New Filter (June 2010)

[Ric_]

The impression we all seem to be getting is that the "Artificial Intelligence Engine and URL database" (see here) is not able to handle the number of requests. It's entirely possible that this was the fault of NetSweeper telling porkies about the hardware requirements or maybe their advice was ignored.

 

The problem is that, at the moment, schools don't even have full chorts - I know where I work we are currently 300+ users less because the year 11 and sixth form are out on exam breaks.

[SimpleSi]

Well - we are full of chorts - but not very happy ones

[SimpleSi]

reported Sing Up | * today - teacher told me today that it hasn't worked properly since last Monday.

 

I was trying to do a search anf got the attached error and Westfield rang me back and said I was just unlucky to hit that particualr server as it was being reset/swapped out/swapped in.

 

I very calmly said that schools seems to be being lucky about once every 10mins.

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

Apart from the firewall and the filter not co-operating it would seem that the mina generic filtering problem we are having with sites is sites carrying adverts

 

(such as a lot of "free" primary/educational resources - that's how they make their money)

 

I wonder if someone can turn off advert checking for a few days and see if the problems go away?

 

regards

 

Simon

[Ste_Harve]

Well i've just tried to get on gamestation and games website and they're now blocked, in the category of games!! Can't wait for a few weeks/months to see how this pans out, I've had staff moaning since half term about not being able to get on some maths games sites.

 

And is anyone having probs accessing https sites? i keep getting certificate errors and when you look at cert details it says it's been issuewd by localhost.localdomain. Informed westfield and they've said that the web team are working on it. Just wondered if it was an isolated error or more widespread.

[SimpleSi]

And is anyone having probs accessing https sites?

 

Just logmein - I get asked loads of questions about trusting certificates and then it says its been redlisted.

 

I wonder if there is an outbreak of children using logmein to access their home laptops that's beyond the capabilities of local admins to block?

 

regards

 

Simon

[Arcath]

Something else that doesnt work, streaming from the BBC (Both radio and iplayer) Iplayer loads indefinately when you click play and radio says "This content doesnt appear to be working please try again later".

 

Its getting beyond a joke now, surely netsweeper would have been able to import lists from SmartFilter? youve got a long way to go before the inernet works, let alone as well as it did under smart filter. Im yet to go into a school that doesnt have NETSWEEPER written in large letters in the problems book. My can you hack out requests have gone through the roof since the swap.

 

Last week i pointed out that its a big change and that the westfield will be ironing out some bugs that appeared once they made it county wide, but now everyone is fed up, its destroying lesson plans and putting an end to research lessons. Now when i try to say that they are just working out problems teachers say "Surely they tested it first before forcing it on us all" Theres a point at which i can't be diplomatic any more and will just say county have screwed it over.

 

As for reporting things to the westfield i sent an email to the help desk a couple of days ago with a list of problems i had noticed (the github and rubygems ones i posted in here earlier) with the solution, add them to the whitelist like they where under SmartFilter. Not had any response yet, all i ask for is an automated "your reqest has been logged" then i know its been recieved.

[SimpleSi]

One teacher has jsut reported that lancsngfl resources on their own website are being blocked as "Criminal Skills"

 

You wouldn't be able to get this farce as a script for IT Crowd because no-one would Adam and Eve it!

 

If they can't even whitelist their own resources.....

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

A teacher has just summed up the situtation.

 

The internet is no longer useful as a resource for children - when they search how to make sailor hats - most of the sites are blocked - but one child was still able to get some lovely pictures of a "lola ferrari"

 

But of course in primaries, the teacher was watching him giggle and show his mates so mark one eyeball/ear wins again

 

(Of course he's probably seen much more of Miss Ferrari when he's been surfing at home - at least in the school he only gets to see 95% of her )

 

regards

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

BTW fellow techs.

 

Any driver download site (like Realtek) that uses an IP address in the name needs unblocking.

 

I wonder if its possible to tell netsweeper to allow all links from a site? - that would help up the unblocking process considerably.

 

regards

 

Simon

[dgsmith]

Any update on whether we're still on track to local filtering ability in July? If so, that coupled with our fibre going live next week will certainly be cause for celebration here

[SimpleSi]

You need to stop taking your happy pills.

 

1. They only respond here twice a year

 

2. They know we'll just unblock everything if given control (except Google Safe Search re-writing - that's good and redlisted pron sites ) so no real chance of that happening.

 

3. You think your fibre install will be working BEFOREthey remove your radio link

 

but I like optimists

 

regards

 

Simon

[dgsmith]

CLEO came yesterday to check the fibre and all seemed good, just waiting for it to be connected at the exchange now. I'm curious at your second point though - I can't see how they can easily completely go back on that and say "nah we changed our mind" without having some serious explaining to do, on top of the issues that plagued us all last week..

 

To be honest, we have to be optimistic and hopeful else sanity would be a thing that we had briefly long ago.. Quite amusing a year or two back when the local village installed wireless CCTV cameras.. you can guess what happened!

