Miami-Dade Public Library Backsliding on Whitelisting Sites

Back on Dec. 17, 2005, I posted an item entitled Kudos to the Miami-Dade Public Library which said,

I have to praise the Miami-Dade Public Library system. Once I escalated my complaints about their new wireless service they have done almost (but not quite) everything I asked for.

They unblocked digicrime.com from the PC network. They are going to put into place procedures which allow on-the-spot blocking overrides for the laptops they lend out in the library (!). They regret that they don’t see a secure means of providing a similar on-the-spot override for users who bring their own laptops, as they think that would ‘compromise security’.

But most importantly, they’ve unblocked port 22 so I can use ssh! And they were very nice about it, too. (Please, nobody mention some of the things you can do with ssh tunnels, ok?)

I’m impressed.

Well, a good chunk of that statement is now inoperative. I am posting this from the Kendall branch, and my attempt to reach digicrime.com just produced this glorious message:

Access to this site is restricted 1

Hacking the site is www.digicrime.com

Not only is this infuriatingly uninformative, but it represents a grave breach of faith with library patrons. How many other whitelisted sites have been surreptitiously re-blocked?

At least ssh is still open…

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2 Responses to Miami-Dade Public Library Backsliding on Whitelisting Sites

  1. anon says:

    Evil fascist regimes everywhere. Where would we be without your clarion calls to resistance. I always suspected Raymond Santiago, Director of MDPLS, was a Bush cronie. Please organize a petition. Peace.

  2. michael says:

    Actually, everyone I’ve dealt with over there has been very nice. And I’ve written them another letter. So we’ll see.

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