The Internet as a Talisman – SQUID 3.5.24 + 4.0.18 Released

The Internet as a Talisman
SQUID 3.5.24 + 4.0.18 Released


Some have more and others have less meaning for things in their lives and specifically for objects and to objectives. Most of the kids I have seen in my life have something embedded into them but not every eye can see the same things. Depends on the background and nature of the person he or she can see beyond the flesh and blood.
There is some part of it in the form of genetic material but I and many others believe it’s not the only thing. Every kid has it’s own embedded and unreplaceable soul. We have the option to show some reflection of a fraction from our soul to others either by plain text or by some Talisman, there is meaning in things. Even the most notorious researchers cannot deny that we all have some “meta” things embedded into us which the genome cannot touch. In a similar way to programming languages we can operate on the lower or the higher levels of this “meta” world.

“What will I choose to show for all in my piece of heaven?”
Is a question which everybody should ask themselves to my opinion.
Some decide to use their own body to show things in a form of a tattoo but it’s a much inferior form compared to many others. The basic level is with what exists already like the food you can serve: junk or nutritious. For some there is a conflict between these two choices but it’s a fact you can serve both non-junk and nutritious. A demonstration of what is considered honesty might not look the same as a shiny tattoo but it has much more warmth embedded into it. It will also affect much more than a single image or picture.

Today we have all kinds of tools to demonstrate an idea but still all of these cannot be compared to a living creature. I cannot pin point the exact difference but it’s there.

The Internet can be used as one of your own Talismans in your tiny piece of heaven. The issue with this compared to many more static and defined things is that there is an illusion that the Internet is composed of static things. For example “google will always be there” was a saying a friend of mine told me. The issue is that my tiny monitoring daemon shows from time to time that google and couple of google systems were down for a while. So the Internet is not that static. It has some “endpoint” which some humans operates.


When we open this tiny Router box that connects us to the Internet we will probably won’t find the exact reason for some site to be down. But, what box will we choose to put there at the edge of the house? What box will we choose to represent the Internet in our Heaven? Will it be a piece of junk which barely pumps the bits or will we use a top notch one?

It’s a simple question which we need to consider. For most of the users that question is being relayed to the sales man and he makes some of the choice much simpler for us. But, for the more technical(techy) person the answer is much more complicated. The simple person will want content filtering and OpenDNS or Symantec DNS systems will be good enough. In the other hand for the technical person which knows what’s inside the box, in some level the choice would be much more complicated. And it cannot really be relayed to the average sales man. Then the question might arise: “Maybe I will put together my own self compiled router and filtering system?” some might be able to make it past some level of the task, but eventually compared to a team of developers, what level of depth of this task will a single person mind would be able to surpass?
And to make some sense into the question: Would a single mind be able to compose a Talisman strong enough to be able to surpass the power of so many others out there on the Internet? Will a single person mind be able to make it so Internet surfing\browsing be smarter then viruses, malware, porn and many other things which most sane persons will not want to be affected by?

Indeed, it all starts with education but it also stats with a single box which exists now in so many homes, a PC that is connected to the Internet through a router. And do not think that I have some grudge against Facebook or YouTube or China but as much as I want to tell little kids how great is the experience of a marriage bond I would still block them from irrelevant details of this bond. It’s a part of a wisdom that I was granted  me freely without any form of payment.

Discretion is a wisdom and every Talisman has it’s own “Real” value, and yet maybe the sales man will tell you stories about the benefits about the product, but, eventually what you decide to buy is either the story of one sales man or another. This is since you cannot disconnect yourself from the World or the Internet. We need others which resides on the other side of this World Wide Web.


I had the chance to sit with some of the top notch developers in the content filtering world and when you ask them about their creations these do not even scratch their ideal solution. But yet so many enjoy their work so much. For the end-user, which doesn’t understand the complexity of the task, the “simple” box that the developer didn’t liked much might be the best choice of all.

Squid-Cache is one of these creations which are open to the public and can get criticized but yet to be replaced by other solutions for years. But why? Because it’s free? Because it’s Open-Source?
The answer is very simple: The developers behind the code.

The developers are the Brand!!
Like a chef they work on every release to prepare the next recipe of a Talisman which contains lots of goodness embedded into it.

Will it work for you?
There is an option that it will not fit your needs!!!

So what should I do?
Should I choose Squid-Cache or another product?
The answer to this question can be answered by a trial and error. Like a date, we put our efforts and try to see  the good in the other side of the contact.
Choose your Talisman: a 80’s compared to a 21’th century
I can only say that if you are looking for a ready to use off the shelf product Squid is not for you!
(Free Hints for research, try: ClearOSNethServer, SmoothWall, ZeroShell, Zentyal, UntangleEndian, pfSense, OpenSense )

Squid-Cache is one of a kind, a HardCore part of the web!
It’s the Software which will open your mind to a whole new HTTP world you have yet to see in the past.

All The Bests,
Eliezer Croitoru

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