Inside Internet Filtering

While reading this article from KSL TV for one of my previous posts I noticed near the end of the article that often secure sites are not filtered by Internet filtering software.

Clayton Ostler the IT Manager for ContentWatch (the company behind NetNanny) made the statement:

“The (filters) can detect that the data is coming from an encrypted site, but they can’t actually read the content of that data.”

Basically he is saying that because they can’t see unencrypted the content, that they can’t filter it.  Which is true for a dynamic filter like NetNanny, but isn’t true for a hybrid list-based filter like Safe Eyes.  Safe Eyes has been filtering secure sites for over a year now.

Mr. Ostler also hinted that a new version of NetNanny which can filter secure sites would be out later this month.  So have they created a system that is capable of inspecting the encrypted data?  If they have, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having encryption in the first place?  Maybe they are using some other technique, we will have to wait and see.