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How can we expect our kids to be able to use computers when their schools are censoring the word "proxy" from their web searches? And really? No YouTube? Give

by CoryG89 10y ago

How can we expect our kids to be able to use computers when their schools are censoring the word "proxy" from their web searches? And really? No YouTube? Give me a break. The difference between a prison and a grade school? Prisoners have rights.

philamonster 10y ago
FWIW safe-guarding YouTube and Google searches can be quite a challenge. Using restricted mode and DNS config may not be an option if anyone in district uses Live Stream as any "streamed" content will be blocked by default as there is no active way to determine what the stream is. So if you choose not use these methods of filtering within YouTube you are left with video suggestions that could be less than appropriate for a myriad of reasons as well as the content readily available with normal YouTube search. And even if Google searches are filtered using methods recommended by Google in the browser there are image searches done within their various services, Slides for example, that are either not filtered or not filtered the same way forcesafesearch and nosslsearch work. Not to mention Microsoft's DNAME functionality in W2K12+ breaking if any non-security update is installed rendering anything done to leverage DNS+forcesafesearch (using MS only) moot.
- fredsted 10y ago
  Maybe don't safe guard at all. My school sure didn't (back in early 2000s). I turned out fine. Anyways, most kids can just jump on their 4G connection and browse anything from there, right?
  - philamonster 10y ago
    As far as I know there aren't many K-3 students with cell phones. And cell signal in a lot of the schools I've been is less than desirable but I do see your point. Not all schools allow students to carry a cell phone either. There are multiple levels of restriction with YouTube that are geared towards primary and secondary age groups.
Retr0spectrum 10y ago
For me at least, my school's aggressive network filtering was a great learning experience. They used deep-packet-inspection combined with SSL MITM, so I designed my own obfsproxy-like tunneling protocol. In retrospect, I could probably have just used obfsproxy, but as I said, it was a great learning experience.
- halfnibble 10y ago
  We had filtered internet at home. I learned a lot about networking and VPN's because of that fact.
  - philamonster 10y ago
    I'm doing the same currently but like any subject I encourage questions about the how & why. If we have a discussion about content that is filtered that has more to do with technical aspects I will, right now, always allow access. If it's about the actual content then it becomes a broader discussion that involves both parents. My goal is that by keeping communication open early their moral compass will be developed enough to evaluate situations when the parental units have absolutely zero control over access. Pretty much like any other aspect of parenting except requiring more technical acuity.
- stordoff 10y ago
  The level of filtering at my school led to pretty much everyone knowing how to find and use a proxy - even some of the teachers would occasionally say to use one if something they needed was blocked. Watching the level of filtering ramp up over the last year of my time there, and the efforts by some students to side-step it, was rather entertaining: * HTTP proxy server filtering traffic -> CGIProxy scripts found online to avoid the fixed filter list * Alternative HTTP proxy server with a more thorough/updated list -> Self-hosted CGIProxy (at home) * Network admins. actively monitoring for new proxy sites -> Self-hosted CGIProxy on a wildcard domain (unsurprisingly, that didn't last long) * Locally installing monitoring software that would monitor the contents of any IE windows -> Portable Firefox + asking for the HTTP proxy server details (which unbelievably were given without question despite there being no allowed use for it - you weren't supposed to connect your own devices to the network or use your own software) * More aggressive monitoring software (Impereo) that would kill any window with "Firefox" or "proxy" in the title -> Firefox extension to hide the window title * Updated version of that software that would reliably kill Firefox (plus other behaviours which I forget) -> Exploit a weak password (single dictionary word....; hash cached on clients) to get domain admin. rights, then create an anonymous account that had sufficient rights to kill off any monitoring software (probably was another domain admin. account - I wasn't aware of the specifics) Definitely a learning experience (and some of the teachers definitely knew but turned a blind eye as they knew it was motivated by curiosity rather than malicious goals), though perhaps not the education the school intended! The new account hung around for a surprising long time - it wasn't until someone malicious changed all of the machines' local admin. passwords[1] that it was discovered and disabled. That actually ended up being a lesson in OPSEC to some degree - turns out Impereo was tracking USB memory device names, and most of the people involved had changed it to include their name, thus tying them to the domain admin. account creation. (Also, a side note, but if you have a VNC server on every machine in the school, maybe don't have a three-character password that is entered where students can watch the keyboard...) [1] No idea who/why. It just wasted people's time for no reason, something I know the main group of people doing this tried to avoid - the most malicious thing they did (other than compromising the account....) was change a single pixel in the desktop background image as a proof of concept.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
That filter's a joke. We beat it several times within a month. on a chromebook.
- hbk1966 10y ago
  Our's would check for words on the page and block it if it had certain words. A lot of times you could get around it just by moving over to https.
  - lfowles 10y ago
    The one at my school was pretty entertaining, if you happened to stumble on a blocked site it would load a page with javascript obnoxious enough to lock up your computer while slowly flashing bright colors so everyone could see.
kartan 10y ago
In the old days streaming video was forbidden not for its content but for the heavy use of data. I had that in the past at university and companies I work. Nowadays it looks like more an obsolete rule as Internet for companies and institutions is really cheap. So it only makes sense if they are located in a place with bad/expensive connection.
bitJericho 10y ago
We call it kid prison at my house.

