Google/Youtube/Impero issue

[synaesthesia]

Morning,

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed a problem recently referring to Google accounts logins?

Since yesterday, all our students were having Impero close their browsers when they tried to log into their Google account, with the reason "access to youtube.com". They were just going to gmail.com or even accounts.google.com to sign in.

This didn't appear correct, so have just got off a Zoom call with Impero support who had seen this come up elsewhere recently and may be pertinent to how you block access to YouTube. It may also have an effect when filtering with other products such as Smoothwall.

I had hunted around the google login page's source to spot any reference to youtube with no luck, but Impero directed me to the Website Visited log and it showed this!

 

I'm just checking our Smoothwall now, but it might be worth a check over if you've had similar issues when limiting access to Youtube.

[synaesthesia]

Smoothwall confirms, at least for us that logging into Google now means it hits https://accounts.youtube.com/accounts/CheckConnection?pmpo=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.google.com&v=......

I'll therefore need to tweak our policies to allow the above but block the actual video site.

 

[tom_newton]

Yeah, sadly all of google's endpoints are identical - so you can find a google doc behind sheets.google.com and a google login behind accounts.youtube. It is a royal pain in the ass, but google be google.

[tom_newton]

I just had a moment's panic wondering if drive.google.com would serve youtube requests. Doesnt seem it will. Small mercies.

[timbo343]

We've had this for a while and we too saw youtube.com in the long sign in URL.

 

We hoped that www.youtube.com might block youtube.

[synaesthesia]

yeah, for now I've fallen back to a block on *youtube* in the window caption for now. Smoothwall thankfully is good enough to just handle it as a category so we can block for KS3 - I only kept it in Impero as it was easier to lift that restriction if a lesson needed it.

[tom_newton]

It would work in impero if you could put an exception in for accounts.youtube.com - dunno if that's possible in their config

[timbo343]

Thanks Tom, however www.youtube.com seems to be working for us.

[timbo343]

Tell a lie, www.youtube.com in block list is not working for us, back to the drawing board.

[timbo343]

@synaesthesia I've done a bit of testing and no doubt you have found the same out. Using the "Block List" > "Block Websites" option seems to block *youtube.com* which seems like it blocks the Google Sign in pages.

 

Blocking the term YouTube in "Block List" > "Blocked Windows" closes the browser even if a user searches Youtube in Google, which could be for legit reasons.

 

I have created an "Advanced Policy" to detect and block "youtube.com" (remove the take screen shot option from Advanced options) this doesn't work because the term is not enclosed in *. I've tried various forms of the domain youtube.com including parts like //.www.youtube.com and youtube.com/ but nothing is the perfect fit.

 

If you do get a perfect or near perfect solution, could you let me know please.

[synaesthesia]

For us at least just putting the block in for www.youtube.com has worked, and we also have *youtube* in the caption detection and that seemed to catch everything properly the last couple of lessons yesterday. It's a pain as it's one of those sites that can very often be needed at short notice, otherwise I'd have just put it in Smoothwall, but being able to allow/deny it at a moment's notice (or when someone is messing around) via Impero is a huge time saver. 

I'll be keeping a close eye on Monday anyway and will update if anything changes

[timbo343]

We tried the www.youtube.com too but it broke any sites with Youtube videos in.

 

I think the caption way might be the best course of action but will try it out Monday too.

[timbo343]

Think i've got to the bottom of it. In caption block, adding * - youtube* seems to work as this will allow users to hit Youtube but all the videos after the home page are in the format "title of the video - Youtube", so users think they are able to get to their favourite videos via youtube.com but when they click into the videos, the block is enforced.