JGoswell

Hi Pete, I am sure this is something the Service Desk can help advise you on. Please feel free to contact us on 0845 3077870 any time 08:00 - 18:00. Thanks.

Google have now confirmed the change will be made in early February. We have now called over 2000 RM SafetyNet customers and provided additional support and advice to over 1000 of these. It is reassuring to hear that a number of schools have already applied the certificates successfully. Our helpdesk will continue to contact customers as we head through this month. Our preparations for starting SSL interception for Google searches are going well. As of today, Google still haven’t made their switch to HTTPS but they have now suggested the date will be at the beginning of February. With this in mind, RM Education is taking a staggered approach to switching customers on to the new SSL service, ensuring a smooth transition for all. As we receive confirmation that SSL certificates have successfully deployed, we will move schools over. If you are happy to be moved onto the new service now, please call 01235 826263 and we’ll arrange to do so. It will help to ensure a more staggered transition and quickly capture and resolve any potential issues. The FAQs on our information page are being continuously updated so please keep checking back. Our Interception Policy document has also been updated. A topic that has raised queries is around the different proxy settings you can use for different users. We have added some more detailed information regarding that. Transparent proxy has also raised questions, if you are a transparent proxy user please find further information in the FAQs. To confirm what you need to do next: • If you haven’t already, download and deploy the certificates at your earliest convenience. • To check that your certificates have deployed, please visit this link on a range of devices across your network to ensure you get a positive result. If you receive an error, please call 01235 826263. • If you have deployed your certificates successfully and would like to move to the new SSL proxy now, please call 01235 826263. Otherwise, we will switch you over as soon as Google make the change. Don’t forget! If Google make this change and you haven’t yet deployed your certificates: • Be mindful about search terms being used in Google. SafeSearch will be enforced but this is NOT equal to RM SafetyNet Plus filtering • Consider switching to another search engine which hasn’t yet moved to HTTPS • If the worst happens, and an inappropriate search result is returned, it will be filtered according to your normal RM SafetyNet Plus rules when the link itself is clicked. RM Education

Our old proxy servers will be left running as not all schools wish to have their traffic SSL intercepted. Also it gives the option for schools to have student users filtered by the SSL proxy, but have staff users on the non-SSL proxy (some schools may not want to have staff traffic intercepted).

It’s good to see that you are all preparing your networks ahead of the changes proposed by Google. Our preparations for starting SSL interception for Google searches are going well. At the moment we have not made our change and neither has Google which is why you have not seen any difference. Google haven’t defined a date for this switch over to happen and still state ‘mid-January’, so with this in mind we are planning a staggered approach to switching customers on to the new SSL service, ensuring a smooth transition for all. As we speak with schools and receive their confirmation that SSL certificates have successfully deployed, we will move them over. If you are happy to be moved onto the new service now, please call 01235 826263 and we’ll arrange to do so. It will help us to ensure a more staggered transition and quickly make changes if necessary. If you have any further questions please call us on 0123582626

Google moving all search results behind SSL encryption is providing a tough challenge to many filtering providers. We have plans in place to manage our customers through this change and our initial response and top level plan for SafetyNet+ can be found here: Changes to Google SSL and RM Safetynet Plus | RM Education - What we do We will be issuing further communications on the subject and opening a specific support line later this week. A separate change was made recently by YouTube to also use SSL encryption, this was unexpected and we are now reviewing how we build this into our future plans for SafetyNet+. If you are a SafetyNet user and you have any immediate concerns then please call your support line and we will assist you. As a responsible supplier of E-Safety products we are making every effort to deliver an effective solution for our SafetyNet+ users quickly. Our solution is currently being trialled with early adopters pending a full release in January.