by CoryG89 10y ago

philamonster 10y ago

FWIW safe-guarding YouTube and Google searches can be quite a challenge. Using restricted mode and DNS config may not be an option if anyone in district uses Live Stream as any "streamed" content will be blocked by default as there is no active way to determine what the stream is. So if you choose not use these methods of filtering within YouTube you are left with video suggestions that could be less than appropriate for a myriad of reasons as well as the content readily available with normal YouTube search. And even if Google searches are filtered using methods recommended by Google in the browser there are image searches done within their various services, Slides for example, that are either not filtered or not filtered the same way forcesafesearch and nosslsearch work. Not to mention Microsoft's DNAME functionality in W2K12+ breaking if any non-security update is installed rendering anything done to leverage DNS+forcesafesearch (using MS only) moot.

fredsted 10y ago
Maybe don't safe guard at all. My school sure didn't (back in early 2000s). I turned out fine. Anyways, most kids can just jump on their 4G connection and browse anything from there, right?
- philamonster 10y ago
  As far as I know there aren't many K-3 students with cell phones. And cell signal in a lot of the schools I've been is less than desirable but I do see your point. Not all schools allow students to carry a cell phone either. There are multiple levels of restriction with YouTube that are geared towards primary and secondary age groups.

Retr0spectrum 10y ago

For me at least, my school's aggressive network filtering was a great learning experience. They used deep-packet-inspection combined with SSL MITM, so I designed my own obfsproxy-like tunneling protocol. In retrospect, I could probably have just used obfsproxy, but as I said, it was a great learning experience.

halfnibble 10y ago
We had filtered internet at home. I learned a lot about networking and VPN's because of that fact.
- philamonster 10y ago
  I'm doing the same currently but like any subject I encourage questions about the how & why. If we have a discussion about content that is filtered that has more to do with technical aspects I will, right now, always allow access. If it's about the actual content then it becomes a broader discussion that involves both parents. My goal is that by keeping communication open early their moral compass will be developed enough to evaluate situations when the parental units have absolutely zero control over access. Pretty much like any other aspect of parenting except requiring more technical acuity.
stordoff 10y ago
The level of filtering at my school led to pretty much everyone knowing how to find and use a proxy - even some of the teachers would occasionally say to use one if something they needed was blocked. Watching the level of filtering ramp up over the last year of my time there, and the efforts by some students to side-step it, was rather entertaining: * HTTP proxy server filtering traffic -> CGIProxy scripts found online to avoid the fixed filter list * Alternative HTTP proxy server with a more thorough/updated list -> Self-hosted CGIProxy (at home) * Network admins. actively monitoring for new proxy sites -> Self-hosted CGIProxy on a wildcard domain (unsurprisingly, that didn't last long) * Locally installing monitoring software that would monitor the contents of any IE windows -> Portable Firefox + asking for the HTTP proxy server details (which unbelievably were given without question despite there being no allowed use for it - you weren't supposed to connect your own devices to the network or use your own software) * More aggressive monitoring software (Impereo) that would kill any window with "Firefox" or "proxy" in the title -> Firefox extension to hide the window title * Updated version of that software that would reliably kill Firefox (plus other behaviours which I forget) -> Exploit a weak password (single dictionary word....; hash cached on clients) to get domain admin. rights, then create an anonymous account that had sufficient rights to kill off any monitoring software (probably was another domain admin. account - I wasn't aware of the specifics) Definitely a learning experience (and some of the teachers definitely knew but turned a blind eye as they knew it was motivated by curiosity rather than malicious goals), though perhaps not the education the school intended! The new account hung around for a surprising long time - it wasn't until someone malicious changed all of the machines' local admin. passwords[1] that it was discovered and disabled. That actually ended up being a lesson in OPSEC to some degree - turns out Impereo was tracking USB memory device names, and most of the people involved had changed it to include their name, thus tying them to the domain admin. account creation. (Also, a side note, but if you have a VNC server on every machine in the school, maybe don't have a three-character password that is entered where students can watch the keyboard...) [1] No idea who/why. It just wasted people's time for no reason, something I know the main group of people doing this tried to avoid - the most malicious thing they did (other than compromising the account....) was change a single pixel in the desktop background image as a proof of concept.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

That filter's a joke. We beat it several times within a month. on a chromebook.

hbk1966 10y ago
Our's would check for words on the page and block it if it had certain words. A lot of times you could get around it just by moving over to https.
- lfowles 10y ago
  The one at my school was pretty entertaining, if you happened to stumble on a blocked site it would load a page with javascript obnoxious enough to lock up your computer while slowly flashing bright colors so everyone could see.

kartan 10y ago

In the old days streaming video was forbidden not for its content but for the heavy use of data. I had that in the past at university and companies I work. Nowadays it looks like more an obsolete rule as Internet for companies and institutions is really cheap. So it only makes sense if they are located in a place with bad/expensive connection.

bitJericho 10y ago

We call it kid prison at my house.