I was trying to point out that we don't know what all they are being punished for. Without knowing that, I won't pass judgment on the length of the suspension. I will however agree that punishment was in order.
Yes, whitelisting is an option, but I would argue its easier to blacklist than to whitelist. Regardless, they violated a school policy and should be punished.
Well, clearly they were smarter than whoever set the system up in the first place.
That's a pretty big assumption you're making there. It really doesn't take a genius to find an anonymous proxy on the internet. Websense isn't perfect, even they can't keep a real time list of all the proxies out there.
Do you know for a fact that their only infraction was using a proxy? I don't. What if they were looking child pornography? Maybe the suspension was a bit long, maybe it wasn't. I don't know the extent of what happened there. These facts however, remain: there is a school policy on internet usage that the kids signed; the kids broke this policy; they were punished
There's lots of other options. Other schools, home schooling, distance learning. Even if (and that's a big if) there was no other option, that still does not give students the right to break school policy. If you don't like a rule, get it changed. Breaking it should result in punishment.
There's a policy in place, most like for good reason. These kids violated that policy, knowingly. Besides, what exactly was so clever about these kids using an anonymous proxy to bypass web filtering software?
"Within the past few weeks, students across Boerne ISD were being called into offices to discuss the use of proxies to circumvent the schools websense system. The problem is that some of these students are being suspended from school for up to 3 months at a time. Shouldn't the school district be liable for their own insecurity?
No.
The school apparently has a policy in place to forbid students from going to various sites. They use appropriate tools (like websense) to enforce that policy. Simply because there are ways around the tools, doesn't mean its okay to do so. There code of conduct talks about an agreement signed by the students. If they violate this agreement they should be punished.
In Canada its not prohibited to look up information, but as an individual with a registered domain, I don't have to have my information in the whois record. Check out Privacy.ca
Okay, but if they're not pulling out, we can probably safely assume that their presence there is profitable. As I said before, stockholders aren't likely to vote for a company to pull out of a profitable market. You're right, I can't predict the future, but I doubt the press would have as negative effect as pulling out of a market the size of China's.
There is profit to be made in China. If google pulls out of China, their stock price will fall. Stockholders don't normally vote in such a way as to lower their stock price.
Instead of using some analogy that doesn't fit, lets look at a more realistic situation. Joe Sixpack goes into big box store. Tells sales person he wants a laptop and wants to connect to the internet with it. Sales associate sells him laptop with built in wifi card and wireless router. Joe goes home, plugs everything in. Has Joe given you permission to use his internet connection? Does he have any clue that his wireless router is advertising itself for those who know how to listen? If you want to make it mandatory to pass a "Intro to Wifi" class before purchasing any wifi equipment, then you can argue that all the Joe Sickpacks out there should know better. Until then, ignorance != consent.
Yes, but the AP doesn't give you permission to use my resources, I do. An open AP does implicitly mean you have my permission, it only means that it hasn't been secured. That's a big difference.
Your mixing the technology and the user here. An AP advertising its SSID is not the same as me saying "Here, feel free to use my wifi that I didn't know how to secure, or even know that I had to secure it. The guys at the store said to just plug it in and go". Yes, a lot of people are ignorant of technology. Its a fact of life. That ignorance does not translate directly into permission to use the resources they pay for.
the shooter had a vest on and ammo strapped to him
And of course everyone knew that the moment shots were heard right? Its not like he's standing in a line up and you have to pick out which one is the shooter. You hear shots, you rush out of the classroom while pulling out your gun. In the hallway you see a person pointing their gun down another hallway out of your sight. Is this the gunman? Is this someone like you? What if he fires? What if he fires more than once? Now imagine there are twenty other people that just rushed into the hallway with guns drawn.
I'm not saying its worse, I'm not saying its better. I'm just saying I don't want to be in either situation, and I honestly don't think that many guns around would make the situation "better".
If the "chemical industry" is really so against, wouldn't they have done more? I mean really, $220,000 over two years doesn't exactly sound like they're really fighting this ban.
it's wrong to deprive the good guys of the means to defend themselves
Hate to use your own argument against you but, "Your argument is based on a specious assumption". That is to say that you can only speculate that it would be better (or at least no worse) if some|many|all of the students at staff at Virginia Tech were carrying weapons.
Think for a minute about the chaos that a few shots fired in a school would cause. Now, imagine that a bunch of people suddenly pull out handguns and start looking for the original shooter. I see a lot of problems with this situation.
