[implemented] Plex Home inverse filter, blacklist

Feature Suggestions
1

Hi guys

I use Plex Home for a while and i found a thing that my be useful.

An inver filter

Let me explain

When you define an account you can restrict access, lets say to an entire library or content for example PG, NC-17 or key words.

But here is the problem

Let's say that i have a library with TV Shows a lot more than 100 and i add one more but in one particular account i don't wanna this shows appear if i add a word to filter that let say (no-show) and apply that filter the problem start.

This particular user only see the user with label no-show (that's is the inverse result i wanna this show not appear in first place).

 

And that's my proposal to have the ability to create a filter so when i put in one show a condition o a word that show was exclude, why ? because right now to create the same effect i have to put a filter to 100 show instead to change only one.

 

Thnaks

2

The current filtering for exclusion is based on a white list.  Include those listed, exclude those not included.

What you are asking for is a black list filtering.  Exclude all those that contain: (example of listings here)

Currently this can't be done.  It has been requested already, but hasn't been implemented.  The response Elan was that "everyone else likes the system as is." or to that effect, even though there are other requests here for the same.  Look for "Black List" or Exclusion" in your search and vote for the feature by placing a "Like" in the first post in the topic.

Doing the current implementation to exclude say 5 movies in a mix of 1200 would require editing the 1195 movies for the include and making sure the other 5 didn't have that rating or genre or whatever.  Each movie or show or whatever requires an individual edit for everything that is to be shared.  (Unmanageable to many people...)  Obviously, this is much more difficult than editing 5 to get the results, but this is what we have.  (At least we have some control for inclusion/exclusion, as limited as it is.  It just wasn't thought out very well.)

3

Not only that but for many people using the whitelist approach it's ongoing.  If you add another 50 or 100 files (whatever) you now have to make sure they have the "whitelist" tags or they won't get shown.

With the "blacklist" approach you would only need to touch these new files if and only if they needed a flag.

That is the biggest reason why I see this not working well for many.

3 Likes
4

The current filtering for exclusion is based on a white list.  Include those listed, exclude those not included.

What you are asking for is a black list filtering.  Exclude all those that contain: (example of listings here)

Currently this can't be done.  It has been requested already, but hasn't been implemented.  The response Elan was that "everyone else likes the system as is." or to that effect, even though there are other requests here for the same.  Look for "Black List" or Exclusion" in your search and vote for the feature by placing a "Like" in the first post in the topic.

Doing the current implementation to exclude say 5 movies in a mix of 1200 would require editing the 1195 movies for the include and making sure the other 5 didn't have that rating or genre or whatever.  Each movie or show or whatever requires an individual edit for everything that is to be shared.  (Unmanageable to many people...)  Obviously, this is much more difficult than editing 5 to get the results, but this is what we have.  (At least we have some control for inclusion/exclusion, as limited as it is.  It just wasn't thought out very well.)

I understand

But forgive me, say  "everyone else likes the system as is." is not an answer , this is not an impossible request, is a simple (if not in language programming) if you like)

​Is ridiculous to edit 20000 movies to exclude 1. I have now 3751 movies + 287 B-Movies so with your approach if i wanna to exclude 1 movie i have to edit 3750 movies in an interface that not allow batch edit, because i could accept this if you say ok you have this batch edit to change all this movies to this value. But whit this interface i could spend i don't know 2 weeks ?

​Really do you think this is even practical ?

I really think this need a more serious approach at least a set of tools to support this option of White list that make sense .

thanks for your input

Regards

2 Likes
5

Not only that but for many people using the whitelist approach it's ongoing.  If you add another 50 or 100 files (whatever) you now have to make sure they have the "whitelist" tags or they won't get shown.

With the "blacklist" approach you would only need to touch these new files if and only if they needed a flag.

That is the biggest reason why I see this not working well for many.

Please read my other answer , i think this is not a valid response.

I have more than 3000 films the withe list approach is valid when you just install plea and have 10 films , but this need at least a batch tool or set of tool to do the job en seconds not in weeks

6

And by the way with this white list approach when i add a movie or a TV show i need to remember to add the flag to make visible to all the users (if the main rule is to add all for all user and just one or two to exclude with this idea you add more work when the new movie or tv show is added)

1 Like
7

You misunderstand a couple of things, I think...

First is, I'm a subscriber just as you are.  Cayars is also a subscriber and both of us have nothing to do with development.  We both tried explaining what we have now, comparing this to the desired functionality. Elan is a developer and his "official" response from another thread is the one I paraphrased above.

