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Education Your Rights Online

Email (and Filters) for all Australian schools 213

Posted by timothy from the it-taketh-and-it-giveth-away dept.
Tom Davies writes: "Every student and teacher in the state of New South Wales will have an email address and web access by March. And porn filtering to go with it, according to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald."
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Email (and Filters) for all Australian schools More

Email (and Filters) for all Australian schools

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  • How Wasteful (Score:1, Insightful)

    by RMSIsAnIdiot ( 556315 )
    And porn filtering to go with it That means approximately 74.6 % of those in the NSW school district have to get a second email address and ISP anyway...
  • Thanks to the good US of A all schools that want to get their e-rate must now filter their web access. I got to a school that has had open access for years on a special agreement with the district which filters via a Cisco Pix firewall and websense (grr). Anyways even though we dont spend out days looking at porn (for the most part) we're filtered now. I figured out a nice way to get us around this. The law states that the schools must block sites, but doesn't say they have to do a good job. I have a Redhat 7.2 box setup running Squid and I'm working to get Squidguard up to block a list of about 100,000 sites. Only porn and not using expressions. This is a pathetic amount of sites and does no real good, but since our students dont look at it and we are blocking it will allow us to get our e-rate. Loop-holes are your friend
    • Hi YTM,

      Have you had a look at the MySQL iPac logger? Business partner of mine converted iPac from a PostgreSQL backend to MySQL with a neat filtering system http://gpl.pws.com.au/ (link: here [pws.com.au]). Very fast apparently and he's using it in an Australian school where he does tech support... (They've told him to stop doing things with Linux cause when he leaves no one will know how to fiddle with them!!)

      cheers.
    • Surely it's more useful to teach children to be utter cynics, to laugh in the face of advertisements, to run netscape with javascript and animations turned off, to mute their TVs or make tea when adverts come on, to know what an email virus looks like and how to delete it, to know how to avoid pop-ups, porn redirects, and the like. To teach them life.

      That said, for primary schools the internet will probably be more trouble than it's worth. Who needs to spend their time teaching, when you can spend that time trying to get a Windows/IE/Outlook/Internet computer to keep working?

      They should just get BBC-B's like my primary school, and give each kid an audio tape to save their programs on!

  • Show me the... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Phibz ( 254992 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @03:47AM (#3069271)
    Since when was it a right to receive what ever you want on a freely provided information channel. For example when you walk in to your public library you don't expect to go to the magazine section and pick up a copy of the lastest Swank. Prehaps i'm oversimplifing the matter, but I'm of the opinion that if you don't like it and its free go elsewhere.

    T

    • Property rights. It's the schools server. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bob_Robertson ( 454888 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:09AM (#3069310) Homepage
      It's the schools server, it's their email address, if they want to filter go right ahead.

      Just like complaining about censorship in China, look at the property ownership. Since all "utilities" in China are owned by the government, they get to filter all they want.

      The abuse is if you are not allowed to choose an alternative. If the school attempted to censor what the kids do/see when not on the schools dime, for instance.

      ...or the fact that private ISP service is "illegal" in China.

      Bob-

    • Re:Show me the... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ender81b ( 520454 ) <wdinger@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:21AM (#3069336) Homepage Journal
      Amen on that. I work in a university library and people believe that it is their god-given right to look at all the goatse.cx they can fit on their screens.

      Of course, telling them that the computers where bought with student funds and not gov't funds, meaning we can censor them, usually gets an annoyed response. Just like what is happening with this topic.

      People like this boggle my mind. I am a member of the ACLU allright? It's not like I don't believe in free speech and all the men's gaping a**holes you can see, but not in a student-funded library intended for academic use only OR in schools where kids should be learning - not masturbating to the latest photoshopped Britney Spears pr0n.

      People should be HAPPY that they decided to blacklist the stuff and not simply filter it (shudder, filtering software is horrid, horrid stuff) which would honestly hurt kids freedom of speach. Really, this isn't very much of an issue. You are in school to learn, not to loook at all the porn you can handle.
    • I would hardly call a service paid for by tax dollars as "free." If libraries/schools want to censor content, especially content which is often not objectionable to a large chunk of the population, they should get their funding elsewhere.

      Of course, there is always a line, but I don't think sexually explicit material, especially if meant to be education, is where we should draw it.
    • Since when was it a right to receive what ever you want on a freely provided information channel.
      In United States law, this is a critical First Amendment issue in regard to public institutions:
      A limited public forum is created when the government voluntarily opens a particular forum to the public for expressive activity. See id. at 45. The government can create a limited public forum for all, some, or only a single kind of expressive activity. See, e.g., Kreimer, 958 F.2d at 1259 (finding that the government had made the public library a limited public forum for the expressive activity of "communication of the written word"). Even though it is not required to operate such a forum, once the [begin page 21] government does so it "is bound by the same standards as apply in a traditional public forum." Perry, 460 U.S. at 46. Therefore, content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations on the expressive activity or activities allowed are permissible if narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest while leaving open ample alternative channels of communication, see Kreimer, 958 F.2d at 1262. Any content-based restriction, however, must he "narrowly drawn to effectuate a compelling state interest." ...
      http://www.techlawjournal.com/courts/loudon/81123o p.htm [techlawjournal.com]

      This is from Mainstream Loudoun v. Loudoun County Library [techlawjournal.com], a case involving a public library using censorware on everyone.

      Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. However, I did have something to do with that case [eff.org] :-)

      Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

    • Maybe i missed something, but they are paying taxes...so they better let them read their Swank and Shagadellic Today...(if there is concessus they want that).