Well, but so are laptops, palmtops, and etc;
Agreed, but not always as portable. I can go into any Internet cafe in the world and load up my webmail page (my own web and mail servers), as long as they allow https. I can do it from work, where they block gmail, hotmail, etc. as well as POP3, IMAP, SMTP, etc.
so are server accounts where you leave the mail on the server and can download it into multiple clients, so that you can get your mail at work, but that still leaves it retrievable at home, both on real (that is, non-web) clients.
Generally, that's IMAP, which is what I use (well, IMAPS). At home or my lab computer at work, I use thunderbird. However, I also have webmail running so that in other locations, or where firewalls are blocking the various email ports, I can still read and send email.
Generally speaking, desktop based applications will have more features and better integration, but web based applications have the advantage of being portable, not to mention they're (generally) easier to upgrade for multiple users.
I set up an XP system a couple weeks ago. It was up and running with full updates and most the basic software installed in < 2 hours. That's all updates, Firefox, Thunderbird, OO, Gimp, etc. installed and configured (all downloaded in that time frame as well).
While the grandparent was obviously joking, it is true to a point, regardless of OS (well, I don't have a MAC, so I can say for sure). My Windows and Linux machines are constantly and regularly tweaked here and there. To get a machine to basic usability from dropping the install disc in though is usually a couple hours.
Canada did not follow, certain provinces did. As the link you pointed out clearly states, time is under provincial jurisdiction. We here in Saskatchewan don't change our clocks based on seasons.
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I've worked for various government departments and publically held Crown Corporations for a lot of years, though admittedly in Canada, which may have slightly different rules in place. When we're choosing a vendor for a product or service, its a very formal process. By making the process open, by developing requirements, going through an RFC and RFP, you are forced to objectively choose the best product or service for your needs. As there are public dollars at stake, the process is to make sure that there are no unfair dealings (bribes and such) going on under the table. The non-successful vendors can then review the documents if they feel they were passed over unfairly, though I've never actually seen this happen.
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I was trying to point out that we don't know what all they are being punished for. Without knowing that, I won't pass judgment on the length of the suspension. I will however agree that punishment was in order.
Yes, whitelisting is an option, but I would argue its easier to blacklist than to whitelist. Regardless, they violated a school policy and should be punished.
FTA: circumvent the schools websense system Websense is a filtering service that can be updated daily.
Well, clearly they were smarter than whoever set the system up in the first place.
That's a pretty big assumption you're making there. It really doesn't take a genius to find an anonymous proxy on the internet. Websense isn't perfect, even they can't keep a real time list of all the proxies out there.
Do you know for a fact that their only infraction was using a proxy? I don't. What if they were looking child pornography? Maybe the suspension was a bit long, maybe it wasn't. I don't know the extent of what happened there. These facts however, remain: there is a school policy on internet usage that the kids signed; the kids broke this policy; they were punished
There's lots of other options. Other schools, home schooling, distance learning. Even if (and that's a big if) there was no other option, that still does not give students the right to break school policy. If you don't like a rule, get it changed. Breaking it should result in punishment.
There's a policy in place, most like for good reason. These kids violated that policy, knowingly. Besides, what exactly was so clever about these kids using an anonymous proxy to bypass web filtering software?
"Within the past few weeks, students across Boerne ISD were being called into offices to discuss the use of proxies to circumvent the schools websense system. The problem is that some of these students are being suspended from school for up to 3 months at a time. Shouldn't the school district be liable for their own insecurity?
No.The school apparently has a policy in place to forbid students from going to various sites. They use appropriate tools (like websense) to enforce that policy. Simply because there are ways around the tools, doesn't mean its okay to do so. There code of conduct talks about an agreement signed by the students. If they violate this agreement they should be punished.
In Canada its not prohibited to look up information, but as an individual with a registered domain, I don't have to have my information in the whois record. Check out Privacy.ca
Okay, but if they're not pulling out, we can probably safely assume that their presence there is profitable. As I said before, stockholders aren't likely to vote for a company to pull out of a profitable market. You're right, I can't predict the future, but I doubt the press would have as negative effect as pulling out of a market the size of China's.
There is profit to be made in China. If google pulls out of China, their stock price will fall. Stockholders don't normally vote in such a way as to lower their stock price.
Name one race from a northern climate that has brown or black skin.
Inuit.
Open source does not mean no cost.
