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Maybe because repl.it can be used to bypass other school restrictions? A quick search trying to find anything in the news about this just brought up a bunch of

Maybe because repl.it can be used to bypass other school restrictions? A quick search trying to find anything in the news about this just brought up a bunch of threads of people teaching others to use repl.it to bypass computer restrictions. https://repl.it/talk/learn/How-To-Visit-Blocked-Sites-~-Using-Replit-TutorialJam/79171 https://repl.it/talk/learn/How-To-Visit-Blocked-Sites-~-Usin... https://repl.it/talk/learn/Bypassing-School-Restrictions/24573 https://repl.it/talk/learn/Bypassing-School-Restrictions/245... https://repl.it/talk/share/Proxy-Get-Past-School-Filters-Or-other-things/56967?order=new https://repl.it/talk/share/Proxy-Get-Past-School-Filters-Or-...

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 6y ago
1. This is kind of a dumb defense in my opinion. If someone is smart enough to be finding and then logging into a coding website to follow the steps here, I very much doubt little will stop them of finding other work arounds. 2. The petition seems a bit lame and without any real purpose. Sometimes all news is good news. Not saying this is that definitely -- but astroturfing into an outrage machine is great for press for a market you're trying to grow in / raise brand awareness. 3. At the very least, more coding and access in schools is a no brainer. Restricting access in general to anything is dumb. Most kids have (or will have friends) with a smart phone to see and do whatever they want.
- grawprog 6y ago
  Personally, i agree with everything you say. I was mostly just trying to figure out why, that seemed like the likliest reason. Schools tend to be not the greatest at computer security type stuff. Just wholesale blocking the site seems like something schools would do rather than actually do something useful. My experience at least, i tended to break the restrictions on my school computers and mess around when i was bored of what they were teaching, usually because i knew it already. If they have a problem with kids doing this, maybe those kids aren't being challenged enough and are looking for their own challenge.
amasad 6y ago
I did not know about those. Thanks for alerting me. I deleted the posts. But if it is the case that this is the main driver then they should have reached out to us instead of blanket blocking.
- ziddoap 6y ago
  How long do you think it would take for various schools IT departments (usually incredibly understaffed) to reach out to every single website where they found content that doesn't fit the school board's policies and request a take down? How many websites would, at the request of Random School X, would remove posts just to comply? Simply so a few hundred students can use the school network rather than a phone, home computer, etc.? This seems like a ridiculous request. From the school IT point of view, block it and move on is much more realistic.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  I just saw your comment (but I will still keep my other comment for people to see). Basically, AFTER you get caught, you delete the evidence and leave a 404? How about edit/censor to write: "we do not condone these actions - bypassing school security, and thus we remove this harmful content"?
  - amasad 6y ago
    They're basic tutorials on how to build proxies. Some of them are pretty neat technically actually and pains me to delete them. But we also don't condone use-cases like this. If I had more time I will build the infra for taking down posts and leaving a message like you suggest.
- grawprog 6y ago
  I'm not sure deleting the posts is going to solve the problem. There was a whole google page full of threads on this. I picked the top three results... You can't just delete some forum posts and expect the knowledge to go away. They'll just post it somewhere else.
  - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
HenryBemis 6y ago
I just tried to visit these pages (from Europe) and they are 404. "Not found error: This is not the page you're looking for. If you think this is a mistake please contact us_". Is someone trying to hide something? To the Replit folks: I don't know you, I have never in my life heard of Replit before (until this HN post), but I feel I won't like you. Did you actually take down these pages with evidence of bypassing school security controls just so "you got no valid reason - apart from the ones we just hid"? Edit: "just" is 16mins after the parent posted the 3 URIs (as per HN clock).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- amasad 6y ago
  I just deleted them because we don't condone using our tool for this use-case. Basically they're tutorials on how to use replit to build proxies. Basic stuff you can google.
indymike 6y ago
So, instead of fixing the security issue, we're just going to make learning computers and programming off-limits? Silly.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  What fix would you suggest?
nfriedly 6y ago
Those posts were deleted by amasad (repl.it founder) just now (they explained it in another comment), but 2/3 are available on archive.org: * https://web.archive.org/web/20210120075709/https://repl.it/talk/learn/How-To-Visit-Blocked-Sites-~-Using-Replit-TutorialJam/79171 https://web.archive.org/web/20210120075709/https://repl.it/t... * https://web.archive.org/web/20210119055116/https://repl.it/talk/learn/Bypassing-School-Restrictions/24573 https://web.archive.org/web/20210119055116/https://repl.it/t... Those are some clever kids...

