Access from a public library
Apr 17 2007 09:07
I am trying to access my previous comments on marxism/anarchism in the thoughts etc section but find access blocked by mimesweeper.because allegedly "porn" has been detected! I am using the computers in Whitechapel Public Library London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London England. Is this censorship or what?Hasa anybody anything to say on this?
Apr 17 2007 10:31
#2
news >>> feedback.
Hi pingu that sucks. Their software is way too sensitive. Perhaps you could complain to the IT at the library about it? Sometimes they can let the company (mimesweeper) know who will be able to adjust their settings knowing their software is not working correct.
Or yes as John says we could email the library.
Apr 17 2007 10:33
#3
Yeah we can email, but you should try to tell the library yourself if you can. Thanks!
Apr 17 2007 10:35
#4
I'm emailing now.
Apr 19 2007 10:12
#5
Whitechapel Library IT wrote:
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Mimesweeper is a pretty crude tool at the best of times and it does block innocent sites at times, however I did have a look at the page in question on your website and I spotted the use of words such as 'sod' and 'fucking' in a couple of the postings and I believe it is this that has activated a block by Mimesweeper. In fact the post by 'Pingu' further down the page refers to this and makes a very good point. We run our PCs on two networks, a staff network on which I was able to access the page and the public PCs run on an educational network which is much more strictly configured and heavily used by children. I would like to stress that there is no problem with your website, other than the use of profanities. Normally, we would ask the corporate IT department to unblock a site but in this case there is a valid reason for the block which would undermine our request. Would it be possible for you to deal with this issue?
Hmm...obviously I don't care about swearing on the forums from a personal perspective, and I think the problem here is with web filtering in general. But i think there is an issue here in that we are in a powerless position. I think its important that the site is accessible from schools, libraries, workplaces, because people shouldn't have to have their own line at home to access it.
The implication is kinda daunting though - that we set up filters on certain words and ask people to not swear in the forums.
Opinions?
Apr 19 2007 10:16
#6
Quote:
The implication is kinda daunting though - that we set up filters on certain words and ask people to not swear in the forums.
I think that you should ask people not to swear in the forums. It would be nicer.
Devrim
Apr 19 2007 10:18
#7
hmmm, I think swearing is an important part of the working class movement. Maybe we can all swear in french? using drupal localisation perhaps?
Apr 19 2007 10:20
#8
John. wrote:
hmmm, I think swearing is an important part of the working class movement. Maybe we can all swear in french? using drupal localisation perhaps?
That would be funny, but would just mean the site is blocked in France and most likely by an international web filtering programmes.
Now if we made up our own language for swearing in 
Apr 19 2007 10:24
#9
esperanto!!
Apr 19 2007 10:25
#10
If we use a censor filter, we could maybe get it to replace a character or two with cyrillic ones like those ebay phishing sites do. Then it'd look the same, get typed the same but not get picked up by the filters maybe.
Then we can nospam e-mail addresses and other useful stuff as well so it wouldn' t be just for swearing.
Apr 19 2007 10:27
#11
Catch - the web filtering thing seems like a pretty big industry - I would have thought they would have had that one covered. Or maybe they just rely on people taking my attitude
John - i knew there had to be a purpose for it.
Apr 19 2007 10:39
#12
No, it would be a stupid idea to block swearing- I'd vote against anything like that. I don't think that the number of people who would be blocked would be significant.
Would the useful areas of the site be affected by there being access issues with the forums? I would imagine they would be OK (library, news, history), and people would only have trouble getting onto the forums. The latter are hardly for new non-political users in reality, the level of political discussion is too formalised and removed from everyday life.
Apr 19 2007 10:40
#13
catch wrote:
If we use a censor filter, we could maybe get it to replace a character or two with cyrillic ones like those ebay phishing sites do. Then it'd look the same, get typed the same but not get picked up by the filters maybe.
hmmm then we could sell \/1@grA + C1@LI5 as well 
Apr 19 2007 10:44
#14
pingtiao wrote:
No, it would be a stupid idea to block swearing- I'd vote against anything like that. I don't think that the number of people who would be blocked would be significant.Would the useful areas of the site be affected by there being access issues with the forums? I would imagine they would be OK (library, news, history), and people would only have trouble getting onto the forums. The latter are hardly for new non-political users in reality, the level of political discussion is too formalised and removed from everyday life.
being serious, i agree with you. unless there was a way we could trick the software by inserting invisible characters or something.
Apr 19 2007 10:49
#15
rkn I doubt they're covering weird cyrillic visually identical spellings of fuck and cunt. You'd only ever do that to actively avoid getting filtered out by libraries and colleges, I can't see many people being bothered other than us sad gits.
ping - chances are the whole domain's blocked.
The main issue is getting off the lists though - once we're on we won't suddenly disappear off it if fuck gets magically changed into fvck (but still looking the same).
Best thing is to find the name of the company and get a few e-mails sent to it by librarians, teachers and academics saying they've got students/users trying to access for research and it might've been mis-blocked. Then we might get ourselves whitelisted.
Apr 19 2007 10:51
#16
John wrote:
being serious, i agree with you. unless there was a way we could trick the software by inserting invisible characters or something.
That's what I'm suggesting we try.
Apr 19 2007 10:54
#17
They would have to be in the middle of words though, not at the end.
That would be very clever catch- I'd be impressed if it could be done.
Apr 19 2007 10:55
#18
then we can have a list of approved swear words.
Apr 19 2007 10:58
#19
well the first thing would be cyrillic characters, then trying to insert something invisible.
If we could set the replacement to insert something like <span class="hidden">.</span> in the middle of words
then
.hidden {
color: #fafafa;
font-size: 1px;
}
that might work even.
Getting whitelisted is better though.
Apr 19 2007 11:02
#20
John. wrote:
then we can have a list of approved swear words.
gatekeeper!
Apr 19 2007 11:13
#21
Are you the keymaster?
Rrrrrow.
Hmmm weird. We should email them.
We should try to get that anti-censorship letter signed by some academics and fancy people done...