CHARLOTTE, N.C. - (Business Wire) In recent years, flash-based online games have become extremely popular. According to Comscore, online game sites pull in over a quarter (28%) of the total worldwide Internet population with the average online gamer visiting gaming sites nine times in every month. Organizations need to block online games to prevent users wasting time and preserve valuable bandwidth. Schools also have more serious concerns about the depictions of graphic violence, gore, criminal behavior and even virtual sex, which many popular games contain. Even seemingly innocent games like Neopets aren’t beyond suspicion, since their online interactive forums are also becoming popular places for pedophiles looking to find and groom young victims, according to the UK-based Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.
Filtering online games is a complicated science. Most web filters have a ‘gaming’ category, where known sites are listed and blocked. But such methods are a long way from foolproof. Game site operators are now going to increasing lengths to hide sites and offer users more ‘discreet’ ways to play. Determined gamers have learned how to outsmart school filters with less obvious searches (such as searching for just “swf”) and by embedding their favorite flash games into legitimate looking sites.
Although many filters offer the option to block flash files altogether, this is rarely a practical fix. According to the Opera Browser Development Center, over a third of all websites now use flash and schools are increasingly reliant upon a variety of flash- and video-based learning resources.
“I’m very relieved that Smoothwall is going to have Flash-filtering capabilities; they were reading my mind!” said Rachel Dombrowski, Director of Technology, Governor Mifflin School District of Shillington, Pennsylvania. “Our students are very good at finding Flash game web sites. It is increasingly difficult to monitor if we don’t have our ‘helpers’ out there watching. Our teachers and my tech team are phenomenal about finding the sites to block; however, it is nice to know that Smoothwall is truly on the same page as its users.”
Web filtering vendor SmoothWall says the only viable solution is to inspect the actual content of flash files so they can be blocked or allowed based on what they contain. Product Manager Tom Newton said:
“In recognition of the filtering challenges online games pose, we have extended our Dynamic Content Analysis technology to encompass flash files, so we can rapidly scan their content and accurately block or allow them in exactly the same way. We can also identify a number of different flash applications (including malformed flash files) and we hope to include more categories as the technology matures.”
Released today, the latest version of SmoothWall’s Guardian web filter also benefits from outbound (egress) filtering, more frequent updates and a number of flexibility and scalability improvements. Existing users will get the new functionality via a feature pack download. For more information, visit www.smoothwall.net.
“There are many CIOs and technology directors who are in the same position I am with my school system in when it comes to the idea of ‘to filter or not to filter,’” said Dyer. “With the new Flash-filtering capabilities included in SmoothWall Guardian, I will finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief.”
About SmoothWall
The SmoothWall family of Internet security solutions helps enterprises and schools to prevent misuse, block objectionable content and protect against web related threats. Delivered and supported via a global network of partners in over 60 countries, SmoothWall’s commercial and open source solutions safeguard more than a million networks worldwide.
OnPR
Jeff Fishburn, 503-799-1988
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