Block bad internet content ? Not on my PC, thank you.
On June 9th Ethiopia has become the latest nation state to move to legislate on Internet content. I for one, am sold on the idea to block illegal content. Give organisations, institutions and parents control about what internet content comes through their networks. Its empowering. It’s also clear that many blanket content category bans can take you in towards censorship of free speech .. did anyone follow the Australian experience over the last 8 years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia
But this is a technology blog. So in Ethiopia today they will surely now be debating how to achieve this technically. Two options will be discussed – On the desktop/device or in the DNS. In our opinion there is usually only one winner in such a debate: DNS.
Every internet transaction has to be resolved by DNS. It’s the control point for the internet. It’s easy to maintain white, blacklistsed the DNS. Its fast and low latency. It can’t be easily bypassed and requires nothing to be installed on the device or PC. Best still it’s very low cost.
Blocking on the PC/device involves use of a technology that inevitably slows performance, needs to be maintained across the enterprise and then there is the BYOD complication.
I like the elegance of DNS based ‘decision making’.
– David Brebner, FlashStart.
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