Suggested Feature: Blocked Pages Notification

[uncle john]

Nope. I'm nowhere as sophisticated as that. I've got a little knowledge of MS-DOS and it's wildcard character and assumed it could used like this. Thanks for educating me.
Regarding Blocked Pages Notification for anonymous visitors/users I'm suggesting that a Captive Frame might be the answer. A small banner at the top of the frame would alert the user that it is an access restricted network and provide the URL of a page describing the restrictions.
I'd be interested in what you think of this. Is there sufficient grunt left in say a WRT54GL to support Captive Frames?

[uncle john]

I first stumbled across Captive Frames at the website of Coova:
http://www.coova.org/node/1409
http://www.coova.org/CoovaAP/OpenWrtPackages
I notice the Coova version depends on a version of privoxy.
For WRT54GL I suspect that some standard Gargoyle packages may first need to be uninstalled in order to free up the needed memory but I haven't investigated this further yet.

PS. I managed to track down an image (albeit small) here:

[Eric]

What you're asking about is whether I can use a proxy server to do filtering. It's true that this is the best way to do website filtering.... the only problem is that it also requires significant system resources. It's not going to fit on a router with 16MB of RAM (at least not alongside any of the other features in Gargoyle).

Whenever I get around to making a package-add-on system I may implement (optional) support for proxy filtering. However, don't hold your breath... I keep finding bugs to fix and things to improve in existing features. As you noted here, this should take priority over such newer features. Also, captive portal and VPN support have priority over implementation of proxy filtering.

[uncle john]

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate that implementing a package add on system would be a major undertaking and that I shouldn't expect anything like this to happen until much further down the road.
In the meantime I'm more than happy with the existing firewall restrictions feature.

[uncle john]

Eric: I suspect that the package add-on system would probably create havoc for your very friendly GUI.
To accommodate extra features have you considered supporting a more powerful platform such as the PlugComputer instead?

[uncle john]

I've given some thought to issues raised in various topics that have to do with trust among users, particularly in a family setting.
In this reply Eric suggests that social problems are best addressed with social solutions. He also acknowledges that knowledgeable users can easily circumvent arrangements put in place which fairly allocate quota among users.
Although this problem is basically social I'd suggest that there could be a way to make ant-social behavior more transparent to all users.
At present users can see how much quota they have consumed (ie. the quota allocated to their IP) by going to 192.168.1.1.
I'm suggesting that the Gargoyle GUI should have an option for "Read Only" mode setting. This mode would allow all users to see all data which is currently only available to the admin (e.g. mum or dad).
In Read Only mode users could see not only the quota that applied to everyone but also such things as access restrictions and usage details etc. that apply to them.
I'd argue that such transparency could be a real advantage in keeping everyone honest and accountable to each other.
It could be argued that such a feature could adversely affect router performance. I'd argued that in a family setting with a relatively small number of users such impacts would be minimal, particularly since it would not be utilized most of the time.
I'd be interested to know what people think about this idea.

[BikeMike]

I've given some thought to issues raised in various topics that have to do with trust among users, particularly in a family setting....
I'd be interested to know what people think about this idea.

For me I think it's unnecessary in a family setting. I would notice pretty quickly if quota was being "stolen" as it would show up against previously unused IPs or someone else in the house would lose connectivity. We don't really have a problem with inappropriate sites etc. although I do have the logging on and the kids know we can check any time. I think perhaps it's a bit of a privacy issue allowing them each to see what sites the others are on, guess it depends on age ranges though. (eg. 19yo would not want 13yo little sister knowing what he's doing and I think that's fair enough)

Probably seeing each other's quota usage is about as far as I would go. Ideally a little bar graph on the login page showing all quotas (by hostname not IP). Most of the data needed (except hostname) is already in the page source.

In fact just for fun I created a little windows app to do this by downloading and parsing the source from the login page and using an ini file to save IP to hostname translations. This gives me a quick overview of quota usage on the network (all my quotas are daily combined, no separate upload/download so thats all I graph). Actual figures are not that important, just percentage used.

Screenshot... not much to see, it's early in the day!

[uncle john]

Another argument is if you want the privilege of privacy that comes with adulthood you can take financial responsibility as well and pay for your own service.
On the other hand how do you define adulthood?
Perhaps one way out of this dilemma would be to obscure part of the address of each site visited. The child would then be reminded that the parent knows even if others don't know the details.

[uncle john]

Well I suspect the "Read Only" mode idea is a bit too radical for most people.
Which brings me back to DNS rules based option suggested by Eric at the start of this topic:

...
It may be possible to redo the way I'm filtering websites by re-writing DNS rules, though this means you can only match domain and not the path (though 99% of the time we just care about the domain anyway...). However, this would allow an error message as you suggest.
...
Let's just say it's on my to-do list (which is quickly approaching the length of my arm...)

I hesitate to bring this subject up again because I still think the shaping feature mentioned elsewhere by Eric should have priority.
But I'm curious, is DNS rules based filtering getting any closer

[uncle john]

Looks like Gargoyle won't be heading in this direction for whatever reason. Some readers might find this Netgear/OpenDns solution meets their requirements.