Parental Controls, blocking Gay websites?

Hi, I have Eset Smart Security 5 and I tried the new parental controls feature on the virus checker and I have noticed the teenage setting tends to block Gay and Lesbian websites.


My son is gay and I do not want Gay and Lesbian under adult content, only nudity and severe violence.


I do not see how being gay or lesbian is adult content


Is there a way to remove certain categories, such as Gay and Lesbian from the "Adult Content".

 

Yes, try to change people minds, but maybe you should consider about terms GAY and Virus. Nothing personal.

 

Why not simply one term - Porn? I'd assume a Gay category to include anything related to Gay/Lesbian, correct? If I'm right assuming this, then it means that a simple blog talking about gay rights would be blocked, for instance?

Why not block access to Dog Adoptions websites, as well? I mean, it's adult content. Children cannot adopt dogs, can they? My family is trying to adopt a dog, and I've seen so far one association's website defaced by script kiddies and one other redirecting visitors to an exploit...

Anyway, it was my understanding that in this day and age porn websites were the least of user's concern, in what respects to infections? Maybe I got it all wrong...

 

Yes and Eset will change it for just one person?

/me thinks not.

 

submit it to Eset
http://kb.eset.com/esetkb/index?page=content&id=SOLN141

 

Whether or not they will change it for one person, that's not really the point, IMHO. It's discrimination, isn't it? Why not all in one category - Porn/Adult Content?

Otherwise, there should be a Heterosexual category as well? Does it have one? I mean... If it's to differentiate the sexual orientation, then put them all there.

Or, is ESET saying that just because some website is hosting gay content, it will irremediably infect a user's system or be a shocking thing to see, regardless of being porn or not? My guess is that those going to see gay content, is because they want to see it.

And, a website hosting heterosexual content will not infect a user's system? Will it not be shocking?

I mean, there needs to be a limit. Differentiating categories due to sexual orientation is just plain wrong, IMHO.

Anyway, it's up to ESET to decide it... right?

 

delete

 

I just recently seen a story on a local news channel about a girl named lexie that loves and plays hockey and also plays it on EA sports video game, but there was no Female caracters.She decide to right EA sports that not all hockey players or fans are males and felt it was discriminating to females.To her supprise they responded back that they agreed with her.lexie is now the first teenage Girl added to EA sports NHL.How one voice can make a difference, but somtimes it takes many voices to change things.

 

That's correct, any GLBT website that ESET has recorded is blocked.


Even the national suicide hotline website for GLBT is blocked.

 

I dont believe its discrimination as there are plenty of Gay/Lesbian porn sites which is why Im sure Eset is blocking it. No matter to me, but I dont think Eset should change policy due to one user complaint.

.02 cents.

 

It's blocking any website that has Gay and Lesbian content, including suicide hotlines.


Not just porn websites.


And just so you know, Porn is Porn.

Just because it's gay or straight does not change the fact it's the same, so it blocks most porn websites right off the bat; not because gay porn is on it.

 

It should be categorized differently then, or give an option for an override. I block pretty much everything in my home with DynDNS which has more options and allows for an override etc. Still though, I don't think Eset is going to change this just for you. There are other products out there upon which you can do content filtering and just opt out of Eset's parental controls.

Check out DynDNS or OpenDNS. They have both free and paid versions.

 

I doubt they'll change for me, but sooner or later people other than me will notice this.


I upgraded to ESET NOD 32 Smart Security 5 with the intentions of using Parental controls; now you're saying I must use another program because the Parental controls are gimped?


I don't care much for the discrimination, considering anyone gay has to deal with it everyday for the rest of their lives.

But it is a bit ridiculous to have no customization when it comes to parental controls. For example some parents may not find violence or swimsuits worth blocking... yet they have no option.

 

i do not want to take either side but i can say i have some gay / lesbian freinds and i also own a pc business and i FULLY understand there are legit gay websites but there are more that are normally malicious, i am called to remove virus' from people browsing gay / lesbian websites VERY often. and again i am not trying to single them out as i said i have good freinds of mine who are gay. but this is probably why they are being blocked.

do you have any people that need the supervision of parental controls? if not open the options screen and click advanced settings at the bottom and on the list you will see parental controls and uncheck the box and this will shut off the parental controls. personally i turn them off on all av's on my own pc's on the kids pc's i leave them on of course.

 

im sure eset is not the only av to block these sites...

 

The parental controls are designed to filter out websites from the users in the computer; they are not an extra level of protection. If a website is malicious, it is filtered out on the main virus checker, not parental controls.


There's no conclusive evidence or proof that something came from a "gay" website, it's just plain wrong to pinpoint it to that.


That's like claiming you have black friends, but... you get the point.

