Financial Audit Internet Filter Test Failed

Discussions about Internet service providers (ISPs), the Meetinghouse Firewall, wired and wireless networking, usage, management, and support of Meetinghouse Internet
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rssatterfield
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Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 5:36 pm

Financial Audit Internet Filter Test Failed

#1

Post by rssatterfield »

I received a call from a bishop last night during a financial audit saying the filter.lds.org test had failed. The auditor stopped the audit and has left it open until the problem can be resolved. This ward (and two others in our stake) are housed in an institute building where the network was overhauled last month (wireless beefed up, some Ethernet ports added, perhaps a new firewall). My understanding, in discussion with our FM Group manager, is that institute firewalls differ from meetinghouse firewalls. He does not know the details on those differences, however. Would an institute firewall give a failed result to a filter.lds.org test or has something been configured incorrectly at this building?
russellhltn
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Re: Financial Audit Internet Filter Test Failed

#2

Post by russellhltn »

rssatterfield wrote:My understanding, in discussion with our FM Group manager, is that institute firewalls differ from meetinghouse firewalls.
That would be correct, but I'd still expect some level of filtering to be in place.

You might try the old test of gambling.com. If that gets though, then clearly something is wrong.

Also be aware that if anyone has bookmarked the site incorrectly, you'll get a misleading result. (You have to be careful to bookmark the test site itself and not save the result page. Otherwise you can get a false positive.)
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lajackson
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Re: Financial Audit Internet Filter Test Failed

#3

Post by lajackson »

And in the meantime, the auditor should mark the item No, make the proper notification (contact the STS, I think it says) and press on with the audit. There is no reason to stop the audit, especially when no one in the room has any ability to do anything about it.
rssatterfield
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Re: Financial Audit Internet Filter Test Failed

#4

Post by rssatterfield »

I spoke with an operator at the Global Service Center and he indicated that the institutes and seminaries have more permissive firewalls (called Legacy) that permit YouTube and Facebook, for example, than the meetinghouse firewalls (called Standard). I'm certain our institute building had a standard firewall before the big upgrade last month, which is why we did not experience the problem before. He said that for the purposes of the audit, it was correct to mark the computer as properly filtered. I did test gambling.com, which was blocked. YouTube was permitted. Thank you, everyone!
aclawson
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Re: Financial Audit Internet Filter Test Failed

#5

Post by aclawson »

Same thing happened with me (I'm a ward finance clerk in addition to being the STS).

All firewall filtering passes through a gateway in SLC. Every simultaneous connection requires a separate license for the filtering system. There are only a finite number of these licenses. During the middle of the day on Sunday sometimes the number of simultaneous connections exceeds the number of licenses available. When this happens rather than deny internet access the filtering software fails open and allows unfiltered access to the internet. Until the lack of licenses is resolved in SLC the solution is to wait until later in the day and allow for the number of connections to drop at which point the firewall will start to work again without any intervention.
russellhltn
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Re: Financial Audit Internet Filter Test Failed

#6

Post by russellhltn »

aclawson wrote:Same thing happened with me (I'm a ward finance clerk in addition to being the STS).

All firewall filtering passes through a gateway in SLC. Every simultaneous connection requires a separate license for the filtering system. There are only a finite number of these licenses. During the middle of the day on Sunday sometimes the number of simultaneous connections exceeds the number of licenses available. When this happens rather than deny internet access the filtering software fails open and allows unfiltered access to the internet. Until the lack of licenses is resolved in SLC the solution is to wait until later in the day and allow for the number of connections to drop at which point the firewall will start to work again without any intervention.
That certainly was the case, but I'm not sure as that's accurate with the new zFilter system. Right now, the important thing is to make sure any machines on a static IP have the correct DNS entered. Systems running DHCP should automatically be set.
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