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points by HNreply99 2 days ago | 0 comments

What legitimate reason is there for stuff like that? Workspaces should not be enforcing policies like that - trust your workers - and parental nonsense shouldn't be a goal of an ethical business.

[–] Nition 2 days ago

It can be useful at home for parents with kids as well. A decent number of people use Pi-hole, NextDNS, or some other DNS blocker service.

Either way, ultimately the result of not offering the option will more likely be getting blocked entirely, than workers being freed from the shackles of SafeSearch.

[–] gonzalohm 2 days ago

What's even the point of DNS based safe search? Anyone can change their DNS and use DNS over https, how does DNS safe search work in that instance?

Also blocking the search is pretty weird, what prevents me of typing the URL directly?

[–] selcuka 2 days ago

> Anyone can change their DNS and use DNS over https

Not if the machine is locked down. Blocking all search engines is not a feasible approach, though, hence the Safe Search mechanism.

> Also blocking the search is pretty weird, what prevents me of typing the URL directly?

That URL can be blocked at the router level, but one can still see cached search engine images when safe search is off.

[–] jdiff 2 days ago

Enterprise and school devices often configure browsers to not allow modifying DoH settings and configure the OS to not accept unapproved programs like sideloaded browsers that may not obey that device policy.

[–] usewik 2 days ago

It can be used to keep bad content away from kids. DNS over TLS can be blocked on the network router / firewall and DNS safe search enforced by forwarding lookups to something like Adguard

[–] phrotoma 1 day ago

There are at least a few 8 year olds who have yet to learn what DNS is.

[–] komali2 2 days ago

> What legitimate reason is there for stuff like that? Workspaces should not be enforcing policies like that - trust your workers

It's not just porn, it could be a way to prevent successful phishing through employees filling out a malicious form or whatever.

"Trust your workers" is bad infosec.

[–] wolvoleo 2 days ago

Yeah people are dumb if they can get an Amazon gift card or a job offer, see what happened to Binance.

But blocking alternative search engines and AI engines goes a bit far IMO especially if they dont use training. Especially if you're just afraid they will see a nipple on a search engine. That's ridiculous.

[–] rbits 2 days ago

For schools

[–] nedt 2 days ago

> trust your workers

Some companies just know their workers, i.e. if you have a bigger company you will have some idiots. We heard things like "you shouldn't be paying an escort with your company credit card" and the reason was because it was done, multiple times.

[–] balex 2 days ago

Ah, the good old "you don't need privacy if you have nothing to hide" argument.

[–] profdevloper 2 days ago

Check this guy's hard drive

[–] HNreply99 2 days ago

That isn't an acceptable way to respond to others.