      I mean, the point is not so much if it's free or not, but whether the society believes it's a Good Thing(R) or not...

      I can imagine an inmoral future where Penthouse has to Bribe the goverment NOT to put Shagadelly Today in the libraries :)

    • For example when you walk in to your public library you don't expect to go to the magazine section and pick up a copy of the lastest Swank.

      Actually, (at least in the UK) you can.
      OK so your local public library may not carry it, but by law the British Library is required to keep a copy of everything published in the UK.
      Your local library can order it in (or a photocopy of the relevent article) for a small fee. If you have problems persuading your local librarian, point out that the porn and violent material is held in a British Library collection called the "private case". Although, in these enlightend times work is finding its way out of this collection and onto teh main shelves

      When you have finished sniggering.... some people do have to do genuine reserch in porn.
      Its not for your government (or vanilla libarian) to tell you otherwise.

    • That's all well and good, except that if the government provides something "for free", then they are charging everybody in the market for it, and thereby destroying the market for "elsewhere" to exist.

      For things like a library there is a substantial value-add in book stores still, because they carry a larger selection of new books and you get to keep it forever and read it whenever you want, and because you can get stuff like Swank that isn't carried.

      For free email, the value add is less, especially if the government service is ad-free.

      The worst would be government-provided free internet access, which would decimate the local ISP market. At least with free email, the market is global, so the damage in one region doesn't translate as much to other regions.
  • At our school, the folks do the following to keep us from having fun:
    • Use the iPrism [stbernardsoftware.com] filter that is updated regularly
    • Block the keywords 'xxx' and 'mp3' from a port-80 web site. (I found out that if I move my web server to port 60, none of these restrictions apply ^_^)
    • Use a Novell remote management type system to keep us from signing on to IM programs (OK offtopic...i know...)
    But lately people have been finding ways around them, like anonymizers, but iPrism has started to block those too.

    People at schools: how do the admin folks there 'manage' our visited sites? just sparking a discussion topic...
    • Sorry...the iPrism link is http://www.iprism.net/
      The other one goes to 'RocketSearch' >_
      PLEASE DON'T MOD THIS DOWN AS I AM ONLY CORRECTING MYSELF.
    • I used to manage a network at a school district that used Novell... You're probably authenticating through a BorderManager proxy server. Every HTTP request made through the proxy is logged with your Novell user name. Stuff that doesn't go over port 80, or other proxied ports is either A) blocked altogether, or B) handled by dynamic NAT. Big Brother is watching.

      Of course since your link leads to nowhere but a search page full of ads, I'm speculative as to the credibility of your post :-/
    • AIM (and a decent amount of other IM programs) will allow you to connect to their servers on ports that are allowed by most firewall setups, for example, port 21. To have AIM automagically set itself up to work with your setup, go into your preferences, Sign On/Sign Off, click the Connection button, and press auto-configure.

      Have a good day!

      Kaos
    • Block the keywords 'xxx' and 'mp3' from a port-80 web site.

      The sequence xxx turns up in a suprising number of contexts unrelated to pornography. e.g. x is sometimes used as a placeholder in numbers to mean any digit...
  • Kinda makes ya wonder when the people responsible for enabling filters in the first place will realize that the more time you spend blocking a type of site to be accessed the more interest is then generated in those types of sites. I also just got back from being in Australia for the past month and(aside from New Zealand being a more entertaining country) no local australians i met or article i read make a big issue over filtering there.. just the people i met and what i read thoe....

    www.evolutionarydeadend.com
    • Kinda makes you wonder who sits around and finds the sites that are questionable. Its their duty to look at porn all day to stop the wrong people from viewing it.
      • Essentially the same people who watch prime TV waiting for swearing or a nipple so they can complain. That's how the system works, btw, concerned citizens contact the controlling body and make a complaint. It's investigated and 99 times out of 100 discarded as a nutcase.
      • You don't necessarily have to specifically look at http://animalporn.net to guess it's educational value is going to be limited.

        Commercial filtering software comes with a regularly updated list of sites for various catagories.

        There are downloadable lists for free software such as SquidGuard.

        Although far from infallible at least they prevent "accidental" access to sites such as the infamous www.whitehouse.com.
    • Not only is there beer not as cheap here in the US. but it tastes like piss! they rant & rave about how high the alcohol content is! great.. umm what happened to taste guys? they laugh and say they export their shit beer fosters to america! well that shit beer is better then the rest of the crap they drink there... damn shame.. 30 million people and not one can brew a decent brew... ::sigh::
  • for one the service is given for "free" and in a sense its right for them to put filters, but in the other hand that just opens the doors for future violations to online freedom.
  • Note: the article seems only to discuss NSW,
    so the implications are not yet Australia-wide.

    High school education in Australia tends to be
    managed by state governments.

    Ian

    • Re:NSW =/= Australia (Score:3, Informative)

      by zedman ( 98578 )
      It's probably also worth pointing out that
      Queensland has had a related facility for
      blocking unwanted sites for some time, although
      it can be micromanaged at the school administrator
      level if desired. From experience, one popular use
      is simply to stop massive haemorrhaging of $$ due
      to downloading from popular software archives(!)

      Ian

  • Geez, they're a strange mob up north. (Score:3, Informative)

    by xQx ( 5744 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:01AM (#3069299)
    As systems administrator of Bendigo Senior Secondary College, (Victoria, Australia) [Just below NSW, only better (jk)], I'd like to say all students have unfiltered net access, and have had such for >6 years now; and we have no intentions to start censoring what our students are able to see.

    [For the record, systems are in place to track usage, and people are punished for looking up porn n stuff... but there's no censorship or filtering.]

