WIT blocked sites?

Kidd-o · 10-09-2008 2:25pm #1

hey I'm currently in IT class, and was just checkin what sites are blocked. Boards isnt... weird?

ec18 · 10-09-2008 4:39pm

Is there a question there?

Sully · 10-09-2008 5:05pm

Boards covers more then just chat, that could be why. Plus, its probably not widely used as much as Bebo.

dlofnep · 10-09-2008 5:46pm

They block bebo and stuff because they are disruptive to class. A web based proxy usually does the trick, but they block them nearly as soon as you find them. Boards is used to ask alot of educational related questions, so they don't block it.

stick-dan · 10-09-2008 8:50pm

dlofnep wrote: »

They block bebo and stuff because they are disruptive to class. A web based proxy usually does the trick, but they block them nearly as soon as you find them. Boards is used to ask alot of educational related questions, so they don't block it.

Bebo in the college is a pain in the hole so it is. Hundreds of students in the college block up computers everyday during the free classes and makes it very hard to find a free computer or a quiet room to get some work done. If only the staff blocking the sites knew how to do it properly. Boards really isn't a chatroom-ish type of site which are prohibited as part of the security policy of Waterford IT. You will notice that most forums remain unblocked as they are seen as informative rather than chat sites.

AdMMM · 10-09-2008 11:21pm

Kidd-o wrote: »

hey I'm currently in IT class, and was just checkin what sites are blocked. Boards isnt... weird?

I think most forums and other discussion sites are left unblocked because of two reasons a) the admins aren't little Hitlers and b) they see relatively little usage in the grand scheme of things. Should every single student start visiting Boards.ie tomorrow, it would undoubtedly be blocked.

christophicus · 10-09-2008 11:57pm

Lol like thats going to happen, there aren't even 10 regulars here :P .

stick-dan · 11-09-2008 12:59am

christophicus wrote: »

Lol like thats going to happen, there aren't even 10 regulars here :P .

lol so so true.

Sully · 11-09-2008 1:29am

AdMMM wrote: »

I think most forums and other discussion sites are left unblocked because of two reasons a) the admins aren't little Hitlers and b) they see relatively little usage in the grand scheme of things. Should every single student start visiting Boards.ie tomorrow, it would undoubtedly be blocked.

I'd be more inclined to go with dlofnep explanation, but who knows. I know they blocked a load of gaming sites and the course leaders tried to get them unblocked for education purposes (certain courses require access).

Speaking of Boards and WIT - I have been considering putting up a notice with a link to this forum in the college. We might not have active posters but we have a lot of lurkers who respond when appropriate.

rogue-entity · 11-09-2008 1:47am

dlofnep wrote: »

They block bebo and stuff because they are disruptive to class. A web based proxy usually does the trick, but they block them nearly as soon as you find them. Boards is used to ask alot of educational related questions, so they don't block it.

The college direct all web access through a WebSence proxy. Websence itself is a commercial (and very expensive) filter system that only checks URL's against a blacklist. It then blocks the site, if the URL is in a category that is marked as blocked. The college can set groups with different levels of access, and set different categories on a per-group basis.

Boards.ie was blocked before at one point, as Websence categorised boards.ie as a Chat Site, I emailed WebSence and asked them to put Boards.ie into the Messageboards and Forums category instead which I suspected would not be blocked at the college. It was unblocked the next day. I had previously asked the people at Computer Services but they fobbed me off and said there was nothing the could do about it.

Sully · 11-09-2008 1:16pm

rogue-entity wrote: »

Boards.ie was blocked before at one point, as Websence categorised boards.ie as a Chat Site, I emailed WebSence and asked them to put Boards.ie into the Messageboards and Forums category instead which I suspected would not be blocked at the college. It was unblocked the next day. I had previously asked the people at Computer Services but they fobbed me off and said there was nothing the could do about it.

Well according to a post in Help Desk, websence still blocks boards under "Chat". Unlesss his organisation has an older version or something?

stick-dan · 11-09-2008 1:55pm

He must have an older version i would reckon, and i'd also go as far as to say that the college are still running an out of date websense edition and most gaming sites are still accessible directly, and also there are alot of chat sites that have been up and running and established for over a year now, such sites like for example, facebook, nimble and other bebo like sites.

So i would reckon that the college haven't upgraded their security policy one bit as abasic url change can get access to any site, all new chat sites like bebo are still directly accessible as i said above facebook and nimble being two examples. Also the fact that instant messaging sites are still openly accessible as we all know suggests that there is little chance that there is as much restrictions or security in place in the college as we are lead to believe. Seems to be a case of blocking websites and hoping that we don't cope on how to bypass the blockage.

Sully · 11-09-2008 5:20pm

meebo.com is now blocked - and its considered a "Malicious Web Site"

EDIT: https://meebo.com works.

stick-dan · 11-09-2008 5:39pm

Must have blocked it this evening i was using it most of the day, damn them!!!

I must have jinxed the whole job!

rogue-entity · 12-09-2008 7:34pm

Sully wrote: »

Well according to a post in Help Desk, websence still blocks boards under "Chat". Unlesss his organisation has an older version or something?

