Legal Actions of School Against a Proxy's Host?

WakefieldHS-students asks: "I attend a public school, Wakefield High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. A friend of mine recently created a site that hosted a web proxy browser. It ran for a few months, and others at our school found out about it. The original domain was blocked by the censorship software the school uses, and it was changed a few times to get around this. Recently, he was forced to take down the proxy, with the threat of not graduating and the taking of legal action by the school. What legal rights, if any, can the school use to ban someone from hosting a website? Furthermore, what rights does the U.S. Government have to censor such websites?"

Comments

Ok, now tell us the rest of it

[Pyromage]

I'm relatively certain that the school wasn't just arbitrarily chasing the site across every domain he owned, not unless they had reason. Why was he running a proxy? What material was he or his friends accessing from the school?

As far as legal rights to censor that, they can do just about whatever they want in loco parentis.

Re:Ok, now tell us the rest of it

[Cyphertube]

Of course, since the operation of proxy server is not done under school property and doesn't have anything to do with the care of the student, the argument for it being in loco parentis doesn't really hold water.

Of particular note, if he's near graduating, he may well be 18 already, at which point in loco parentis no longer applies. By threatening his academic situation, a publically mandated and required function of the school, by regarding his own actions off school time, then they could actually be sued on grounds of harrassment.

Now, they could pursue action against him for access the proxy from the school, but not against him for others.

Moreover, since I was nailed under in loco parentis when I was in middle school, I can tell you that loco parentis ceases the instant you enter your front door, if you ride the bus home from school. I got nailed for verbally assaulting the bus driver (who later was nailed for felony hit and runs against mailboxes, thus disproving the slander and defamation charges they 'threatened' me with). As I was told, if I'd entered my house, come back out, and then yelled at her, it would have been out of the school's hands.

Re:Ok, now tell us the rest of it

[techfury90]

I go to WHS, so I know about this story. Basically he was running a proxy to allow people to visit banned sites such as MySpace from there, which was its typical use. Every time someone was in the computer lab, you'd see MySpace up via this website.

Re:Ok, now tell us the rest of it

[techfury90]

Also if anyone wants to take this up with the administration, email the principal at stakacs@, call at +1 (919) 562-3600; ask for Mr. Takacs, or if you _really_ want to cause an impact, try +1 (919) 851-3980.

Re:Ok, now tell us the rest of it

[martinultima]

This actually sounds just like my school district vs. me. This (last) year I had to do a personal project for the IB program, which in my case happened to be maintaining a Linux distribution. And I figured that since I was in the computer lab as a student helper one of the class periods, I'd just borrow one of their machines and create an SSH tunnel to get to my machine at home, then use x0vncserver to forward the desktop so I could tweak stuff and come back right where I left off. [Not the most efficient way, I know...]

Anyway, long story short, they don't really notice until I start checking things on my homepage as well; nothing bad or anything, and not even personal stuff, just the Linux-related parts of it that I'd need for the project. So they block it. So I e-mail them, politely asking to unblock it – and just to be sure, I check their censorware program's homepage, and since they've also got it blocked, I e-mail them.

Couple days later, no response from my own school district – but the censorware people were more than happy to unblock my site.

Few months later, the district people call a bunch of parent-teacher conferences about the whole thing, saying that I was bypassing their proxy server and "compromising system security" – the ironic part was, I was actually safer doing an SSH tunnel, because it was one-way only and the only machine that would be affected by the fatal typo of doom or whatever would be my own at home. But either way, they don't get their way, so a few days later they actually send their people down to personally yell at me. (Talk about wasting taxpayer dollars – these people apparently have enough free time that they can just drop everything else to come yell at a single student in a school of over 1500. And this is a fairly big school district, so there's other schools, too – but no, they have more of a threat coming from some kid using an SSH tunnel than from all the other would-be hackers visiting porn sites, installing spyware, and posting to MySpace.com. I still don't understand their logic...)

