Posted on 09/05/2010 5:22:10 PM PDT by SteamShovel
Does anybody know of a firewall program that will allow blocking direct access to a site (youtube in my case) while still allowing another page to bring in content from that site?
I am trying to block youtube while allowing an educational site that has specific embedded youtube videos as lecture material.
With McAfee, I can block youtube, but then the embedded video lectures aren't loaded at the educational site.
Don’t think you can since your computer doesn’t make a distinction.
You don’t need a firewall. Just to go your “Tools” and then “Options” and you can block anything you want.
off hand I think your sol. However if you use a proxy server to view the ed vids you may be able to view the content while blocking the utube site.
Maybe disguise all the embedded youtube links by converting them via Tinyurl.
Just a thought. Not sure if it will work.
Does McAfee have an exception feature? So you block a general url (e.g. youtube.com) but you let exceptions thru (i.e. a specific youtube url to the content you want to view)?
Embedded video still originates at Youtube.
Unless the video originates at a different site, blocking Youtube should also block the embedded as well.
I’m not sure a firewall will do what you want. It will either block the source or allow it.
Why not just use a video downloader and download the videos you want? There are about a jillion download programs, including Firefox andf IE add-ons, and most of ‘em are free.
I don’t know what kind of router you have, but the one I have (LinkSys) allows granular filtering where you can allow certian pages even if you have a whole site blocked.
Trend Micro Internet Security Pro has a parental control feature that lets you do sort of the same thing, only I haven’t tried to use it so I can’t vouch for how well it might work. Additionally, I’m disappointed with the quality of that product in general. I will be buying somethng else when my subscription runs out because I’ve had nothing but trouble with my internet applications since I got it. I’ve had to turn off the web tool bar and the email scanning because it didn’t play nice.
Children under 16 shouldn't have access to the internet in a private room (family room is ok) unless there is supervision.
Don't try to get a technical fix for something that is a moral issue.
And yes, there is a way to do what you want. Set up a linux box as a gateway with 2 network ports and use ipchains or iptables to block direct links to YouTube, while allowing embedded links. You'll need to write some code to parse the headers and hook into iptables.
The complete answer is, of course, left to the student. (hand wave)
/johnny
You need to allow, rather than block. What’s bad about that is having to allow everything means you can miss a lot and not let it in. Whereas blocking is easy but too much gets blocked.
Web filtering decision trees suck - they’re more like stumps than trees.
On the other hand, it’s a golden opportunity for any programmer who wants to sit down and work out the code demons.
You either block it or you don’t.
> Set up a linux box as a gateway with 2 network ports and
> use ipchains or iptables to block direct links to
> YouTube, while allowing embedded links.
This is almost exactly what I did.
Linux box with 2 network ports.
One connected to the DSL modem, other connected to the Wireless Access Point (WAP). I actually have two subnets, one that I use for work, and the other for the rest of the family.
Linux box also provides a proxy server for the family subnet and runs Dansguardian. Unless it’s in the Dansguardian “whitelist”, you can’t access it. You can get quite granular, not only with web pages, but with users.
Linux box also provides a mailserver. Every email that comes in or goes out is copied to me.
Of course, all chat, social networking, and external mail servers are blocked by Dansguardian.
Linux box also has Network Attached Storage (NAS) and runs Samba. We have hundreds of movies and thousands of music CDs available. Using smb.conf to create access for various “groups”, I can limit access to the various available media according to age.
Media works best if you’re using Wireless-N (300 Mb), unless, of course, everybody decides to access a movie at the same time.
:)
I presume you don’t give your family audience a Linux account.
Otherwise, they could run a browser remotely on Linux by running an X-server on their Windows boxes.
If you’re using Windows:
UAC and http://blogmines.com/blog/2007/06/13/windows-vista-how-to-block-websites-using-parental-control/
look at opendns.org I think it will do what you want
> I presume you don’t give your family audience a Linux account.
Correct.
Only samba access to the NAS.
The easiest solution may be for you to to forget about punching holes in your firewall and just download the YouTube videos as FLV files using Download Helper for Firefox, and play them locally using something like VLC media player.
You can get incredibly granular if you write your own scripts or code to parse the headers, and link it into iptables. Read the source, Luke. It's open because we change it when we want to meet our needs of the moment. ;)
But it's really, really good to worldproof the child. 'Teach him in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it'
/johnny
Not exactly. You can pick apart the headers and find out if the packet is refered from a page from a specific approved site. Sure, it takes some temp files to set everything up for the initial transaction, but it's doable.
I would bid 80 hours at my normal bill rate and promise the filtering, and a cute little web app to control it.
/johnny
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