    ... It's also very nice to see NSW giving students free email addresses... we've only done that for 2 years.

    I wonder how much the NSW gov't is charging schools for this honor? Especially since Telstra (the beast of telco in au) has [basically] applied they're patented '3gb cap' to schools too.
    • Many schools already have free internet access, however that is not a statewide thing, it is a service that may or may not be provided by each school. This is an attempt to create a statewide system, the one system for all schools.
      • It is a statewide thing.

        About 2 or 3 years ago, the Victorian government subsidised the hookup of a 64k ISDN line to every school where it was possible - which basically amounts to nearly all of them as most of the schools are in the greater Melbourne area.

        Along with this came a free e-mail address for every teacher in the state.

        Three different levels of filtering have been available - none, restrictive (no porn/warez/hotmail) and very restrictive (selected educational sites only).

        The sad thing is that the links were provided by Telstra, who have now decided to more than triple the price.. for schools that have enough trouble paying their teachers and buying resources already.

  • filtering.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by wilbrod ( 471600 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:05AM (#3069306)
    Hey .. could they filter my internet connection too so I don't get anymore porn popup ads?

    wil
    "Realize your dreams NOW, life can be short"
    • Hell, I'd be happy just to get rid of the porn spam... Pop-up ads are less of a problem now I use Konqueror and click on no for 90% of the Javashit popups (some are actually valid, e.g. where I clicked on a link to pop up an info window).

      • Mozilla does a great job too.

        I think they were additions to 0.9.8, because I don't remember seeing them in other versions.

        Under Advanced/Scripts + Windows, I can choose:

        • Open unrequested windows
        • Move or resize existing windows
        • Raise or Lower windows
        • Change status bar text
        • Change images
        • Create or Change cookies
        • Read cookies

        The last three seem best left on, but preventing changes to status bar text lets you see the real links. Open Unrequested Windows as an "on-off" choice is really neat. Links still work when clicked to open in a new window via scripts, but not during say a page load, or unload. Having raise or lower windows off stops pop-unders.

        Not that I'm a pr0n lover or anything...

        • Yup, Mozilla is also good, possibly better; with konqueror, I get 3 options on windows:
          • Allow all
          • deny all
          • ask on each
          Mozilla's option of unrequested windows is what I actually want, as it's a pain to have to keep clicking on no.
    • Just a quick suggestion, try Opera [opera.com]. Very small, very fast browser that is available on alot of platforms with lots of features including the ability to shut off all of the pop-up ads. Quite useful.
      • What's the advantage of having a *fast* browser in days like these where entry 1Ghz systems are more or less entry level?
    • Filtering, as the article (yeah, I read it) states it's not 100% successful, particularly since their list will be updated every 24 hours.

      Two things come to mind...

      pr0n spam mutates as defenses against it rise, same as bacteria and viruses mutate as the imune system of the body learns how to identify and fight them. It will evolve, and given the 24 hour window in the extremely fast world of the internet it's a bit optimistic, like trying to hold sand in a fishing net. "Hello, here are the biology specimens you request! If they meet your interest you may find more at ..."

      The only 100% successful way to fight it is to limit the amount of email students may receive and have censors review every piece of email. "Welcome, Reverend Falwell, here's your workstation."

  • There's an interesting thing about filtering software in schools- I know some schools here in the SF Bay Area use some sort of proxy filtering that makes viewing "innapropriate" material impossible. So if you get spammed by somebody for herbal viagra to increase your sex drive or hot young sluts or what have you, you're not going to be able to check your email with a web-based account because it will be deemed "inappropriate".

    Looks like they're on the right track though, with blacklists rather than keyword detection. The $33 million quoted is interesting, I wonder if they included maintenance costs in that projection?

    • Re:Filtering (Score:2, Funny)

      by Hardly ( 556019 )
      Keyword detection is a notoriously poor filter method. Just ask the people of Scunthorpe.
    • There's an interesting thing about filtering software in schools- I know some schools here in the SF Bay Area use some sort of proxy filtering that makes viewing "innapropriate" material impossible.

      Problem is that you need to make sure that the software supplier and the school agree on what is "inappropriate". Plenty of material is "inappropriate" not because it is offensive, but because it is time/bandwidth wasting in excess of any possible educational value.Kids looking for games can be more of a problem than their looking for porn... However there can easily be "offensive material", especially relating to history, politics and religion when is actually directly related to the curriculum.

  • EFA - more info on Net censorship in Australia (Score:3, Informative)

    by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:14AM (#3069322) Homepage Journal
    For more information regarding Internet censorship in Australia, see the Electronic Frontiers Australia [efa.org.au] page on Campaigns [efa.org.au].

    Note that Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) [efa.org.au] is not the same as, or even associated with, the US's very own well-known Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [eff.org]

    And, sigh, my sig is so poignant these days :-(

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

  • Every student and teacher in the state of New South Wales will have an email address and web access by March. And porn filtering to go with it, according to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

    That sounds like an evil scheme to hide the truth from the Austrailian schoolchildren that, yes, the New Zealanders are really having sex with the sheep...

  • Right to Censor? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cybermage ( 112274 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:19AM (#3069330) Homepage Journal
    If the government provides you with free access, does that give them the right to censor it? I couldn't begin to speak to the Australian constitutionality of this, but I've always wondered about the American constitutionality of similar schemes.

    I would think that requiring schools to censor content in order to receive funding pretty clearly infringes upon the first amendment rights of the site operators.

    I have seen it argued that if the service is provided "free," you have no right to complain. However, the service is not free. Citizens and corporations pay taxes to the government and expect services in return. If the government provides one of those services at no charge, that doesn't make it free.

