New Filter (June 2010)

[Ric_]

I had a discussion earlier with Martin Quinn and he asked me for further information regarding the issues that I am experiencing. I suggest others do the same so that things can be sorted out quickly. As far as the Westfield Centre are concerned, July 1st is still the date for local filtering control and there's details available at Filtering : Filtering FAQs - at the bottom of the page are the default filtering categories. The decision of which categories to be blocked was made at a 'high level'.

[dgsmith]

I see there are 3 different levels (primary, secondary and school staff) but how do staff use the staff one? We all use the standard proxy.lancsngfl proxy but how does the filtering differentiate between students and staff? This is what I don't understand..

Nice to hear Westfield are still saying it's on for July 1st.. we'll see nearer the time. Only just noticed that heads need to give approval first though!

[Geoff]

I would suspect the difference between staff and the other two levels depend on if the request is coming from the schools 'Admin' or 'Curriculum' IP range.

[dgsmith]

Well if that's the case it wouldn't make much difference then as our admin side is unfiltered anyway (with the exception of what I assume are "core" categories)..

[SimpleSi]

Well the devil is in the detail
if this

Categories that are both ticked and greyed-out form part of the ‘Core Categories’. These categories are blocked centrally and CANNOT be amended1.

means we can't get them unblocked after July 1st and since it includes a category called "Criminal Skills" (which some resources on the lancsngfl are falling into) then we are still going to be stuffed

regards

Simon

[SimpleSi]

and

The decision of which categories to be blocked was made at a 'high level'.

By someone who would never even consider it necessary to talk to the end-users because they are so far up in the stratosphere they can't see or hear us

(And wouldn't want to )

Simon

[SimpleSi]

One of my schools runs a NAS Open-E fileserver and something's gone wrong with it (I didn't install it so know little about it).

The site support forum is blocked under Substance Abuse.!!!

So I'm going to have to use my phone to try and find out info to let TEACHERS AND PUPILS access their work

Simon

[buzzard]

I'd be intrested in how they differentiate between staff and the sec/pri catergories, we run just on the curric range as a merged network, so staff need that level of access, why can't we have an open connetin then just use the smoothwall vbox we bought to do the in house filtering. I do wonder sometimes if these cost savings could be made 'elsewhere'

[Arcath]

I'd be intrested in how they differentiate between staff and the sec/pri catergories, we run just on the curric range as a merged network, so staff need that level of access, why can't we have an open connetin then just use the smoothwall vbox we bought to do the in house filtering. I do wonder sometimes if these cost savings could be made 'elsewhere'

Telling the difference between secondary/primary schools is "easy" your curriculum range is unique to your school, so id assume that the filtering changes depending on IP.

As for staff/pupils I have no idea, as without authentication its a very bad idea. I would assume that the admin networks are on the staff filtering level.

One of my schools runs a NAS Open-E fileserver and something's gone wrong with it (I didn't install it so know little about it).

The site support forum is blocked under Substance Abuse.!!!

So I'm going to have to use my phone to try and find out info to let TEACHERS AND PUPILS access their work

The westfield have asked that everything be logged, log it against that school and it should get fixed.

Our company website was blocked as "Proxy Anonymizer", which is obviously wrong once we contacted the westfield it took a day to get unblocked.

Net Sweeper seems much stabler today I actually managed to go the whole morning without seeing it once (apart from the HOST IS IP message but to be fair I did get the IP range wrong in the url).

[Ric_]

Net Sweeper seems much stabler today I actually managed to go the whole morning without seeing it once (apart from the HOST IS IP message but to be fair I did get the IP range wrong in the url).

I got it insteafd I think... a teacher asked me to go onto e-marker.org.uk or something but the address doesn't exist (it's e-marker.org) yet NetSweeper insisted on scanning it fo about a minute... what was it scanning, there was nothing there!!!???!!!

[Arcath]

I got it insteafd I think... a teacher asked me to go onto e-marker.org.uk or something but the address doesn't exist (it's e-marker.org) yet NetSweeper insisted on scanning it fo about a minute... what was it scanning, there was nothing there!!!???!!!

I have found that when you do encounter it its much quicker to just press back and re-press the link than it is to wait for it to scan (the scanning page obviously waits a while before sending you over). Plus if the scanner forwarded you to a page that didnt exist you would see the scanner page whilst your browser did all it can before saying unable to connect.

[SimpleSi]

Well now that the dust has settled, I finding out 2 things

1. Research (pupil and teacher) using google is a bit down due to the way that netsweeper can end up blocking previously whitelisted sites but maybe 10-30% less useful than before - shame but not end of world.

2. A lot of technical resources are blocked as they are categorised as web chat or criminal skills and time taken to get these unblocked takes too long/isn't allowed

So, if we get control (and we'll find out what getting control reallys means!) of our filtering next Thursday, life might be OK again in the 1st Foot and Mouth (Technican) Division

What do others think now things have stabilised and the Internet has worked for 5 days in a row?

regards

Simon

[GrumbleDook]

Apparently my blog is categorised as a proxy anonymizer. Might have to ring up on monday and shout loudly ...

[Arcath]

Apparently my blog is categorised as a proxy anonymizer. Might have to ring up on monday and shout loudly ...

i doubt they'd put it on the whitelist. Mine has nothing wrong on it, some ruby code and html/css stuff aswell as some linux stuff. I was expecting "Criminal Skills" to popup but no apparently all blogs are blocked.

[SimpleSi]

My own Web 0.001 manual html site (using frames of course ) is not blocked

Must be too simple for the filter

www.siwalters.net


Simon