But, either way, those school district people, even if their intentions are good – you just have to watch out for those guys. They're kind of like the BOFH, really, only they use expulsion and no graduation rather than killing people – they consider it their job to keep the network running smoothly, and if it means kicking people off and expelling them / denying graduation / etc., they'll do it – because they only need to worry about the network, not the people.

Just a tip from someone who'd know...

Re:Ok, now tell us the rest of it

[Anonymous Coward]

I can sympathise with your position because I have been in one which, at least to me, seemed similar.

I tend to be a pretty forgetful person, and I do all my work on computer, often so I don't lose anything. I had to email all my home work from home to school and then vice versa each day. However, on a few occasions, I forgot work even though I'd done it, which was rather frustrating. Rather than keep the teacher waiting who wanted to collect all the work in and get the marking done over the weekend, at lunch time I connected to my computer (which was running remote access software, RemotelyAnywhere) through HTTPS and used the screenshot-based remote control (eg. it shows a screenshot of the desktop, and using javascript allows you to interact with it) to email it to my school account, which the teacher was greatful for. I then logged out. I did this on a number of occasions when I'd forgotten important work and sent it to school. My teachers were also aware that I was doing this, and to me, it seemed like a logical thing for a person with a bad memory like me to do, and I didn't think any harm would come of it, because it didn't strike me as breaking any rules.

The school provides internet for work purposes, and as far as I was concerned, this was just what I was doing. However, near the end of term, I was taken out of my lessons and called to talk to the network administrator, who had apparently found a visual basic screensaver of mine which I had made years ago (as part of a programming club at lunchtime, no less) because they were doing a check for screensavers, and me having it raised their suspicion. Wen they looked into my file, their security software logs web accesses and takes screenshots of activity and they found out I had been emailling work to school from home.

They then proceeded to tell me off for hacking and that I was breaking the law. To me, I couldn't believe it. Apparently because I was accessing something outside the school (which to me, was no different than any other website) and was knowledgable about computers (they asked if I knew how to use the commandline, when I said they did, they told me off for this, saying I could use it to find out peoples IP addreses???). I was therefore a security threat.

They were considering expelling me or banning me from the computers because of this, and I couldn't believe it. They then proceeded to tell me about the computer misuse act (This was in the UK) and how I was a hacker? I tried to explain to them, but they would not listen. Apparently the words "remote access" and the fact I knew how to use it was enough to say I was a hacker and thus was breaking school rules. I wasn't even exactly sure of what they were saying I had done wrong. Eventually my head of year stuck up for me, and I went unpunished, but the experience was rather depressing and almost unbelievable. I was also told never to access another computer again.

The fact that the majority of the students bring in games, spend lessons playing various games, surf illegal websites, steal teachers passwords and use them, bring in spyware and viruses and attempt to "hack" the network with various tools, are allowed to do so, and teachers turn a blind eye to it. Even the person that stole the administrator password to the entire school, gave it out to the majority of students and used it to access classified files was given less of a warning than I. I was no threat to them, I wasn't do anything to harm the network, or anything against the school rules themselves, and that was what I received. Yet others which consistently do so are allowed to.

As the poster above said, I don't understand their logic either. They said they were in a grounds to charge me under the law under the computer misuse act, but as far as I was aware, I wasn't accessing anything that was unauthorised. At one point, they used the details from their keylogger to attempt to log into my system (which was recorded on my computer, and still saved) - Surely they were the ones gaining unauthorised ac

Private versus Public

[MBCook]

A private school can do that kind of thing. That's why I like them better (among MANY other reasons). That's the way things are.

But, you said it's a public school. I don't see why a public school can do that. And I'd be willing to wager a large amount of cash he didn't have to sign a "I will not host a web proxy server" document when he started to attend the school.

So what does he do?

