pic: Crazy Web Filter

[mschwab013]

[cdm-description=photo]39137[/cdm-description]

[Walter Deitzler]

I hope it does not get blocked at my school, we use the same filter.

I do not have any classes where I would have time to goof off on CD (like in previous years) but our team does use the school internet, so this could pose an issue.

(Although, blocking for "education and reference" at a school does seem like a silly idea.)

[jwallace15]

Are you joking?! That's dumb!

We switched from Barracuda to Sonicwall at my school... Fortunately it was before I joined CD...

Actually I think OpenDNS blocked this on my home computer when I went to join (category of Forums/Message Boards)... Can't remember though.

[protoserge]

I've been using OpenDNS for a while and haven't had anything but the best browsing experience.

If CD was ever blocked at school, have a faculty sponsor address the issue to the school/district IT group and it should get resolved.

[BobbyVanNess]

Barracuda blocked it from our school at one point for "forums", which makes a little more sense than education and reference. Though we do have the network administrator on our side. It was back up by the end of the day.

It is ironic, however, that for FIRST kids, Chief Delphi is a bigger time consumer than Youtube, Facebook, and Google combined! :p

[Pault]

Barracuda is customized for every network, so just because it was was blocked at 1 person's job doesn't mean it's blocked everywhere. My school uses barracuda and as of 6AM this morning chiefdelphi is not blocked (if your truly devoted to robotics, you will understand why I would be on Chief Delphi in my school at 6AM during August). Although the blue alliance has been blocked for a while.

It's too bad there isn't a type of program that would allow you to hide your ip adress and bypass webfilters. That would be really convenient, although I never said that if such a thing existed I would use it. ;)

[Michael Hill]

Barracuda is customized for every network, so just because it was was blocked at 1 person's job doesn't mean it's blocked everywhere.

This. The way our web filters work at work is that many (but not all) websites are given a category (news, social networking, music, etc.). Then our management has a whitelist of categories. Unfortunately, not all sites are categorized (mostly small sites), and the default action for a "Category: none" is to block it. Some single sites are enabled out of policy (twitter, facebook, youtube, etc.). While it's pretty frustrating at times, it's a decent balance of freedom vs. web safety.

[protoserge]

It's too bad there isn't a type of program that would allow you to hide your ip adress and bypass webfilters. That would be really convenient, although I never said that if such a thing existed I would use it.

There are ways to do this, but they are not to be discussed on this forum ::safety::

[Pault]

There are ways to do this, but they are not to be discussed on this forum ::safety::

I have never been good at sarcasm... Lets try adding a winky face.

It's too bad there isn't a type of program that would allow you to hide your ip adress and bypass webfilters. That would be really convenient, although I never said that if such a thing existed I would use it. ;)

Much better.

[flameout]

(Although, blocking for "education and reference" at a school does seem like a silly idea.)

This happened to me in middle school. I forget what site it was, but it was a legitimate site (something like Wolfram MathWorld).

My school, however, used the "Bess" filter -- according to Wikipedia, this is/was later known as "Secure Web SmartFilter EDU". I believe the exact quote was "Educational Material".

I find it odd that the filters are so similar, given that, according to Wikipedia, the filters are unrelated. :confused:

[protoserge]

I have never been good at sarcasm... Lets try adding a winky face.



Much better.

Indeed!

[spydan]

Useful things sometimes do get blocked at our school, such as Weebly. Just talk to your IT Department and they probably won't have a problem to whitelist the website. It is helpful on our team that our chief advisor is also the school's IT guy.

[Walter Deitzler]

This happened to me in middle school. I forget what site it was, but it was a legitimate site (something like Wolfram MathWorld).

My school, however, used the "Bess" filter -- according to Wikipedia, this is/was later known as "Secure Web SmartFilter EDU". I believe the exact quote was "Educational Material".

I find it odd that the filters are so similar, given that, according to Wikipedia, the filters are unrelated. :confused:

We did have Wolfrum Alpha blocked at our school, because kids in their seminar class would use it to find answers to their homework, but CD remained unblocked. I think that maybe, despite the filter, administrators can also go in and block certain websites. Thus allowing the education filter to remain unblocked, but Wolfrum Alpha be shut down.

[ekapalka]

Ha! CD is blocked at my school as adult...

[jwallace15]

Ha! CD is blocked at my school as adult...

You must be joking. Did you enter the right URL?

[techhelpbb]

Ha! CD is blocked at my school as adult...

Does your school use SourceFire?

If they do please ask them to update their rules.

Previously SourceFire incorrectly classified this website as adult I called them an explained that this was incorrect.

However I am sure there are plenty of people out there without subscriptions.

[ekapalka]

You must be joking. Did you enter the right URL?
Yep. I sent a request around the end of school to have that changed, but I won't find out if they did anything until school starts up again
Does your school use SourceFire?
Nope, LightSpeed :)

[techhelpbb]

Nope, LightSpeed :)

Sadly LightSpeed could be any number of things.
If it's an Internet provider they could be using SourceFire in their IDS if they provide this service to you. Verizon Wireless sure does.

[Whippet]

My old school's web filter had a habit of categorizing anything that wasn't manually approved as "pornography." It took two weeks for my whitelist request to get through to our IT guy because so many people wanted sites to be unblocked. Needless to say, they aren't using that filter anymore. :D

[ekapalka]

Sadly LightSpeed could be any number of things.
If it's an Internet provider they could be using SourceFire in their IDS if they provide this service to you. Verizon Wireless sure does.
This is LightSpeed (http://www.lightspeedsystems.com/products/rocket/collaborative-filter/).