Which sites to block?

[silver]

Still trying to sort out this network -noticed no sites are blocked - in other places I have worked Youtube is usually blocked, which I understand, and hotmail. Why is hotmail blocked? Which other sites should be blocked generally speaking, and why?

[Tamarside]

We have a 10 Mbps line, accelerated by using ISA 2006, but when shared amongst some 600 concurrant users it really isn't much at all.

 

As a result, I try to filter out as many ad servers as possible as a starting point - no sense on wasting precious bandwidth on ads!

 

We filter out several thousand flash game sites as a) they consume bandwidth, b) have precious little educational value and c) is one less distraction for students once filtered out.

When we stumble across them we filter out any tasteless sites, as well as the usual suspects, i.e. porn, violence, etc.

We also have a long but growing list of proxy bypass sites that we filter out, while chatrooms and forums are a no-no (unless there is clear evidence that it is actively and effectively policed).

 

And that is before we get to the growing list of individual sites banned whenever any of our teachers ask us to do so.

 

We also block streaming media, music download sites, p2p traffic and sites, and software download sites (we feel we already provide all the software staff and students need).

 

Once all of the above is out of the way there remains an almost endless list of web sites fully accessible to staff and students. Obviously students' access right are filtered more than staff members.

 

[Edit:] We don't block Hotmail.

Edited January 12, 2009 by Tamarside

[AngryITGuy]

Hotmail is proably blocked as its just a breeding ground for spyware, viruses and spam.

 

We block is here to as well as all other webmail. The only email available here is the school exchange and the LEA provided email.

 

We also block for obvious reasons sites with adult content, violent content, tastless content, peer2peer sites and proxies.

 

Other sites blocked here are auction sites, software and music download sites, gaming sites (although these are available before, after school and during break and lunch), webchat sites, streaming media and forums to name a few.

 

For a list of sites to block you might want to try URLBlackList.com you can download a blacklist of sites which should be a good starting pointfor you.

[mikeymike]

we block all email sites for students and only have a handful available for staff.

youtube is a def no no, but recently staff have been aloud to access it but how long that will be i dont know as we all know they leave accounts open for the little sweeties to play with.

[Sylv3r]

We currently allow all webmail sites from within school but after rolling out Zimbra this week to all of our students - we will gradually block all access to third party webmail.

 

Other areas we block including, porn, games, mobile phones sites, time wasting etc.

[pagelad]

All social networking sites,

 

Bebo, Myspace, Facebook etc

 

Can find some dodgy dodgy things and people on there