Second, we agree.  Black List exclusions added to the current White List exclusions makes much more sense and provides a greater amount of control of our media.  It doesn't seem that the Plex Team (developers) wants to give us that much control over our media or our hardware.  This control is either broken, not well thought out or outright missing that could provide us with the tools you, Cayars and I are discussing here.

Cayars (Carlo) and I are agreeing with you completely.  There has been discussion in other threads here for this very function, but I was singled out that it was a one-off and others wouldn't use/need it.  (For a function I actually have no immediate need for, which I find the ultimate in irony...)  :)

All we can do with the current system is provide you with the workarounds we have found.  We have only two tools to exclude specific media from sharing with specific users:

1)  Enter in the "Included" flags in the improperly labeled "exclusions" fields for the user, making sure we touch all 2800+ files affected to ensure they include these flags and that the 200 or so we don't want shared don't contain those flags.  Or

2)  Make a whole new library with the "unshared" media in it and make sure that the user we want to exclude it from doesn't have that library shared with them.

Neither are ideal, and both are much harder to maintain a large collection on.  These are the only choices we have available to us, at this time.  Now you have to figure out which you want to use, until we get the actual tools to do the job correctly.  I offered you the option to add your vote/voice to this by looking for a request for black listing on the Feature Requests forum and clicking on the green "Like" button, as this is the current method of voting.

Here are some of the existing threads already asking for something like this:

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/130476-feature-request-restrict-content-based-on-multiple-criteria/?hl=restrictions

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/129565-feature-request-option-to-exclude-labels-for-home-users/?hl=restrictions#entry777406

I'm sure there are others.  These were a couple of the first finds, and neither have a lot of votes ATM.

8

I am also not a Plex employee but I would like to add something to the discussion.  Up until Plex Home was introduced with the new restrictions, all other Plex filters used a whitelist system.  Not once had I seen a request to change this to a blacklist system.  So when Plex Home came out, to me at least, it was very easy to understand why they made it a whitelist system to match the way they have been doing things.  Now that people have gotten a hold of Plex Home, the whitelist system is no longer acceptable?  As mentioned by Elan, they are looking into this.  Elan is not only a dev, but a co-founder of Plex so if he says they are looking into it, I would take his word.   :D

There are always things that need to be worked out when something new comes out.  Just be patient and Plex Home "2.0" will hopefully have more improvements and meet your needs better.

Edit:  Just a little clarification.  Elan has not specifically address blacklist versus whitelist, but that Plex is looking to improve the way the restrictions are made and to make it easier to use.

9

It's different MovieFan.  Most filter functionality before was typically used to drill down in our media and whitelists work fine for this.  Still do.

Security is a different beast and can often be easier on an admin to say "Everything But" is allowed.

Plex is a little annoying in this way as they often don't follow industrial best practices in their designs.

1 Like
10

While not ideal, there is functionality to make a blacklist in Plex Home.  

For example, for my kids I allow them to view G, PG, and PG-13 films, there are some PG-13 films I do not want them to see though.  

For these films I just change the MPAA rating of the film to as rating that I don't share with them,  I make one called PG-13-NOT.

This way I do not have to add a label to each film I do allow them to see, but only change the MPAA rating for the ones I do not.

1 Like
11

Is there an industrial best practices?  A lot of other security things I have seen are all based on whitelist:  firewalls, script/extension blocking, and antivirus programs.  The only place I really see blacklist is for spam.

Not saying that a blacklist is not needed in certain cases or that it is not something that users might way for this.  I personally like the whitelist approach.  Imagine adding a movie to your collection then forgetting to blacklisting it from your kids account.

12

Imagine, as the OP has mentioned, having 3400 movies in their list and having to touch 3200+ of them to exclude the 200 that are inappropriate for that given user?  I think adding one movie and remembering to blacklist it is a lot easier to do than adding 20 and forgetting which you don't want to white list.  How many days to do the OP's issue at say 5 minutes each file, checking the ratings or keyword?

Anti-virus software, BTW does work on a blacklist/whitelist...  Everything suspected as a problem is black listed (quarantined) unless you go in and white list it item by item.  (This is how a spam filter works now, too.)  If you set up extensions blocking, they are black listed, globally, and white listed on a case-by-case basis.  (You might have to turn this on in your software from the start, though.)  Example of this is Transmogrify on Firefox, by default doesn't work.  It has to be enabled.  Java for specific sites also has to be enabled, generally on a site by site basis, depending on the security settings of the browser. 