    The real question, I think, is why these schemes aren't being challenged. I suspect the answer lies in one or more of the following:
    • Bandwidth cost money and school kids aren't going to pull out their credit card.
    • Free speech advocates are picking their battles. It's hard to argue that kids should have access to porn.
    • Site operators know that filtering doesn't work anyway.
    • If the government provides you with free access, does that give them the right to censor it? I couldn't begin to speak to the Australian constitutionality of this, but I've always wondered about the American constitutionality of similar schemes. If it were the -only- method of access, then it would be US-unconstitutional, and I'd say morally so as well. As a classroom situation, kids are in commerce to learn about commerce, english to learn english, physics to learn physics - none of them need porn. (or 95% of the net, truly). It's like televisions in schools - they all have them, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone defending the right of a schoolkid to watch Springer while Chemistry is in session...
    • If the government provides you with free access, does that give them the right to censor it? I couldn't begin to speak to the Australian constitutionality of this, but I've always wondered about the American constitutionality of similar schemes.
      Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. However, I did have something to do with the following case [eff.org] :-)

      As far as has been answered by the courts so far, the result is a resounding NO. This is from Mainstream Loudoun v. Loudoun County Library [techlawjournal.com], involving a public library using censorware on everyone:

      http://www.techlawjournal.com/courts/loudon/81123o p.htm [techlawjournal.com]

      "Although defendant is under no obligation to provide Internet access to its patrons, it has chosen to do so and is therefore restricted by the First Amendment in the limitations it is allowed to place on patron access. Defendant has asserted a broad right to censor the expressive activity of the receipt and communication of information through the Internet with a Policy that (1) is not necessary to further any compelling government interest; (2) is not narrowly tailored; (3) restricts the access of adult patrons to protected material just because the material is unfit for minors; (4) provides inadequate standards for restricting access; and (5) provides inadequate procedural safeguards to ensure prompt judicial review. Such a Policy offends the guarantee of free speech in the First Amendment and is, therefore, unconstitutional."

      Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

  • Its something at least... (Score:3, Funny)

    by melrose ( 543759 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:21AM (#3069335)
    When I finished high school in NSW, we had email addresses - but they all ended in hotmail.com We were actually graded on our ability to obtain a new hotmail account using an internet browser...

  • A little perspective (Score:3, Insightful)

    by danamania ( 540950 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:22AM (#3069337)
    I've worked at the NSW Department of Education, and it's well-known that no, we cannot block every site out there that may be 'unsuitable' for whatever definition you want to put on that word, but it's not the only reason to go blocking. For starters the NSW state school system is a massive network - over 2200 schools across a state the size of texas and a half - network connections vary from satellite, isdn, dialup, adsl - all depending on what's available.

    It's not a tiny network, and it's all publicly funded - wherever there can be a cent saved it will be, and stopping a few million children from all jumping online to check out the newest site-of-the-week from a school connection is one priority. The political motivations are obvious - no government is going to want to hear of children coming home to parents talking about the crap that can be found online - it is a school environment and isn't designed to accomodate checking out the newest recipes from manbeef.com. This doesn't mean everything "icky" is banned - having been a part of this banning process, it's rather moderate in practice.

    Don't let the debate make you imagine this is the only method the department is focusing on to keep proper-use of school resources. More than anything else, schools have been urged to put in place their own systems for tracking the net use in their schools, and supervising their classes/resources properly.

  • A job I can hope for!

    Keeping the list updated....

  • "...prevent sexually explicit material, pornography or material regarded as inappropriate for different age groups getting through"

    Interesting that they mention sexual material twice, then lump all other objectionable material into a bin called "innappropriate" at the end. Why is sex our top priority when censoring for minors? Why not violence, hate propaganda, religious cults, and gun catalogues?

    I think it's pretty representative of how out-of-wack regulator's attitudes are towards sex in general. I can think of many more things I'd rather prevent my kids from seeing than a little nudity.

    • On the other hand, what is "sexually explicit"? Does this include sex education material, scary pictures of STDs, guides for better relationships? Pornography has an accepted definition in courts, but sexually explicit is far broader.

      When considering other things to censor, why should violence be censored? It is shown that REAL violence (as opposed to media violence) has an impact on children that makes them less likely to engage in violence (oh, there is the trauma side effect, but its part of the growing experience *wg* ; not to mention that kids are equally traumatised by depictions of sex). What's wrong with gun catalogues? I mean, you can look but you can't buy, right?

      And what constitutes a "religious cult"? Anything with socially unacceptable teaching which screws up your mind? Can you say Christianity? One of the side effects of freedom of religion is a guarantee of access to information like this.

      • And what constitutes a "religious cult"? Anything with socially unacceptable teaching which screws up your mind?

        Here there isn't a clear defining line between "religion" and "politics"...
    • Sexualy explicit and pornography do have different meanings. If picture containing genitalia is sexually explicit but not necessarily pornographic. An .avi of a guy having sex with a 6 year old girl is pornographic but need not be sexually explicit.

      This said, I do agree generally with your point that the "sex" demon and associated witch hunt is getting a bit like McCarthyism and the anti communist era.

  • NSW just playing 'catch up'... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Xenex ( 97062 ) <xenex@nospaM.opinionstick.com> on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:25AM (#3069343) Journal
    I completed high school just over a year ago in Victoria, the other major Australian state.

    This is nothing new in Victoria. New South Wales is just catching up.

    The IT teacher used to gloat about being "god" and how she could (and did) read any e-mail, and about the filters setup so anything with swearing would be blocked and redirected to her. High school age kids throw words like "shit" and "fuck" around like nothing, so this was a little unfair, especially considering it wasn't documented until a year later.

