Best Practice: Filtering for Translation Websites

What is a “translation” website?

Translation websites are used to translate text from one language to another. Typically these sites translate and proxy webpages (URLs) without regard to any blocking policies that might be in place. Admittedly, some of the content on the translated pages is not downloaded; however, there can be enough adult material presented to make the results inappropriate for children.

How does Lightspeed Systems categorize translation websites?

If a translation site’s architecture may not honor filtering restrictions, the site poses a security risk. These types of translation sites are categorized as Security.translators. While their intended use is not to proxy traffic and bypass filtering, their architecture allows for this type of behavior.

Security.translators website examples:
translate.google.com
microsofttranslator.com
bing.com/translate

Of course a large number of legitimate translation sites exist, as well as text-only translation sites, that provide translation services while respecting filtering restrictions. These types of translation sites are categorized as Education and are safe to use in schools.

Education website examples:
translation.babylon.com
translate.reference.com

Note: We periodically re-evaluate and re-categorize these websites as necessary.

What is Lightspeed Systems’ best practice when handling translation websites?

To allow for continued use of translation websites while still maintaining appropriate content filtering, Lightspeed recommends redirecting traffic from insecure translation sites to known-good sites. This can be accomplished using the Redirect URL option as detailed below. Note that this solution can be applied to the entire Security.translators category or to a Local Category created for insecure translation sites.

Before You Begin…

First things first. Determine which translation website best suits the needs of your organization’s users and then find out if it’s categorized as Security.translators or Education. You can look it up in one of two ways:

• Lightspeed Systems’ public database at http://archive.lightspeedsystems.com
• Your Rocket’s local database under Web Filter, then Categorized Sites

Note that changes to your local database are not reflected on the public database, archive.lightspeedsystems.com.

In the example below, we will be using an Education-categorized website, translate.reference.com, as our safe translation site.

Method 1: Redirect the entire Security.translators category to a safe translation site

This method will ensure that users arrive at your specified safe translation website every time they attempt to access a translation website that Lightspeed Systems considers a security risk.

• Log into the Rocket web administration interface.
• Open the Web Filter tab.
• Select Categories under the Database section.
• Click the + Add Redirected Category button on the right.
• Select Security.translators from the Category list.
• Type the URL of the safe translation website into the Redirect URL field.
• Click Save.

Method 2: Create a custom category for insecure translation sites

If you prefer to create and maintain a list of translation sites yourself, use this method.

First, create the custom category.

• Log into the Rocket web administration interface.
• Open the Web Filter tab.
• Select Categories under the Database section.
• Click the + Add Local Category button in the upper right corner.
• Give the new, local category a Name and Description.
• Type the URL of the safe translation website into the Redirect URL field.
• Select the Set default behavior to block option.

Next, add sites to your new custom category.

• Click Categorized Sites under the Database section.
• Individually search for each translation website you would like to redirect to the safe translation site.
  • If the domain is categorized as Security.translators, click on the domain name to change the category.
  • Select the name of the Local Category you just created (e.g. “Blocked Translation Sites”).

• Click Save.

Repeat this process until you have added all sites you want to redirect.

Note: If certain Rule Sets should be allowed to access these sites, you will need to allow access to the new Local Category within each of those Rule Sets.