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Porn sites and Violent sites - fair enough.
Blocking the ability to download games - also fair enough
Blocking inappropiate language - A bit petty but bearable...
But that's not enough for some:
Hotmail has been blocked! Why?
It's not like they've blocked Yahoo or anything.
Google has been blocked.
Yes. They are stupid.
And now SR has also been blocked by some sort of firewall.
If they carry one like this (blocking forums, email and search sites), wouldn't they be better off having some cheap internal intranet instead of spending a fortune on school broadband which no-one can use properly as it's all blocked and filtered.
AND they'll be wondering why we've resorted to using the PC's for playing Snes games on...
Yep. No matter how many restrictions you program on through windows, it can all be bypassed with a boot disk and a very limited knowledge of MS-Dos commands! :-)
Like Kid Rock, I managed to reach ukchatforums, but all the posts are on the chatforums server, and I couldn't access them!
SO:
I went to the teachers and described this site as a:
"Message board where gamesplayers and programmers discuss various topics about both hardware and software.
Some are university students with great experience in this area.
Others are people doing the same AS/A2 courses as us.
I have learnt a lot about how computers work from members and articles on this site blah, blah, blah..."
And they bought it! :-)
The teacher will check your cookies every now and then and if they find something like [email protected], then you get a slap on the wris**t basically. Nothing too bad.
These forums aren't banned, and games sites aren't banned. They jus**t filter sites with abusive content. But the filter is VERY s**trong. The only way I have found to get through it so far is to use my home computer, access the site, get the HTML, e-mail it to school. When I get to school, I go on a folder, choose cus**tomise it, and put the HTML into the background. This works, but pictures and links do not work as of yet. (I'm working on it!)
That method can also be used in "shared Documents" folders that people shouldn't be on during lessons. Waiting till a silent part of the class, then putting the HTML from www.billgatesisdead.com in there. With sound balring out of the speakers. It gets them into deep sh*t!
If it's a run of the mill filter then you can just open a search engine that uses frames - ie Jeeves - and it won't filter what ever takes place in the frame, allowing you free access to anywhere on the net.
If it's a super-duper knobs attached filter then it will check pages individually, blocking those with swearwords on, and also have a list of pre-defined no-no sites. You can get around this:
If it's a predefined no-no site then you need to know it's IP address (I don't SR's but I'm sure someone can tell you) and this will allow you to access the site.
If it's a naughty site or a predefined blocked site, then sometimes you can get round it by going to a secret surfer site and surfing anonymously (I think this by-passes the filtering server they put you through) unfortunately they have a tendancy to block these for this very reason.
Failing all this you need to present you teacher with a valid reason as to why the site should be unblocked and they'll e-mail the filtering company and get it done.
It seems like almost EVERYONE at my school has been banned after surfing on a school PC!!
No-one EVER looks up porn or anything that bad, it's only usually things like schoolwork and the odd-game that people look up, and they then get banned!
I was looking up mountain bikes the other day for my graphics project, and after about 5 different sites I found that my bloked site count was still at 0, but i'd been banned!! It really is stupid!
Someone went on just ONE single game site the other day, only to see his ranking in Counterstrike, and he was banned instantly!
Apparently the searches are done using word. So if a word like Sex, Porn or Game comes up ANYWHERE on ANY site, you either get one point added to your blocked site count, or you're banned instantly! If you go on a tenth blocked site then you're banned!
They might aswell scrap this system, as no-one's stupid enough to look up that stuff. All they have to do have a teacher monitering the IT room, checking that no-one goes on anything bad. And if they do, the teacher could report them, so they then gte punished.
What is the point in using the net at school when you get banned for no real reason, either can't be un-banned or are banned again instantly, and the PC's are so slow that you'd finnish a whole marathon faster than the time it takes to open one page!! I us the net at home ONLY now!
Porn sites and Violent sites - fair enough.
Blocking the ability to download games - also fair enough
Blocking inappropiate language - A bit petty but bearable...
But that's not enough for some:
Hotmail has been blocked! Why?
It's not like they've blocked Yahoo or anything.
Google has been blocked.
Yes. They are stupid.
And now SR has also been blocked by some sort of firewall.
If they carry one like this (blocking forums, email and search sites), wouldn't they be better off having some cheap internal intranet instead of spending a fortune on school broadband which no-one can use properly as it's all blocked and filtered.
AND they'll be wondering why we've resorted to using the PC's for playing Snes games on...
Yep. No matter how many restrictions you program on through windows, it can all be bypassed with a boot disk and a very limited knowledge of MS-Dos commands! :-)