Sourceforge - getting it unblocked

[sidewinder]

Sourceforge has been blocked for a few weeks here by the LEA, which is making it hugely difficult to get open source software as the majority seems to be on there (for example I wanted to download Nagios just now)

 

No doubt they wont listen to my argument that it is useful because to them usefulness for us is irrelevant and unimportant, so is there another argument I could use to get it unblocked which they couldnt say no to?

[Geoff]

If you just need the files, you can access the UK mirror directly.

 

http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/download.sourceforge.net/pub/sourceforge/

[webman]

Just meantion Teaching and Learning, should get it done... Have you asked for their reasons for blocking it?

[localzuk]

Why in gods name would sourceforge be blocked?? That makes no sense at all.

 

Point out that you use a variety of open source software on your network and that by blocking access they are effectively preventing you keeping the software up to date - therefore introducing a serious security risk to your network, and other schools networks.

 

Also point out that other LEA's do not block the site as it contains a large selection of tools which help in the primary function of a school - teaching and learning.

[_Bat_]

:?. Maybe it was an accident? Can't think of any reason for it being blocked unless maybe they think the pupils may be able to use some of the tools on there to "hack" into the network?

[Geoff]

I expect because it has stuff like hacking tools, P2P and IM clients on it and the LEA proxy is too inflexible to block portions of sites.

 

But as I pointed out, the files are all hosted by kent university anyway (are they going to block that too?) thus the block is rather meaningless.

[Guest Guest]

What a bunch of muppets

 

Slightly differant; but all our staff went on a training day and were shown how to use google images for their lessons. They planned loads of stuff, came back into school and

"no you cant have google images."

"But someone from *your* lea have just shown *hundreds* of teachers how to use it and now your telling us you wont trust teachers not to look at porn on it?????"

"Err.... no"

[Freedom]

j17

 

Google images used to be blocked by my LEA, but they just introduced a new system (bit of code) that forces the content protection (safe search) on google and many of the other image engines - so now its unblocked and available to use!

 

See if your LEA has done the same. This happened within the last two weeks...

 

 

OP

 

I have my server on an un-restricted IP addy so I can get to SF - can't you do the same with your LEA filtering?

[localzuk]

"no you cant have google images."

"But someone from *your* lea have just shown *hundreds* of teachers how to use it and now your telling us you wont trust teachers not to look at porn on it?????"

"Err.... no"

 

But the thing is, you are the customer and your demands should never be met by 'no'. If your school requires access to a website then they are obliged to provide access to it - you do, after all, pay a large sum of money to have your net connection...

[Geoff]

Well, maybe. It depends what the contract/SLA between the School and the LEA/RBC says.

[localzuk]

Well, maybe. It depends what the contract/SLA between the School and the LEA/RBC says.

 

Contract? What's one of those?

[Geoff]

So you have no contract with them? Ok, charge them a million pounds an hour until they restore access...

[Guest Guest]

Freedom - Is it smoothwall they use (or similar)? I wouldnt rely fully on the safesearch, last time i checked it wasnt perfect (but nothing is so...)

 

 

This problem was the best part of 2 years ago now (but far from the only problem coming from our over controling lea/isp) so everyones forgot about it now. We can get on now with our *new* but prehistoric filter but it cant force safesearch so i cant allow it anyhow.

The old proxy was *in our control*, supposedly, but certain things got blacked on a county level so we didnt really have any control.

 

Ive been fighting to get a good proxy for over 2 years now and tbh ive just about given up with the lies and "but we need to test if it works even though its 20yr old technology" attitude - funny you didnt have that attitude when you jumped aboard our current *EXTREAMLY SHAT* proxy!

[tom_newton]

j17: what bit wasnt perfect? Always happy to have feedback so we can improve things

[Lee_K_81]

Maybe they've blocked it bcs of BSF, so you cant turn round and say, why are we being forced to use and effectively pay for [insert BSF contract winners software here] when there's a perfectly good piece of open source software available which a huge support community and the versitility of being able to edit ourselves?

[Guest Guest]

j17: what bit wasnt perfect? Always happy to have feedback so we can improve things

 

Sorry if that was misleading; its the google safesearch that isnt perfect, SW is great and although i havnt had chance to hammer it over a long period ive yet to find a way past the filters - not like *EVERY* other commercial solution ive used.

[openhgs]

Google images used to be blocked by my LEA, but they just introduced a new system (bit of code) that forces the content protection (safe search) on google and many of the other image engines - so now its unblocked and available to use!

 

Before they put the "safe search" code in place, they allowed access to .com and .uk images, but .fr, .com.au etc images were blocked. Go figure! Also anyone with any intelligence knows how to perform an unfiltered image search using google if they want to, so I think their filtering isn't all that effective.

[mrcrazy04]

The best block we have here with E2BN is Access Database files - needed for GCSE and A Level IT coursework!

They also said no!!

Thank goodness for the staff filter!

[sidewinder]

Well Ive got in touch with them and they're going to give us a different policy on a few IP's which would leave all the 'innocent' stuff unblocked

 

Only annoying thing is that we run an ISA server and so use an internal address range rather than the range the LEA give. So will have to setup a seperate PC just for this access

 

Oh and they had categorised the site as 'freeware downloads' and blocked it because apparantly it contains a large number of games...wasnt aware there was many games on sourceforge!