Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Smart kid. Someone at MIT, Berkeley, or CMU should let him enroll early 
and offer him the chance of escaping that high school and its throughly 
benighted administration. --Declan]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Teacher, student suspended for building proxies around school
filters
Date:   Mon, 4 Apr 2005 14:06:28 -0500
From:   Burt,David <david_burt () securecomputing com>
To:     Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>



[Not available without paid subscription. The kid’s blog is at
http://www.blog247.blogspot.com/ ]



Teen suspended for Web site

'Bad Dog' allowed students to bypass Internet filter

The Spokesman Review

Rob McDonald

Staff writer

April 3, 2005

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/cover.asp?pubdate=4/3/2005



A Lewis and Clark High School sophomore brought Internet freedom to his
peers for two months with a Web site he called Bad Dog.



Then the school put his dog in the pound, and his computer programming
teacher was disciplined.



Conrad Sykes, 16, created a Web site that bypassed the district's
Internet content filter, which was hampering student research, the
student said. Sykes said he did this so students could access research
sites - but it also allowed students to visit adult sites or others that
the school district intends to screen out.



Sykes' site was so successful that many Spokane Public School students -
and people from as far away as Alabama and Pennsylvania - used it
thousands of times between Dec. 14 and Feb. 22.



Sykes was even asked by his computer teacher, Wes Marburger, to make a
presentation to other classes on the number of visitors to his Web site.
The district filter is called Bess, and a dog is in the logo.



In the end, Sykes was suspended for two days in February for violating
school computer use policies. His teacher was given a written reprimand
and removed from teaching computer classes. The state Office of
Professional Practices is now investigating and could potentially take
away Marburger's teaching certificate.

[...]


Brown said the Web site used a domain name from the Turks and Caicos
Islands nation, which probably sold its domain to Internet companies.
District investigators read in great detail on Sykes' blog how he built
the site. They're also watching for similar proxy sites.



"Our primary goal is to protect the students as best we can and protect
the computer environment of the district," Brown said.


David Burt, a spokesman for Secure Computing, the company that supplies
Bess to about 16 million high school students nationally, said there
have been issues in the past of students learning to get past the
software. Technologically advanced teens set up proxies but they never
last long, Burt said.

[...]



*David Burt *

Public Relations Manager



*Secure Computing® *

/Securing connections between people, applications, and networks™/

www.securecomputing.com <http://www.securecomputing.com/>

NASDAQ: SCUR



1-206-892-1130 (Direct Phone)

1-800-971-2622 (Main Phone)

1-206-683-9508 (Mobile Phone)

1-206-834-1788 (Fax)

David_Burt () Securecomputing com <mailto:David_Burt () Securecomputing com>

* *

*Secure Computing Corporation, Seattle Office*

900 Fourth Avenue, Suite 3600

Seattle, WA 98164

USA




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