[SimpleSi]

Official reply

Dear Simon

 

Due to security restrictions relating to the wider CLEO network, we are unable to allow access to Logmein. However, all LGfL schools have access to the CLEO-approved Secure Global Desktop (SGD) remote access solution....

 

Thanks,

 

LGfL Filter

 

So its back to underhand ssh tunnelling again lads.

(And when you've got it up and running - please PM me with the detials )

regards

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

I'm curious at your second point though - I can't see how they can easily completely go back on that and say "nah we changed our mind" without having some serious explaining to do, on top of the issues that plagued us all last week..

 

Because that's their mindset - they can't think about the internet from the perspective of a teacher/pupil.

(But worse still they think they can!)

 

They just want to cover their corporate responsibilty and say - look at us - we are doing our bit to prevent little jonny from accessing pron (which is good but sledgehammer and nut isn't)

 

Primaries actuallt require less filtering than secondaries as our pupils tend not to try using proxy bypass sites - they just type things into google.

And we watch them more.

 

I can't see how they can easily completely go back on that

 

Because they can do what they want as headteachers/their reps are not collectively engaged in the central ICT provision for schools

 

Maybe I'm going to need to buy 2 hats to eat - one for this and one for Iplayer not falling over but I'm not saving up for the purchases

 

regards

 

Simon

[Ric_]

I had a discussion earlier with Martin Quinn and he asked me for further information regarding the issues that I am experiencing. I suggest others do the same so that things can be sorted out quickly. As far as the Westfield Centre are concerned, July 1st is still the date for local filtering control and there's details available at Filtering : Filtering FAQs - at the bottom of the page are the default filtering categories. The decision of which categories to be blocked was made at a 'high level'.

[dgsmith]

I see there are 3 different levels (primary, secondary and school staff) but how do staff use the staff one? We all use the standard proxy.lancsngfl proxy but how does the filtering differentiate between students and staff? This is what I don't understand..

 

Nice to hear Westfield are still saying it's on for July 1st.. we'll see nearer the time. Only just noticed that heads need to give approval first though!

[Geoff]

I would suspect the difference between staff and the other two levels depend on if the request is coming from the schools 'Admin' or 'Curriculum' IP range.

[dgsmith]

Well if that's the case it wouldn't make much difference then as our admin side is unfiltered anyway (with the exception of what I assume are "core" categories)..

[SimpleSi]

Well the devil is in the detail

if this

Categories that are both ticked and greyed-out form part of the ‘Core Categories’. These categories are blocked centrally and CANNOT be amended1.

means we can't get them unblocked after July 1st and since it includes a category called "Criminal Skills" (which some resources on the lancsngfl are falling into) then we are still going to be stuffed

 

regards

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

and

The decision of which categories to be blocked was made at a 'high level'.

 

By someone who would never even consider it necessary to talk to the end-users because they are so far up in the stratosphere they can't see or hear us

 

(And wouldn't want to )

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

One of my schools runs a NAS Open-E fileserver and something's gone wrong with it (I didn't install it so know little about it).

 

The site support forum is blocked under Substance Abuse.!!!

 

So I'm going to have to use my phone to try and find out info to let TEACHERS AND PUPILS access their work

 

Simon

[buzzard]

I'd be intrested in how they differentiate between staff and the sec/pri catergories, we run just on the curric range as a merged network, so staff need that level of access, why can't we have an open connetin then just use the smoothwall vbox we bought to do the in house filtering. I do wonder sometimes if these cost savings could be made 'elsewhere'

[Arcath]

I'd be intrested in how they differentiate between staff and the sec/pri catergories, we run just on the curric range as a merged network, so staff need that level of access, why can't we have an open connetin then just use the smoothwall vbox we bought to do the in house filtering. I do wonder sometimes if these cost savings could be made 'elsewhere'

 

Telling the difference between secondary/primary schools is "easy" your curriculum range is unique to your school, so id assume that the filtering changes depending on IP.

 

As for staff/pupils I have no idea, as without authentication its a very bad idea. I would assume that the admin networks are on the staff filtering level.

 

One of my schools runs a NAS Open-E fileserver and something's gone wrong with it (I didn't install it so know little about it).

 

The site support forum is blocked under Substance Abuse.!!!

 

So I'm going to have to use my phone to try and find out info to let TEACHERS AND PUPILS access their work

 

The westfield have asked that everything be logged, log it against that school and it should get fixed.

 

Our company website was blocked as "Proxy Anonymizer", which is obviously wrong once we contacted the westfield it took a day to get unblocked.

 

Net Sweeper seems much stabler today I actually managed to go the whole morning without seeing it once (apart from the HOST IS IP message but to be fair I did get the IP range wrong in the url).

[Ric_]

Net Sweeper seems much stabler today I actually managed to go the whole morning without seeing it once (apart from the HOST IS IP message but to be fair I did get the IP range wrong in the url).

 

I got it insteafd I think... a teacher asked me to go onto e-marker.org.uk or something but the address doesn't exist (it's e-marker.org) yet NetSweeper insisted on scanning it fo about a minute... what was it scanning, there was nothing there!!!???!!!