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desert_traveller
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 335
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 Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 1:47 pm Post subject: google, yahoo safe search cant be turned off ??? |
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these two search engines have a feature called 'safe search' that filters out search results that contain certain (bad bad very bad) words
i was trying to turn them off, and i could not !!! you go to options and you click on 'safesearch off' and then save your new settings, and by the time you get back to the homepage, safesearch is on again !!!
i find it particularly disturbing not because i am desperate to dig up very very very bad websites (there are fairly simple ways to do that), but because i tried the turning off while i was logged on, and all the communication with the servers should be heavily encrypted (as i assume) in that case, so how can anything interfere with that? i assume its the vice police extending their field of work onto the realm of the internet, but how can they fiddle with my personal settings? can they then somehow read my emails as well? as thats just another series of bits that get exchanged between my computer and the webservers. or maybe the communication of these settings are not secured (to the same extent as the contents of emails etc)?
hm |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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I thought it was just the university that did it; I didn't realize it was the whole of the Kingdom.
Yahoo they don't turn it off; only Google.
They are actually getting quite clever; they seem to have cracked the encoding for anonymous proxies |
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7atetan
Joined: 01 Jan 2010
Posts: 93
Location: Not in the Mediterranean Sea
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 4:19 am Post subject: Re: google, yahoo safe search cant be turned off ??? |
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| desert_traveller wrote: |
these two search engines have a feature called 'safe search' that filters out search results that contain certain (bad bad very bad) words
i was trying to turn them off, and i could not !!! you go to options and you click on 'safesearch off' and then save your new settings, and by the time you get back to the homepage, safesearch is on again !!! [...] hm |
This setting is operated by way of cookies. Safe search is on by default and turning it off (or changing any other search parameters, such as the number of results returned per page) sets a cookie on your computer, which is then used by the search engine whenever you access it. This may not be working for you because of the settings on your machine and/or your institution's server settings.
Email can be readily read by pretty much anyone with internet access and some know-how. In the case of your employer and the government, internet access alone is sufficient. Use your work computer for work-related communication only, and everywhere else use either VPN and/or satellite internet if you're doing something sensitive.
And no, they have not hacked into anonymous proxies. If they had, they would have disabled them. |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:23 am Post subject: |
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| And no, they have not hacked into anonymous proxies. If they had, they would have disabled them |
I've put forbidden sites in anonymous proxies and got the standard Saudi Censorship form, so yes, they have read the encoding.
The proxy server can force all settings to go through strict search by adding the appropriate string to any search you do. |
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7atetan
Joined: 01 Jan 2010
Posts: 93
Location: Not in the Mediterranean Sea
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| Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:32 am Post subject: |
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| Stephen Jones wrote: |
I've put forbidden sites in anonymous proxies and got the standard Saudi Censorship form, so yes, they have read the encoding.
The proxy server can force all settings to go through strict search by adding the appropriate string to any search you do. |
O.K., there are two things here. Firstly, an anonymous proxy can be compromised. IOW, the government/ISP figures out that a server acts as a proxy (there are lists of such newly discovered servers that are distributed to interested parties, usually governments and ISPs) and reroutes all the connections between a terminal and the proxy server through its own servers, together with its own screening/censorship protocols. There's nothing clever or revolutionary about that. Your university I.C.T. admin could do it in two minutes. Likewise, the administrators of the proxy server may disable the server themselves, due to e.g. traffic overload, hacking, etc. That happens regularly, which is why a proxy server that may work today does not work tomorrow. There are many websites that post updated lists of functioning proxy servers to keep one step ahead of the censors.
My point is though that a government such as that of Saudi Arabia will not intercept communications between terminals and proxy servers to rig all Google searches to be censored but not implement its usual censorship routines on such communications.
I've forgotten what my second point was going to be. Never mind... |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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My point is though that a government such as that of Saudi Arabia will not intercept communications between terminals and proxy servers to rig all Google searches to be censored but not implement its usual censorship routines on such communications.
I've forgotten what my second point was going to be. Never mind... |
And I can't make head or tail of your first point.
There are three types of proxy involved. Your work proxy, the KAST proxy, and any anonymous proxies you may be communicating through. It's not clear what exactly you mean. |
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