JANET Web Filtering Service
About the service
The JANET Web Filtering Service is a centralised web content filtering service, provided by Research Machines plc (RM) and based on the RM SafetyNet Plus product. It is now available to all eligible JANET organisations.
The service lets each organisation manage its own list of blocked or permitted URLs by filtering in accordance with the organisation's local policy, and tailor these filters to its exact needs. The filter settings are managed by authorised individuals at the organisation and different filtering rules can be applied at different times of day: of use, for example, to organisations that offer adult classes in the evening, or residential sites that ban social networking during regular school hours. The service also supports hierarchical filtering policies. This feature enables the creation of a JANET-wide filtering list and for each organisation to create its own additional filter list via the administrative web interface. The page that is displayed when a site is blocked can be customised to reflect the organisation's local policies and an optional filter list can distinguish between educational and non-educational games.
The major functional components allow the organisation to:
- manage their filter lists through a web-based administrative interface
- quickly permit or deny access to a specific page on the Internet
- choose whether or not certain words or search terms are appropriate
- prevent users from downloading particular file extensions such as .mp3 or .exe, that can waste Internet bandwidth or pose security threats
- choose from pre-built Filtering Lists, taking advantage of the pre-built filtering categories that the service supplier has developed over years of experience: for example, a pre-built list of pages containing sexual content.