Blocking sites from school.

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Socoder -> Off Topic -> Blocking sites from school.
Wed, 13 Dec 2006, 20:01
Stealth	My school recently invested $4,000 dollars in a new router where they can block websites. What there interested in is blocking sites like MySpace, Xanga, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Me being the clever person that I am sometimes bypassed it by looking up the IP to a website and going threw the system that way. Showed the tech kid at our school and he got upset and told me not to show anyone else. Do you think it was worth it for my school to invest $4,000 dollars to block these sites? I guess that shows how serous some schools are about blocking these sites. What do you think? -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Wed, 13 Dec 2006, 20:04
garand	My school does the same thing but I dont think that they bought a router specially for it. THey use Websense i think. But i just use proxy sites and ip's to get to blocked sites.
Wed, 13 Dec 2006, 20:29
Yayyak	Our school and a few others around near us use GetBusi, a form of Squid. I believe it's best not to bother blocking sites. If a student chooses to go to a site, let them suffer. It's not the school's responsibility to bring up the kids so sheltered they don't know yes from no. I'm obviously a libertarian. Just my 2c.
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 02:52
Jayenkai	When I was at college, they solved the issue rather easily. No Internet. That did the job! But to spend $4,000, just to stop kids from watching YouTube. Geeze, that's a bit extreme isn't it? -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 02:55
JL235	The old school website blocking scam. I'm so glad to be above this now, in a system where the public PCs have no filters, and I am allowed both wired and wireless connection to the network. Schools block websites, it's a sad fact. Your lucky your school has only just started, the other methods should work too. You can look at the sites through Google. Either cashed, translated from any language into english, or for more sophisticated website blocking systems you can translate the website into German and translate that into english.
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 04:27
svrman	I sorta have mixed feelings about this. When I was at college, I didn't have a PC at home and had to rely on the institutes's facilities but it was hell because the labs were always packed with idiots after ringtones, looking at softporn or updating their asian avenue homepage (<-social networking site) and this was going on for 80% of the time. So in that respect, I think site blocking is necessary to free up the terminals. The college did get websense eventually but still was easily bypassed by google's language tools. Spending 4k to do it on the other hand, is maybe a bit too much. I'm all for no filters like DiablosDevil said but school is school, youtube in your own time - not mine. *well actually back then, youtube didn't exist but you get my point @jay: lol. I wouldn't call that a solution... okies, back to lurking -=-=- BlitzRSS script back online!
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 04:35
MikeT	Sure its blocking sites like myspace etc but i bet its laso blocking porn/games/hate sites etc. The school does have a responsibility to provide filtering for the darker side of the internet. Look at it from their point of view - what do you think would happen if a parent found out that theier son/daughter could look at porn/hate sites whilst at school and the school didnt have reasonable measures in place to try and stop this? I think there would be uproar. The problem with web filtering is that it sometimes blocks legitimate sites for example where i work ( a college ) we have to have web filtering because our students are still classed as vulnerable young people. Its in the policy that no games can be played in the IT suites - but the filtering not only blocks game sites but also blocks sites relating to games programming - but not all of them. I guess i'm trying to say that the school is probably only trying to cover their own back due to legel reasons - not to spoil your fun -=-=- One life - live it
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 06:13
HoboBen	what do you think would happen if a parent found out that theier son/daughter could look at porn/hate sites whilst at school I'd blame the son/daughter visiting those sites! In our school you have to sign something once every year before being allowed onto the computers. I dislike censorship of any form, and Websense is a wee bit right wing too... Not only does anything even remotely interesting/useful get blocked (Linux forums, Mozilla, games programming sites, programming sites in general, Yahoo Mail, open source sites, any site on a free host at all, news websites, iMac sites, anti-M$/anti-websense/anti-internet explorer pages), but they even have categories like "Activism" where they'll ban the most gentle of slightly left-wing sites while the British Nazi(National) Party (the BNP) are left perfectly unbruised. If there's censorship, it shouldn't be controlled by big corporations (or Stalinist governments either). 4,000 for censorship is a lot, IMO. Still, I suppose that schools aren't actually required to provide Internet access anyway, so we should be lucky that they allow it and endure their rules... Although it's asking for trouble really when the only things that reliably aren't blocked are uneducational. BBC bitesize was blocked at one point. -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 06:56
MikeT	I'd blame the son/daughter visiting those sites! I wish parents round here thought that way - they blame teachers for all of their offsprings failings -=-=- One life - live it
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 07:50
JL235	I blame the students then the school in that situation. The school shouldn't give their students unsupervised access to computers. But for the majority of things, parents are to blame. My dad's a teacher and he has terrible kids who's parents do nothing to look after them.
