If you are a school, library or business that needs to block access to the social networking site Myspace.com, this tutorial will show you how. Every organization requires different levels of Internet access control. 602LAN SUITE Content Filter can dynamically filter and blacklist content to provide you with fine grain access control. This tutorial will show you how to block MySpace through the blacklist and enable dynamic filtering for other objectionable content.

Step #1: Configure the Proxy Server

The proxy must be enabled and configured to provide Internet access to your network users. Do the following to enable the proxy:

1. In 602LAN SUITE, click Settings, then Advanced Configuration.
2. Click the Proxy tab.
3. Enable the HTTP/HTTPS/HTTP-FTP proxy option.
4. Click Save to save your settings.

Step #2: Configure the Content Filter

Now the Content Filter must be enabled and configured to begin dynamic filtering of all access through the proxy server. This will provide extra protection that the blacklist rules may not provide. Do the following to enable the Content Filter:

1. In 602LAN SUITE, click Settings, then Advanced Configuration.
2. Click the Content Filter tab.
3. Enable the Check HTTP proxy requests with the Content Filter option.
4. Click the Add rule button.
5. Select the specific categories you would like to block. If you would like to block all 22 categories, simply click the Check all button.
6. Click the Add Hosts button, select Any address, then click OK.
7. Click OK, then Save to save your settings.

Step #3: Configure the Blacklist Rule

Once the Content Filter has been enabled, a blacklist rule must be added to block all websites that contain MySpace in the URL. Do the following:

1. In 602LAN SUITE, click Settings, then Advanced Configuration.
2. Click the Content Filter tab, then the Blacklist Rules sub-tab.
3. Click Add Rule, then Add, and type “*myspace*” (no quotes) in the URL field. Now click OK.
4. Click the Add Hosts button, select Any address, then click OK.
5. Click OK, then Save to save your settings.

Limitations

There are thousands of free proxy services on the web that allow people to bypass content filtering. This is a fact that all network administrators must live: no content filtering solution is 100% effective. Content filtering is a tool and should be used as such. In the above tutorial, blacklisting the URL string *myspace* should give you very good protection. Using the search term unblock myspace on Google, the above solution blocked 90% of the top 20 results (as of March 1, 2007).

Other resources

• Slashdot: A Myspace Lockdown - Is It Possible?
• TheParentsEdge: Editing Windows Hosts Files to Block Access
• PCTools.com: Prevent Changes to Internet Explorer
• Zemerick Software: Free client-side MySpace blocker