[FW1] Blocking banners with a URI resource object...

[bandit@FW1-NOSPAMzcore.net (Carl E. Mankinen)]

I know some people have been looking at trying to use a URI wildcard
match with a HTTP resource object to try to block AD BANNER sites
and the like...(I know I have been...)

I have found that the FW-1 resource matching method does not really
seem to be working very well. I have seen some really strange undesirable
results like all of a sudden almost every page returns a "FW-1 Error" etc.

So I set about solving the problem a different way and I have a simple
solution that works pretty well. I just whipped out my ActiveState perl
toys and made a SIMPLE httpd server daemon that sends a very fast
and simple response back. Then I created a large HOSTS file on my
internal proxy server and pointed each of the banner ad sites at my 
quick and dirty httpd. (I have to admit this was not very hard to do
since the perl mod authors have done all the work...heh) 

All fixed. Pages load MUCH MUCH faster, no more wasted Proxy cache,
no more wasted bandwidth, etc etc...

There is one problem though....and this is going to be a problem with any
banner blocker product. I have noticed that the banner ad people like
doubleclick, real.com etc are now not only providing the banner images,
but they are also providing the image elements that are integral parts of the page. 
So if you block their site, not only does the BANNER go away, but so do
integral parts of each page. Some sites are amazing to see!

Another problem is if a banner ad is embedded like "/www.msnbc.com/ads/blahblah"
then you can't simply block msnbc.com or you lose the whole site...

Anyway, I have a LONG HOSTS file if anyone wants it, send me a line.
I would be interested in sharing with any other hosts entries you have accumulated.

Here is the perl script:
use HTTP::Daemon;
use HTTP::Status;

my $httpd = new HTTP::Daemon
   LocalAddr => '127.0.0.1',
   LocalPort => 80;

print "Banner Ad Logger at <URL:", $httpd->url, ">\n";
while (my $connx = $httpd->accept) {
 while (my $req = $connx->get_request) {
  if ($req->method eq 'GET') {
   print $req->uri;
   print "\n";
   $connx->send_status_line(RC_OK);
      $connx->close;  ## fast close
  }
 }
    $connx->close;
    undef($connx);
}









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