DonationCoder.com Software > Post New Requests Here

IDEA: inappropriate word buster

<< < (2/2)

tranglos:
...which would catch certain words, or combination of words or numbers (house numbers, personal phone numbers, etc.) which, when caught, would immediately stop the application and flash a warning, possibly until backspace is pressed, or a password is given or key combination is pressed. He would like it to catch incoming as well as outgoing,
-polski8 (December 08, 2007, 05:47 PM)
--- End quote ---

The second part of your question - about stopping outgoing data - is equally important as the first. The various "nanny" programs probably incorporate this feature. I would advise your friend though to read user reviews of such software, or even check Slashdot for past threads, where many of their shortcomings were thoroughly aired. There are simple things to watch out for, e.g. if a program blocks certain words using a dumb algorithm, it will also block legitimate,  neutral queries that may incorporate those words as substrings.

Another issue is that often those programs also block certain sites or domains, and they claim their blocklists to be trade secrets, so you don't really know what else they block besides smut. In practice, and this may or may not be of concern to anyone, by sheer luck they often end up blocking sites frequented by people of what I believe is called "progressive" mindset in the US.

There are other solutions than nanny software. Some firewalls, notably Agnitum Outpost, have a feature that allows you to make a list of keywords that are not allowed to be sent out - could be names, addresses, passwords, etc. The firewall will either block the communication outright, or just "scratch out" the offending keywords. Personally I am partial to this solution, since it lets the computer owner decide what is and isn't alowed, and most of time time you need a firewall anyway. I am pretty sure Outpost also has a list of incoming keywords to block.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page