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Bloxx Warns Of the Dangers Of Anonymous Proxies as Kids Return to School

September 2008 by Bloxx

Bloxx, the UK web content filtering specialist, warns that as the new
academic year approaches, educational institutions should be aware of
the escalating use of anonymous proxies by students trying to bypass web filtering technology and the risks associated with unrestricted internet access.

The Internet is an incredibly important and useful resource for
education, yet it can also impact productivity as students have the
opportunity to waste time surfing social networking websites or
bandwidth-sapping media download sites.

"Teachers notice when students are spending too much time gossiping in
the classroom, whereas quietly surfing the Internet is not quite so
obvious, yet it has the potential to expose children to inappropriate
and even harmful material if not properly regulated," warns Bloxx
Managing Director, Eamonn Doyle.

This is particularly concerning for the education sector as school IT
administrators are required to protect children from the pernicious
aspects of the Internet.

As children’s knowledge of technology and the Internet continues to
evolve, students are finding new subversive ways in which to access
non-work related sites during school hours, creating further challenges
for internet filters and IT Managers. The easiest and most popular means
of doing this is by connecting to an anonymous proxy server, a website
that enables users to access URLs that may otherwise have been blocked
by an Internet filter.

St. George’s College is a leading independent Roman Catholic
co-educational school based in Surrey. The school’s IT and Network
Manager, Darren Harryman recently installed Bloxx’s Tru-View Technology
web filtering appliance after becoming concerned that students were
finding ways to circumvent the existing web filtering solution from RM
Smart Cache, by accessing anonymous proxy sites.

"Child protection is our first priority and so blocking access to
inappropriate content is critical," explains Harryman. "Bloxx’s Tru-View
Technology can automatically categorise web pages which on the surface
appear to be appropriate but which in reality are not. We now have no
issues with anonymous proxies and it has given us an extremely high
level of confidence that we are providing a safe, secure and productive
learning environment for our students."

"Students are incredibly tech-savy and each year are becoming more
knowledgeable about how to successfully evade internet filters by using
anonymous proxies. Hundreds of anonymous proxy sites are created each
week and blocking them using traditional internet filtering software,
which rely on black lists, is simply no longer effective," comments
Bloxx Managing Director, Eamonn Doyle. "Schools must be aware of how to
manage and regulate Internet access by deploying the right technology in
order to avoid children coming across inappropriate online content,
whether accidentally or otherwise."


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