SurfWatch for employees (ugh)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Consistent with the trend towards treating employees like children, Webster Network Strategies has announced (but apparently has not shipped) a product similar to SurfWatch but aimed at an employment environment. The product is called "WebTrack" and supposedly supports access lists of URLs, where access can be allowed to "all but these sites" or "only to these sites". The product also can be configured to log all Web usage by users subjected to its reign of terror. :) WebTrack is priced at $7,500 with an annual subscription to its list of interesting (err, forbidden) sites priced at $1,500. The article in the 7/10/95 Infoworld doesn't list contact information for Webster Network Strategies. What is it, two months between deployment of software designed to restrict net access to one segment of the population perceived as especially vulnerable and the subsequent application of that technology to other target groups? My bet is the next target group will be university students, followed by "affinity marketing" with various repressive organizations (whose names I elide in the interests of greater Cypherpunk harmony, pick your own and imagine them here.) Of course, the next step is to use restrictive licensing/distribution terms (a la Netscape/Mozilla) and a nifty freeware/software package available only from a site which also carries porn (or other forbidden fruit) to make the customers/purveyors of this crap twist in the wind a bit. Break the terms of the license and get the software somewhere else? Avoid using the coolest new thing because you're hooked up via we'll-think-for-you.net? Doh. (Pedants need not point out that personal choice (and personal filtering) are always appropriate, and indeed empowering. Neither WebTrack nor NetSurf are marketed to help people subject themselves to a regime of repression - they are intended and sold to allow the purchaser to control what others (perceived as having fewer or no rights) will read and view. ". . inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:45) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMAtWUn3YhjZY3fMNAQH8EAP/aFXe7uI1EuIB31L8h7H+5l3Mg1aQE7e9 i86FnqwGMDg5JlDvJD05dXOBXeInvKtc6ZD0Us+qwDmg2ISo/Yu0QCfedTBgZ7fq s/3WFwtOcpiBG7YTkxGJrvB+r4KIgodb9QSGEQ8yofKaRLT33IkgO3ijxrnyoNkX vm/tZ8EnoV0= =hrOo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
In servalan.mailinglist.cypherpunks Greg Broiles writes:
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Web usage by users subjected to its reign of terror. :) WebTrack is priced at $7,500 with an annual subscription to its list of interesting (err, forbidden) sites priced at $1,500. The article in the
Bwahahahahaha. You gotta admire them for sheer marketing chutzpah. Any internet-connected company is likely to have a firewall, with all WWW access going thru a proxy on the firewall, and if I remember correctly, the CERN proxy httpd can be set to deny access to whichever URLs you want; I suspect the other proxy httpds have similar features. It takes hellacious chutzpah to ask $7,500 for software that does what you can get for free just by ftping to CERN's archives. Barnum's principle does imply that they'll probably find a buyer, though... As for the wider issues involved in using this in a commercial setting, I'll merely note that any corporation that treats its employees like children will end up with only employees with the mental age of children. This could explain why much of the commercial software I see these days acts like it was designed by a committee of retarded 10-year-olds.
I don't think there is ever anything wrong with employeer's restricting what employee's do on any legal or ethical level. Evolution (a la Bionomics) will sort out the winners and losers. /hawk
or "only to these sites". The product also can be configured to log all Web usage by users subjected to its reign of terror. :) WebTrack
are always appropriate, and indeed empowering. Neither WebTrack nor
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rmtodd＠servalan.servalan.com