Comment Re:Not only good for people in censored countries. (Score 1) 140
>But also for Americans. More and more of us are going to schools, universities, and workplaces that install and use content filtering/firewalls.
The counter to this argument is budgets. Most schools recieve their funding for high-speed bandwidth through a grant. The provisios of that grant state we need to apply a content filtering system to protect our children. As the primary monitor our districts traffic through the firewall, I see and hear these arguments all the time. I do not think it is possible to lump 'schools' or even 'universities' with 'workplaces'. Yes we all have to work here too, but a school is an entirely differnt (public funds, publically voted budget etc.) than a work place or even, to bring this on topic a police state. An employer has every right to say, no you can't chat on AIM or /. during the work day. And unless his policy states that you can circumvent their firewall, then while you are at work it would probably be nice if you abided by your bosses rules.
I think many people would be very upset if we asked the public to subsidize the 12K+ a year we spend on our 100mbs fiber connection, funds that are completely covered under the E-rate grant. With out e-rate funding there would be no-way to pass the tech budget, and in a country where our technological skills are falling behind everyday, I think (and my boss concurs) that suspending students, revoking priviledges and being a general BOFH (not my choice BTW.) is a very appropriate response to users who violate district policy (they have to click accept every time they log in). If we don't crack down in this manner, and many of our students and faculty find us (and call us) rude and nasty names, but the consquences are, from a wider perspective, are deffinately not worth completely opening our filters. Proxy bypass sites like these, while I agree are great for the dissemination of information to people who's connection to public information has been oppressed, should not be taken as a giant glossy lets F*** the filters solution. Especially in schools those filters are in place for a reason. Workplace is a grey area and so is university, but please don't lump schools in with businesses.
-deadturtle
The counter to this argument is budgets. Most schools recieve their funding for high-speed bandwidth through a grant. The provisios of that grant state we need to apply a content filtering system to protect our children. As the primary monitor our districts traffic through the firewall, I see and hear these arguments all the time. I do not think it is possible to lump 'schools' or even 'universities' with 'workplaces'. Yes we all have to work here too, but a school is an entirely differnt (public funds, publically voted budget etc.) than a work place or even, to bring this on topic a police state. An employer has every right to say, no you can't chat on AIM or
I think many people would be very upset if we asked the public to subsidize the 12K+ a year we spend on our 100mbs fiber connection, funds that are completely covered under the E-rate grant. With out e-rate funding there would be no-way to pass the tech budget, and in a country where our technological skills are falling behind everyday, I think (and my boss concurs) that suspending students, revoking priviledges and being a general BOFH (not my choice BTW.) is a very appropriate response to users who violate district policy (they have to click accept every time they log in). If we don't crack down in this manner, and many of our students and faculty find us (and call us) rude and nasty names, but the consquences are, from a wider perspective, are deffinately not worth completely opening our filters. Proxy bypass sites like these, while I agree are great for the dissemination of information to people who's connection to public information has been oppressed, should not be taken as a giant glossy lets F*** the filters solution. Especially in schools those filters are in place for a reason. Workplace is a grey area and so is university, but please don't lump schools in with businesses.
-deadturtle
