[OPEN] Bug/Error: Forums now blocked by LEA

[sidewinder]

Just to let everyone know, since the move to vbulletin, the forums are now blocked by the West berks Lea with websense, which may be the case with other lea's too.
So unless they agree to unblock it on the admin network I probably wont be around here anymore.
Posting this from my phone so excuse the huge paragraphs!

[Gatt]

Still ok here in Salford's LEA...

[sidewinder]

Right I might have been a bit over dramatic before I was just severely pissed off

It seems anything with vBulletin is automatically blocked with websense
The stupid thing is that the new forum worked for half hour or so this morning, then was suddenly blocked

Support call to the LEA was of no help at all...they just say its correctly categorised as a forum - despite me telling them its worked fine for the last 18 months when it was on the old software (phpbb?)

Maybe our LEA is more strict than others...hopefully no-one else has this problem with the forum change

I now have to use a virtual machine with an admin IP address (since we have an ISA server with a single external address which is a curriculum one) but at least I can get on

[Geoff]

ZeroHour might be able to do some funky url rewriting/redirect to avoid the filter for you. However I'd like to point out that your LEA support is brain damaged if it thinks that a blanket block on all forums is a good idea.

[russdev]

We will work on it while at bett to see if can get it unblocked.

Russ

[DaveP]

Still accessible here through HGfl [Hertfordshire Grid for Learning]

[localzuk]

Do you not have the ability to get individual sites unblocked?

[jcollings]

Originally Posted by sidewinder

Right I might have been a bit over dramatic before I was just severely pissed off

It seems anything with vBulletin is automatically blocked with websense
The stupid thing is that the new forum worked for half hour or so this morning, then was suddenly blocked

Support call to the LEA was of no help at all...they just say its correctly categorised as a forum - despite me telling them its worked fine for the last 18 months when it was on the old software (phpbb?)

Maybe our LEA is more strict than others...hopefully no-one else has this problem with the forum change

I now have to use a virtual machine with an admin IP address (since we have an ISA server with a single external address which is a curriculum one) but at least I can get on

Do you not have the facility to have an IP address unfiltered? We have 2 IP's that have no filtering whatsoever for myself and my senior tech?

[GrumbleDook]

Don't worry ... we now have trouble downloading items from the SSAT, Teachernet.gov.uk and Becta sites as a number of links were put up using tinyurl .. now catagorised as a Proxy Anonymiser.

[sidewinder]

Originally Posted by localzuk

Do you not have the ability to get individual sites unblocked?

Apparantly not, we just get a reply back saying its blocked as part of our policy. It used to be possible but since they upgraded the filter and support system (and perhaps staff?) its almost a waste of time even asking them, whatever reason you give, they won't unblock a single site

jcollings - sort of, we can have categories such as forums and software downloads allowed on certain addresses, but nowhere near unfiltered access

[tom_newton]

I suppose if you find someone who knows about the internal meanderings of web filters, this one would be easy to work around... i'm 99% sure websense use the same anti-forum jiggerypokery as we do.... see you at BETT

[ZeroHour]

I will look into writing a rewrite rule to get around the forum naming as well as chat naming issues.

[Grommit]

Originally Posted by sidewinder

Apparantly not, we just get a reply back saying its blocked as part of our policy. It used to be possible but since they upgraded the filter and support system (and perhaps staff?) its almost a waste of time even asking them, whatever reason you give, they won't unblock a single site

jcollings - sort of, we can have categories such as forums and software downloads allowed on certain addresses, but nowhere near unfiltered access

Sorry mate... but phone them up say that Edugeek is a work related tool..and TELL them to add the site to the local allow list ...

This will still allow the LEA to keep to policy...and you'll have access to a Technician Tool

[sidewinder]

Originally Posted by Grommit

Sorry mate... but phone them up say that Edugeek is a work related tool..and TELL them to add the site to the local allow list ...

This will still allow the LEA to keep to policy...and you'll have access to a Technician Tool

Believe me, Ive tried (not with edugeek but other IT forums I used), but they refuse to categorise by sensible criteria like that, its a blanket ban on all forums whatever their content

Asked them just now about giving us a staff policy that would be unrestricted apart from adult material etc, but they say they cant do it. I know for a fact they at least used to be able to, because they used to have a copy of their policies available for download, and there was an optional one that allowed everything

ZeroHour - nice one, thanks. I know a lot of forums would just say 'tough' so I appreciate you trying to help greatly

[GrumbleDook]

Do they block the RM Communities? Technet? Apple Discussion Boards?

As a registered Educational Supplier of advice and consultancy (check the Becta lists folks) we can request that they do not block us and allow others.

PM me and I will give them a ring tomorrow from BETT.