[IRP] openDNS - seems to be a decent way of content filtering

[Max Senges]

hello everybody

last night i met someone from www.openDns.com (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDNS). As the name says, they offer a
free/open Doman Name resolver and what i thought was quite interesting: they
allow for community based (crowdsourced) filtering by categories.

I just signed up for their service to test it. Here is how it works and some
reflections:

You select the network you want to have filtered by either choosing one of
the categories or doing a custom category filter:



 *High*

Protects against all adult-related sites, illegal activity, social
networking sites, video sharing sites, and general time-wasters.

*27* categories in this group - View - Customize
 [x]

   - *Adware*
   Sites that distribute applications which display advertisements without
   user's knowledge or choice. Does NOT include sites which serve advertising.
   - *Alcohol*
   Sites about alcohol use, commercial and otherwise.
   - *Chat*
   Sites where you can chat in real-time with groups of people. Includes
   IRC.
   - *Classifieds*
   Sites for buying and selling (or bartering) goods and services.
   - *Dating*
   Sites for meeting other people.
   - *Drugs*
   Sites about illegal or recreational drug use.
   - *File storage*
   Sites that offer space for hosting, sharing and backup of digital files.
   - *Gambling*
   Sites that offer gambling or information about gambling.
   - *Games*
   Sites that offer game play and information about games (news, tips, cheat
   codes).
   - *Hate/Discrimination*
   Sites that promote intolerance based on gender, age, race, nationality,
   religion, sexual orientation or other group identities.
   - *Instant messaging*
   Sites that offer access or software to communicate in real-time with
   other individuals.
   - *P2P/File sharing*
   Sites that facilitate the sharing of digital files between individuals,
   especially via peer-to-peer software, including torrent sites.
   - *Social networking*
   Sites that promote interaction and networking between people.
   - *Video sharing*
   Sites for sharing video content.
   - *Visual search engines*
   Sites for searching for images based on keywords.
   - *Weapons*
   Sites about weapons, commercial and otherwise.
   - *Webmail*
   Sites that offer the ability to send or receive email.
   - *Photo sharing*
   Sites for sharing photographs, as individual images, galleries and
   albums.
   - *Adult Themes*
   Sites that are adult in nature and are not defined in other rating
   categories. Note: This category should only be turned on if you want to be
   very restrictive on your network.
   - *Tasteless*
   Sites that contain information on such subjects as mutilation, torture,
   horror, or the grotesque.
   - *Lingerie/Bikini*
   Sites displaying or dedicated to lingerie/bikini that could be considered
   adult-only.
   - *Proxy/Anonymizer*
   Sites providing proxy bypass information or services. Also, sites that
   allow the user to surf the net anonymously, including sites that allow the
   user to send anonymous emails.
   - *Sexuality*
   Sites that provide information, images or implications of bondage,
   sadism, masochism, fetish, beating, body piercing or self-mutilation.
   - *Nudity*
   Sites that provide images or representations of nudity.
   - *Pornography*
   Anything relating to pornography, including mild depiction, soft
   pornography or hard-core pornography.
   - *Forums/Message boards*
   Sites with discussions, including bulletin boards, message boards and
   forums.
   - *Phishing Protection*
   By enabling phishing protection, you'll protect everyone on your network
   from known phishing sites using the best data available.

   *Moderate*

Protects against all adult-related sites and illegal activity.

*14* categories in this group - View - Customize
 [x]

   - *Adware*
   Sites that distribute applications which display advertisements without
   user's knowledge or choice. Does NOT include sites which serve advertising.
   - *Alcohol*
   Sites about alcohol use, commercial and otherwise.
   - *Dating*
   Sites for meeting other people.
   - *Drugs*
   Sites about illegal or recreational drug use.
   - *Gambling*
   Sites that offer gambling or information about gambling.
   - *Hate/Discrimination*
   Sites that promote intolerance based on gender, age, race, nationality,
   religion, sexual orientation or other group identities.
   - *Weapons*
   Sites about weapons, commercial and otherwise.
   - *Tasteless*
   Sites that contain information on such subjects as mutilation, torture,
   horror, or the grotesque.
   - *Lingerie/Bikini*
   Sites displaying or dedicated to lingerie/bikini that could be considered
   adult-only.
   - *Proxy/Anonymizer*
   Sites providing proxy bypass information or services. Also, sites that
   allow the user to surf the net anonymously, including sites that allow the
   user to send anonymous emails.
   - *Sexuality*
   Sites that provide information, images or implications of bondage,
   sadism, masochism, fetish, beating, body piercing or self-mutilation.
   - *Nudity*
   Sites that provide images or representations of nudity.
   - *Pornography*
   Anything relating to pornography, including mild depiction, soft
   pornography or hard-core pornography.
   - *Phishing Protection*
   By enabling phishing protection, you'll protect everyone on your network
   from known phishing sites using the best data available.

