WebSense Patents Censorware System 179
Matthew Skala writes "As reported in SiliconValley.internet.com, filtering-software vendor Websense has received US Patent 6,606,659 on a "System and method for controlling access to internet sites". The new features in the patented system seem to revolve around using time limits instead of filtering sites out entirely; offering users a choice of viewing a site and having it logged, or not viewing it; and a scheme for automatically categorizing sites that looks very much like the "Bayesian filters" we've heard so much about in recent weeks. You may be interested in the filtering company's press release about their patent, or my own view."
Yipee (Score:3, Insightful)
My local library blocks out anything to do with pregnancy (like the council run pregnancy advice service), anything with chat in the domain name (like the casual chat web forum) but doesn't block goatse.cx. Go figure.
The only news that could be better is that someone had patented spam emailling and was taking every spammer in the world to court.
Re:Yipee (Score:1, Offtopic)
That'll teach me not to RTFA. It seems that this filter would actually improve this situation and make it slightly more sane - assuming that it was set up correctly.
Re:Yipee (Score:1)
Re:Yipee (Score:2)
Re:Yipee (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yipee (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine the look on the librarian's face. Honestly.
Anybody who goes there volluntarily is nuts, but in a library!!!???
Re:Yipee (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder where the Goatse guy fits in the Dewey Decimal System... (Or, "In Soviet Russia," the Dewey Decimal System fits in the Goatse guy.)
Re:Yipee (Score:2)
""In Soviet Russia," the Dewey Decimal System fits in the Goatse guy."
even outside Soviet Russia there are many things that fit in the Goatse guy.
Re:Yipee (Score:1)
Re:Yipee (Score:2)
Re:Yipee (Score:2, Redundant)
Prior art? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this another example of the abuse of software patents? I think I might move to the EU (assuming they stay sane and reject the ability to restrict software development through patents).
Stewey
Re:Prior art? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Prior art? (Score:1)
Re:Prior art? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Prior art? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, if you could find where someone had software that used Bysien (sp) filters for categorizing web sites, and also used time of day as an input into the access control algorithm, from my quick read over this, that would be prior art.
I, for one, have never seen this approach used before, so the patent may be valid. Remember, he didn't patent filterin
Re:Prior art? (Score:2)
Re:Prior art? (Score:1)
- Mike
Re:Prior art? (Score:2, Informative)
For it to
Re:Prior art? (Score:2)
I remember using Watchguard Webblocker [watchguard.com] feature before 1999, and it did pretty much what was described by the grandparent post.
Re:Prior art? (Score:1)
Re:Prior art? (Score:2)
Re:Prior art? (Score:1)
Squid ACL's have a very wide variety of time and content access controls. I've been using it for at least 2 years. Actually with Squid you can base access control off of tens of things, time, day, url, headers, incoming ip address, a keyword list, auth, and probably even when outside temperature is below 32F and the tide is high, plus any combination of the above.
SquidGuard 1999-04-30 (Score:5, Interesting)
SquidGuard changelog [teledanmark.no]
Stupid lameness filter blocks me from posting more, but you can easily see it in the changelog.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:1)
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
That's not how it works. The libraries have to install them, or they lose federal funding. Thanks, Sen. McCain.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
But a lot of libraries aren't installing filters simply because the cost of installing them is more than the paltry amount of federal funding they receive.
Re:Good (Score:2)
A while ago, I wrote down some thoughts about Bayesian web filtering [freezope.org]. The main point that I had was this: with web filtering, the people on both sides of the HTTP connection are on the same side, rather than
Re:Good (Score:1)
Ah ha! Your posting as AC, but I'll put bet money that your our beloved President, G.W.Bush. If the gov doesn't use them, you'll finally be able to surf for pr0n. I mean, look what Clinton had to resort to due to the content filters... Good old healthy pr0n!
Dear god (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dear god (Score:2)
Although it would be nice to see this destroy this particular piece of censorware, and some other ones by association (by making them look like total crap because of a lack of this "intelligent" filtering).