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 09:11
hyruleknight	Linux forums, Mozilla, games programming sites, programming sites in general, Yahoo Mail, open source sites, any site on a free host at all, news websites, iMac sites, anti-M$/anti-websense/anti-internet explorer pages so every site you go to? that sucks my old school did that and my online school does that with the computers they give to students but a simple reformat take cares of that. actualy they block all sites but the school ones, even wikipedia -=-=- i like green haired girls...
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 13:30
magicman	weve got that here, but it isnt very advanced or anything, they guy sitting next to me is on myspace so that just shows how good it is, good ole proxys! and wow, $4000 just to block sites! damn! -=-=- Stuff... Yeah...
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 15:00
JL235	I also don't believe they spent the money just to be able to block websites. I expect they were simply overhauling their whole internet service, which includes restricting access.
Thu, 14 Dec 2006, 16:04
Stealth	Not fully sure. Our school is a network mess. I have seen the routers before and its like a bowl of noodles. And this new router is kept in the school vault and only school administrators can touch it. But the internet at our school gets so slow sometimes. There are two routers to split the internet to all of the buildings (about 10 buildings total). And each building has a hub to split it to all the classrooms. Each classroom gets two lines. A student line and a admin line. The admin line is for the teachers. The admin line is the only way to access PowerGrade and all the technical stuff. Plus the admin line is faster than the student line. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Fri, 15 Dec 2006, 10:37
HoboBen	But the internet at our school gets so slow sometimes. It might be safe to blame this on the amazing quantity of spyware that normally reside on school computers. -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Fri, 15 Dec 2006, 13:05
garand	I agree with hobo
Sat, 16 Dec 2006, 02:13
andrewsoltan	Our school uses the bgfl filtering system, which claims that you-tube is pornography!! Anyway, my school's (also shroom-monk's and TheMadproff's school) has a rather stupid system, which only took shroom monk half a term, to work out a way to acess peoples documents (using shortcuts). I'm told our school uses Sophos A.V. and and the head of geography claims that its so fantastic that he wouldn't use a computer without it (mentioning no names).
Sat, 16 Dec 2006, 02:34
shroom_monk	Can our head of geography even use a computer?
Sat, 16 Dec 2006, 03:58
andrewsoltan	I wonder, he has 34 computers (of which 32 are laptops) in his room (a.k.a my form room) and he doesn't know, how to use: A mac (And by that I mean, he can't shut one down (He had to ask me to do it)), paint, the complete animator (he asked a year 7 how to use it), flash, I-tunes the list goes on. He claimed he could teach the ict gsce course in 3 hrs, and to be honest, I learnt one thing, never volunteer to anything he says (especially if its got soemthing to do with ICT) as its simply a waste of your time. And TheMadProff had a bit of a "rub in" with ourr head of geogreaphy, over him knowing by far more about computing that our head of geography, and our HoG not being able to accept that fact!
Sat, 16 Dec 2006, 09:55
HoboBen	I fall asleep when my head of geography talks... I made sure not to do it for GCSE. -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Sat, 16 Dec 2006, 19:36
Scherererer	I think the bottom line is, its a school. It is supposed to be a learning environment. Although i disagree with blocking all sites, the students should be focused and looking at porn or playing games isn't necessarily appropriate for a school environment. -=-=- YouTube Twitter Computer Science Series: Logic (pt1) (part 2) (part 3) 2's Complement Mathematics: Basic Differential Calculus
Sun, 17 Dec 2006, 03:56
Yayyak	Our school gave up teaching Geography because nobody took it.
Mon, 18 Dec 2006, 18:37
Stealth	Our schools require classes like Geography. If you don't take it and pass you wont graduate. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.