Individual rights Vs School Security

[fourdc]

Schools in America report to superintendents who report to elected school boards. School boards usually have frequent school board meetings where citizens can bring their concerns. If you don't like a policy you can bring it to their attention. If you get nowhere with that you can petition for a referendum on a ballot. Or you can campaign to unseat school board members who don't see things your way.

If the democracy of the process bothers you, would you be any better off with anarchy?

[lord_darkside_x]

well that is nice and all but i don't think it is necessary to fight with the school over internet privacy in the school. there is no need for a change. granted it restricts some site you may want to eed to go to, but with out it there would be all sorts of people abusing the priviledge, just like everything else. i stand strong for freedom and for privacy, but i think in some cases there needs to be said rules... these are public machines for your benefit, you could not have them at all

[allenb1963]

Welcome to the real world....a place full of rules and regulations that you may or may not agree with. IF you want to change it, then go into politics and 20 years from now you might be able to make a difference.

As it is now, count yourself lucky. IF you break the rules, you get sent to the principals office, detention or a short suspension. Out here in the real world if you break the rules you get an all expenses paid trip to a 8x10 room that you share with a big guy named "Bubba" who thinks you're cute and wants you for his concubine.

[gore]

umm, synper/evil/VizjereiMage

how many accounts is it going to take before you realise you dont tell people how to do things they shouldnt be doing on computers they dont own?i think you need to see a DR, you talk to your self with your accounts man, for one, you can tell its you because of the personality in your posts, you cannot hide that, no matter how many accounts you use a part of you shows up in each one of them, just give up on pretending to be 3 people. Also, stop talking toeach account man, i dont give a **** you came back, you had the right to but **** at least dont pretend its not you,,,i mean dude, your other account posted a question about your computer being ****ed up, and you reponded to it on another account! i mean **** man, give up on that and just post normal ****, honestly no one cares you were banned before, you came back, its called a second chnce, just quit pretending, be yourself, and post something besides jokes and one liner replies and youll be fine ok?

[XTC46]

our state DOE uses websense, its run off a list that the DOE admin puts together, it also can block wepages by there subject lines, it blocks the download of certain files (i.e. MP3s). its a good program if your looking for mild security and just plain restrictions on the internet.

[bballad]

What exactly are you trying to do...if its a purely learning driven request (and not gamming r something malicious) talk to the network guys/the CS teachers if you have a CS department. You may be able to get a sandbox network setup without the restrictions outside of the firewall.

[LeetProdigy]

My school has Bess Internet Filtering installed on its network also. Now I don't go browsing porn sites, but I do surf. What bugs me is that websites that shouldn't be blocked are. For example, some bands like NOFX's webpage are blocked. This makes the use of the internet very limited. Even when I am looking up information for school, some sites are blocked that contain useful information. Filtering is a necessary thing for schools and company offices, but I believe they are taking it too far.

[FlamingRain]

Well, seeing as this thread was just revived and all i'm doing is d/'ing distro disks for FreeBSD, i guess i'll throw in my fifth of a dime.

Although i have no real experience with filtering systems at my school (i never took CS courses for anything because most of them had titles like "Business System and Technology" but was really "Learn how to use more MicroSoft products"), i can contribute some general philosophy. Imagine someone using your computer. They're someone you don't know and you're liable for their actions. Would you let them reign free on your system doing whatever they want, or would you lock your system down so that they could use it for some things, but not damage the computer or put any unwanted content on it?

It's kind of like the FreeNet group. I, being a former member of freenet, agreed with their ideas of free speech and anonymity. I liked the idea of being able to look through things without fear of being judged or banned from computer use. Then, i found that there's was a whole crapload of stuff on my hd. I didn't know what it was, i didn't know how to read it, all i knew was that it came from freenet. I got kinda scared by that then. I mean, i couldn't be assured of what was on my computer. It could be virus code, child porn, anything. After that, i realized that my convictions of free speech weren't as strong as i thought. Although i wanted to be able to freely express myself, i didn't want to be held responsible for other people doing the same. I immediately wiped that section of my drive and defraged so that stuff was put over it. I removed all my freenode data, and have never installed it since.

This situation is a lot like that. Although the people running these systems may not want you to be stripped of your rights and freedoms, they don't want to be held responsible for what you do with those rights and freedoms. As such, usage policies are formed and, whether you like it or not, you either abide by them, or don't use the system.

None of this is really directed at the original poster as it seems they were only interested in providing their school with alternate protection mechanisms. For that, i am glad. If we cannot see our options, how could we ever make a good decision? Anyways, that's what i have to say about it for whatever that's worth.

[EaseZE]

I had bess at my highschool, that is when i went there a couple years ago, and i found it quite easy to get around. The admin was my friend though, and since i helped with some of the chores in the lab, i got to keep this personal freedom. Most schools won't have an admin that will take a student seriously, but as it seems i was lucky. In general its probably a bad idea to do anything outside of the schools internet policy without permission.

Also i believe there is a page where you can make a formal request to bess to have them review a page you think should not be banned. I had a couple bans lifted by doing this.

[Deimos326]

i have no clue why this old thread was brought up but here goes...
as many of us know many internet security programs not only block content like pornography but also things that the maker deems innapropriate. For example, my schools program has blocked access to a young conservatives website, which has nothing on it innapropriate. sure, you could say its the schools computers and stuff, but you havto remember its our tax dollars paying for the security programs going on the computer, some of the computers might come free but they dont come with programs like Fortress 101 (at least the schools around here dont). Schools do not have the right to not allow subjection to websites which they deem politically wrong, even though it may not be offensive in any way. yea theyre not making the security programs, but the schools should have enough responsibility to get a secure internet access program which does not block content that is perfectly acceptable and is blocked simply because the maker doesnt like it. you may want to check out this thread if your interested in schools with politics http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=252010