the mini Blog

I had really nothing else to blog about so I thought I’d share with you my own story with the tech guys at our school’s IT department. I won’t mention the school because, well I don’t think I should But here is the story.

I have been really fed up with our school’s crappy internet filtering. It was blocking websites like Feedburner.com and even BBC’s Radio FiveLive website. I actually needed to get on the BBC website as it had some news stories I need for my Geography coursework. And guess what? Yes it was blocked. I can’t think of how many countless things that are blocked, and I even sent an email to them to remove Feedburner because the internet filter classed it as “media/streaming music” or something of the sort. And about 2 weeks later nothing has happened. So by this time I was really pissed of and I decided, why don’t I make a proxy. So I downloaded a free proxy and configured it to work (I used my blog’s domain for quick access). I did this on a Sunday night and everything was working perfectly by Tuesday!

So being like I am I decided to give out the address as a friend of mine overlook what I was doing, I couldn’t really deny it as the word ‘Proxy’ was on the screen. So a month later and literally the whole year and people in the years belownew about it. I was quite happy about the way it went as nothing had been blocked by the technicians when one of our vice principals approached me and told me that he has heard of the “enterprise you’ve been running” and that even “teachers use it“. So I had to give the address of the site, which I blocked using .htaccess so only those with the passwords could access it. Thye still blocked it, and even though the technician said that he found a password, I really doubt that he did, otherwise he would see that the page redirects to HTTPS and would have blocked that too. Here’s the kicker: It still worked! Because I used .htaccess to redirect all calls to that page to a HTTPS version so the internet filter couldn’t sniff what I was looking at (I have a big deal with privacy issues like this). I managed to tell them that they shouldn’t block off the whole website as my blog is harmless (I access it at school sometimes if I am bored or I want to check IE compatibility). So I tried out the HTTPS version the next day and it worked. But after a few weeks they permanently blocked the whole website. That’s not all they did. And because all the computers in our school run Windows (except the G5’s in the video-editing suite) they disabled my Windows account to get my attention. So when I tried to log on it would say “Your account has been disabled, please see your network administrator”. How can they even do that, and why? They are purposefully stopping my education so I have to go see them. This is what I am most pissed of about. Why the hell don’t they get off their lazy asses and come and find me, not block my logging onto te computer. This is just going to cause more retalliation! So I went to see them and they said that they blocked the whole address of my blog because they were still getting people who were using it (I have no idea how they even know they’re using mine and not someone else’s proxy). So they unblocked my account, or so I thought. I went to see them again and he was like “So what do you mean your account is disabled”. Does he not even know how to do it? This time I was able to log-on. And to think they’ve done this to me like twice before. They are just wasting my time, it took me around 20 mins of my own studying (for my exams) for them to be able to do it! Furthermore they asked me if I was staying in the 6th form. I said yes, and they said that if I try to create another one, then they’ll permanently block my internet. Do they know that is just going to make me find other ways around the school’s filter, because no matter how you look at it, I need the internet in the future for research, coursework and classwork. I am really mad now!

In conclusion: I think that our technicians are stupid (well maybe not stupid but ignorant), obviously don’t know how to control the students and quite honestly they lack the courtesy needed when talking to students about things like this. I am really annoyed at them because of this, I think they have stepped to far this time