I don't believe you to be honest, you don't even bother to capitalize. I.T crowd tends to type on computers all day and it has become a custom for us to do such things.

You're right, other parental control websites give an option to block "sexuality". The thing is though, they allow you to remove the restriction.

 

i sent that message from my cell phone so i do not tend to capitalize etc... and yes they have specifically told me what site they went to when they got infected. they are freinds of mine they have no problem telling me they went to a specific gay site (now please know im not speaking of say a gay forum or hotline im reff. to more a sexual type of gay site including those with video etc..) i have been doing this since i was 16 and now am 36 i worked at ibm for many years and have owned my own business since 2000. and i know a lot of i.t. people who do not do those types of things this is a forum and as i said i send a lot of my messages from my phone.

so you are saying the av part is blocking gay? imo that is unusual i thought it was the parental controls. you can add exceptions to the parental controls as well as certain categories, but if its from the main av then im not sure what to say..

 

I'd try explaining your story to the virus lab as explained here: http://kb.eset.com/esetkb/index?page=content&id=SOLN141.

 

I guess you should know, most viri can be prevented. If they got a virus, chances are that they let it in themselves. In other words, they weren't running a proper virus checker or they turned it off for something.

The Parental Controls blocks gay, lesbian and transgendered from ADULT CONTENT. There's no way to exclude this without allowing porn.


I still don't believe you, most computer techs have a smart phone that auto capitalizes; at least everyone at my work does.


And in this generation, most porn is streamed. It is highly doubtful that even if they went to the local gay porn website, they would be infected.

As mentioned before, porn is still porn. It doesn't matter if it's gay or not, it would be blocked regardless of sexuality if the parental controls excluded GLBT.


You're flat out delusional if you think gay websites inject more viruses and even if it did it is irrelevant because Parental Controls is for parents, not protection.

 

okay whatever you want to believe... but i never said MORE virus' i said its common to see virus' at those types os sites and from those types of searches. nevermind im done here and i tried to be respectable.

 

Respectable? You're basically saying visiting gay websites will likely give you more viruses.

That is flat out nonsense.


Mainstream is not gay, the goal of every virus is to spread as much as possible. Therefore, focusing on the majority is the best way to spread.

Not only that, you lied to me about your phone! Every phone that can browse online practically auto capitalizes to be honest. You attached computer images to your post, which would require you to post on your computer and it still is unformatted.

 

It's actually quite interesting, if one thinks about it.

If there's something that I learnt over the years, is that cyber criminals will attack using the most used vector - In this hypothetical situation, it would be gay porn.

Now, I always hear that the % of heterosexual people is superior to gay people. Whether true or not, it's not important, and not what I'm trying to discuss. I'm trying to create a context, only.

Therefore, if % of heterosexual people is superior, the demand says that the straight porn supply would have to be superior to gay porn. Correct?

If you agree with me, then people will have a higher chance of seeing their systems infected, by watching straight porn.

I'm just following logic here.

 

I want to block all heterosexual content. Frankly, seeing straight people doing whatever it is that they do grosses me out.

Do we see why this is all ridiculous?

Have it block "porn" not "gay/lesbian" this is ridiculous.

EDIT: Also, how do we clarify what's a gay site? Just wondering.

I know a lot of users quote me with faces and I'm starting to get the wrong impression! Please add wilders to the gay/lesbian blacklist - thanks.

 

Hello,

Can you send me addresses for some of the LGBTQ web sites which were blocked by ESET Smart Security v5's Parental Control feature via private message? I can then check with ESET's virus lab on the status of their classifications. That offer is open to anyone else participating in the message thread.

In the meantime, I would like to gently remind people that this section of Wilders Security Forum is for asking questions about ESET's products. Whether or not websites hosting certain types of adult content present a higher risk factor for malware or auto-capitalization functionality for smartphones is moot. I am a bit concerned that this message thread is going to devolve into ad hominem attacks at some point. I am not taking any action such as closing the message thread, because I believe we can all continue participate here like mature adults.

As a reminder, ESET's business is licensing you software which protects your computer against threats. On ESET's part that means investigating and taking action when reports of an incorrect classification occur, whether it be a false positive alarm on a legitimate program file, a web site incorrectly flagged as distributing malware, or a classification issue with sites blocked by the Parental Control feature in v5.

In closing, if you have sites to report, you can report them to me and I'll follow up with ESET's other researchers. Let me know the URL, why you feel they should/should not be classified that way, and the category you think they should be in, if any. Above all, though, please have a little patience while ESET investigates the issue.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

I think the point of the original poster is that some of the pre-defined categories are too broad, particularly the Adult Materials category. I would like to block explicit adult content, but would like for my wife and daughters to be able to shop online for swimsuits or bras. The ability to select and unselect line items within each category would be very beneficial.