Questions and comments

Even though these issues deal with things that might be specific to our
site there are some components of them that might be of interest to
others.  In particular I have read that many businesses are concerned
about too much employee use of the Internet and where they go.  We
have that concern as well but in terms of students.  Here are some
things I have tried or plan to try with some questions on better
approaches.

We are a religious private college that tries to keep a bit of control of
what comes onto campus via the Internet.  We also try to keep a bit of
control over who uses it.  One problem we have is when it was open for
use students would get on the system and never do anything else to the
detriment of their grades.  We had some of our very brightest students
expelled that way.
To deal with some of these issues we set up the Cern Proxy server.
We are using the  proxy system, and even though I know it is not
conventional, we use the passwording so that only those who are
authorized in the password file are allowed access off campus.  We
only authorize students needing it for a class right now.   Because using
passwords is not standard there are problems in reaching some sites,
and Netscape requires a password every new machine you go to (not
recognizing the proxy is asking for the password).  Mosaic only requires
the password once but has trouble reaching certain sites, and the new
Mosaics have problem with the passwording all together.     Now for
question 1.  Does anybody have a better way to do this or is there any
thought to standardizing passwords on the proxies?

The second thing that I have considered is putting a mechanism in the
proxy server to record the amount of time (basically it would be through
put time) and limiting student usage to a certain amount of time per
semester.  If the student had only a certain amount of time alloted they
might use it more wisely.   Has anyone done anything along this line and
if so could you give me some feedback as to what has and hasn't
worked for you.

One last thing I was wondering about.  Where we are a religious
institution we try to block pornogrophy and the like from coming on
campus.  I purchased a copy of one of the programs that blocks bad
material but it works at the PC level and I found it very easy to get
around.  I can do the same with the REDIRECT command in the proxy
server but I obviously do not know all the bad sites.  Does anyone know
of an organization or any group that would provide an ASCII file of such
places, even for a fee if not too exhorbant, that I could use in the proxy,
or have any suggestions on doing it in a better way.


Thanks,

Daris Howard
Internet Services
Ricks College

Received on Monday, 8 January 1996 12:26:53 UTC