Sue

That's all that works these days. If the school administration is going to be like that (note: I'm assuming he just set it up for personal use or something and isn't encouraging other students to use it to break school policy) then they obviously aren't willing to deal with him on this. In such situations (especially with a government institution like a school) a strongly worded nasty-gram from a lawyer will make a world of difference. Indicate you are willing to reach a compromise or something (that you're not just a "Free speech at all costs sue the school for $100,000,000" nut-job and are willing to be reasonable) and I'm sure something will get worked out quickly.

When faced with a lawsuit, most of the time in the US the person being threatened with the suit will just cave or try to work it out fast, even if they are right (which, in this case, is easily debatable).

Re:Private versus Public

[ceejayoz]

And I'd be willing to wager a large amount of cash he didn't have to sign a "I will not host a web proxy server" document when he started to attend the school.

My public school required the signing of an Internet use contract before getting an account on the network. The bit about not doing anything to evade the school's blocking software would certainly apply in this case, and I would be very surprised to hear of a public school that didn't require a similar contract with their students.

Re:Private versus Public

[jrockway]

> it's probably not worth the effort

It's definitely worth the effort. My school (not exactly private; IMSA) kicked out a number of students for supposed thought crimes. Writing a song about a teacher they didn't like; posting "racist" comments on a private message board from home; etc. I wish someone had the balls to sue them -- I'm sure they would have lost big time.

Just beacuse you're under 18 doesn't mean you deserve to be considered too dumb / young to have a voice. "First they came for those under 18, then they came for "the terrorists", now they're here for me and nobody is left to speak out." Don't put up with them.

OTOH, if the OP did something stupid, then they might have a case. Not telling us the details just hurts you in the end.

It's not a web site

[scdeimos]

There's a whopping huge difference between hosting a web site and hosting a proxy server. To me it sounds like the student hosting the proxy server was doing this to circumvent the school's access controls, so it's a precedent for intent, irrelevent of it being malicious or beneign.

If the school's network admins had half a brain then all access beyond the border routers would have been deny-by-default, allowing access only from their content-filtering server(s) and mail server(s) thus making this sort of thing impossible to do anyways./p

Re:It's not a web site

[Lord Kano]

If this proxy is simply a website with a "Insert Web address here:" field and a "Go" button, it would look like any other website to their routers. Unless you're willing to impose and then troubleshoot a "deny by default" policy on all web traffic, it'll be easy to play cat and mouse with the network admins for quite a long time.

LK

It depends

[Sycraft-fu]

As others have noted, you haven't told us the whole story, so it depends on that.

However, even assuming is was real simple, ie kid hosts site, school doesn't like site, school threatens kid, it still depends. What it depends on is if you mean what are they legally allowed to do, or what will they try to do and get away with. Legally they can't deny graduation for things not related to the school itself. That's why things like random drug test are always targeted at peopel who do extracurricular activities. They can make them consent in that case, but to try and say "you do it or you don't graduate" wouldn't work.

Ok fine, but that doesn't mean they can't TRY to stop him from graduating. They can refuse to issue a diploma, fail him in all his classes, expell him, whatever. When that happens, he then has to fight. If he's in the right he'll win eventually, but the question is one of if it's worth it. Would it be worth potentially putting your life on hold over a website?

So here's what I'd do, depending on the kind of person he is:

Just let it go. Who the fuck cares? Take the site down. If he really wants to put it back up, use a registrar that hides personal information as others suggested and ensure it can't be linked to him. Just give in, it's not a fight worth fighting.

Or, if he's not the give in type, go the revenge route. Your post implies graduation is something happening soon. So leave it alone for now, very soon the school has no say in your lives. When that happens, hit them back. I'm not going to bother listing all the perfectly legal things you could do to give them grief, I'm sure you can figure plenty out.

Now by the way, if the point of this proxy is to circumvent the school's rules on what you are allowed to access, then yes, they can punish you for that. Next time don't be idiots: Create a front site for it, use SSL and don't fucking tell people about it.

Re:It depends

[TubeSteak]

Contrary to what you said Sycraft-fu, we do have the whole story.