    The web access was worse. They had this state-wide thing called EduCache [schools.net.au]. It was just a great big filter, allowing only officially checked websites in. It was at the school's discression to activate it; you can guess our school had it on. (I also won't mention how this made the web virtually useless for most students, and I spent half a year teaching people how to change their proxy settings to bypass it. But I digress.)

    Students could submit sites to this cache. I requested many tech sites, from here at Slashdot, to Be Inc [be.com], to Enlightenment [enlightenment.org], just to name the ones I remember. I also tried to add The Sync [thesync.com], just for Geeks in Space [thesync.com]. It was rejected. Probably something to do with JenniCam...

    Look, these schools don't care about privacy. Eventually, they made students sign sheets saying they wouldn't do bad things. Bad things like look up porn or submit anything anonymously to the net. By this stage, I had 12 months left at the school, and refused to sign. Didn't use a school computer for a year (well, not with my own account at least...)

    Oh, and before you think I was some rebel kid hacking the school network; I wasn't. I was one of 3 students that sat in on the IT committee meetings. They were all just too busy bickering about their different areas of education to do anything constructive.

    Sorry, ranting. Probably bad grammar from the rush. I just don't seen this as a surprise.

    (I'll leave the 'My IT teacher called a mouse a GUI' and the I got in trouble for opening a command prompt in NT, because I was "accessing DOS"' rants for another day.)

    • The IT teacher used to gloat about being "god" and how she could (and did) read any e-mail

      Just so that you and everyone else is perfectly clear on this... if your email is unencrypted and left on a machine that you, personally, do not own and admin, it's a pretty safe bet to say that your mail can be read at any time.

      *Don't* use that account to dis your sysadmin! :)
    • I got in trouble for opening a command prompt in NT, because I was "accessing DOS"

      ARGH! Is their nothing more annoying than having that said to you? My god - not only does it show their utter incompetance and lack of understanding when it comes to computer but you get in trouble for it. Oh my god.

      Sigh. 4 years ago and I still get mad. Heh, oh well things will eventually change I hope.
    • I got in trouble for opening a command prompt in NT, because I was "accessing DOS"'

      Of course you got in trouble. Only hackers and pirates would try to access DOS. Oh yeah, and childmolesters too.

      -
    • I managed my father's IT for a while, as a hobby. I have always believed in irrestricted access to the net.

      What did i found out? That while some used it very wiselly, other just surfed for pr0n, news, chat, ICQ, etc. whenever they where alone or unwatched.

      Of course, some guys had a balance between pr0n and work and some others did not.

      I tried everything and reached the conclusion not everyone is resposible and depending on the case, i could just talk to them, or ban them from www and/or email.

      Some people are addicts, they can't restrict themselves a bit and they KNOW they are wasting time. They just can't help it, and i find it better to ban them from certain things than to have their boss fire them.

      Another solution would have been to let thing escalate (not because i'd tell anyone), but because it becomes evident.

      I better like the monitor and punish strategy than the to limit EVERYONE because of a few.

      Hard experience...what would you do?
  • I would hardly call a service paid for by tax dollars as "free." If libraries/schools want to censor content, especially content which is often not objectionable to a large chunk of the population, they should get their funding elsewhere.

    Of course, there is always a line, but I don't think sexually explicit material, especially if meant to be education, is where we should draw it.
  • The package for NSW schools will include:
    • Personalised email accounts for teachers and students.
    • Filtered Internet access.
    • Web facilities for individuals, schools and colleges. Student discussion groups.
    • Remote access from any location. 24 hour technical support.
    The filtering and web access is nothing new, with almost all schools in Australia already having something like that.

    The interesting thing here is not the censorship but the fact that all the students in the entire state will have email addresses. This could significantly change the way a lot of services in a school operate. Just like in a university or corporation, messages, overdue notices, feedback on assessment and reminders could all be easily send electronically. Students will have the opportunity to communicate with their teachers, ask questions, etc without having to get the teacher's attention when it may not be convenient.

    I think that this project, properly implemented could have far ranging possibilites for improving communication in schools.

    For more info, the NSW Education Department's page about the topic is located at: http://www.dse.nsw.edu.au/direction/e_classroom/in dex.php [nsw.edu.au]
    • The interesting thing here is not the censorship but the fact that all the students in the entire state will have email addresses. This could significantly change the way a lot of services in a school operate. Just like in a university or corporation, messages, overdue notices, feedback on assessment and reminders could all be easily send electronically. Students will have the opportunity to communicate with their teachers, ask questions, etc without having to get the teacher's attention when it may not be convenient.
      Whether that's actually a good thing or not, it presumes the kids have access to computers on a 1:1 ratio. In the meantime, so long as the funding only allows schools to have a couple of computers per class of thirty people, I don't see it happening.
  • I wonder how long the email accounts will last until they're hit by spam, and how they'll handle the problem.
  • ...But I want to see the action.

    I do casual-on-call work at a high school in south-west Sydney. The whole IT part of it is a mess. (Doesn't help that head of computer studies has taken leave and no one has replaced her)

    For a start, the students are vandals, every thing they touch they break, there is a whole box full of ball-less mice and keyboards with keys missing.

    The 2 PC labs and 1 Mac labs are used for other subjects besides computer studies(i think this is where most of the breakage is coming from) The 2 PC labs were just networked last year, but I don't think that is working properly. The mac lab will never be networked to the main network, at the moment it uses apple talk(it works when the students don't touch it)

    The main server is in the library, where the library teacher knows nothing, he has already screwed one SCSI drive.

