[RndTbl] Learning a little about /etc/hosts

[John Lange]

On Sat, 2010-08-07 at 17:13 -0500, Mike Pfaiffer wrote:

> 	The teacher at the lab is absolutely sold on the idea of using the 
> hosts file to block out places like porn sites, gambling sites, 
> facebook, and places like the pirate bay. For classroom machines I can 
> see his point. Particularly since they are going through a different 
> subnet than we are.

I don't think I can agree with this strategy. It would take about 2
seconds for the user to delete their hosts file thereby defeating the
blocking. The reality is there is always a way around the filters but
but blocking at the firewall at least in theory prevents users from
disabling it.

Another problem I see with manipulating "hosts" is that you'd have to
maintain it on every machine which seems like a lot of work.

-- 
John Lange
http://www.johnlange.ca