content filtering: no PA for you

AtomBomb

I've been charged with setting up a wifi network for a teen center. This isn't very difficult. The problem is that they also want content filtering so the teens can't discover the joy of boobs until they're 18.

This is an open network. They have 10 laptops that can be checked out, but I can't just use an installed software solution because they will also allow the teens to bring their own laptops. There isn't a central server (just a wireless router and some APs) so something like websense is out. So I think I'm looking for an appliance of some kind. I was checking out firewalls on newegg and this looked promising: ZyXEL ZyWALL 2 PLUS 24 Mbps VPN Internet Security Appliance. Has anyone had any experience with these? Any other suggestions?

Obviously I don't have a lot of experience with web filtering. The only other thing I've done is set up a proxy for some front desk/cashier type computers. It's set up to block everything except what I list, which works fine for allowing limited business activities, but not so well when a kid needs to go off wikipedia to research dinosaurs.

FyreWulff

OpenDNS. Set the router up to use OpenDNS and apply the filtering from there. Instructions are on their website.

Does not require installing software on anyone's machine, so they're filtered when using that center's net connection and unfiltered at home with no need for them to do anything.

http://www.opendns.com/start/

By 'ad supported' they mean non-existing URLs are an OpenDNS branded search page.

AtomBomb

Nice. I just stumbled across that after I made this post. I put in an inquiry about the corporate pricing, but the free version sounds pretty good as well. Thanks!

FyreWulff

Yeah, the free version should be enough. Corporate version is more if they want stuff like the custom block pages and support and no ads on the block/nonexistent URLs.

And all the modern browsers already have malware site blacklists they use.