Gizmodo: firewall

Beijing Gets Tougher On Net Cafes With Mandatory Photos

Jason Chen — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:50:00 EDT

All internet cafes in the main 14 city districts of Beijing have been mandated to install cameras to take pics of people as they enter the store, which are they uploaded to a city-wide database under watch of the Cultural Law Enforcement Taskforce. Shop owners have apparently said that their customers don't care, but apparently an online version of the People's Daily showed 72% respondents opposing it because it violated their rights.

Even though the number of people dissatisfied with something in polls is usually higher than the actual percentage (dissatisfied people are more likely to complain), it's really interesting that that many residents think this is an infringement on their rights. I guess getting your mug on record as being a camwithher viewer is more tangible evidence of the internet crackdown than sites being blocked? [Times Online]

Australia To Build Great Firewall Down Under

Elaine Chow — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:05:00 EDT

Looks like China won't be the only place with a Great Firewall in place—The Australian government is introducing its own censorship regime that will determine what is or isn't illegal for you to view on the web. The move is said to help stop teenagers from accessing online pornography, but even if you opt-out of the pr0n filter, you'll get put on a different blacklist for “illegal” content.

So what could be considered illegal content? There's the possibility that the government will block any website related to controversial opinions on euthanasia, drugs or political dissent. Even legal content might get screwed with, considering even the best Internet content filters still incorrectly firewall about .1% of webpages. Who knew the land of bloomin' onions and Crocodile Dundee was teetering on the brink of Big Brother-ness? [Boing Boing]

Yoggie Gatekeeper Protects Your Laptop on the Go

Jason Chen — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 21:05:57 EDT

The Yoggie Gatekeeper is simple. Instead of loading up your laptop with security software like firewalls, intrusion detection, proxies, anti-spam, anti-spyware, anti-virus and various other apps, why not let a small little hardware device do it all? Designed to be the portable equivalent of corporate security hardware, the Gatekeeper gives you 13 of these applications by sitting between your laptop and the internet.

It's hard to say how well any of these 13 security apps work, but we definitely think the idea is sound. The list after the jump.

Adaptive Security Policy™
Multi-Layer Security Agent™
Layer-8 Security Engine ™
URL Categorization & Filtering
Anti-Spam
Anti-Phishing
Antispyware
Antivirus
Transparent Email Proxies (POP3; SMTP)
Transparent Web Proxies (HTTP; FTP)
Intrusion Detection System / Intrusion Prevention System
VPN Client
Stateful Inspection Firewall

– Jason Chen

Product Page [Yoggie via Coolest Gadgets]

SecureSpot Internet Security Device

Gizloco — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:30:58 EDT

Whether or not this SecureSpot actually makes your sweet rig safer is irrelevant—just look at how many blinking lights it has! As we all know, lots of blinking lights=ultra secure box.

From D-Link, the SecureSpot DSD-150 features plenty of things to make you feel safer in your Internet travels, including a firewall, spyware protection, virus protection, identity theft protection, pop-up blocker, spam blocker and plenty of parental controls to make sure Junior doesn't wind up going blind at an early age. Never mind that most, if not all, of these features can be had by using things like Linux and Firefox. The included software can be controlled with a Web-based interface, provided your kid hasn't already blocked access to it. So much for common sense being the best type of security.

She's available now for $99.99. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [D-Link via The Red Ferret Journal]