies website and some other websites like microsoft.com (assuming because they have automatic updates turned on)

    Sales have access to a much broader range of sites, but some sites such as Tesco, Facebook, etc, are blocked. 

    Rooms which are classfied as part of R&D can access any site they wish, as well as use other internet applications (such as MSN Messenger, which are blocked by Sales & production PCs)


  • Garbage Person

     @Mole said:

    I've no idea what software is used at my place of work, perhaps someone could help:

     

    Could be anything. There are literally a thousand different ways to get that effect.


  • My school has a whitelist for ports and a blacklist for hostnames. But you can go to any website as long as you know the IP address of a proxy.

    And the best part is that they have a log of every keystroke ever made by anyone on a school computer, which means all the teacher and student passwords (and probably even the administrators') are stored in a (probably unencrypted) text file on a server in an unlocked room.



  •  You'll probably find that knowledgable teachers and admins end-task the key logging task before entering passwords and the like, or use some other more official way to disable the tracking. I remember when I was at college that they used a similar system and if you did CTRL+F5 at the login screen, you could login with all surveillance and protection disabled (but of course your account had to have sufficient rights to do so)



  • @BlackMan890 said:

    At my school, they used a 3rd party filter software to block websites from students. What I noticed is that regularly the software would update itself with new entries from the software website. What I also noticed is that you could report a website to them and they would add it to the blocked list. Long story short: I posted our school website as well as the school's website used to track tests, attendance and such into the filter and managed to block our school from accessing itself.

    Next friday, I got a message that from morning until noon, the whole firewall had been shut off. Noone knew why...

    You, sir, are a dick.

     My personal hero of the day. (A.K.A. Phod)

    MArk B.
    Thanks for the idea.


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