Firewall exception

[JamesAnderson]

Just tried Facebook at a family history center, went to http://www.facebook.com/familysearchindexing and found all elements that should be on the page were there. No expected item on hte page pulled from fbcdn.com as its call location did not appear or seem to be any bit out of place from how the site loads things when you normally visit Facebook. Could be a problem with Facebook that was temporary that caused the CSS to screw up.

[skiddlyarcus]

I don't know if WebSense allows individual URLs within a larger website such as Youtube,

Websense does allow this ... and it is (or can be) automatic using the websense database.
For example, if you block the category "illegal drugs" in websense, any youtube video that is categorized as "illegal drugs" will be blocked while the mormon channel will be allowed.

If you re-categorize the entire youtube.com domain, then the individual URLs will not be filtered.

[nathangg]

So, in thinking about the original question, is there a way to request a website be unblocked from a particular filter policy through the GSD? (I suppose there is a way, I just call the GSD... but is that the appropriate way?... is there even a process for requesting a site be unblocked?)

(We're in a similar situation with Google Docs. We use Google Docs and we'd love to access it at the church, but we don't want to go to the "General Access" filter.)

Thanks!

[JamesAnderson]

I'm thinking most web filtering software should allow the administrator of a particular network it's installed on to block or allow individual sites or pages within a site, K9 (Blue Coat) does this, so I would think the entire industry would allow page-specific block/allow rules. I had an inappropriate ad appear in Yahoo Mail so I blocked the ad server URL for a bit til the ad had run its course, usually ads run in 12-week cycles) and I was able to not only block, but also unblock the specific URL on my own PC.

[aebrown]

I'm thinking most web filtering software should allow the administrator of a particular network it's installed on to block or allow individual sites or pages within a site, K9 (Blue Coat) does this, so I would think the entire industry would allow page-specific block/allow rules. I had an inappropriate ad appear in Yahoo Mail so I blocked the ad server URL for a bit til the ad had run its course, usually ads run in 12-week cycles) and I was able to not only block, but also unblock the specific URL on my own PC.

That's a perfectly reasonable assumption for client-based filtering software. But it's not so simple for a server-based solution. Although some server-based solutions do have local configuration, that's not always the case. The Church is trying to administer a consistent solution across all the administrative computers, and thus far has not given us any local configuration tools.

[schester]

Is there an official way to request a website to be unblocked? I've come across a few sites that are blocked with general access that I don't believe should be. Is there a way to do it that doesn't involve a call to GSD?

[russellhltn]

You could try what was suggested in this post.

[aclawson]

The weird thing is that the website is only blocked at a single building - it is available in every other building, and SLC support says that they are all configured identically (and they've reimaged the firewall at least three times that I know of). The message comes up that it is explicitly being blocked by LDS filtering, but nobody has been able to explain why this is happening.

[russellhltn]

The weird thing is that the website is only blocked at a single building - it is available in every other building,

Is it running a different model of firewall? We've seen the PIX 501 seems to act differently then the other firewalls.

Also, does this site have any church employee offices (FM group, Family services, etc) connected to it?

[aclawson]

All sites run the same model of firewall, the one that was most recently replaced with the wireless-ready one.

This network connection supports two units: a family ward and a singles ward, nothing else.