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more on Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters [fs]
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 11:11:20 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com> Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 10:35:45 -0400 To: <dave () farber net> Cc: <Kenneth_Mayer () Dell com>, <coolrad89 () msn com> Subject: Re: [IP] Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters [fs] Ken, My quip about the student being admitted was a bit tongue-in-cheek, I admit. Obviously top-tier universities would want to make sure any prospective student meets other admissions standards, and a high school sophomore may not be ready for college anyway. There is, however, a serious point underlying this. Yes, the student violated school rules. But what you miss is that not all high school "policies" make sense, not all high school student administrators are always correct in every way, and not all high school students who "violate policies" deserve our scorn. From what I've read, the student acted in the finest sense of the hacker tradition: he saw a technological restriction that interfered with his ability to get information that he wanted and cleverly bypassed it. At his teacher's request, he made a presentation to his class about the methods he used. He found that the school was blocking his proxy and implemented the appropriate counter-measures. (BTW, the school reviewed the browser caches and found no evidence that the students were using the proxy server to visit porn sites.) The student also seems to be doing the kind of muckracking that should be applauded; he posted a note to his blog in February encouraging his fellow students to submit requests under the state FOIA law. (http://blog247.blogspot.com/2005/02/freedom-of-information.html). I'm sure that didn't endear him to the school administration. By the way, why do you claim that the computers at the school's library are not filtered? Thanks to the federal filtering law, upheld by the Supreme Court, school library computers are now filtered by default. Or do you have any particular knowledge of Lewis and Clark High School that you'd like to share with us? -Declan David Farber wrote:
------ Forwarded Message From: <Kenneth_Mayer () Dell com> Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 08:27:49 -0500 To: <dave () farber net> Subject: RE: [IP] Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters [fs] So now Declan thinks just because a 16 year old helped thousands bypass school rules he should be let into MIT? He broke the rules, the schools rules and is getting punished, which is justified. This is not infringing on anyones freedom of speech, it is a case of violating a policy. Those kids at any school can go to the library (which has no filters) to do their research. This is getting more press than it deserves! Ken Mayer Jr Advanced System Group Dell Server and Storage Department ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as declan () well com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters [fs] David Farber (Apr 05)