LDS Extended Access is quite restricted

[LakeyTW]

I have spoken to one of the product managers involved. He indicated that using different block pages was an intentional choice. He also indicated that in the future there may be an initiative to change the block page to allow a site to be reviewed.

One work arround would be to send an email to: suggest@websense.com and request a site be categorized or alternatively create a websense account and use this tool on their site:
http://www.websense.com/SupportPortal/SiteLookup.aspx

[russellhltn]

lakeytw, are you saying the blocking is done by websense based on how the page is categorized rather then a church white-list? I'm not understanding how sending a message to websense accomplishes what we want.

[LakeyTW]

lakeytw, are you saying the blocking is done by websense based on how the page is categorized rather then a church white-list? I'm not understanding how sending a message to websense accomplishes what we want.

Websense categorizes sites. Uncategorized sites and objectionable sites are currently blocked by a policy the Church applies to the firewall. For uncategorized sites or sites that are miscategorized, submitting them to Websense will get them categorized. If they are categorized in a category that the Church deems is acceptable, then the site is allowed. If not, they will still not be accessible.

[russellhltn]

Websense categorizes sites. Uncategorized sites and objectionable sites are currently blocked by a policy the Church applies to the firewall. For uncategorized sites or sites that are miscategorized, submitting them to Websense will get them categorized. If they are categorized in a category that the Church deems is acceptable, then the site is allowed. If not, they will still not be accessible.

Got it! Thanks.

[aebrown]

I have spoken to one of the product managers involved. He indicated that using different block pages was an intentional choice. He also indicated that in the future there may be an initiative to change the block page to allow a site to be reviewed.

One work arround would be to send an email to: suggest@websense.com and request a site be categorized or alternatively create a websense account and use this tool on their site:
http://www.websense.com/SupportPortal/SiteLookup.aspx

For just a couple of weeks I was able to create a Websense account and use their online tool to request the categorization of sites. This is far preferable to just sending an e-mail, since the interface of their online tool lets you pick one of their actual categories from a list. You also can look up similar categorized sites, see how they are currently categorized, and suggest a similar category for a similar site.

However, sometime in the last week or so, Websense has restricted the use of their accounts to actual customers. They now require:

1. Your Company Name
2. One of both of the following information, which we will use to identify your account:
   1. A Valid, Current Product Activation Key (preferably)
   2. The email address of a corporate contact within your company, who has a valid MyWebsense account, and who can verify your account status

Is there any way that we could get that kind of information for the Church's account so that a Stake Technology Specialist can continue to have a usable Websense account?

[MorettiDP]

Any of you know or have access to https://ccn.ldschurch.org/ system?

[russellhltn]

Any of you know or have access to https://ccn.ldschurch.org/ system?

A CCN login? Interesting. But it's not a good sign when a network department login has a invalid security certificate. Is that something like the shoemaker's kids?

[techgy]

One work arround would be to send an email to: suggest@websense.com and request a site be categorized.......

Has anyone attempted to use the support@websense.com approach to getting a site categorized? I was wondering what their response was and how long something like this usually takes.

[techgy]

I don't know if this is a fishing expedition or not, but how about going into a local FHC with a list of sites that you want to have unblocked and using the link on their site to request the sites be unblocked?

If the filtering IS the same for both a CCN and FHC then wouldn't this give us a method of submitting sites? Of course, I am assuming that the sites that are unblocked are pushed out to all firewalls.

[aebrown]

I don't know if this is a fishing expedition or not, but how about going into a local FHC with a list of sites that you want to have unblocked and using the link on their site to request the sites be unblocked?

If the filtering IS the same for both a CCN and FHC then wouldn't this give us a method of submitting sites? Of course, I am assuming that the sites that are unblocked are pushed out to all firewalls.

The term "CCN" is broad and includes all authorized Church-managed Internet connections, so I'm not sure what you mean by that term here.

If you are referring to LDS Extended Access filtering via the Cisco ASA Firewall, as opposed to the typical FHC filtering via Cisco PIX 501, then the answer is that they are quite different. Because they are different, there is a huge number of sites that would be blocked by LDS Extended Access, but for which you cannot get the block message to appear at the FHC.

I'm a bit fuzzy on what the block message at the FHC allows you to do. I know you can submit the blocked site for review and recategorization. But does anyone know if you can also submit other sites using that same interface, even if they are not specifically blocked? If so, then indeed that might be an alternate way to submit sites for review.

Although the filtering is quite different in the two environments, I believe that the underlying Websense categorization database is the same. It's just that LDS Extended Access blocks more categories than does the FHC General Access filtering. Most of the blocks I have seen on LDS Extended Access have been because a site wasn't categorized at all; there have been a few where it was improperly categorized. So I would think that any means of correcting the categorization would have the same effect.