DAY NINETY THREE POST THREE

an open letter to sonicWALL content filtering service software protection


Dear SonicWALL,
I know you first from your intrusion into the most well-researched blog ever, a two thousand page treatise being written by Liz DeLuca into the history of everything relating, directly or indirectly, to transportation. Called (Trans)portation: A Theory of Place to S/pace, it will be heralded by academics for years to come. Unfortunately, SonicWALL has other ideas, and chose to block "End Transit Racism" (Bus Riders Union) as pornography. I'd link to it, but we receive the following warning:
SonicWALL Network Security Appliance
Alert
This site has been blocked by the network administrator.

URL: http://users.resist.ca/bru.resist.ca/end_transit_r...

Block reason: Forbidden Category "Pornography"

If you believe the below web site is rated incorrectly click here.

Deciding to take them up on their offer, but on a website I'm personally a bit more invested in, I decided to click on facebook.com, which is blocked because SonicWALL alleges it is 'social networking'. This allegation - which I will not concede true - has led me to the page allowing me to view their various categories for blocking webpages.

Number One: Violence/Hate
SonicWALL, I'm disappointed in you. You've failed to block any of the websites I've looked up on "how to kill a person without getting caught" or "i hate jews" and even "kill all muslims."

Number Two: Intimate apparel/swimsuit
Seriously? Seriously? You're going to block UNDERWEAR pages? But I *want* to look at swimsuits and underwear, and possibly even buy them. You're not blocking boring guy pages (insert essentialist guy-activity like sports).

Number Three: Nudism
Okay, you've blocked one of the top hits for "nudism" on google. But don't you think this category is a bit broad? There's nudity in a lot of works of art, and it seems that merely having a naked figure alone would be enough to block most of the women's magazines in Turkey and Europe, and many art galleries globally.

Number Four: Pornography
Fair enough, but I'm still hesitant to call End Transit Racism a porn site, unless it's got some really oddball marketing strategies.

Number Five: Weapons
Weapons Universe isn't blocked, nor is the Gun Source. Other than possibly workplace violence, what justification do you have for prohibiting employees from buying weapons online??

Number Six: Adult/Mature Content
In a world with pornography, do you really need a separate category?

Number Seven: Cult/Occult
I'm not entirely sure you actually mean "occult." I'm interested in who gets to make the determination of what a 'cult' is. Is it a particular government? Is it YOU, SonicWALL? Is it your users? Christian Science isn't considered to be a cult, nor is Falun Gong, nor is the Church of Satan, and why the hell does Wikipedia have the Quakers (<3) as a cult?! And Bahai? SonicWALL, given the lack of respect I already have for you, I don't really think that I'll agree with your designations of what is a 'cult' or not. Number Eight: Drugs/Illegal Drugs Illegal changes by country, but fine. You've still failed to block Erwoids and ecstacydata.org Number Nine: Illegal Skills/Questionable Skills What are questionable skills? Does that include the ability to write a treatise on (Trans)portation? The ability to identify different drugs (addressed in number eight)? Also, knowing how to do illegal things may help you avoid having them happen to you! Number Ten: Sex Education This is taught in grade school, middle school and high school, but is considered to be too risque to be accessed on a work computer?? Isn't this the kind of thing that if an adult thinks or needs to learn about, they should be allowed, nay, encouraged to, so they don't think that the urethra and vagina are the same thing?

Number 11: Gambling
Fair enough

Number 12: Alcohol/Tobacco
Why? I don't understand the justification for this.

Number 13: Chat/IM
Jerks. Plus, I need this for my work sometimes.

Number 14: Arts/Entertainment
What. The. Fuck. Seriously? You block pages associated with art or entertainment? What. The. Fuck. Thank god it looks like not enough people have tried to go to these pages, so most of them are not blocked... or people are not such narcs that they rat out those HORRIBLE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT pages destroying the very fabric of our society.

Number 15: Business and Economy
Business and fucking economy pages are blocked for a law firm? BUSINESS AND FUCKING ECONOMY ARE IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW. For instance, I regularly have to use 'business and economy' (and central banking) information to determine the value of currencies for various cases and projects we are working on. I have to research past or present economic conditions. Regardless, who's going to eschew work to learn about businesses or economies and NOT come out a better person?!? This is by far the most ridiculous category thus far.

Number 16: Abortion/Advocacy Groups
SonicWALL, I'm not sure if you mean Abortion Advocacy groups, or just abortion groups AND advocacy groups, but if it's the latter, lil broad, don't you think? And the former: I don't see you banning other sorts of advocacy groups that others agree with but I don't. That being said, if you really wanted to block abortion groups, you've failed to block NARAL Pro-Choice America. Nor does it block "prochoice.com", a website that contains such helpful information as: "Abortion... How much does it cost? The ultimate price, your baby's life, your self esteem and maybe your life." (though, of course, i've now used your helpful referral service to request an unfair unilateral screening of such objectionable content).

Number 17: Education
Education. Is. A. Blocked. Category?

Number 18: There is no 18. IS THIS A JEWISH CONSPIRACY?? The Hebrew word for "life" is חי (chai), which has a numerical value of 18. Consequently, the custom has arisen in Jewish circles to give donations and monetary gifts in multiples of 18 as an expression of blessing for long life.

I'm just going to list the rest here, only noting the ones that are particularly stupid, since from here on out, they're all incredibly idiotic:
Cultural institutions, online banking, online brokerage, games, governmetn, military, political groups, health, computing, hacking/proxies, search engines, email, web communications, job search, news, personals/dating (damn you! and just when I was stricking up quite amusing conversations with several seriously deranged men), usenet news groups (gag me with a spoon, is it 1989 or what?!), reference, religion, shopping, internet auctions, real estate, society and lifestyle, gay and lesbian 'issues', RESTAURANTS AND DINING, sports, travel, vehicles, humor, mp3s, freeware, pay to surf, KID FRIENDLY, advertisement, web hosting, and last, and most sad:

Social Networking :(

on the bright side -- as should be anticipated by SonicWALLs inclusion of USENET GROUPS -- SERIOUSLY -- USENET??? -- the ban doesn't apply to youtube or many of the proxy servers.

SCREW YOU SONICWALL!

UPDATE:

1. a) I found the category markings for SonicWALL's categories. Cult/Occult:
Sites that promote or offer methods, means of instruction, or other resources to affect or influence real events through the use of spells, curses, magic powers or supernatural beings.
www.phlums.com / www.terrificator.com
(do they seriously need to ban this?)

b) death:
Sites that depict extreme physical harm to people or property, or that advocate or provide instructions on how to cause such harm. Also includes sites that advocate, depict hostility or aggression toward, or denigrate an individual or group on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, or other involuntary characteristics.
note that the website they give as an example doesn't seem to be that kind of site.

2. It looks like our network admin gets to choose categories to block. I know this because the drugs category includes such websites as hightimes, which we can still access (and hey, that hookah bong festerizer SHOULD have been on the cover, eh?)

3. I would like to congratulate SonicWALL for calling www.cdhh.org a "sex-education" website. The website is actually the Center for Communication, Hearing & Deafness. I'm a little confused how they think this is sex ed....


In conclusion, I hate you and your paternalistic bent. I hate you so much, and I'd like you to know that no matter how much you try, we at the office will still be able to get around you, if only to set up that meeting with the guy who's into Cosplay and said he'll come meet me with a real parrot.

UDPATE
and they blocked couchsurfing. hatred.