[AusNOG] Web filter a runaway success: Exetel

[Alastair Watts]

On Tue, 2009-05-05 at 07:03 +0800, Kai wrote:

> I'm sure there's more to it than this?!
> 
> Web filter a runaway success: Exetel
> http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/301839/web_filter_runaway_success_exetel

There is. It's not a realistic test.

In this trial, URLs were being resolved to IP addresses which were being
advertised via BGP to Exetel's routers so as to blackhole requests to
hits on their list.

Assuming that the blacklist will be closed (mandated filtering software)
or hashed, URLs won't be available to resolve to IPs, and all candidate
traffic will be required to pass through the filter servers. Even more
so if the Government wish to block based on heuristics rather than just
a list.