   *Low*

Protects against pornography and phishing.

*5* categories in this group - View - Customize
 [x]

   - *Tasteless*
   Sites that contain information on such subjects as mutilation, torture,
   horror, or the grotesque.
   - *Proxy/Anonymizer*
   Sites providing proxy bypass information or services. Also, sites that
   allow the user to surf the net anonymously, including sites that allow the
   user to send anonymous emails.
   - *Sexuality*
   Sites that provide information, images or implications of bondage,
   sadism, masochism, fetish, beating, body piercing or self-mutilation.
   - *Pornography*
   Anything relating to pornography, including mild depiction, soft
   pornography or hard-core pornography.
   - *Phishing Protection*
   By enabling phishing protection, you'll protect everyone on your network
   from known phishing sites using the best data available.

   *Minimal*

Protects against phishing attacks.

*1* category in this group - View - Customize


 *None*

Nothing blocked.

*Custom*

Choose the categories you want to block.

---------------------------------------------------

in their category list they have some pretty strange themes to filter
like "Educational
Institutions", "search engines" as well as really broad ones like "news &
media"

once you selected the "evil" content you dont want your children, roomates
or workers to see all you have to do is active the filter and no-one in your
IP/network will be able to access these pages. In fact you can define custom
messages/pages to be displayed for the different blocked categories.

I am not 100% sure how the system works though. I played around with it and
e.g. didn't see a reason why weeklygripe.co.uk or even more strange
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ was tagged (to be decided for blocking) as
hate & discrimination. In fact i didn't think any of the sites in that
category were reasonably tagged.

In their defense it has to be said that from the 5,399,836 sites submitted
only 1,034,372 are aproved for blocking right now**.

here are some relevant answers from their FAQs
What Do I Do If A Domain Is Tagged Incorrectly?

If an undecided domain is tagged incorrectly, vote No.

If a decided domain is tagged incorrectly, go to the domain detail page and
click the "Flag for review" link.

Community moderators will review all reports.
Who are the moderators?
<http://www.opendns.com/community/domaintagging/faq/#top> Moderators are a
mix of OpenDNS employees and trusted community members. Moderators are
identified throughout the community by a badge .

**And they invite applications to become a moderator from the community.


--------------

so here are my 2 cents worth of thoughts about this approach

A) I think the way the decisions about blocking are made should be described
clearer (who has the final say?) and a wikipedia like discussion page would
also be helpful

B) having that said, i think it is a rather transparent, community driven
and therefore commendable approach

C) it would add substantial value if there was a "suggested warning"
category -- so say nazi propaganda gets flagged and a warning page is
displayed when a user tries to enter, but if s/he descides s/he wants to see
the page there is a link to enter

-------------------

Interestingly Prof. David Casacuberta and myself had envisioned a relatively
similar service in our 2007 article "Do we need new rights in Cyberspace?
Privacy and the Need for an Internet Bill of
Rights<http://ddd.uab.cat/pub/enrahonar/0211402Xn40-41p99.pdf>",
presented at the GigaNet Symposium 2007 and published in Enrahonar
40/41

Allow me to quote:

"Lets imagine the institution managing the cyber address assignment includes
meta-information regarding the content of the information and service
provided. This would enable, for example, the classification of content to
be only appropriate for mature users as well as the insertion of a
informative page advising the user of the quality of the content. This
upstream page would also allow for public discourse and collective
assessment of content provided at the site. This way there is no enforcement
of particular axiological dispositions in the form of restraining the
freedom of expression but vulgar and extremist content would be classified
and debated."

-------------------------------

Lastly i looked and it seems quite easy/possible to "hack" (=circumvent) the
openDNS system. You can go to the sites IP directly, or you can use a proxy
server.

Also it seems that openDNS finds pretty interesting (value added) services
to complement their core functionality. For example you/the admin can define
shortcuts to point to urls; so you can define that the word "mail" points to
your webmail etc.

I would be interested what you think about their system. For me it is clear
that openDNS is operating in a space that is very relevant to internet
governance so i would like to invite them to join our efforts and
discussions; and if possible come to the IGF so we can work with them "in
real life".

Best
Max

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
?----------------------Margaret Mead

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Dr. Max Senges
Chair Internet Rights and Principles Coalition

www.internetrightsandprinciples.org

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