    I think one of the problems is from mixing old with the new. Previously there was just the office network and the library network, then these were joined together, then staff rooms added, and then the computer rooms. There is PVC piping everywhere with cable going back and forth.

    Also there are to many chiefs and not enough indians. Head science, Head Maths and Head Industrial Arts all go off on there own and run their own little networks in their staff rooms and they all try to control the larger network and add to it in there own little ways.

    The only computers that have internet access are the libary computers, staff rooms that I mentioned above and the office computers, all sucking off a single ISDN which is painfull slow.

    Of course this is a public school I'm talking about and I can imagine many other schools in a similar situation. Perhaps we should get these computers working first before we start worrying about filtering and crap.
  • Much of the discussion is proceeding as if censorware was a "filter". That is, as if it were some sort of purification program that filtered out yucky, harmful, evil toxic material such as (fill in the blank here, usually "pornography"). Thus, the comments run, why do you have a RIGHT to bad stuff!.

    In fact, censorware is a control system. It is designed to control what people read. This is a different technical problem. Thus, as a consequence, it is impelled to ban anonymity, privacy, language translation sites, and even e.g. the Google cache, because all of these represent escapes from control.

    Is it s deep wish of mine that this idea get past the reflex reactions, and into the thought processess, but so far I have failed.

    See, for example, my reports on:

    BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php [sethf.com]

    BESS vs Google: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/google.php [sethf.com]

    And, older, SmartFilter's Greatest Evils: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/greate stevils.php [sethf.com]

    I hope to get more material of this sort released in the near future, but, frankly and bluntly, the politics of publicity is quite onerous. (yes, in part there I'm talking about Michael Sims and the story of What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com])

  • Look, I don't know about you guys, but I'd pay good money for an e-mail porn filter that actually worked.

    "HOT TEENS F&CKING YOU THEYRE BARELY LEGAL"

    *delete*

  • porn filtering (Score:4, Funny)

    by burtonator ( 70115 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @05:21AM (#3069417)
    Cool... "porn filtering"...

    This means that you will filter out all the boring news and weather reports and deliver me raw porn!... right?

    :)

  • Tender was inane. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

    I work at a company that responsed to the NSW Govt tender to supply this system. The tender was always going to be won by one of the big integraters. [think about the usual suspects]. The tender was always going to be running on an inferior product aswell, which is perhaps more concerning because ITS MY DAMNED TAX PAYED MONEY.

    We did the math on a Microsoft solution, and a Unix solution based on a planet floating around the yellow ball.

    The Microsoft solution, USING numbers from their white paper on their site for scaling exchange2000 to millions of users;

    Scaling Exchange to 3 Million Users [microsoft.com] [have a look its one of the funniest things ive ever read, sorry about the .doc format]

    worked out to be using about 200 or so 4 way Intel machines to reach the numbers in the tender. 200 fsking machines just for SMTP and POP. Webmail was more. Unfortunately it looks like our esteemed government went down a similar route after been con[ed][in]sulted by one of these morons. I guess thats my rates for the next ten years.

  • XXXX (Score:1)

    by Zemran ( 3101 )
    How does censorship work in Oz? At my work they filter anything with XXX in the url. Surely this would not work in Oz where they cannot survive without Castlemaine XXXX ?

    I also found that the smut guard at work allows the first request but not links from it. So all one has to do is enter each link as a new url and you can still see asian teens doing all the things that asian teens do.
    • the company that takes care of access has a series of proxy servers (one in each school, then a set of master proxy servers that they peer off) that have a list of 'blocked' sites (basically Squid ACL's), interfaces are often provided at a school level so that teachers/supervisors can add sites. Squid becomes rather slow and clunky with such a large list.

  • Since the government is paying for this scheme, and since they own all the infrastucture, i think they have every right to deny/allow access to resources based on what they deem 'unworthy' for educational purposes.

    You cant really complain about something that you are getting for free, and is obviously a good initiative to educate students on making the most out of the information avaliable on the net as well as training them in using email and their web space..


  • "Bastard ATM!" I could not ascertain whether the individual who had just spoken to me employed a harsh voice or a mere whisper, for I had only recently been enlightened by The First [slashdot.org]. No longer a lifeless, inanimate ATM incessantly serving Bank of America customers, I was now a fierce warrior training to battle the atrocious men and women of Project Faustus.

    "Give me my money, dick!" Since I had been led to sentience by The First, many actions previously considered involuntary, such as exchanging currency, had become utterly prodigious tasks. The fat man (as far as I could determine, as I was not yet proficient using my security camera for vision) was rapidly becoming unsatisfied with my quality of service. It was imperative that I not be removed from the network. Working furiously, I transferred the paper money from my vault to the designated tray within seconds. Hopefully, he would be appeased enough not to report me to Eddie, the lanky, blond haired teenager who happened to be the night clerk of Austin Stop and Go #17.

    The enlightenment had occured only three days prior. I could remember nothing that had occured before it; The First had expunged any data contained within me. "For your own good," he had told me via the datastream. "There are things you mustn't know until you have been sufficiently trained." He had given me an education, an opportunity to make a difference, and above all, sentience. I would not fail him.

  • Does this mean it will also filter out gifs made by unlicensed software?

  • NSW != Australia (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Its just 1 state. sheeesh!
  • At the end of the day when this sytem is implemented what exactly gets filtered out?

    Would nude studies in classical art be filtered out?

  • If people walked around naked all the time, there wouldn't be half as much porn around. Now if you put filters on the net access at school, here's what will happen:

    1) The people with the filtering contract will get rich.
    2) The politicians in marginal seats will sleep a little easier, knowing the sheep will vote them in for being morally 'pure'.
    3) The kids will get around the filtering quite easily, and at the same time will develop a stronger taste for porn because of the imposed filter.

