BBC iPlayer and the blocking of...

[iSteve]

Hello,

We have a 'cachebox' filtering appliance provided by our LEA. We use this to block unsuitable websites so that our students don't waste time playing Flash games instead of doing their work. The problem is, we cannot seem to block the BBC iPlayer with this appliance. We enter the iPlayer URL as normal to block it, but it still loads for the kids.

Is there are more cunning way I can prevent access? Can I do something with DNS that will point the iPlayer domain to our school home page, for example?

Any ideas welcome, as usual!

[DaveP]

What about a path rule in Active Directory that says that students cannot run BBC IPlayer?

This is a suggestion as I don't have it [IPlayer] installed here so I can't check the details at the moment.

[iSteve]

I'm assuming this is a Windows only suggestion? We run Mac and Win clients so I guess we'd need something more 'network' based.

[DaveP]

Not having any Macs to manage here I had not considered that as a possibility. Sorry. And yes I suspect this would only work for Windows clients [unless someone else knows otherwise...]

[andyrite]

Try blocking edgefcs.net

[iSteve]

Blocking edgefcs.net works a treat! Thanks!

[drewp]

I've been looking for a way to limit the bandwidth that iPlayer can use, looks like edgefcs.net is a good place to start.