Phase 3

Article #1

Wolinsky, A. (2001). FilterGate or knowing what we're walling in or walling out. MultiMedia Schools, 8(3), 22-27. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.hacc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/229736251?accountid=11302

Art Wolinsky speaks about how his web site was wrongly blocked. He created a website and it was being blocked. during his investigation he talked about the different types of filtering; URL and IP address filtering. Each type of filtering can be "tricked".  Round robin DNS makes it impossible to block individual sites.  IP address filtering blocks the IP address and any site that is assigned to that address.  He found out that his web site was located on a server that hosted a bunch of porn sites and because the IP address blocked the server, his web site was being blocked also even though it was not a porn site.  He spoke with several employees at the company and after talking with a law firm and enough political muscle, the company said they would work on upgrading their software to help fix this issue.  

Article #2

Swanson, S. (2001). Beware: Employee monitoring is on the rise. InformationWeek, (851), 57-58. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.hacc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/229097321?accountid=11302

Sandra Swanson talks about how internet monitoring in companies have increased from 62.8% from 54.1% in the last year.  She talks about a company that didn't use internet monitoring until an employee printed out some pages from a porn site and forgot to get it at the printer.   She also talks about how the law towards internet and email monitoring is more friendly to the employer.  This is due to the companies feeling justified to know how much time employees spend on surfing the web. The article talks about the different kinds of software that can monitor and filter inappropriate content and files.  Lastly, It talks about the next step in filtering will be IM and how difficult it might be to try and filter content through IM.

I choose these two articles because they were closely linked to what I am researching about with internet censorship.  They both talk about how internet filtering works and how it effects people that access the internet.  Art Wolisnsky talks about the down side to internet filtering and how the current technology still has holes and can block sites even though they are not considered unlawful.   Sandra Swanson talks about how a company that didn't have internet filtering got in trouble due to an employee not getting inappropriate documents at the printer.

After doing more research, I feel I have learned more about how internet censorship works.  These articles have helped me to understand just how much politics and the law help to define what is filtered and what isn't.   Also have learned that the technology is far from where it should be to accurately filter appropriate content.  This has raised even more questions to what the different filtering companies are doing to help increase the accuracy of web and email filtering.  I hope to next learn more about the companies that do the filtering and how they decide on what should and shouldn't be filtered.

Internet Censorship

What is Internet censorship? This has been a question asked since the internet became public in the 1980s. Per Wikipedia, Internet censorship is the control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the internet. This is carried out by governments, private organizations on behave of the government and individuals and organizations. Anyone that has access to the internet either at work or at home will be affected by internet censorship.   We are living in the internet age and almost everyone that has a computer has internet access and is affected by internet censorship. Every job I have ever had, there was always an issue with what websites should and shouldn’t be viewed by employees.   We were always making changes to our proxy that would allow or deny sites as we were made aware of them.  By understanding what Internet censorship is and how it effects the internet, this can help me to better anticipate what sites should be denied and allowed to employees at any future jobs.  I know that every website is assigned a category that web filters use to allow or deny access.  Also there is a blacklist that is used by allot of different companies and governments that is constantly update with sites that are considered “Bad”.  I hope that through research and reading articles, I will have a better understand on what Internet censorship is.