[AccessD] It just goes to show ya

LOL, he is getting that way.  ATM he is 10 years old, and that was just allegorical.

I am sure that you can have a lively discussion with Rocky about determined teenage boys though.

;)

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting

Reality is what refuses to go away
when you do not believe in it

On 12/17/2011 10:13 AM, Dan Waters wrote:
> I have no doubt that the son of John Colby is very sophisticated, computer
> literate, and determined!
>
> Thanks!
> Dan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
> Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2011 9:06 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] It just goes to show ya
>
> OpenDNS is just a domain name server with filters.  A Domain Name Server
> takes names such as Microsoft.Com and turns that into a numeric IP address
> www.xxx.yyy.zzz.  OpenDNS simply takes those "natural language" IP addresses
> and filters them against known attributes and makes a decision whether to
> perform the translation into a numeric IP address.
>
> So... my teenage son types in penthouse.com.  The request is sent to
> OpenDNS, where I have set up my filters based on what I want to allow
> through.  There are checkboxes on that page which allows me to filter out
> specific things.  I have checked a box to filter out adult content.
>
> http://www.opendns.com/web-filtering/
>
> My son's browser responds with a generic message that he is not allowed to
> surf to that site.  My son then embarks on a concerted attempt to circumvent
> this issue and within minutes has discovered what is going on and has
> locally set his system to use a different Domain name server.  15 minutes
> later he is reading penthouse.
>
> Of course the last paragraph was tongue in cheek but still....
>
> You can actually set up your router to use a specific domain name server
> such as OpenDNS, which is a much more secure implementation method.  The
> problem is that IIRC if you set the NIC itself to use a specific DNS then it
> goes around the router.
>
> But in general, other than for very sophisticated, computer literate and
> determined teenagers, a service like OpenDNS works rather well, for what it
> is and what it does.
>
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
>
> Reality is what refuses to go away
> when you do not believe in it
>
> On 12/17/2011 9:12 AM, Dan Waters wrote:
>> I use different email addresses, and also log into 4 different
>> customers with 4 different VPN methods.  Would OpenDNS cause an issue
>> with any of this?  I'm also using Comcast as an ISP - is that OK?
>>
>> I looked at the OpenDNS site, but I didn't see a good explanation of
>> what it was actually doing, or even a general description of how it
> worked.
>>
>> I don't have my own 'network' - is it helpful without that?
>>
>> Dan