Thu 1 Mar 2007
ScrubIT – Basic Content Filtering
Posted by Andrew Mitry under Web/Tech
[9] Comments
Lifehacker recommended ScrubIT today, a DNS service that “scrubs out the bad stuff.” Similar to OpenDNS they intercept misspelled phishing sites but also scrubs pornography and malicious sites.
ScrubIT looks like a simple way to get basic content filtering on your machine or network, simply by changing your DNS. We have been struggling to find a good content filter solution for the church, we did deploy DansGuardian, but it was quite a bit of work to setup and has a few issues, especially when working with SSL. We were able to start using ScrubIT with just a few seconds of work.
To use ScrubIT your must change your DNS to:
67.138.54.100
207.225.209.66
For the individual user, ScrubIT offers a DNS Config Utility that configures Windows XP or 2000.
OpenDNS has instructions on how to configure other operating systems, routers and DNS forwarding. To use ScrubIT with those instructions, just replace the OpenDNS addresses with the SrcubIT addresses (sorry OpenDNS).
From an enterprise perspective, OpenDNS looks to be much more mature, offering DNS servers in five different locations and a system status page. Hopefully ScrubIT will provide the same features soon.
We decided to go ahead try out ScrubIT at the church, we are running DNS on our Windows Server 2003. We configured forwarders to ScrubIT DNS IP addresses.
For more control, ScrubIT is running a beta program that let’s you customize DNS to specifically allow or deny websites. It would be great if they added reporting as well.
9 Responses to “ ScrubIT – Basic Content Filtering ”
Comments:
Trackbacks & Pingbacks:
-
Trackback from Glass::Brian->blog;
March 1st, 2007 at 7:36 pmScrubIT
I just heard about ScrubIT (hat tip to Andrew Mitry). It is a clever way of blocking porn and filtering other types of bad content. You basically just change your DNS settings to point at their servers and you are all done. I was planning to implement …
-
Pingback from OpenDNS Does Free Adult Blocking from St. Bernard!
June 11th, 2007 at 12:02 am[...] OpenDNS also allows you to put your custom image on the block page (for their typo correction, not just the content filtering). Their service is already being put to use in several churches, but I can’t help thinking this will bump that trend right on up! Andrew Mitry at Anchorite switched from OpenDNS to ScrubIT in March (it sounds like he either used OpenDNS before or liked it, hard to tell from that post), while at the same time commenting that OpenDNS appeared to be more mature (an assessment I’d fully agree with). This is the first time OpenDNS has responded with a filter on this level however. In my experience (and I’ve corresponded with several of the OpenDNS staff including owner David Ulevich), OpenDNS doesn’t do something unless it can be done right, and going with a large provider like St. Bernard for their list sounds just like something they’d do. [...]
March 1st, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I’d be interested in hearing how your experience with them is…
March 1st, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Definitely, I’ll post an update later on.
March 1st, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Thanks for the tip. I was planning to implement DansGuardian at my church this year sometime but will give this a try first. I’m running DansGuardian at home right now, but I’m all in favor of less work.
March 1st, 2007 at 3:34 pm
My pleasure, it will be interesting to see how their beta works and how much it will be. This is definitely one of the easiest solutions out there. Of course, it doesn’t help if the user knows the direct IP for a site that you are trying to filter.
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:24 am
I really think these need to be installed on all computers and come with all internet providers as an option. There’s too much porn and scams out there. The Internet is no longer safe. This really helps it.
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:40 am
Interesting thought, not a bad idea. Router manufacturers could let you choose ScrubIT as an option when setting up as well.
June 2nd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Just do a Google search for porn or any other vulgar words and phrases and you’ll be surprised how many sites are not being “scrubbed.” I reported hundreds of porn sites to Scrubit yet they’re still accessible. I think they have a good idea that just needs to be fully implemented. Until they do it’ll remain an ineffective porn filter.