Pupils 'bypassing school internet security

[eduabncs]

Actually quite a balanced article considering.

 

BBC - Newsbeat - Pupils 'bypassing school internet security'

[Michael]

It just goes to show that education can only go so far. Even if the problem was technically solved, the Government still haven't addressed the issue of what children can be exposed to at home. I consider this a much greater problem.

[maniac]

It just goes to show that education can only go so far. Even if the problem was technically solved, the Government still haven't addressed the issue of what children can be exposed to at home. I consider this a much greater problem.

 

Sorry, much as I hate to start a debate that's not really down to the government, that's down to the parents.

[Michael]

I agree parenting should go a long way, but then again horror stories with social networking websites and chat rooms are certainly on the rise statistically. Although you have the likes of OpenDNS which allows some filtering, as far as I am aware pretty much every ISP in the UK doesn't offer a similar service (something more mainstream) to customers. Most people are not computer experts.

[Guest theeldergeek]

We should be forcing ISP's and BT to insure the parenting button can be enabled by default.

 

100% agree, with the option to turn it off on application.

[llawwehttam]

But then again it should be the parents responsibility how they protect their children. If the government get the idea that they can filter everybody's Internet then we will have the same situation as Australia are having at the moment.

I can understand some sites being blocked but I think it would be a better idea to pretend that they don't exist rather than BLOCKING them.

 

When my dad first got us the interwebs I could bypass AOL's child safety feature after about a week.

It is kinda pointless unless parents enforce it and my dad still can't use the computer properly.

 

I can understand school's filtering their Internet obviously and if the proper measures are taken then it should be almost impossible for kids to bypass the filtering in school, ie group policy stopping exe execution to stop usb proxies etc.

 

Not quite sure how you can be in control of how your ISP filters your interenet. Do you mean with software installed on the PC, because I've never installed any ISP software on any of my machines and i've never come across ISP software for linux.

Edited December 24, 2009 by llawwehttam

[Dos_Box]

We were asked a couple of weeks back to see if we had anything to add, and we put them in the direction of Tom Newton and a couple of others. All we could have possibly added was something along the lines of 'Well, we do our best', and this seem a bit weak given the article contents.

[tom_newton]

I contacted the guy, but he did not seem interested

 

FWIW, I have some considerable form for telling journos not to blame school IT folks. Perhaps they don't like me because I don't scaremonger enough?

[m25man]

Obviously Mr Mackenzie has been taking a few lessons from some of his peers over at Revision3

Stuff like this is prolific on the web and watched by our 9-18 yr olds on a daily basis, is it any wonder that they find the need to experiment?

 

Hardly a revelation!

 

It's a game of cat n mouse always has been always will be, if nothing else it keeps Network Managers on their toes or at least it should do!

[gaz350]

Even the best filtering is useless, at the last count we had 20 students with iPhone and another 10 with blackberries filter those while the little darlings are at school! Wonder how many kids will get them at Xmas. Soon we'll be at 10% of students with unfiltered access I bet.

[Maz]

Even the best filtering is useless, at the last count we had 20 students with iPhone and another 10 with blackberries filter those while the little darlings are at school! Wonder how many kids will get them at Xmas. Soon we'll be at 10% of students with unfiltered access I bet.

 

But surely we can block 3G signals too? We have to be able to monitor them as well? Even though they are nothing to do with us, and are a mix of the phone companies / parents job to do that.

 

Either that, or give them the key to the wireless - which is alot faster, but less secure, and filtered. Or as opposed to giving them the key, make it Open connection so everyone who lives nearby can access the 'majority' of the net that they can.

 

Pupils will only get smarter, its called evolution - its the job of the Network Manager / Technicians to be up to speed with these techniques and troubleshooting ways that they can be counter attacked.

[mossj]

Out of interest has anyone got a guide for parents to install filtering at home?

[llawwehttam]

Out of interest has anyone got a guide for parents to install filtering at home?

 

Personally I would set up a home proxy server running dansguardian.

 

Alternatively if you only use the firefox browser the WOT 'web of trust' and foxfilter add-ons are good if you can get rid of the disable button.

 

Many ISP's do software with a parental filter mode option and I think some anti-viruses can do something similar.

 

I haven't got a guide myself but I'm sure you could find one on the Internet for any of these methods.

 

EDIT: I have looked around and found these links for filtering software for windows:

 

http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

http://www.allegrosurf.com/

Edited December 25, 2009 by llawwehttam

[_Bat_]

Personally I would set up a home proxy server running dansguardian.

