The children at YOUR SCHOOL can access porn images under the LGFL filtering...

[twin--turbo]

When we were an RBC school we never used the filtering, we always did it in house with a squid/squidguard filter.

 

that way we could adapt and react quickly when needed.

 

 

The RBC actualy has some code credited for squid (long time ago)

 

and way way back I was asked (with a few other techs) by the fledgling RBC to look at deploying squid in some primary schools , we fired out some boxes to them with squid on old PC's connected to their ISDN2.... Couple of years later CrashPilots were being rolled out.

 

 

Filtering is impossible to get even close to 100% right , especialy as ISP where each customer may have very different requirements.

 

Even as an I.T. Support department it's tricky keeping everyone happy ( or unhappy ) all the time.

 

 

what seriously does not help is staff allowing kids to play java games on dodgy websites.....

 

Rob

[rad]

Bumping this with another problem.

 

If you use IE it does not allow the searching of xxx or porn

If you use Firefox it allows some pictures but not loads

Using Google Chrome is a lot worse. If you do, do it out of site of students

 

I will be speaking to other schools tomorrow and getting back to support with my findings.

[speckytecky]

Thanks @RJohnson91 I'm surprised that you haven't had a heap of thanks for posting this up.

 

I'm also wondering if anyone in other Regions has succeeded with the information you posted up with getting round the Grid Filters? I just added the various suggestions that the responses so far have generated to our filter as sure as eggs are out of chickens rear ends our little dears will have been trying.

 

Hi all,

 

This is more a informative post rather than a question or query to LGFL.

 

For the past 2 months now I have been battling with LGFL over 'raise an issue' about our kids being able to access porn under the LGFL filtering.

 

Now you may think that your school is completely safe, for your own piece of mind do the following test (obviously under student filtering, in an environment of which kids cant see your screen)

 

Go to google images, and search 'computers' in the normal search an let google display the results, now click images. Once google has displayed the images type in something 15 year old boys would think of 'Girls naked'. Now at this point google will step in with THEIR filtering, not displaying the images. Now if you click sign in, at the top right, Once signed in you can remove the google filtering and watch as the NSFW images roll in. (Obviously some images wont display because of the website they are being pulled from is indeed blocked, but scroll through some pages..)

 

Solution to the above is block the URL that google is producing when you click sign in, perfectly fine, but what about the other 2,000,000,000,000 search engines with little to no safe search filtering.

 

We also found that going to other search engines, we could type in the word PORN, yes as blatant as PORN and with the relaxed filtering display over 900 pages of XXX images, remember that this could be done at ANY primary school / secondary under the LGFL filtering.

 

Please do some tests for yourself.

 

As mentioned above we have had a case open for almost 2 months now, and LGFL are chucking us round in circles. We have had the same low level support engineer for the past 2 months, and we are getting nowhere. Apparently the 'developers' are going to get involved. Hmm.

 

So I pose to you, is this because they don’t have a clue about the problem, or is it because they know they have a major issue, and are telling this 'smaller techies' to just 'fob us off' whilst they hide???

[mac_shinobi]

Bumping this with another problem.

 

If you use IE it does not allow the searching of xxx or porn

If you use Firefox it allows some pictures but not loads

Using Google Chrome is a lot worse. If you do, do it out of site of students

 

I will be speaking to other schools tomorrow and getting back to support with my findings.

 

just wondering what sorts of results you get if you use the portable apps versions of different web browsers such as Firefox, opera etc. not sure if they do IE or chrome as portable apps??

[rad]

Scrap my post above. It works on all 3 browsers, not just Chrome.

[Nodrog]

So this will be the normal fun of google changing the way they enable safe search which now appears to be something that you can enable and ‘set’ if you sign into google with your google account ! and then it does work.

 

Chrome looks like it’s talking with the google search engine in a more intimate way than other browsers so we are basically down to Google wanting to keep control over everything rather than any filter product.

 

One thing I did trip over was Kid SafeSearch UK. Google for kids in the UK with safe search. however if you go here and search on tits the first thing you get is an add at the top which isn’t blocked and is defiantly NOT child friendly – basically Google don’t want to be blocked ….. unless you log in to their system and then choose to turn safe search on …. Very useful ….. (NOT!!) especially if your a 13 year old boy in a secondary school you can enable and disable safe search at will ....

[Geoff]

You shouldn't try and solve a social issue with technology. It never ever works out the way you want. In this particular case I would do the best job you can given the time/budget/technology limitations you have then if people still have an issue then kick the problem up to management and leave the SMT/Governers to mull it over.