Re:Dear god (Score:2, Insightful)
So parents trying to keep their young children off porn sites are the same people defending software patents? What does good parenting have to do with software patents?
So not allowing my young children to see porn makes me evil? I'm sorry, there are substantial, good uses for this type of software. There are also bad uses. It is like any tool: the tool is not good or bad, the use
How is this different from the access control? (Score:5, Interesting)
My system maintains a database of Internet files, (not sites, though I don't know what the difference would be...)
My system does not limit the number of visits to a category a limited number of times, however, it does limit to download links once per user, which is (probably the same thing).
My system allows users to request access, and then have access granted.
I don't log which pages/sites users visit, but I know many apps that do (like nuke).
I'm not a patent attorney, does this mean that my access control code violates the patent?
Truly bizarre.
Re:How is this different from the access control? (Score:1)
As such, I don't think you have prior art. If you did, you still wouldn't be in the wrong. If you wrote yours prior to t
Re:How is this different from the access control? (Score:1)
Re:How is this different from the access control? (Score:2, Informative)
My misspellings are frequently the same. Microsoft Word seems to reinforce this. It seems to notice words that I misspell often the same way and auto-corrects them after a while. Great for typing, bad for learning better spelling.
B
This is a *good* thing (Score:1, Funny)
Shhh!!! (Score:3, Funny)
logon hours restrictions (Score:2, Interesting)
Will anyone attempt to actually answer that, or will everyone start immediately making linux jokes and insulting me because I use Windows?
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
What am I basing this on? Read Linux's man page for GNU su . You'll notice they don't support the 'wheel' (you-must-be-in-this-to-use-su) group like most other standart UNIXes.
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:1)
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:1)
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:1)
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, since you can do that, it makes the 'wheel' rant a bit silly, now doesn't it? In theory your statement should hold true, but it d
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
pam_time: authorize users based on when and where they log in (like securetty, but) in a way that is dependent on the service they are requesting; Andrew Morgan
Hint: RMS, while popular and quite unfluential, doesn't have full control of Linux and never will. Also my su manpage in Gentoo doesn't have that comment.
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
chmod 4710
chown root.wheel
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:3, Informative)
"If user is in group wheel, then su to root is allowed."
But you already knew that.
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
root:*:12286:0:99999:7:::
root:x:0:root,me,him,othersysadmin
%root ALL=(ALL) ALL
and last
alias su="/usr/bin/sudo -u root
Only drawback is that everyones own password will be the same as a root password, thus they should be guarded as such.
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
/etc/shadow
root:*:12286:0:99999:7:::
root:x:0:root,me,him,othersysadmin
%root ALL=(ALL) ALL
and last
alias su="/usr/bin/sudo -u root
Re:logon hours restrictions (Score:2)
prior art? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:prior art? (Score:1)
The irony, AOL 9 now comes with an ad/spyware detector/remover. This might just be the last version of AOL as everytime it is installed it automaticly uninstalled itself!
On a side note, everyone knows AOL is an unlimited use service and has been for ages. Are there any marketers who could explain why AOL keeps shwoing off hours of use instead of just comming out and saying unlimited use?
bigger number (Score:2)
Bigger numbers are easier to sell. I buy my bandwidth in bushels per horsepower, and that's how I like it!
This story is a troll (Score:4, Interesting)
We already know that the patent office is issuing what seem like silly patents, and we already know we'd like them to stop.
Does this particular story add anything to the debate or is it just a troll?
John.
Re:This story is a troll (Score:1)
Re:This story is a troll (Score:2)
Does this particular story add anything to the debate...
Yes, it's FUNNY.
No matter how many facts I know about the hypocrisy and idiocy of the patent system OR Microsoft OR the Government, I am heartened by anecdotes that do a good job of illustrating and bringing to life those facts.
BTW, this patent trepasses on one I filed last month covering pepper-shakers generally. I'll be contacting each of you individually to let you know how you can bring your kitchens into licensing compliance.