The industry as a whole has generally supported black listing over white listing.  When you start talking permissions, generally the most stringent permissions are applied (black list) and then explicit permissions are granted (white list) on an individual or group level.

2 Likes
13

Is there an industrial best practices?  A lot of other security things I have seen are all based on whitelist:  firewalls, script/extension blocking, and antivirus programs.  The only place I really see blacklist is for spam.

Not saying that a blacklist is not needed in certain cases or that it is not something that users might way for this.  I personally like the whitelist approach.  Imagine adding a movie to your collection then forgetting to blacklisting it from your kids account.

Not to pick on you or anything :) but I surely hope your router has "blacklist" functionality.  

Imagine if you will if you needed to only block my IP because I'm a pain in the @ss, which we know to be the case.  Now you have to add every other IP in the world EXCEPT for mine which would be a "whitelist" or can you just block my ip using a "blacklist"?  

I'm sure your router support "blacklists".

Pretty much same thing with antivirus.  For example, typically by default they scan all folders on all drives.  Now if you need to make an exception you can tell it not to scan a particular file or folder.  This is a "blacklist" as your only telling it what not to do. You don't have to setup every folder on every drive and tell it to scan those just to skip one or two folders.  Now imagine if you needed to add another 50 folders to your system.  Are you going to remember to jump into your antivirus and setup another 50 folders for it to watch/scan?  Of course not because you only set up exceptions or "blacklists".

Of course in the above programs they aren't called blacklists but that's exactly what they are.  EXCEPT for plex land for the most part "blacklists" are the norm and "whitelists" are the contra.  However any program that takes security seriously will ALWAYS support both because they BOTH are needed.  You can't know a head of time how someone will need to setup security nor do you want to force one method on them.  You give them both options which almost always fits the needs of the users.

1 Like
14

Whitelists just don't work well with a decent size library.  While some people will go in and modify the ratings that is BAD IMHO. 

Here's the reason for me.  I would prefer to be able to view the true rating of any set of movies.

So for example when the kids are little you can pull up all the "G" movies.  You might have kids that are fine with all kinds of things but something like a clown can freak your kids out.  So it's easy to view all your "G" movies and then add a tag "not G" to any of the G movies that might bother your kids.  You then grant them access to all the G movies but put a restriction on the tag "not G". Or a tag "clown".  Maybe you share your libraries with a niece or nephew and they are fine with everything but bears.  One of my nephews would have nightmares watching Winnie the Pooh.  So I could just flag any movie with any type of bears in it and when setting up his account put a restriction on the tag "bears".

Your kids get a bit older and you want to grant them access to PG movies.  So you pull up all PG movies in your library and again look to see if there are any movies that might bother them.  Maybe something like Baywatch is a bit to "sexual" for them at that age or something like "Big Daddy" is a bit much for you kids.  Do you want your son peeing on buildings cause he saw it in a movie?  Or how about Battle: Los Angeles, as it might be a bit to violent for them right now even though it's PG-13.  So you can add a tag to those 3 movies "Not PG-13" and of course setup the libs with access to everything up to PG-13 but then set a blacklist on "Not PG-13".

Things get more interesting as you get closer to NC-17 or R ratings or when dealing with movies that don't have ratings or have a rating of NR.  My kids are now 17 and 18 but there are still a handful of movies I really don't want them to see on my system.  Bound or Secretary for example might be fine for my 18 year old daughter but not for my 17 old son. He may be fine with all type of violence and language but some of the sexual type movies are to much for him and he'll "brag" to friends he watched such and such which can be a bad reflection on his parents.  So in this case I can grant my daughter more access but for my son I want to pull the reigns back a bit on maybe a dozen movies.

So while "whitelists" are important for picking the main set of movies that should be included in their access it's really nice to be able to flag a few for whatever reason.  And the reason might be different for each person you setup as in the example of "G" movies that could contain clowns or bears.

Carlo

6 Likes
15

Ok, I get it.  Basically, half empty versus half full argument.  I guess I am more the half full and would rather explicitly say, you can access this, versus the opposite of you can access all except.  Or is that half empty ...

Anyways, I guess it's a matter of choice and that is what life is about choices.  Hopefully, whatever changes come will make it easier for both sides.

16

You misunderstand a couple of things, I think...

First is, I'm a subscriber just as you are.  Cayars is also a subscriber and both of us have nothing to do with development.  We both tried explaining what we have now, comparing this to the desired functionality. Elan is a developer and his "official" response from another thread is the one I paraphrased above.