Boards.ie was categorised under Chat a long time back, but when I emailed Websense they moved it into "Messageboards and Forums". So either its old news, or they changed the category because I couldnt see Websence changing it back again, if they didnt agree with my suggestion to change the category in the first place.

stick-dan wrote: »

He must have an older version i would reckon, and i'd also go as far as to say that the college are still running an out of date websense edition and most gaming sites are still accessible directly, and also there are alot of chat sites that have been up and running and established for over a year now, such sites like for example, facebook, nimble and other bebo like sites.

The version of Websence wouldnt make much of a difference, the lists of sites are updated daily irrespective of the version that's being used, and since the college has a contract with Websence, it stands to reason this includes tax-payer-funded upgrades. The college can recategorise sites into different categories as they please and add exceptions which override the master database. At least, thats how I understand things.

stick-dan wrote: »

So i would reckon that the college haven't upgraded their security policy one bit as abasic url change can get access to any site, all new chat sites like bebo are still directly accessible as i said above facebook and nimble being two examples. Also the fact that instant messaging sites are still openly accessible as we all know suggests that there is little chance that there is as much restrictions or security in place in the college as we are lead to believe. Seems to be a case of blocking websites and hoping that we don't cope on how to bypass the blockage.

Actually, believe it or not, thats how Websence works, it only checks URLS in an explicit manner. This is how I could keep one of my bypass methods completly useable, just by changing the URL.

Sully wrote: »

meebo.com is now blocked - and its considered a "Malicious Web Site"
EDIT: https://meebo.com works.

The policies applied to the college's wired and wireless networks are not the same, some things work through the wired network, but not the wireless network and vice/versa.

Sully · 12-09-2008 8:14pm

rogue-entity wrote: »

Boards.ie was categorised under Chat a long time back, but when I emailed Websense they moved it into "Messageboards and Forums". So either its old news, or they changed the category because I couldnt see Websence changing it back again, if they didnt agree with my suggestion to change the category in the first place

Well.. in WIT it works. For this chap, and it was only like a week or so ago, Websense blocked it in his organisation under "Chat". Just found it a bit odd that two different organisations had a different way of dealing with it

The policies applied to the college's wired and wireless networks are not the same, some things work through the wired network, but not the wireless network and vice/versa.

Yup... but erm.. I never mentioned anything about wireless/wired?!?!

AdMMM · 13-09-2008 5:34am

Just found it a bit odd that two different organisations had a different way of dealing with it

What's odd about two different organisations have different internet policies. Without spelling it out, I thought it would have been fairly obvious that companies would base their internet usage policy to their own needs.

Sully · 13-09-2008 12:48pm

AdMMM wrote: »

What's odd about two different organisations have different internet policies. Without spelling it out, I thought it would have been fairly obvious that companies would base their internet usage policy to their own needs.

If you read rogue-entity's other posts throughout this thread you will see that the policys are the same.

At times I wonder..

AdMMM · 13-09-2008 4:16pm

The college can recategorise sites into different categories as they please and add exceptions which override the master database.

Does it not stand to reason that "this chaps" organisation can also recategorise sites, therefore changing the policy?

Congratulations...

Cantab. · 13-09-2008 4:20pm

Lol. Nanny Institute of Technology.

https://www.kproxy.com

Installing FireFox's AdBlock Plus makes life a little better.

Bob's your uncle.

Sully · 13-09-2008 6:42pm

AdMMM wrote: »

Congratulations...

You said it in one bud, fair play to ya. :rolleyes:

Sully · 13-09-2008 6:43pm

Cantab. wrote: »

Lol. Nanny Institute of Technology.

https://www.kproxy.com

Installing FireFox's AdBlock Plus makes life a little better.

Bob's your uncle.

If thats not blocked already, it probably wont last very long! College seems to block proxys very quickly after they become popular!

Cantab. · 13-09-2008 10:46pm

Sully wrote: »

If thats not blocked already, it probably wont last very long! College seems to block proxys very quickly after they become popular!

My old university used "SonicWall" for filtering web traffic. It only analysed traffic over HTTP (usually port 80 or 8080).

kproxy uses HTTPS (encrypted data, port 443) protocol which wasn't analysed.

stick-dan · 14-09-2008 10:57pm

But why do you need to use kproxy then, all you have to do is replace http in the url with https and it works although unsecure objects such as jpegs sometimes don't load. It works like, no need to be going through a proxy.

AdMMM · 15-09-2008 4:35pm

Even if content isn't filtered, it's still tracked. That's one reason to go through a proxy.

stick-dan · 15-09-2008 5:51pm

Ah sure the college know we all go on bebo anyways. Who cares. Obviously more sinister motives is a different story but the majority of students trying to bypass the restrictions are doing it merely to get onto bebo.

Update : www.meebo.com was working in full flow today

Sully · 15-09-2008 8:30pm

Its blocked in the labs, but allowed everywhere else..

stick-dan · 15-09-2008 10:12pm

According to another boards member here it's blocked on the computers that have gigabit ethernet connections as some of the labs have recently being upgraded and most of the ports were blocked when the upgrade was put into effect.

ec18 · 15-09-2008 10:44pm

Thats true, you can't send emails from a mail client that uses port 21/22 for outgoing mail on the b corridor

WIT blocked sites?

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