Donnac
Adopt a Patent (Score:4, Funny)
Seems everything's patentable nowadays.
Can someone do me a favor and patent DRM? and closed-source? and antitrust? and that stupid L-shaped enter key?
Prior art: Novell Netware - in 1994. (Score:5, Informative)
I seem to remember that they had a time limiting system. Per user, you could set when that user was allowed to log on and access the network.
We used it make sure that users couldn't access the network when they weren't supposed to be able to - so kids didn't share their accounts with others or access the network outside of the allowed times (after hours unsupervised, etc).
I'm not sure how this would relate to the patent (I'm not a patent lawyer), but this was a form of network censorship based on time.
Re:Prior art: Novell Netware - in 1994. (Score:2)
Prior Art Again (Score:3)
This patent might actually be good for us as it may jack up pricing on current programs but one has to think, how far reaching will they allow this to go in a court? Hey, I filter out port 135 traffic (gg people patch your machines!!) and some known spam networks at the core end, will they now come after me for filtering? It seems that more and more the patents are being granted on the overly obvious and are being abused to the hilt by the company to which it is granted.
I see mass law suits in our future over this one and with the state of the clueless judges presideing over the cases this could turn sour.
Re:Prior Art Again (Score:1)
This company spends money preventing other would-be "we make filtering software, too!" companies from either making more stuff like this (patent infringement), nor from profiting from it (too expensive to defend in court).
I say... let 'em all patent the stuffing out of cruft we don't really want; it'll bring the whole system to a screeching halt.
U.S.? Not internationally? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:U.S.? Not internationally? (Score:2)
That is where WIPO [wipo.int] comes in. WIPO itself does not issue patents.
It is the however, a vehicle by which patent laws can be used and abused internationally.
Re:U.S.? Not internationally? (Score:2)
WebSense filtering (Score:3, Informative)
Something like this would require replacing all the hyperlinks but that's not too difficult.
Can anyone tell me if their filters check port 81? 45? etc?
Re:WebSense filtering (Score:1)
Re:WebSense filtering (Score:1)
Re:WebSense filtering (Score:2)
If they don't block it (try a few random banks' homebanking [bankofamerica.com] sign-on page to see if you can connect), then use proxytunnel [sourceforge.net] to pass ssh [openssh.com] via tcp/443 and you can then portforward to a home proxy server.
Best of all, it's all encrypted and they can see none of it other than the ssh connection to your home server which is encrypted (as would be any https tcp/443 traffic).
All or nothing (Score:1)
Re:All or nothing (Score:1)
Not the first time they've done this! (Score:5, Insightful)
The patent is GB2366891 [espacenet.com]. The crux of it is that programs that use more than a certain percentage of the CPU (eg: 50%) are incrementally slowed down by quickly pausing/unpausing their threads at short intervals until their CPU usage is reduced below the threshold.
How does this qualify for a patent? It's self evident! Things like this have been done in real time control systems (software and physical) for decades. It is nothing more than a high-frequency 1-bit DAC controller. Just because instead of controlling chemical reaction rates, the system is used for controlling processor usage, suddenly this method is worthy of a patent? Take a look at one of their diagrams [espacenet.com]. Is that the standard for new and inventive developments in the software industry? A flow chart with four, count them, four steps?
The patent system needs an overhaul, and fast.
Skala misses the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Awareness... (Score:4, Insightful)
It most certainly *does* add something. If you say something once, people will be very unlikely to remember it. If you say it twice, a few will remember it.
If it's repeated every week or so for a year, most everybody will have gotten the point. It's called "repetition".
I'll paraphrase Hitler: "Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it to be true".
Except, in this case, there's no lie, except maybe at the patent office.
You're worried about that? (Score:3, Interesting)
PN/6618857
And guess who it was? [uspto.gov]
Somebody get my tinfoil hat, quick!
Re:You're worried about that? (Score:2)
RHN, Apple Update, any system that installs more than 1 program based on prerequisites/requirements watch out MS has you patented.
