RE: banned sites lists!

From: BRAD GRIFFIN (b.griffin@cqu.edu.au)
Date: 05/30/02 

From: BRAD GRIFFIN <b.griffin@cqu.edu.au>
To: "'Chisholm Wildermuth'" <cwildermuth@dbwebnet.net>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 12:43:15 +1000

I agree too Chisolm

Originally the requestor wanted a list of 'bad' addresses, which is why I provided the link. The concept of using the hosts file as an ad blocker was originally developed for stand-alone boxes, not networks. As you say, it would be pointless to use this method when a proxy server can be used to
block the sites in the list for an entire network.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chisholm Wildermuth [mailto:cwildermuth@dbwebnet.net]
> Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2002 10:58 AM
> To: BRAD GRIFFIN
> Cc: security-basics@securityfocus.com
> Subject: RE: banned sites lists!
>
>
> That's probably true, I'm only familiar with the usage in
> Win2k...and even
> then very little. All of our installs use DNS, except for
> very very special
> instances.
>
> I still have to stand firm on thinking that it's a bad idea
> though... I
> don't know how many machines you admin, but I really really
> really would hate
> having to mess with hosts files on all the machines. I had heard of
> something at one point that MS created/beta/demo'd a
> "distributed" hosts file
> or something of the like where you could keep a single copy
> on a server and
> they would all reference that?? I don't really recall... I
> just know I don't
> think it's a very good solution to a problem. I see too many
> work arounds,
> too much admin time, and still not simplistic enough to make
> it practical.
>
> "The only problem with this method is that it can be tricky
> to set up in
> conjunction with a proxy server." --- Why would you do both ?
>
> IMHO Content filtering should still be done at a proxy and not with an
> archaic file whose life ended with that of the original ARPANet.
>
> Chisholm Wildermuth
> Systems Engineer
> dbWebNet, Inc.
>
>