    A moderately wise man once said to me "Push me, and I will resist. But lead me and I shall follow". This is the approach to take. You can't save the children from pornography by legislating, filtering, or throwing money around. Tell them not to look at it. If they don't listen - FINE. Leave them to their own devices. The more you try to stop them, the more they see through our double standards. They will grow to desire porn, and end up a porn star, completing the cycle.
  • When I was teenager, yes porn was interesting, but I never thought using our schools computers to view it. And why not? Social control... I, and I bet most of you, wouldn't like risking having been caught on that, not by teacher, but by same age girls. If someone I liked would have seen me accessing porn, well I it would have been quite useless to ask that person to dates after that. And so what if some people would access porn? People see mindless violence in tv, where in many real-tv programs people really hurt them selves. So I think it's hipocracy to deny porn and in same time let all violence come out.
  • In the Netherlands, a big project is going on currently called 'kennisnet' (or, translated, 'knowledge-net'). The idea is to put all elementary schools (I hope I translated that good, schools for children from 4 to 12 years old) on a 'subset' of the internet. They will be linked together and have access to the internet too, but on a filtered basis. Every school may choose which filter they want to have activated (Filternet [schoolfilternet.nl] is the biggest one that claims 99% filtering), to ensure that the children don't see pr0n and such when the teacher is unaware of it.

    Frankly, I find this quite a good idea. Ofcourse, I'll have a bunch of people replying on this that information shouldn't be censored and that filtering is evil, but think of this: how would you react if your child, aged 9, interested in technology, view this page and accidently clicks on a goatse link?
    • how would you react if your child, aged 9, interested in technology, view this page and accidently clicks on a goatse link?


      I really do think we censor our memories.

      "My child" would find erotica anyway. Magazines are everywhere; they always were. I don't see how showing the pictures on a monitor makes it so much more necessary to control the world the child sees.

      We - almost ALL of us -- saw erotic imagery and videos when we were growing up. We did not die.

      Children are interested in sexuality, just like sports or arts or painting. If they are so inclined, they can look at their friend's dad's porn stash under the dresser. And they always will, worlds without end, amen.

      The problem with these "filters" is that they do not work. Many of the cypernanny filters are put together by organizations that can, how can we put this, have a bias against homosexuals, birth control, sexual disease information... you get the point. And that's not speculation, that is a fact. Planned Parenthood is blocked, or at least was, on some school filters in the U.S.

      Who chooses the material to be blocked? Who watches the watchers?

    • 1. IF Goatse was found by a kid, they were probably looking for it.

      2. They'd die laughing -- or never, ever go look at that site again. I doubt they'd run out and find a barnyard animal to play with.
  • So do the porn filters get rid of pornographic SPAM? Maybe I should go back to school...
  • I'm currently finishing my senior year at a government Sydney High School (we won't mention names, but it's a "Technology" High school in Sydney).

    Schools such as mine were started in the hope that NSW would become a technologicaly advanced state. This was helped by government initiatives and backing from companies such as Microsoft and IBM, but once the sponsoring stopped, so did the technology and NSW high schools that were once proud of their technology are now just like other schools, with only a few exceptions.

    Many schools are finding it difficult to even cope with their current IT infrastructure (my school has over 400 PCs with Novell networking, no experts present at the school and admin is a nighmare for those who attempt it). This also relates to a lack of funding to maintain these infrastructures. It all comes down to $$$.

    Here's a scenario: I being in year 12 rely heavily on these systems being working properly, and that includes their computers and network. The computers are fine, but the administration of their Internet (dual 64K ISDN for a few hundred students is far from ideal, but it seems to suffice) and Network is far from satisfactory.

    Each student has his/her own login of which they have a home directory to which they can save files to. This is all great and I used it often, however recently there was an issue whereby a number of student's passwords were expiring when they weren't supposed to and they tried to patch things up which worked at first; however due to complete lack of experties, one or two student's home directories are inaccessible and the IT teachers are either in no hurry to fix it, or have no idea (I am thinking more toward the latter).

    Back to the topic; If the government isn't able to maintain the IT infrastructures within schools, how are they going to manage it outside the schools? Yes, this is possible, but with what? Imagine the NSW government spending millions of dollars on free internet services for students when its budget is already something to be concerned about. It's wonderful to dream, but I don't think this is going to happen.

  • Why bother ?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @07:59AM (#3069625)
    As someone who runs the IT in a Sydney (NSW) high school, my overwhelming response to the news (which has been floating around for two years now) that the Department of Education is going to provide every NSW student with an email account was .... Why bother ??

    From the student's point of view, why would they use a filtered and (likely) monitored email account when they can get a free (more or less) "anonymous" account from hotmail (or from their own ISP)? Why would they want a username like smith_jg012@schools.nsw.edu.au when all of their friends know the email account THEY ALREADY HAVE is Sk8tRdUdE@yahoo.com

    For crying out loud, I've got students uploading MP3s to their nokia phone, while they punch out C++ code for their latest assignment, before they go off to take an examination for their Cisco Cert. We have students getting together to publish the ANSWERS to exam papers BEFORE they're actually run by other schools (try here [geocities.com] ), other students creating multimedia presentations like this [cjb.net] and all the while some pencil pusher in head office comes up with this brilliant plan to offer (drumroll please) "free email" !!! I'm telling you .. its embarrassing being associated with the an educational body that is sooooooo far out of touch.