 

Me too. A network filter is not perfect (as the article clearly points out) but it's a lot better than having a single local filter that kids can work around with knoppix plus a lot of kids have all kinds of wifi enabled devices at home. However, as soon as you mention the words 'network filter' to most parents after they ask your advice, they switch off. For most of them, they have no clue what I'm talking about beyond that point and certainly aren't going to be able to set it up, no matter how good a guide was produced. I had some long discussions about this issue on a non-technical forum. They will always go for the easiest option.

[m25man]

They will always go for the easiest option.

 

I disagree, the majority are only interested in the zero cost option!

The kids are far smarter than many network managers, as for the parents the closest many come to the Internet is paying the bill!

Unfortunately the ignorance of the many combined with the actions of the few will probably end up with the nanny state forcing us all to have state filtered connections!

[dhicks]

However, as soon as you mention the words 'network filter' to most parents after they ask your advice, they switch off.

 

Therefore there's a possible market for a plug-it-in-and-it-just-works home network firewall / filter / file server device, with up-to-date filtering provided by a cloud-based system. A simple plug-in replacement for the home broadband router would be the way to go: just add a 2.5" harddrive for shared storage, maybe the ability to act as a print server, and a proxy that sends any traffic to a cloud-based filtering service. What might be nice is for the hardware to be provided through the school and use the same filtering settings so you could be assured your home filter and the school filter filtered the same things.

 

--

David Hicks

[john]

Netgear already do make one, it has Trend Micro software on some of themm I've never tried it out, but they have one and its a couple of clicks and as its on the router it doesn't rely on the PC updating it.

 

NETGEAR Integrates Trend Micro Security Software Into Its Routers Product Line is an article from a while ago when they first started doing it So its a step in the right direction, also don't the BT Home Hubs have something in them?

[chrisredfield93]

hmm i know this might be a good topic but I thought schools connect to the JANET network, and well for school the ISP should be also keeping an eye on sites that should definite be blocked in schools since like illegal file sharing, yes i know it prevent companies such as websence making money but it a serious issue that should be dealt with because we know that isn't anything academic. I also assume every school has a Fixed IP-address, i know sites can go up and down loads of times but surely they can provide blacklist and then review because if a site is wrong it don't take 5min to say is this suitable or not.

 

This is my opuion but it also cut down the illegal activities at home yes i know also ISP can lose customers if other ISPs do this but it cut down the illegal activites, im not here saying we should do the great firewall of china here and yes i know people will always attempt to find ways round it

[GrumbleDook]

1 - All schools connected via the NEN have filtering in place. The minimum level is the IWF blacklist but pretty much all RBCs (can't think of an exception atm) will have been through, or are due to re-apply for, Becta accreditation for the filtering solution.

 

2 - Becta Accredited filtering levels are good if you want to work in a whitelist situation. You get the sites you want to use and then add them to a whitelist that works alongside the Becta level. This means that all sites are either OK as the becta accredited filters have a good hit rate of capturing inappropriate stuff or the site has been checked by a member of staff at the school / LA / RBC. However, this is both time consuming and is unrealistic to be used in most schools.

 

3 - Most RBCs will give a certain amount of flexibility about filtering levels. NB most of my experience with this is via EMBC but I am aware of how most other RBCs are working ... and it is all pretty similar. It is usually the choice of the LA though as to exactly how much choice is given to schools ... and it may seem harsh to say it but some schools neither have the staff nor the understanding to manage it properly. I would not expect a small primary with IT support in only once a half-term to be constantly updating whitelists ... it is a matter of compromise and risk management.

 

4 - Technology is not the answer. I have blogged about this before and ranted on camera at events before. Technology is a tool that can be used int eh solution but in the same way we need parents to be more active at home we also need to provide more options for classroom management to take control of this.

 

5 - Blocking things is not the answer - education is ... and the closer you get to giving students more freedom of choice the more you have to impress on the the responsibility they have with that choice, and the consequences should they abuse it. Hey ... isn't that how society is based ... by all means be able to by kitchen knives in the supermarket but if you carry them around then here are the consequences! It applies to so much more that just internet usage!

 

I was asked for comments too (and passed them towards Tom too ... a tad disappointed they didn't take an interest in what you had to say, Tom) but I am also working on some guidance at the moment for local schools and though it would be best to wait for that to go out instead.

 

Out of interest would people like to see a guide for locking things down with the different types of networks for things like external USB drives running browsers, the ability to change proxy settings in IE, locking down RM / CSE / Classlink systems to prevent changes? I know HTTPS is a major issue with some of this now ... with a growing number of proxies using authorative certificates rather than server generated ones/