Re:You're worried about that? (Score:2)
From this moment on... (Score:2, Funny)
Enter, Spacebar, Ctrl, Alt, Esc, all function keys, Tab, Shift (both left & right), Caps Lock, all Page Scrolling fuctions, the Numeric Pad, and directional arrows. You are still free to use alphanumeric keys without my permission.
Obviously this is sarcasm, but it's heading there... Real fast..
Hah! (Score:4, Funny)
I believe your patent infringes on my patent so you must get permission to use those keys. In fact earlier I was issued patent 6,606,658, a patent that patents patent infringement. I will be expecting two big cheques.
Ah....patents (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ah....patents (Score:2)
Hilarious, for those of you who can't be bothered wading through the application here is the important bit, the actual "what is claimed part":
What is claimed is: 1. A construction with novelty value in enhancing the known functioning of a pepper shaker in the shaking dispensing of the condiment pepper upon foods, said construction comprising a hollow simulated dog of ceramic construction material sized to be grasped during shaking use in the hand of a user, a body with depending legs of said shape eff
Websense Blocks Matthew Skala's own view (Score:2, Funny)
They don't seem to like criticism, do they?
Re:Websense Blocks Matthew Skala's own view (Score:2)
START_RANT
As a follow on, I have to say I really hate f***ing Websense. I get blocked by it several times a week, always on perfectly legit sites. It seems to have a word lookup feature that just does a string match, it doesn't even look for whole words, so for example, if t
how come... (Score:2)
There is no way to save this post to go be mod'd into "-1 Flamebait" oblivion anyway, so I'll just post my theory: I don't live in the land of the alleged Land Of The Free.
BTW, if you're offended by this, don't bother to reply.
Please.
Re:how come... (Score:2)
I'm merely observing.
The Narrowing of the Internet (Score:2)
"...offering users a choice of viewing a site and having it logged, or not viewing it"
This may sound like quite an elegant solution, especially compared to the outright blocking of sites not recognised by their master database but this could well end up creating a far more dangerous climate of self-censorship.
For instance, if a perfectly legimate but not "mainstream" site, say an anti-war one, hasn't yet made it onto their database, you have to accept that your boss will be notified of your visit
Websense and the "coaching" feature. (Score:2)
Re:Websense and the "coaching" feature. (Score:2)
For a while I was using the eval version on my home Squid cache to asist in blocking porn site popups while not preventing intentional porn surfing.
It's not the choice element I object to but, rather, the fact that choice is skewed by lack of privacy.
Many an enlightened employer has put in an unrestricted DS3 connection for the office and expected that the employees will do the right thing (call it self-censorship, call it responsibility, whatever), only to start reviewing usage reports and dis
Websense should be illegal. (Score:2)
"Why, Gannoc", you might be claiming, "Wherever did you hear such vicious slander against Websense?"
Why, right on their goddamn website [websense.com]. They're proud of it, of course, because the type of people who invest in a company like Websense are the type of people who don't mind the idea of a few people going to jail for going to a politically pro
Re:Websense should be illegal. (Score:2)
"Built Ford Tough!"
Oh Boy! PNG-proxy (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy! PNG-proxy (Score:2)
RTFPatent (Score:2)
Johnny Slashdot still doesn't get it. This patent covers A censorware system. Not every censorware system. Not the concept of a censorware system. Just the implementation they have come up with.
Several aspects of this system are obvious and pre-existing, yes. But that doesn't mean the entire system is obvious or pre-existing. Combining existing components in a unique way has always been a form of innovation (and I don't mean in the sarcastic, Microsoft sense of the word).
"Why, the fax machine is not
Re:What was that patent? - Obligatory SCO Rant (Score:1)
666...
Sorry, not true. 666 is the IFUDD (International FUD Database) number of SCO's claim that they own this patent, becuase the source contains Unix code, which we all know they own.
"Stupid"? (Score:1)
Re:Solution to rediculous software patents. (Score:1)
Just a hunch. *shrug*