Defiantone.com

My opinion hasn’t changed in the past few months. I think Bluecoat is a horribly coded web filter that does a poor job of characterizing content. Much to my surprise, they have tweaked the algorithm and I’ve seen some noticable changes. First off, they no longer categorically block websites that have the word blog in the URL. Yes, somebody out there heard the clamouring from the masses (or the screaming minorities as it may be in this case) and made some changes to the what they define as a personal page. Surprisingly, my website is no longer considered a personal page. To think about it, I think they might be right. If I write about something thats going on with me its often centered around something else going on in the world. I rarely write directly about me aside from whatever asprirations I may have in life. My website is chock full of right off the top of my head uncensored goodness - if you’re in to that kind of stuff. If you’re not, why the heck haven’t you navigated away…. at this moment 9/10 readers will have left this page to find something else. Good for them - thats the joy of the internet.

I still loathe bluecoat - and I may never stop. I’m just glad they decided to tweak the code.

BlueCoat, the web filter ran by the USAF, has caused me much aggravation since my arrival at Balad. I am not the only one that is feeling pain - everyone else is affected by this poorly written web filter. Recently, I discovered a way to circumvent the filter - RSS feeds. Techically, I’m accessing the site information without breaking the terms of service because I am not accessing the site or any restricted content - including all images hosted on that server that could potentially corrupt me (I think the only reason the filter exists is to 1. save bandwidth, 2. block porn, 3. prevent idiots from downloading viruses). RSS stands for really simple syndication - really, I’m not kidding at all. Its the summarized content of a website that is delivered without all of the extra advertising, images, and themes of the full website. You get the good part of the website without all of the crap that slows down your browsing experience. RSS feeds are read and displayed by readers that can be web or desktop based.

Google - the company that does almost everything - well, they haven’t figured out how to build an electric car that runs for a 1000 miles on a single charge… yet - has a free reader that is quite simple to use. Simply register, subscribe to the websites of your choosing, and read away. The reader allows you to view all feeds or just those that have been recently updated. I’ve added a RSS link that you can see to your right - right below the Askimet spam count. Click on the link and you can easily add my feed to the reader of your choice. You’ll never miss another gripping update - ever - you can rest easily now.

So - Screw you BlueCoat - I’m going to get my news one way or another.

I wrote about BlueCoat blocking blogs on the 24th - Wired Magazine did it on the 28th - their story was much better than mine - I just beat them to the punch.

They even did a follow up - check it out right here!

Read their article if mine was even remotely interesting - they did research - I just wrote what I knew. I guess thats why advertisers pay to put content on their site.

I live inside of a fenced and concrete walled compound. Blast walls and revetments surround every building on base. Sand bags can be found everywhere - they surround most of the buildings. Construction crews, scurrying around the base like ants, build new walls daily further fortifying the nearly impenetrable fortress. Larger buildings are fitted with a secondary roof to deflect the blast of an indirect round. Arrays of sensors scan the perimeter of the base for incoming rounds and intruders - nothing will get past our defensive nets.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only type of barrier that I deal with on a daily basis. I spend a few hours every day browsing the internet for the latest and greatest - well, everything. Downtime at work is inevitable - the unofficial Air Force motto is “Hurry up and wait.” At the moment, we are spending most of our time waiting for something to happen. When it does happen, we all jump at the chance to do some work. In fact, we often fight over who gets to do the work yes, we are that bored. I tend to stay in the news/science/technology vein but I do like to have a good laugh once in a while. Many of the most popular sites on the internet are available for me to browse at my free will - many other sites are blocked by a demon known as BlueCoat.

BlueCoat is a content firewall that classifies websites based upon perceived and real content. If the algorithm determines that a website contains profanity, the filter will label the website accordingly and block the domain from being accessed. The filter is designed to restrict content so that it falls within acceptable use guidelines for military networks and it also restricts content to preserve bandwidth. We are given the luxury of being able to surf the internet to improve morale - often we do not have this luxury.

My gripe with BlueCoat is that it does a crappy job of filtering - instead of using a M82 sniper rifle and popping the target square between the eyes the algorithm tends to grab an AK47 with a spray and pray method. The filter, from what I can ascertain, blocks all pages with the word “blog” in them. These pages are classified “personal” and are subject to being blocked. Instead of looking at the content of the website - the filter looks for one single word and instantly adds it to the ban list. My website is blocked and I am unable to access it from work - not a huge deal but it means I have to type this article, email it to myself, check my email at the cyber cafe, and post it there at a later point in time. Some websites - like the NY Times - use a sub domain “blog” for articles written by members of their journalistic staff that appear on a re-occurring basis. Other websites use the loosely defined definition of the word blog in their meta name (tags used to help a search engine better classify a website) and are banned from access.

The definition blog - Short for “Web log,” a specialized site that allows an individual or group of individuals to share a running log of events

They have a log of events - written by an individual or a group. So, we can have logs written by groups or individuals but we cannot call them blogs? We cannot view any website written by an individual that is not part of a corporation or larger entity?

I am at the mercy of a poorly written web filter - where is a good coder when you need him?

Hmm… I wonder if I can get a local cleric to issue a fatwa against it?