Second, we agree.  Black List exclusions added to the current White List exclusions makes much more sense and provides a greater amount of control of our media.  It doesn't seem that the Plex Team (developers) wants to give us that much control over our media or our hardware.  This control is either broken, not well thought out or outright missing that could provide us with the tools you, Cayars and I are discussing here.

Cayars (Carlo) and I are agreeing with you completely.  There has been discussion in other threads here for this very function, but I was singled out that it was a one-off and others wouldn't use/need it.  (For a function I actually have no immediate need for, which I find the ultimate in irony...)  :)

All we can do with the current system is provide you with the workarounds we have found.  We have only two tools to exclude specific media from sharing with specific users:

1)  Enter in the "Included" flags in the improperly labeled "exclusions" fields for the user, making sure we touch all 2800+ files affected to ensure they include these flags and that the 200 or so we don't want shared don't contain those flags.  Or

2)  Make a whole new library with the "unshared" media in it and make sure that the user we want to exclude it from doesn't have that library shared with them.

Neither are ideal, and both are much harder to maintain a large collection on.  These are the only choices we have available to us, at this time.  Now you have to figure out which you want to use, until we get the actual tools to do the job correctly.  I offered you the option to add your vote/voice to this by looking for a request for black listing on the Feature Requests forum and clicking on the green "Like" button, as this is the current method of voting.

Here are some of the existing threads already asking for something like this:

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/130476-feature-request-restrict-content-based-on-multiple-criteria/?hl=restrictions

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/129565-feature-request-option-to-exclude-labels-for-home-users/?hl=restrictions#entry777406

I'm sure there are others.  These were a couple of the first finds, and neither have a lot of votes ATM.

Sorry i don't express my ideas in the right way, i understand that you are not a developer.

I just try to say that the argument of the developer is no much an argument but an excuse, this can be solve with a "not" command in a select it's have been years since i touch any peace of code but is not impossible , i just try to share my frustrations about this.

Thanks for share so much info

Regards

17

BINGO.  Some people will want to manually verify every file and grant access (or do them in groups when this functionality is there) and others will want to assume the general rating is good but maybe want to override it at times because they think the rating is a bit to "liberal" or for a reason I mentioned like the "clown" or "bear" restrict just a few files.

So while we can all probably figure out how to make use of what we have, it just might not be the "best approach" for everyone.  From a programming standpoint this shouldn't be very hard.  And those that don't want to use "blacklists" can just leave that section empty there by only use "whitelists".  Some people will only use "blacklists" if available and other like the previous messages I just described could use a combination.

I think anyone who shares with multiple people (especially family) can relate to the "clown" and "bear" things I previously mentioned.  It could be airplane crashes or car crashes that freak a kid out.  So if you share will multiple people it's nice to be able to pick the movies that fit the "category of rating" but then make certain exceptions for specific people.  I'm not sure how you could do the "clown" and "bear" thing using only whitelists.

Here's a funny one.  My daughter now 18 can't watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial as it still bothers her and this is "G".  The "alien" thing would give her nightmares for days when she was young (still bothers her) which I find amusing. Of course at her age now it's funny but not when she was younger.  Now I have fun with her and tell her "boyfriends" to try and get her to watch ET.  Of course Dad camping out under her bed as she would fall asleep saying "ET phone home" didn't help and would get her mom pi$$ed at me. :)

But that's another example of a movie my son was fine with but my daughter wasn't and it was "G".  Back then I ran Sage TV which had both whitelist and blacklist functionality so I could block this movie from her "extender". But if I were using Plex now with young kids I couldn't accomplish what I'd want to do.

18

Not to pick on you or anything :) but I surely hope your router has "blacklist" functionality.  

Imagine if you will if you needed to only block my IP because I'm a pain in the @ss, which we know to be the case.  Now you have to add every other IP in the world EXCEPT for mine which would be a "whitelist" or can you just block my ip using a "blacklist"?  

I'm sure your router support "blacklists".

Pretty much same thing with antivirus.  For example, typically by default they scan all folders on all drives.  Now if you need to make an exception you can tell it not to scan a particular file or folder.  This is a "blacklist" as your only telling it what not to do. You don't have to setup every folder on every drive and tell it to scan those just to skip one or two folders.  Now imagine if you needed to add another 50 folders to your system.  Are you going to remember to jump into your antivirus and setup another 50 folders for it to watch/scan?  Of course not because you only set up exceptions or "blacklists".

