I did IT for a school district and staying on top of proxies was a game of whack a mole. I’d do it because I was asked too, but kids will find a new proxy that works. And the little bastards are more clever than we give them credit for.
I remember when I was in high school many many moons ago, my buddy set up a proxy through his own server. (This dude was a genius for a high schooler, he was MSCE+Security certified before graduating).
We thought we were hot shit. We used it for a few weeks. Then one day we got called into a meeting with the district’s IT department. Turns out they knew we were using it all along, but didn’t care because we were mostly using it to browse gaming sites. But then this dipshit kid saw us using it, copied the URL without our knowledge, and used it to browse porn. So they had to shut us down and punished us. No network access for a month. (That kid lost computer access for the rest of the semester and failed a computer class he was taking. Serves him right.)
Lol never stand between a teen and their smut. It is a losing battle.
Some kids will find proxies. Definitely not enough that need things like the suicide prevention sites.
It should not be on the kids to do it in the first place.
They have lots of time and motivation, as well as zero shits to give about getting caught. It’s Actually a pretty good thing that kids are trying to bypass security because it naturally teaches them problem solving in a novel way
And the little bastards are more clever than we give them credit for.
I watched a really great documentary about the game Oregon Trail, and one of the first bug fixes they needed to add was preventing kids from putting in a negative number when purchasing things which resulted in an infinite money glitch. The developer was amused that the kids figured this out.
I also learned that Prince was in the same middle school where the alpha version of the game was tested in 1972, which is pretty neat.
This is what happens when the schools are so broke that instead of getting proper IT they have to get the cheapest blocker possible and then just dial up the blocking to 11.
Censored education. Nothing bad ever happened because of that…
They’ve been doing this since the 2000s. I remember having to set up a proxy server at home just so I could connect to it and actually browse the Internet at school without every third site being blocked for no reason.
I just used sketchy Chinese websites designed for bypassing the Chinese firewall
Seems safe
My favorite solution was translating the website in Google translate
Same old same old. I remember back when some schools blocked Wikipedia article on Dick Chaney. Why the porn blocker would block any url with dick in it.
They also block adblockers (at least in my area). So I’m trying to find a good laptop for my sister to use next year.
In case it helps you, I’ve found that the uMatrix extension has been a great way to auto-block all Javascripts while still being able to permit just the ones needed to work past a site or network’s limitations.
There’s a little bit of a learning curve at first, but nothing too bad. Using the extension also feels empowering, because it gives you much more control than just a flat ‘block everything’ anti-ad approach.
No the thing is, the school district in my area uses Chromebooks and they’re locked down to the point you can’t download extensions or use another browser.
Missouri wanted those sites blocked, and the kids who are now vulnerable to suicide are the kind those people don’t want living anyway.
Fuck MISERY!
Not diminishing how shitty this is
But where does it say NASA is blocked?
