DrawBridge
Dynamic Filtering
The internet has revolutionized the way we travel, shop, work, and communicate. It is also a marketplace flooded with scams and perversions and destructive content of every kind. While many people in our world are alarmed at the security and privacy vulnerabilities of the internet, Christians have an extra motivation to defend themselves against the invasive corruption available online.
DrawBridge Network Traffic Control classifies web pages by a detailed set of content categories, shaped by the values of Christian homes and businesses in the Plain community. Employers, parents, and school administrators can customize internet access to their own standard of safety.
Who will benefit from using
DrawBridge?
Individuals
DrawBridge is for anyone who wishes to control their internet exposure and safeguard themselves from distraction, malicious content, or temptations.
The internet helps you get a lot done. It's also filled with distractions, hazards, and great evil. Take control of your time spent online and defend yourself against destructive content.
"Whatsoever things are true, ...honest, ...pure, ...lovely,...think on these things"(Phil. 4:8).
Businesses
DrawBridge helps employers and IT departments provide safe and productive work environments for employees.
Protect your network from risky connections, safeguard your employees from immoral web content, and increase productivity by managing workplace access to news, social media, sports, and other non-business related distractions.
Organizations
DrawBridge provides tech administrators of schools and churches the tools to share group-wide policies and accountability.
Some churches agree to share a group-wide level of technology and internet usage for their members. DrawBridge provides a platform to easily share a group profile across many individual devices.
How does "dynamic filtering" work?
DrawBridge is smart enough to know when to simply hide questionable content on a page while still making important functions usable (called "pruning") yet intelligent enough to block objectionable categories completely. This is one of the key advantages of dynamic web filtering that you get with a product like DrawBridge.
Pruning
Let's take online shopping websites as an example. Much of what is on the home page is unnecessarily distracting, and can be inappropriate as well. DrawBridge dynamically filters out most of the home page while leaving the search bar and navigation still usable.
Unpruned
Pruned
Unpruned
Pruned
Allowed
Blocked
Blocking
Dynamic filtering also means knowing the difference between generally harmless categories (like automotive parts & accessories) and questionable categories (like Movies/Visual Media).
How is content rated?
At its core, DrawBridge classifies text into categories. But what kind of categories? And what do those categories represent? DrawBridge uses a rating system to depict the tone of a category and represent it visually.
But what kind of rating system? Unlike other content filters, DrawBridge does not rate content by who it is appropriate for - as in Everyone / Teens / Adults - instead representing where it is appropriate. The rating names are drawn from the concept of particulate filtering - how fine or coarse is the filter mesh that would permit the content to get through.
A key assumption that the Internet is most frequently is being used in a workplace context, facilitating the everyday tasks of research, transactions, and commerce. Usage reports are colorized according to the Category Ratings of the content that was accessed.
Below is a list of rating definitions that DrawBridge uses to filter all content. Just like a physical particulate filter, the goal is that appropriate content will pass through untouched while objectionable content gets removed or blocked by the filter.
We realize some organizations and businesses need access to content that is outside of the usual filtering guidelines. That is why we have designed DrawBridge with powerful flexibility and customization features to meet your specific filtering needs.
Certain inappropriate categories will always be blocked, and cannot be allowed.
Customized Reporting
Want a bird's eye view?
Create a report layout that only contains the Graphs and Genres sections.
Want lots of detail?
Create a report layout that contains
Domain Name sections.
Powerful Technology
DrawBridge can be installed in one of two ways.
First, DrawBridge is a Linux-based firewall installed physically at the first link of the chain in your network, between the modem and the switch. All traffic from your network flows through this gateway, meaning that no software or configuration is required on the computers or devices on your local network before they are filtered. This effectively filters the internet service you purchase from your provider, before it reaches your devices.