ATS blocked on my schools network

As I was sitting today in English class, I decided to stray from the boring lectures of 10th grade English and browse the internet. I decided to check out a little news on ATS and came to realize that the school blocked the site. Not only did I begin to chuckle at the fact the reason given was that it was pornographic content, it also made wonder how the school would filter this site. It is not relevant to any social media outlets like facebook, nor does it have any pornographic content that I am aware of. It's not likely any high school teenage kid would browse these forums, let alone in school. So the question is, why?

It's probably for the best.

No way I would have made good grades if ATS had been at my disposal...

Because then you might realize that the crap written in your textbook is lie.

reply to post by Signals


Sadly, since I started reading ATS, my grades have been dropping .

reply to post by prolific


Explanation: This is FAIL and here is why!...

1] You stated you were in 10th grade english class and this mean either your a 10grade student OR the teacher and basically slacking of at school during class times is the exact reason that IT security has to come up with these measures to protect the kiddies by denying them and in this case yourself ACCESS!

Are you a lawn mower man? [movies reference for those who can remember through all this Haarp hmph! ]

Personal Disclosure: To answer the OP's last question its obvious they were doing it and if the teacher they could be sacked for being slack and if a student they were that vital exception that needs to be secured against.

Please provide some evidence IMMEDIATELY that ATS was flagged as a *pornographic* website or I'm going to have to alert the mod's to this trash asap.

reply to post by OmegaLogos


How do you wish me to provide evidence of a network I do not have access to right now? Do you want me to take a picture of the computer in school as I try to access the website? Please enlighten me.

On another note. The reason I was slacking off (student), was mainly because the subject the teacher was covering was in my possession of knowledge already. Tell me if you would like to sit through an hour of a teacher telling you how to use Google to find legitimate sources for a paper.

reply to post by OmegaLogos


What kinda crap is that?? what a # reply my friend!

It does not suprise me that ATS has been blocked at schools! because on ATS we find out the real truth! not what we are forcefed from MSM!

reply to post by Signals


Actually ever since I really started to read ATS, well the sane parts such as history and such, my grades have actually improved. I think I learned more about American government and world history from ATS than from my textbooks.

Thats funny because my daughter informed me the other day that she had visited ATS (against my wishes tsktsk) at school the other day and she is in 5th Grade!

School districts have wide latitude on what they can deny as far as access goes. Most filtering software allows you to pick categories, and conspiracy sites is one. I suspect they just had a generic splash screen that stated the porn part, rather than a specific splash screen for each subject blocked. I used to run one of these systems with a product called Websense, which was capable of blocking nearly everything. You could even block shopping sites like Amazon, for example.

reply to post by Misoir


Don't get me wrong, tests/papers I excel at. Sadly this schooled is filled with tedious busy work, that I refuse to be a part of.

reply to post by prolific


Explanation: Ok ... fair enough! I was a student once and so I know that drill!

Here is what I have to say directly to you about this.

Personal Disclsure: Upon reflecting more deeply on the threads original post I can see know just how much of a knee jerk I was and I apologize unreservedly for that. Sorry! I am also highly concerned that ATS was flagged as *pornographic* and I'll leave that up to you to provide evidence of that if and when possible. At the moment it might just be a generic catch all term for no go websites on the schools firewall and security suite settings. Tell your parents if you dare, but I dont recommend that asnd am just teasing you now!

You know, when I was in school they blocked all kinds of sites that could not be considered, school related....

But there were always kids who were able to get around the blocks that they had set up....

They just put those blocks up in order to keep you from viewing things that they deem to not be appropriate for school....

reply to post by prolific


Its possible its just the level of the filter they employ. My old company would block youtube and facebook, not because of what they are, but the manner the software worked.

Try using google, yahoo or bing, search ATS. sometimes linking to it from a search engine can bypass it.

I just want to state the my school is pretty lenient with filters. As we have access to most sites accept the likes of facebook,or ebay. We have access however to sites that can be use of information like youtube or tumbler(we do use it in psychology). That's why this came to my attention.

yes, prove that ATS was labeled as porn. If you could, come up with some other sites (Myspace, youtube, ect) that are blocked and (with evidence) see if they are labeled as porn too.

If ATS is the only site falsely catagorized as porn, we may have a true conspiracy. Think about it, if a filter is gonna be enacted on any category, pornography is the first to go. This would effectively cut off ATS from all filtered networks, with a simple mislable. Though, if that was intentional, would still be debatable.

Originally posted by xxsomexpersonxx
yes, prove that ATS was labeled as porn. If you could, come up with some other sites (Myspace, youtube, ect) that are blocked and (with evidence) see if they are labeled as porn too.

Look. I already explained that above. He doesn't have to "prove" anything. When you hit a blocked site, the LOCAL ADMIN can invoke what is called a "Splash Screen" that can say whatever he wants it to say. All it is is a web page stored locally on the local web server. This is done by a computer guy, not the Superintendent of Schools. What this page says probably didn't go through six months of committee hearings trying to find the exact politically correct wording that wouldn't offen anyone. Some computer guy simply threw up a quick web page that says, "You can't access porn from this here site, kid, so bug off." The computer guys does not have the option to put up different spash screens for different filtering conditions. You only get one. He probably doesn't give a rat's a$$ what he is filtering; he just does what he is told. There might be 50 different categories he could filter just by putting a check in a box on a configuration screen.

Why do they do this at all? Because Federal Law says they must if they are going to get any reimbursement for networking costs via the "E-rate" system which pays for a lot of the costs. I used to get back $75K per year on E-rate reimburselments. Besides, your Mom, Dad, and the local busy body down the street don't want you accessing porn at school. they have to AT LEAST show they tried even if some does sneak through.

There are LOTS of categories: hate sites, gun sites, political sites, shopping sites, porn, you name it. In fact, just by looking at the logs of blocked sites I found some pretty cool sites! If you want to find out what is being filtered, start trying to go to sites like nra.org, or whatever sites interest you.

there is no conspiracy required here. It;s just a part of using a district computer to access the web. Deal with it.

This is a good time to learn how to bypass filters without getting caught.
In the years ahead having a clean way to tunnel around school or business filters is a handy skill to have.
as if you go to collage you likely will run into even more filters.

This would be a good time to start building a linux on a flash drive virtual machine system to tunnel around filters and give you a better system for privacy.
www.pendrivelinux.com...
boingboing.net...

This will also drive anyone nuts when they try to check the history of your surfing on the net as all of it will be stored on the flash drive and not the computer.

This is handy for library computers or other computers.

Simply and plainly put is that all education facilities retain the right to amend it's policy pertaining to the internet and can block any site that does not serve as a direct and approved educational reference as you are there to learn and not to surf the web updating your Facebook status!

reply to post by schuyler


You missed my point. If all the sites are categorized as porn, according to the screen, it is just a splash screen. If they aren't it's going off an online database categorizing sites. The potential conspiracy was ATS being categorized specifically in the most blocked category. Though, with no evidence besides that, it wouldn't go far as a theory, but would be interesting.