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When I was in high school (~4-5 years ago), I was often "caught" for using a proxy to get around the firewall. Other kids were often caught, too. In both cases,

When I was in high school (~4-5 years ago), I was often "caught" for using a proxy to get around the firewall. Other kids were often caught, too. In both cases, the proxy would become blacklisted. However, in all other regards the school would turn a blind eye and never reprimand me because they knew I was visiting sites like gamedev.net (a game development/programming website that was blacklisted because it had "games" in the description). However, most other kids were punished because often times they were visiting porn sites and infecting the computers with viruses/malware/etc.. Unfortunately, the majority of kids (in my school, at least) fall into this camp who aren't bypassing firewalls for productive reasons, but rather for reasons that usually at least cost the school hundreds of dollars in fixing the computers. The take-away I'm trying to convey is that, in my experience, (a) schools dole appropriate punishments -- it's not a black and white "you disobeyed rule X, which means punishment Y follows" -- and (b) the (limited) censorship is also a cost saving measure and usually warranted.

betterunix 13y ago
My experience is a bit different. First, my high school was profoundly hypocritical, allowing teachers unfettered access while forcing students to deal with a firewall -- I know this because one of the ways we discovered to defeat the firewall was to give your computer an IP address in the range assigned to the teachers' computers. Second, the punishments are neither appropriate nor acceptable in many cases, with suspensions, ludicrous bans on even touching school computers, and other draconian measures being doled out for things such as modifying boot scripts to display a message (my own pride and joy from middle school). Finally, the censorship is not limited, at least not by any definition I would use. You yourself said that your school's firewall blocked a website that had the word "games" in it. I have seen hackaday.com blocked for having words like "hack" in it. When I was a kid these firewalls would also block websites that had the word "vagina," "penis," "breasts," "semen," "nipples," and so forth appear enough times -- like, say, a medical website. This article mentions a ban on streaming music and social media. The blacklist is so long I have to wonder why they do not just switch to a whitelist, or why they even bother with Internet access at all. Even if the censorship were limited, I cannot see how it would be justified. Suppose only hardcore pornography were blocked -- how is that acceptable? Would it not be better to punish students caught watching pornography at school by having them write a lengthy essay about the history and politics of pornography (and wouldn't the ability access at least one pornography website be necessary?)? If the goal is education shouldn't the focus be on educating, rather than on trying to shield students from the world? Consider the flip side of this: as a kid I was once sent to a summer program for programming, and one of the other students was caught installing back orifice on the computers. His punishment was to explain the software to everyone, along with the ethics of installing it without permission.

betterunix 13y ago

My experience is a bit different. First, my high school was profoundly hypocritical, allowing teachers unfettered access while forcing students to deal with a firewall -- I know this because one of the ways we discovered to defeat the firewall was to give your computer an IP address in the range assigned to the teachers' computers. Second, the punishments are neither appropriate nor acceptable in many cases, with suspensions, ludicrous bans on even touching school computers, and other draconian measures being doled out for things such as modifying boot scripts to display a message (my own pride and joy from middle school). Finally, the censorship is not limited, at least not by any definition I would use. You yourself said that your school's firewall blocked a website that had the word "games" in it. I have seen hackaday.com blocked for having words like "hack" in it. When I was a kid these firewalls would also block websites that had the word "vagina," "penis," "breasts," "semen," "nipples," and so forth appear enough times -- like, say, a medical website. This article mentions a ban on streaming music and social media. The blacklist is so long I have to wonder why they do not just switch to a whitelist, or why they even bother with Internet access at all. Even if the censorship were limited, I cannot see how it would be justified. Suppose only hardcore pornography were blocked -- how is that acceptable? Would it not be better to punish students caught watching pornography at school by having them write a lengthy essay about the history and politics of pornography (and wouldn't the ability access at least one pornography website be necessary?)? If the goal is education shouldn't the focus be on educating, rather than on trying to shield students from the world? Consider the flip side of this: as a kid I was once sent to a summer program for programming, and one of the other students was caught installing back orifice on the computers. His punishment was to explain the software to everyone, along with the ethics of installing it without permission.