 

To put a further spanner in the works, what about BYOD (for example smart phones). It's very easy to access all the porn you want in your school with a smart phone connected to a mobile network (for bonus points you could even tether it to a computer). Do all your Internet access policies disappear because they aren't accessing the material over your network connection even though they are on school premises in school hours?

Edited December 18, 2012 by Geoff

[tom_newton]

FWIW, the nosslsearch vs. windows DNS issues.. we're working on a tool to rewrite connect headers, should let you deny google secure search without having to resort to dns tricks or https decryption. ETA Feb 13.

[pinemarten]

Do all your Internet access policies disappear because they aren't accessing the material over your network connection even though they are on school premises in school hours?

 

No - but the policies should only relate to access via school-owned connections .

Proving that may be another matter - but as long as children are allowed to BYOD they can bring their connection with them.

 

Parents give up their right to complain about their child's access to unfiltered web the moment they buy them a web-enabled device ....location is irrelevant,

eg. a child living next door to the school can just as easily access porn on his mobile in the playground as he can over the fence in his parents' garden!

[localzuk]

No - but the policies should only relate to access via school-owned connections .

Proving that may be another matter - but as long as children are allowed to BYOD they can bring their connection with them.

 

Parents give up their right to complain about their child's access to unfiltered web the moment they buy them a web-enabled device ....location is irrelevant,

eg. a child living next door to the school can just as easily access porn on his mobile in the playground as he can over the fence in his parents' garden!

 

There's an issue you're missing there though. There is still an issue of a child passing their unfiltered connection around to other kids in your school and *that* is your school's problem.

[GrumbleDook]

No - but the policies should only relate to access via school-owned connections .

Proving that may be another matter - but as long as children are allowed to BYOD they can bring their connection with them.

 

Parents give up their right to complain about their child's access to unfiltered web the moment they buy them a web-enabled device ....location is irrelevant,

eg. a child living next door to the school can just as easily access porn on his mobile in the playground as he can over the fence in his parents' garden!

 

There is also a reasonable challenge to the school policy on BYOD (esp if they have their own connection) in that because the schools allows / facilitates / develops the curriculum to make use of teh device, should anything happen (accessing harmful materials, cyberbullying) then the school has a responsibility to have taken all reasonable actions to ensure they are not Negligent to the risk of these happening.

 

There have been some interesting discussions about this aspect online in the past.

[pinemarten]

There's an issue you're missing there though. There is still an issue of a child passing their unfiltered connection around to other kids in your school and *that* is your school's problem.

do you mean showing porn etc to other kids on their device?

surely it then becomes a disciplinary issue, not a technical one? -same as passing around drugs/alcohol etc..

so the onus of sharing something bad rests on the willingness of the sharer to share it , (whether it be in school or elsewhere).

[pinemarten]

the school has a responsibility to have taken all reasonable actions to ensure they are not Negligent to the risk of these happening..

 

yes, agree but what is 'reasonable' ?.....therein lies the issue.

[GrumbleDook]

yes, agree but what is 'reasonable' ?.....therein lies the issue.

 

Have a read on ALARP for a better understanding.

[RJohnson91]

Wow this thread has blown up with replies, I'm glad people are becoming aware about the situation!

 

Another thing that has come to light over christmas, because im still pushing the filtering issues with LGFL.

 

This issue isn't technically an LGFL issue, however it took me to find the issue before being told it was an issue, which i thought was alittle wrong.

 

We were checking the whole safe search feature on LGFL, it is to my knowledge if you block the category 'safe search' you disallow users to change the 'safe search' on the following websites; Google, Yahoo, MetaCrawler, Live Search, Excite, Lycos, AOL Search, Dog Pile, Hot Bot, Bing, Ask, YouTube.

 

However we went onto excite.co.uk, disabled safe search and typed in porn, under a kids filtering, and BAM loads of porn, and the safe search was turned off.

 

So I let LGFL know, and I got the following response.

 

Hi Ryan,

 

We have raised the issue of Excite with Netsweeper and they have informed us that the Safe Search facility on excite.com is not working as advertised and they have raised tickets with the search engine to try and fix the issue. As a consequence, and until it is fixed, we would therefore recommend that your school blocks access to the site at local level as this would clearly be a concern.

 

Now of course this isn't a problem with LGFL, however if they knew about this then they should have put out a notice? Anyway I would strongly suggest you block excite./.co.uk

 

Ryan

Edited January 7, 2013 by RJohnson91

[Geoff]

This is the basic problem though isn't' it? You're endlessly playing whack a mole with no end in sight. It doesn't matter what you do technically there will always be something you miss or are unable to combat.