The original [proxy] domain was blocked by the censorship software the school uses, and it was changed a few times to get around this.

Translation: Someone(s) accessed the proxy from school, the school blocked the domain name, the proxy owner started playing cat & mouse with the domain name.

Someone(s) were circumventing the "censorship" (how is filtering boobies, at school, censorship?) software and the school wanted it stopped.

What the school did is emminently reasonable. The owner of the proxy (a student) undoubtedly signed an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) stating that they wouldn't even try to circumvent school filtering software. That's all the school needs to fuck with his graduation.

The fact that the kid didn't get smacked down the first time (or the second time) that he got caught suggests to me that the IT people were quite willing to let it go. On top of that, the school admin don't want to keep the kid from graduating, they just want him to stop.

I'm not sure how legit it is to force the kid to take the proxy down, but arguably (and realisticly), requiring that the proxy be taken down seems like the only way to guarantee compliance. (Why they didn't blacklist the proxy IP, we don't know)

Conclusion: Take it down & be glad they aren't slapping him around for the rule(s) he broke. And if you're going to do something illegal about it, do it while it's still on your juvenile record.

They have no right.

[delirium of disorder]

Public schools should not use in school punishments for actions one takes outside of school. However, American school boards don't care much for the constitution. Administration views anyone who fights censorship and helps kids learn freely as more threatening then any violent offender. Your fried is lucky he wasn't expelled for running a proxy like I was. People concerned with these issues should get involved with peacefire.

Re:They have no right.

[chazzf]

The absence of the mod (-1, Incorrect) remains a consistent source of frustration. I suspect the main reason this individual is in hot water is the rampant abuse of his school's Acceptable Use Policy. This isn't a free-speech issue, it's a network-usage issue. Unless you think all AUPs are worthless and should be ignored.

Awww, rich kid busted for using proxy, how sad.

[Associate]

Couldn't wait to get home to update your myspace account?
They blocked Fark where I work for pornographic reasons. You know what I do? I wait til I get home.
Face it. You got caught. You should have given up the first time. Repeatedly moving it just makes you look guilty. Guilty of what? Not running a proxy. Guilty of using school resources inappropriately. See http://www.wcpss.net/Technology/pdf/6446.pdf I think anyone who reads it will agree that regarless of their support of the rules or lack there of, you did in fact break the rules. Better you learn now at an early age there are consequences for your actions. You can't disregard rules you don't like and expect nothing negative to happen to you. Wait until you get to college. No one there will give a rats ass about you. You will be expected to do things you don't like. When you fail, you fail you, not some well meaning underpaid teacher. Best thing you could do right now is admit to your mistake and suck up the consequences.

Contact the ACLU

[DerKlempner]

Fifteen years ago, my best friend was in a similar situation. Two weeks until graduation and a suspension rolls in for distributing our homemade "newspaper." The suspension was a temporary punishment while the school tried to start expulsion hearings based on the fact that the school faculty didn't like what was printed in the newspaper. We contacted the ACLU and immediately had a representative at the school's expulsion hearing. The school didn't like to hear an ACLU lawyer telling them how they were going to be sued for denying two constitutional rights of free speech and free press. Three days after the initial suspension, my friend was back in school and went on to graduate.

The events weren't even placed in his school records.

If you think the school is trying to quash the rights of free speech and ideas, then by all means contact your local ACLU representatives. They'll help you fight against the the school's attempts to punish you if it's unconstitutional.

Re:Their network, their rules

[mrchaotica]

Here's the funny thing: The school system does have the right to punish students for certain things that they do on their own time with their own equipment away from the school campus.

No, the school system does not have that right! It has attempted to autocratically assume that right, and it has managed to convince most people that it has that right, but it does not have the moral or Constitutional authority to claim that right!

And I, for one, am sick and tired of our failure as American Citizens to put the school system (and all the other parts of government acting beyond their authority) in their places!