[IP] more on Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters [fs]

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 10:35:45 -0400
To: <dave@farber.net>
Cc: <Kenneth_Mayer@Dell.com>, <coolrad89@msn.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters
[fs]

Ken,

My quip about the student being admitted was a bit tongue-in-cheek, I
admit. Obviously top-tier universities would want to make sure any
prospective student meets other admissions standards, and a high school
sophomore may not be ready for college anyway.

There is, however, a serious point underlying this. Yes, the student
violated school rules. But what you miss is that not all high school
"policies" make sense, not all high school student administrators are
always correct in every way, and not all high school students who
"violate policies" deserve our scorn.

 From what I've read, the student acted in the finest sense of the
hacker tradition: he saw a technological restriction that interfered
with his ability to get information that he wanted and cleverly bypassed
it. At his teacher's request, he made a presentation to his class about
the methods he used. He found that the school was blocking his proxy and
implemented the appropriate counter-measures. (BTW, the school reviewed
the browser caches and found no evidence that the students were using
the proxy server to visit porn sites.)

The student also seems to be doing the kind of muckracking that should
be applauded; he posted a note to his blog in February encouraging his
fellow students to submit requests under the state FOIA law.
(http://blog247.blogspot.com/2005/02/freedom-of-information.html). I'm
sure that didn't endear him to the school administration.

By the way, why do you claim that the computers at the school's library
are not filtered? Thanks to the federal filtering law, upheld by the
Supreme Court, school library computers are now filtered by default. Or
do you have any particular knowledge of Lewis and Clark High School that
you'd like to share with us?

-Declan



David Farber wrote:
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: <Kenneth_Mayer@Dell.com>
> Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 08:27:49 -0500
> To: <dave@farber.net>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters
> [fs]
> 
> So now Declan thinks just because a 16 year old helped thousands bypass
> school rules he should be let into MIT?  He broke the rules, the schools
> rules and is getting punished, which is justified.  This is not infringing
> on anyones freedom of speech, it is a case of violating a policy.  Those
> kids at any school can go to the library (which has no filters) to do their
> research.  This is getting more press than it deserves!
> 
> 
> Ken Mayer Jr
> Advanced System Group
> Dell Server and Storage Department
> 
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
> 
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