[RJohnson91]

This is the basic problem though isn't' it? You're endlessly playing whack a mole with no end in sight. It doesn't matter what you do technically there will always be something you miss or are unable to combat.

 

 

Oh I agree entirely, web filtering will never be 100%, hell it will never be 60% safe. The internet is too vast to be censored completely.

 

However it seems we have to play 'whack a mole' with LGFL because they simply don't let us know about issues, they very much play 'head in the sand'.

 

So I will continue to test their 'blocks' and 'filters' until futher problems are uncovered, and when they respond with 'Oh we knew about that, here is how to fix it', I'll let everyone know on here!

 

But if people think that the filtering is top notch i'll

 

Ryan

[pjhunt]

Any one solved this issue yet?

[RJohnson91]

Any one solved this issue yet?

 

Not that I have been told, it is still blocked at our school.

 

Filtering still not cracked up to anything decent.

 

Ryan

[SYNACK]

Any one solved this issue yet?

 

A full proof solution, pull the power from the modem. There is never going to be a 100% solution, closest you'll get is a whitelist of sites.

 

As part of a managed service you will only get the amount of effort they need to keep most on the service, if you want control you need to take it in house and take responsibility directly rather than handing it off.

[RJohnson91]

A full proof solution, pull the power from the modem. There is never going to be a 100% solution, closest you'll get is a whitelist of sites.

 

As part of a managed service you will only get the amount of effort they need to keep most on the service, if you want control you need to take it in house and take responsibility directly rather than handing it off.

 

Oh I totally agree it cannot and will not ever be 100%, but if you buy into a service you expect it to be atleast up to standard do you not? Such as refering back to my previous point, google images being open to the world, but maybe I'm being too over the top. Should LGFL just be reactive and not proactive. Is it enough for them to block the bear minimum and when a 10 year old (or a 7 year old in primary) finds a picture of a person being beheaded in the street, we should just shrug it off, and let them know of how he/she did it, and they then (maybe) block that website... For me, that's not good enough, maybe it is for you guys!

 

 

Anyway...

 

Alittle update people, my job was ''Put on hold'' about excite.co.uk/.com with a response of...

 

'' Hi Ryan.

 

Netsweeper have not actioned the development tickets that were raised as a result of this issue so it's high likely that this is not going to be resolved soon.

 

I will place this case on hold for the time being ''

 

What's the chances this never gets opened again, should we take this as an answer ... 'it probably wont get resolved, so ... just deal with it'?

 

What do you guys (and girls) think?

 

Ryan

Edited March 14, 2013 by RJohnson91

[Geoff]

As you acknowledge, you have to compromise somewhere along the scale because 100% is unfeasable. So in your particular situation where LGFL thinks the line for 'good enough' is drawn isn't where you think it should be. This is no longer a technical issue and becomes a policy one. So if you're in a position to make a decision about said policy then do so, otherwise kick it up the management chain.

[GrumbleDook]

Tickets should not go on hold when you are waiting for a response from the service providers sub-contractors ... it is still a live issue that needs dealing with. You might want to agree for it to go on hold but only with an agreed schedule of how frequently it is going to be chased and also with an agreed escalation point for dealing with this. If someone with the service provider's team has said it is not a live risk / issue then it has to be escalated to someone who can make a decision about it.

 

I would contact a) your LA eSafety Officer to highlight the risk and b) your LGfL rep from the LA. This needs to be done with the backing of your Child Protection Officer in the school (they *have* to highlight it as a risk for it to be dealt with) and your SLT.

[ConradJones]

No - but the policies should only relate to access via school-owned connections .

Proving that may be another matter - but as long as children are allowed to BYOD they can bring their connection with them.

 

Parents give up their right to complain about their child's access to unfiltered web the moment they buy them a web-enabled device ....location is irrelevant,

eg. a child living next door to the school can just as easily access porn on his mobile in the playground as he can over the fence in his parents' garden!

 

also them with wifi in your building that is correctly filtered, they are more like to use the wifi than their own 3g if the signal is for the 3g rubbish.

[Geoff]

also them with wifi in your building that is correctly filtered, they are more like to use the wifi than their own 3g if the signal is for the 3g rubbish.

 

Well yes and no. Most phones/tablets etc can switch between wifi and mobile with a simple toggle. So, browse on wifi, hit a block, switch to 3g to get blocked content, switch back to wifi when done. An example use case would be. I'm looking for a video on youtube but youtube is blocked. I can use google to find the direct link then switch to 3g to get the actual content. I accept that this requires a little technical proactiveness but I doubt this would be beyond some children in a school to work out and once one has it figured out you might as well assume they all do.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Geoff