Students Get Snagged
High school actors portray alleged students snagged
Many
Classical students feel the need to check their e-mail, sports blog, new sneakers,
concept car, MySpace, or a favorite Prom dress web site every chance they get. But
about 50 Classical students were snagged last week when they logged onto
SnoopBlocker.com to avoid the Lynn School Department's firewall.
The firewall, called WebSense, blocks
all types of web sites considered inappropriate for student viewing. This
includes personal e-mail sites, video game sites, possible pornographic sites,
and a variety of sites blocked by most school systems around the country.
How
did the students get caught? All the school computers
that are connected to the Internet in Lynn go through a Local Area Network
(LAN), sometimes called the Intranet. It is not difficult for a Technology
Administrator to view the locations that are being accessed through the system.
So when a teacher noticed a student keying in a numerical Internet address, the
teacher became curious and asked a Technology Administrator. The Administrator
checked the logs and found many students had registered onto that address from
Classical that morning. It was
decided that these students who breached the firewall will lose their Internet
access, although they can still use the computers in class or study.
Every
student and parent/guardian in the Lynn Schools must sign an AUP Agreement
(Acceptable User Policy) in order to get computer access. Each student agrees to
abide by the rules enclosed in the agreement. Once it is signed, a password is
given to each student. The penalty, loss of Internet privileges, is considered
by many faculty to be fair. But the students who were caught considered the
punishment too strict. After all, some students said, almost anyone can get
around a firewall. Other students stated that hundreds of Classical students
were doing the same thing but didn’t get caught that particular morning last
week.
Members
of the Classical faculty hope that students will take heed to this occurrence.
The Internet has become a mainstay of high school research projects. Losing
these school privileges can hurt class performance and grades.