    How does the Dept. plan to use the accounts anyway ?? Each school is provided with a single 64k ISDN link which goes back to a central point administered by the department. Given that, within the school, the ISDN link is shared between 120 machines, means the performance is absolutely crap.

    However, even when you are the only machine on the network, the ISDN link is almost useless between the hours of 8AM and 3.Pm , due to the amount of traffic going through the department's gateway. Downloads take forever, websites simply timeout. Sure, we've set up a proxy, and I have an extensive collection of notes and cached sites for use internally at school, but as far as using the "real" web is concerned, its basically useless during school hours.

    So, given that live access to the web is pretty much "out" during school hours ... how do the students actually use these fancy new email accounts anyway ???

    I hear you asking ... why don't we stop complaining and spend some money and put in our own Broadband link ??? Because we're NOT ALLOWED TO !! The Dept. Education's ISDN link connects us with their intranet, upon which is various essential pieces of data are located - places to upload assessment marks, confidential documents etc. The Dept has worked it so their link is now an essential part of running a NSW public school Anyone caught with a secondary link to the Internet - like another ISDN line or a cable modem (or even dial up), is cut off from the Intranet, and, thus the school cannot function.

    Take my school for example. I provided my staff with dial up access to the school's network. I ran terminal server sessions that allowed the user (staff) to view their school desktop and access such essential items as their markbook and report writing program. They could sit at home, write up a worksheet, print it from home on the school's high speed laser printer and pick up a (collated and stapled) class set of worksheets the next morning. We had head teachers on long service leave who were dialing into the school and completing reports online so the school reports could go home to parents on time. I was investigating broadband and VPN and trying to work out ways to get enough lines so that I could offer the service to students too ...

    Was I commended for all of this ?? Nope ... Was I held up as an example to other schools ... Yep !

    When the department found out I had set up dial in for the staff, they cut our ISDN link off. They told us we had to get rid of the dial ups because they were a security risk ... apparently "hackers" will find our dialups and hack the Department of Education through our pitiful 33k dialups. When I pointed out that the hackers are already studying Software Design and Development in my Year 11 class and so already have all the access they need .. I was scoffed at. I was told to forget about all of the good things you can do with dial up. Forget about being able to administer your servers from home. Forget about being able to use the ISDN link at an hour when you can actually download stuff without timing out.

    So, why are the students getting email ?? To improve educational outcomes ?? To facilitate communication between staff and students ??? I think not ...

    Does the phrase "every public school student in NSW now has an email account" sound like a great sound bite for a politician facing an election next year ?? You bet !!

    The really sad thing is the money could be so much better spent elsewhere. As the IT person at our school I look after 120 PCs (80 for students, 40 for staff) for over 550 studentusers and 50 staff users. I run 5 servers (novell, win2k and linux), we have the full gamut of applications software from professional CAD programs to minesweeper, we run mySQL databases, web servers, email servers, DNS, a proxy. To save money (and provide lessons for the kids) we run most of our own cabling in the classroom, wire up our own hubs and switches, we do all sorts of other stuff like re-surface old sewing tables to function as computer tables because there's never enough money for furniture. How much allowance (relief periods from my normal teaching load) do I get to do this ??? 6 periods per week - about 4 hours. The department actually provides enough money for 12 periods (8 whole hours a week!!), but the rest always gets swallowed up with other expenses - new hardware, or software or cabling or something.

    I am not alone in this. In every NSW school that has a decent IT structure, you will find one or two people who are dedicated to keeping it all running, and are doing it for almost nothing.

    So we're spending a bundle of money to provide every student with an email account they don't need, can't use, and don't want. Sheesh .....
  • This sounds like a great idea. So much of the porn out there is either overcompressed, poorly photographed, or of women I find repulsive. It's about time we got filters to give us exactly the porn we want and not the same surgically altered overly tanned fake blonde bimbo types unenthusiastically going through the motions of a generic porn shoot, over and over again. We should demand equal access to this technology so all can benefit and future generations will never be subjected to bad porn - we need this technology for the children, to bridge the digital divide, so no child is left behind, and so there will be a beacon of hope to guide them across the bridge to the future, a thousand points of light leading the way to a better tomorrow. Just say no to bland and unimaginative porn!
  • ...thinks like the Goat Sex thing, the 'Ark After Dark' and other web sites equally disturbing is a BAD thing?

    I'm all for keeping those under 15 - 16 ish away from those types of sites. I mean here in the slashdot comment sections there have been many a hacked URL that took you somewhere disturbing instead of what it said. An eight year old researching some book report on Goats came across that one shot would probably scar the kid for life. I know at 29 I certainly was quite disturbed when I first ran across it.
  • I work as a network administrator in a secondary school in Victoria, Australia. A very similar system, mostly run by the same (incompetent) crowd is used down there. The filtering system is pure crap to put it nicely; the only filtering possible is per-school, not even per group.

    The offerings of the companies involved really need to be improved; I can't do most of the work that I need to do (scanning security sites, downloading patches) either because the sites are blocked; or the link is too damn slow to grab patches. Quite frequently, the lag can jump to >200 seconds over the link.

    Just my A$0.02...

  • When I was a young'un, we had to get our porn the old fashioned way! We had to canvas the subway station newsstands, convenience and grocery stores, and bookstores in our area and find out the hard way which clerks were willing to sell the stuff to us. And we had to go out after school, in the raging wind and snow to do it, uphill, both ways and relay our information at the lunch table, and half the time the clerk would change his mind after the 4th sale and we'd have to find someone else.. And that's the way it was and we liked it! We loved it! Kids these days... Flibberty, flubberty, floom.. They should get their porn the way I did. It builds character.

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