Industry Standard Computers
St. Clairsville, Ohio
(740) 695-1520
30 Years In Business - 30 Years Experience with Computers - 25 Years with Networks & Security
The oldest system builder in the area, maybe in the state!
Best Labor Rate in the Area, $25 Shop, $40 Outside
For "Firewall content Filtering Server" Customers:
0. Data Miners; Open Relays, Click throughs...
In the beginning of the Internet... people registered domain names, had them hosted on a ISP or Web Hosting Service, put up a web site and hoped for the $$$$ to roll in. When they failed, the web sites were taken down and later the domain names expired. If you went to one of these places, you got "Page can not be displayed." or similar error. Life was good.Today at the end of life, many of these domains are purchased or kept by the hosting company. Some form of "kick back" links or worst "spyware install" links are put on these computer generated generic web sites. When you stumble across one of these dead domains, you just paid someone some money by trying to find the Wheeling News Register which you taught was www.wheelingintellegencer.com. (Actually www.news-register.net). Please check out both to see what is being discussed. (The real web site that is data mining you is medialogik.com, which at present has no evil present according to McAfee but could be blocked at any given time.)
Now the problem and why many of these are "Filtered" is there is very little machinery needed to take one of these and change the URL name to be false like "money.paypal.com" Would you know you are not on PayPal.com? I might not catch this and I have been on the Internet for 15+ years. But by the time you enter in your username and password, you now have $0 in your real PayPal account.
To help keep you safe these will continue to be on the block list so "page can not be display" will come back on some dead domains or "Filtered".
1. "Firewall content Filtering Servers" are 'proactive' not 'retroactive'.
In simple terms, you are blocked from getting to somewhere evil. Retroactive lets you go everywhere and hopes the antivirus program will stop you from installing something evil. (99% of all other vendor's firewalls are 'retro') 99.9% of all evil is stop by or inside of the ISC's Firewall long before it gets to a Windows computer.
Under normal default options, 1,100,000 web sites are blocked from access. 650k are P0rn. & 350k are Phishing & 50k Spyware & then all the rest. (In the summer of 2008 phishing doubled the number of spyware sites. Phishing web sites grown 100,000 per year at present.)
2. I go to websites occasionally that have "Filtered" in small
print and nothing else on the page.
The "Filtered" page as the whole page means you have stumbled upon a web site that is currently on one of the activated blacklists. 99% of all businesses mark the following blacklists as normal... PORN, NUDITY, GAMBLING, PHISHING, SPYWARE, SCAM, VIRUS INFECTED, WAREZ.3. Sometimes web pages have the word "Filtered" inside of blocks on the page where I would see an advertisement or banner on my home computer. (Example www.wtov9.com)The second could come from too many "adult words" on the page and the total of the "adult language" or "sex wording" exceeded the limit that was set up in the adult blocker software installed on the "Firewall content Filtering Server." A real good example of sites that are often non porn, but get blocked anyway, are sports sites. Some writer uses some "F" adjective and then the adult blocker software on the Firewall Filter starts adding words. When the total of word scores reaches 100, 200, or 300 points the page is "Filtered."
These "Filtered" are links to spyware or one of the other blacklisted sites. (Most spyware vendors are advertisers too. Many advertisers don't care whose money they take; so if they let spyware vendors advertise on their ad or banner rotation service you see "Filtered."4. How does the Adult blocking software on the "Firewall content Filtering Server" work?
The content filtering works in two ways. First is by way of a blacklist, a group of web sites that have been found to have "adult only" material. Secondly the adult blocking software adds up the number of "sex wording" phrases or word on a page. Once the number reaches the threshold limit set at the "Firewall content Filtering Server" then you get a blank page with a single "Filtered" in the left corner.Sites or Forums that contain lots of conversation, especially sports, with lots of profanity will get blocked by accident.
Medical web research usually contain phrases that count as negative numbers, so one "breast cancer" might be -30 points.
5. Sometimes web pages have the blank blocks on the page
where I would see an advertisement or a banner on my home computer.
I have also seen some pages goes from 3 columns down to 2 columns because all the advertisements are gone. (A good example of this is http://www.wtrf.com; 2 columns, banner black hole at top.) (Example www.wtrf.com, the missing banner 3rd column.) The blank area normally filled by an advertisement is from the Ad-Blocker software when the advertisement code met the critiria to be blocked. This helps speed up Internet access by not downloading advertising pictures. You may in some case still be able to click on the link.6. Sometimes I go to a site that just looks distorted. (Example: www.lycos.com)
To effectively block spyware, advertisement has to be blocked also. Pop-ups are blocked as well at the Filter level. People don't realize how much time they waste viewing garbage. Now if there is a company reason you need to see the advertisements on a specific web site please ask to have it put in the non block list or whitelist. The advertising filtering program does use some generic pattern blocking that could block pictures out on the page by accident.(You should check your own web site, without it being on the "whitelist," to see what others see who would have good advertising blockers.)
This is due to the site you are on is actually made up of several web sites and one or more of the sites are blocked due to the spyware or advertisement blockers. One site inside of bluefly.com was on the adult blacklist. I presume they have advertise adult things too.7. My Outlook or Mozilla Mail seems to be slower to retrieve.
This is due to the additional scanning of the email. Email is the world's largest source for the distribution of viruses. Email can also contain code that is not a virus but just as dangerous to Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express or AOL. ISC recommends changing over to Mozilla Mail programs to retrieve email and to better protect your business.If any web site or email addresses caught by accident can be unblocked. The general rule with ISCnetwork's "Firewall content Filtering Server" is block everything that looks like, smells like or is evil; open up only what is safe or needed for company business.Email is first separated into its parts. Each separated part is scanned for viruses. Then the email is reassembled. This may cause some email to have pictures as attachments vs. embedded in the email. This dismantling and reassembling without dangerous code may prevent you from forwarding these "jokes" and such.
The email is then checked for "SPAM wording" like "Viagra." Good email addresses can be added into the system to remove any possibility they are accidentally labeled; [SPAMD].
Various attachments known to be bad are removed from the email. If you lose an attachment from someone that you are expecting our system can be altered to allow such later. Be extremely careful before opening any Excel or Word document attachments, they could still be infected with dangerous macros.
The last part is HTML scanning of email. Spammers use coding in the email to extract information about you and to validate the email address so it is always on their mailing list. Side effect of this is sometimes corporation email may also get the pictures removed from it because those pictures contain links or tracking code themselves.
We are currently working on another anti-spam technic of labeling "spammers email" as a virus so the message will be deleted long before it gets to a Windows email client where coding can be used in the email to validate your email address as valid.
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