Reading, UK, 10 February 2014 – Online content filters are frequently falling short of demands, with 80 per cent letting inappropriate content though1. Packet processing and infrastructure expert, Adax, is today partnering with communications and networking specialist, Agata Solutions, to launch an intelligent high-performance content filter.
Blocking harmful content has become a major agenda for the UK Government, which has pushed through new laws to make content filtering a default for all ISPs. However, implementing filters can also cause problems for legitimate sites2 . A report from Ofcom3 also found that 18 per cent of 12-15 year-olds know how to disable filters and almost half are able to delete their browsing history, showing that there is still a serious issue with accessing the internet via mobile devices.
Robin Kent, director of Adax Europe, comments: “Protecting users of the internet, wherever they are accessing the content from, has become a huge priority, with mounting pressure from the UK government to make content filters mandatory. However, the technology is often not up to the task, either letting harmful material through, or going too far and disrupting work and leisure internet activity by blocking content that is really safe.”
To combat these issues, Agata has integrated its high-performance packet processing software (AG-PPS) with Adax’s Pkt2-PCIe boards, an intelligent Cavium-based packet processing controller. The resulting product, the Agata DPI Probe (AGCIs), uses an intelligent approach to web filtering, taking into account not only specified keywords, but also relevant search terms and trends, giving it an extremely high level of reliability.
The Octeon II processor and the Adax Pkt2-PCIe board have been designed to accelerate network application performance by offloading the packet processing that previously consumed a significant proportion of host CPU, impacting performance. As a result, the application is five to six times more efficient.
Both end users and service providers are able to create and maintain filter lists, providing a flexible service for a number of circumstances. The Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) probes used by the solution are ideal for network security, monitoring and surveillance, traffic enforcement, cyber security, content management, policy enforcement, network intelligence and other DPI-based networking applications.
Yaron Natan, co-founder of Agata Solutions Ltd, comments: “We have seen a large increase in demand for web filtering solutions recently, and are excited to bring this-state-of-the-art solution to the market thanks to our partnership with Adax. A high level of performance is essential, as filters that are either too relaxed or too strict with content can be worse than useless. We have ensured that our DPI Probe is both reliable and accurate in its approach.”
The Agata DPI probe is available now and can be used to defend against denial of service attacks and traffic redirection according to the demands of specific applications and traffic modification. The solution serves as building blocks for a wide range of applications for security detection and protection.
1 – www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2430691/Children-ARENT-safe-internet-porn-Tests-reveal-80-parental-controls-FAIL-filter-explicit-content.html 25/09/2013
2 – www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25638872 07/01/2014
3 – stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/internet/internet-safety-measures.pdf 16/01/2014