Instead of using some analogy that doesn't fit, lets look at a more realistic situation. Joe Sixpack goes into big box store. Tells sales person he wants a laptop and wants to connect to the internet with it. Sales associate sells him laptop with built in wifi card and wireless router. Joe goes home, plugs everything in. Has Joe given you permission to use his internet connection? Does he have any clue that his wireless router is advertising itself for those who know how to listen? If you want to make it mandatory to pass a "Intro to Wifi" class before purchasing any wifi equipment, then you can argue that all the Joe Sickpacks out there should know better. Until then, ignorance != consent.
Yes, but the AP doesn't give you permission to use my resources, I do. An open AP does implicitly mean you have my permission, it only means that it hasn't been secured. That's a big difference.
Your mixing the technology and the user here. An AP advertising its SSID is not the same as me saying "Here, feel free to use my wifi that I didn't know how to secure, or even know that I had to secure it. The guys at the store said to just plug it in and go". Yes, a lot of people are ignorant of technology. Its a fact of life. That ignorance does not translate directly into permission to use the resources they pay for.
the shooter had a vest on and ammo strapped to him
And of course everyone knew that the moment shots were heard right? Its not like he's standing in a line up and you have to pick out which one is the shooter. You hear shots, you rush out of the classroom while pulling out your gun. In the hallway you see a person pointing their gun down another hallway out of your sight. Is this the gunman? Is this someone like you? What if he fires? What if he fires more than once? Now imagine there are twenty other people that just rushed into the hallway with guns drawn.
I'm not saying its worse, I'm not saying its better. I'm just saying I don't want to be in either situation, and I honestly don't think that many guns around would make the situation "better".
So if you forget to lock your car or house door, you are inviting people in as well?
If the "chemical industry" is really so against, wouldn't they have done more? I mean really, $220,000 over two years doesn't exactly sound like they're really fighting this ban.
it's wrong to deprive the good guys of the means to defend themselves
Hate to use your own argument against you but, "Your argument is based on a specious assumption". That is to say that you can only speculate that it would be better (or at least no worse) if some|many|all of the students at staff at Virginia Tech were carrying weapons.
Think for a minute about the chaos that a few shots fired in a school would cause. Now, imagine that a bunch of people suddenly pull out handguns and start looking for the original shooter. I see a lot of problems with this situation.
Well, but so are laptops, palmtops, and etc;
Agreed, but not always as portable. I can go into any Internet cafe in the world and load up my webmail page (my own web and mail servers), as long as they allow https. I can do it from work, where they block gmail, hotmail, etc. as well as POP3, IMAP, SMTP, etc.
so are server accounts where you leave the mail on the server and can download it into multiple clients, so that you can get your mail at work, but that still leaves it retrievable at home, both on real (that is, non-web) clients.
Generally, that's IMAP, which is what I use (well, IMAPS). At home or my lab computer at work, I use thunderbird. However, I also have webmail running so that in other locations, or where firewalls are blocking the various email ports, I can still read and send email.
Generally speaking, desktop based applications will have more features and better integration, but web based applications have the advantage of being portable, not to mention they're (generally) easier to upgrade for multiple users.
My understanding was that a helicopter turned by varying the speed of the tail rotor (assuming a tail rotor model).
6 Hours? Wow, you on dial up?
I set up an XP system a couple weeks ago. It was up and running with full updates and most the basic software installed in < 2 hours. That's all updates, Firefox, Thunderbird, OO, Gimp, etc. installed and configured (all downloaded in that time frame as well).
While the grandparent was obviously joking, it is true to a point, regardless of OS (well, I don't have a MAC, so I can say for sure). My Windows and Linux machines are constantly and regularly tweaked here and there. To get a machine to basic usability from dropping the install disc in though is usually a couple hours.
Canada did not follow, certain provinces did. As the link you pointed out clearly states, time is under provincial jurisdiction. We here in Saskatchewan don't change our clocks based on seasons.
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I've worked for various government departments and publically held Crown Corporations for a lot of years, though admittedly in Canada, which may have slightly different rules in place. When we're choosing a vendor for a product or service, its a very formal process. By making the process open, by developing requirements, going through an RFC and RFP, you are forced to objectively choose the best product or service for your needs. As there are public dollars at stake, the process is to make sure that there are no unfair dealings (bribes and such) going on under the table. The non-successful vendors can then review the documents if they feel they were passed over unfairly, though I've never actually seen this happen.
No, that is theft. You have taken property from another without permission. It might also be vandalism, but its still definitely theft.