It was the best of filters. It was the worst of filters. It blocked the troll's goatse links. It blocked Penny Arcade. It was CyberPatrol.




CyberPatrol is a commercial web filter created by SurfControl, who calim they are "the #1 Web and E-mail filtering company", and may be right, thanks to misguided politicians.

On one hand, I am glad that such things exist. My little brother (8 at the time of writing) has some not-so-friendly friends, and it is a good thing that they can't pressure him into going to... innapropriate sites.

On the other, I am forced, because of my school's blatant disregard of the first amendment, to have my every move online tracked by some outside Evil dictatorship. Its not even Microsoft that's doing it!




For what it does, block sites, it does a great job. It has problems, however, with NOT blocking sites. Have "Fuck" on the main page once, any you're banned for life. It also screws around with traffic that it shouldnt. On Battle.net, trying to enter a Starcraft game is hell, as the filter often delays the packets long enough that you are unable to connect. Even with filtering turned "Off", all packets are sent to the filter for aging. Not a good way to work things, I'm afraid.