Of course in the above programs they aren't called blacklists but that's exactly what they are.  EXCEPT for plex land for the most part "blacklists" are the norm and "whitelists" are the contra.  However any program that takes security seriously will ALWAYS support both because they BOTH are needed.  You can't know a head of time how someone will need to setup security nor do you want to force one method on them.  You give them both options which almost always fits the needs of the users.

I agree a router have a black list and a firewall (not like you have in home) have both white and black list

As i say before is not complicate is just a condition in a select just that

I think a least the PMS need a tool to edit in batch mode, is impossible to edit a movie one by one

i think the "best"  :unsure: solution at this point is use a tool to edit the DB find the field for sharing and do a mass update (and i still thats is plain stupid) 

If some one in my team in my work came with an idea like this i will fired at once 

Thanks for share guys

19

BINGO.  Some people will want to manually verify every file and grant access (or do them in groups when this functionality is there) and others will want to assume the general rating is good but maybe want to override it at times because they think the rating is a bit to "liberal" or for a reason I mentioned like the "clown" or "bear" restrict just a few files.

So while we can all probably figure out how to make use of what we have, it just might not be the "best approach" for everyone.  From a programming standpoint this shouldn't be very hard.  And those that don't want to use "blacklists" can just leave that section empty there by only use "whitelists".  Some people will only use "blacklists" if available and other like the previous messages I just described could use a combination.

I think anyone who shares with multiple people (especially family) can relate to the "clown" and "bear" things I previously mentioned.  It could be airplane crashes or car crashes that freak a kid out.  So if you share will multiple people it's nice to be able to pick the movies that fit the "category of rating" but then make certain exceptions for specific people.  I'm not sure how you could do the "clown" and "bear" thing using only whitelists.

Here's a funny one.  My daughter now 18 can't watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial as it still bothers her and this is "G".  The "alien" thing would give her nightmares for days when she was young (still bothers her) which I find amusing. Of course at her age now it's funny but not when she was younger.  Now I have fun with her and tell her "boyfriends" to try and get her to watch ET.  Of course Dad camping out under her bed as she would fall asleep saying "ET phone home" didn't help and would get her mom pi$$ed at me. :)

But that's another example of a movie my son was fine with but my daughter wasn't and it was "G".  Back then I ran Sage TV which had both whitelist and blacklist functionality so I could block this movie from her "extender". But if I were using Plex now with young kids I couldn't accomplish what I'd want to do.

Yeap

My point exactly 

I have a lot of movies, TV show , concert, B-Movies , anime videos, hentai videos, movies just for children, familiar videos, photos (around 20TB of storage, do the maths) 

I have several libraries , i have the adult content in separate libraries (exclude for the kids)

But In the TV Shows i have some thats don't have subtitles or i don't wanna to share with the rest of the family make a new library separate does shows, put in other directories re scan, for a few shows... ufff is to much you may say ok is just a few, but now i have 103 TV shows divide in 3 Hard drives, any way, i will find the way

20

Ok, I get it.  Basically, half empty versus half full argument.  I guess I am more the half full and would rather explicitly say, you can access this, versus the opposite of you can access all except.  Or is that half empty ...

Anyways, I guess it's a matter of choice and that is what life is about choices.  Hopefully, whatever changes come will make it easier for both sides.

Yeah that's about right.

It’s about what you want to do with your library and how you want to share it.

Just for the sake of argument let’s assume my library has 1000 movies, and shows.

If I only want to share 5 movies out of my whole library then positive share this tags are awesome.

However if I want to share 995 movies out of my whole library then positive share tags are abysmal. (I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t feel like I have enough time in my day to take care of the important things… let alone go through and process that many tags.)

Additionally if you want to set-up sharing and not have to actively manage permissions every time you change your library and have the default action as sharing all newly added media then positive share tags are annoying.  Of course if you want to restrict a thing you add you’ll still have to add a tag if using negative do not share tagging.

Interesting note, in reading the various requests for this in the forms (there are a lot) it appears to me that this features either isn’t well explained or people just assume it uses negative do not share tagging frequently. I’ve seen a couple of examples where people tagged only the media they didn’t want to share and only find out later when oops all they were sharing was unrated director’s cuts and porn. I know I almost made this mistake, and would have if I had shared my parents log in with them without logging on as them myself to see what their library looked like.

I think the best course of action is to offer both positive only share tagged stuff, and negative do not share stuff with this tag filtering.