[OPLINTECH] Chat Blocking?

[JKENZIG]

I think it is a shame to prevent people from accessing things and installing
filters because staff are unable to handle unruly patrons.  It just isn't
good customer service and we are more and more becoming big brother and
telling people what they can and can't do.  Further there is no filter
program out there that exists that can effectively filter out all "bad"
things without filtering out viable useful websites. I feel that the only
reason that you should ever need to block anything on your network is if it
poses a potential risk to your network, aka virus, home page hijacking, etc.

Staff need to be better trained on how to cope and to deal with such patrons
and situations.

If you were telling me that you wanted to block chat because there is the
potential risk that patrons could download malicios files via the chat
program then I would say that is a viable reason.  You aren't going to be
able to block every site that offers chat though. There are just too many
out there and the teens will just find another one that isn't blocked.  

That being said there is a very simple way to do this. You can open the
hosts file with notepad in the winnt/system32/drivers/etc directory on the
machine and simply point the website to a null address of 127.0.0.1. 

The line would read something like
127.0.0.1       chat.yahoo.com

If you maintain your own DNS serveryou can do it for the entire network by
adding the website as a forward lookup zone and pointing the www A record to
127.0.0.1
Here is a good page that explains the procedure...
http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/

I also had written for me a little utility called blockdns.zip (get it at
http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/software/ or http://thethin.net/blockdns.zip
)which is a GUI that automatically ads entries to the end your hosts file
for you to help simplify things.

Here is a list of chat sites from Teamsolutions makers of Public Web
browser.
http://www.teamsoftwaresolutions.com/documents/URL.txt  

They have a bunch of other great downloads for libraries at:
http://teamsoftware.bizland.com/downloads.html

Regards,
Jim Kenzig
Network Manager
Cuyahoga County Public Library


-----Original Message-----
From: Mann, James H. [mailto:JMann@gcpl.lib.oh.us]
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 3:09 PM
To: James.Guilford@westlakelibrary.org; OPLIN_Tech
Subject: RE: [OPLINTECH] Chat Blocking?


We use Websense and have blocked Chat for awhile. Frankly, at first it
was easy....you just blocked chatplanet or chat city and you were good
to go. Now, the real problem is java-based chat which is harder to block
because it is stateless. We ended up blocking games because that was
where our teens were getting into trouble with chat. We also block
instant messaging. The trick is to get a good filter which will block
chat both by IP and by protocol....and admit up front that this is a
less than perfect solution.

Jim Mann
Technology Coordinator
Greene County Public Library
Xenia Ohio 45385
(937) 376-2996 x210
mailto: jmann@gcpl.lib.oh.us

-----Original Message-----
From: oplintech-admin@oplin.org [mailto:oplintech-admin@oplin.org] On
Behalf Of James Guilford
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 2:41 PM
To: OPLIN_Tech
Subject: [OPLINTECH] Chat Blocking?

Hello,

We are having problems lately with young teens becoming rowdy when using

chat on the Internet-connected computers in our Youth Services area. 
Prior to this there has been little trouble with teens using chat; they 
were quiet and respectful. Now staff are demanding a technological 
solution as the under-staffed service desk can't handle legitimate 
assistance demands plus "police" duties.

We are not currently filtered but are looking at a computer scheduling 
system (SAM) which, when pared with a filter package, claims to be able 
to block chat.

For those sites blocking chat: what success have you had, what 
techniques/products are you using to stop the madness?

Thanks in advance!