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 6y ago

1. This is kind of a dumb defense in my opinion. If someone is smart enough to be finding and then logging into a coding website to follow the steps here, I very much doubt little will stop them of finding other work arounds. 2. The petition seems a bit lame and without any real purpose. Sometimes all news is good news. Not saying this is that definitely -- but astroturfing into an outrage machine is great for press for a market you're trying to grow in / raise brand awareness. 3. At the very least, more coding and access in schools is a no brainer. Restricting access in general to anything is dumb. Most kids have (or will have friends) with a smart phone to see and do whatever they want.

grawprog 6y ago
Personally, i agree with everything you say. I was mostly just trying to figure out why, that seemed like the likliest reason. Schools tend to be not the greatest at computer security type stuff. Just wholesale blocking the site seems like something schools would do rather than actually do something useful. My experience at least, i tended to break the restrictions on my school computers and mess around when i was bored of what they were teaching, usually because i knew it already. If they have a problem with kids doing this, maybe those kids aren't being challenged enough and are looking for their own challenge.

amasad 6y ago

I did not know about those. Thanks for alerting me. I deleted the posts. But if it is the case that this is the main driver then they should have reached out to us instead of blanket blocking.

ziddoap 6y ago
How long do you think it would take for various schools IT departments (usually incredibly understaffed) to reach out to every single website where they found content that doesn't fit the school board's policies and request a take down? How many websites would, at the request of Random School X, would remove posts just to comply? Simply so a few hundred students can use the school network rather than a phone, home computer, etc.? This seems like a ridiculous request. From the school IT point of view, block it and move on is much more realistic.
HenryBemis 6y ago
I just saw your comment (but I will still keep my other comment for people to see). Basically, AFTER you get caught, you delete the evidence and leave a 404? How about edit/censor to write: "we do not condone these actions - bypassing school security, and thus we remove this harmful content"?
- amasad 6y ago
  They're basic tutorials on how to build proxies. Some of them are pretty neat technically actually and pains me to delete them. But we also don't condone use-cases like this. If I had more time I will build the infra for taking down posts and leaving a message like you suggest.
grawprog 6y ago
I'm not sure deleting the posts is going to solve the problem. There was a whole google page full of threads on this. I picked the top three results... You can't just delete some forum posts and expect the knowledge to go away. They'll just post it somewhere else.
- 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

HenryBemis 6y ago

I just tried to visit these pages (from Europe) and they are 404. "Not found error: This is not the page you're looking for. If you think this is a mistake please contact us_". Is someone trying to hide something? To the Replit folks: I don't know you, I have never in my life heard of Replit before (until this HN post), but I feel I won't like you. Did you actually take down these pages with evidence of bypassing school security controls just so "you got no valid reason - apart from the ones we just hid"? Edit: "just" is 16mins after the parent posted the 3 URIs (as per HN clock).

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
amasad 6y ago
I just deleted them because we don't condone using our tool for this use-case. Basically they're tutorials on how to use replit to build proxies. Basic stuff you can google.

indymike 6y ago

So, instead of fixing the security issue, we're just going to make learning computers and programming off-limits? Silly.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
What fix would you suggest?

nfriedly 6y ago

Those posts were deleted by amasad (repl.it founder) just now (they explained it in another comment), but 2/3 are available on archive.org: * https://web.archive.org/web/20210120075709/https://repl.it/talk/learn/How-To-Visit-Blocked-Sites-~-Using-Replit-TutorialJam/79171 https://web.archive.org/web/20210120075709/https://repl.it/t... * https://web.archive.org/web/20210119055116/https://repl.it/talk/learn/Bypassing-School-Restrictions/24573 https://web.archive.org/web/20210119055116/https://repl.it/t... Those are some clever kids...