Filtering the Internet

Author: Carolyn Clayton
Surveys from the past few years demonstrate that 48% of large companies blame their worst security threats on employees who use the Internet for personal reasons. In 2001 60.7% of employees stated that they visit web sites for personal use with 51% of employees spending time checking email, online chat, shopping and checking their finances.

Surveys from the past few years demonstrate that 48% of large companies blame their worst security threats on employees who use the Internet for personal reasons. In 2001 60.7% of employees stated that they visit web sites for personal use with 51% of employees spending time checking email, online chat, shopping and checking their finances.

Every year many working days are lost due to numerous hours being spent on web sites that have nothing to do with the job that people are meant to be doing. Using working time to browse Internet sites for personal use takes away productivity and uses up company bandwidth when things are downloaded. It is a problem that is growing across companies of all size and companies that are across numerous countries.

Many businesses are now taking action to prevent their employees from gaining access to sites that are not relevant to the work that they are meant to be doing. This is known as web filtering or content filtering. The way in which this works is web site requests are sent through filtering software. This software requires all website pages to go through an Internet control point such as a firewall, proxy server or caching device. These immediately inspect each web site request to determine whether it should be blocked or allowed.

Filtering software works in conjunction with a master database of approximately three or four million web sites. These websites all contain content that is deemed unsuitable for the workplace. These sites include adult sites, gambling and the downloading of mp3’s as well as stopping the ability to shop online. New sites are added to this database daily so that as the Internet grows your web filtering software stays up-to-date with the latest sites that need to be restricted from working hours.

Site blocking/content filtering only focuses on HTTP based web traffic, leaving other applications such as instant messaging and email as a continuing security risk and a waste of employee time. The best way to deal with instant messaging services is by deleting them off every computer and then having the site that they are downloaded from blocked.

When it comes to web filtering there is often a lot of controversy surrounding it as many people disprove of filtering moral and political view points. The Internet was created without the aid of filtering leaving it censorship free so should it be left this way? Many argue that it should however without some form of restriction people would end up gaining assess to sites that could affect their lives in the worst way. In the case of stopping employees getting on to certain sites it is done so that employees will get on with their work rather than wasting company time browsing sites that have nothing to do with their job.

Content blocking software was created to protect people i.e. children from viewing content that is unsuitable for them, it was not brought into practice to restrict free speech or to stop open mindedness and for businesses it is just to ensure success. All of these instants demonstrate that restricting assess to sites is done so in a positive productive way rather than a negative one.

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Helen is the web master for MySpamBin, home of all your Web Filtering software.

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