New York School District Stops Students from
Accessing Tunnel Web Sites
with Burstek Software
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FORT MYERS, FL - March 7, 2008 – Burstek and client Jordan-Elbridge
Central School District want to let parents and school administrators everywhere
know about a new twist in the growing problem of student access to inappropriate
Web content from school networks: Anonymous proxy sites.
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Jordan-Elbridge Central School District is located in a rural community
between Syracuse and Auburn, New York and includes 3 campuses with over
1,600 k-12 students. Clark Smith, Director of Operations at Jordan-Elbridge
cautions anyone who thinks the installation of basic Web site blocking software
will protect children from the dangers of the Internet to take heed: “The
kids have found a way to circumvent some of those tools with “Tunnel” sites.”
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Tunnel Web sites are anonymous proxy sites designed to help Internet
surfers get around filtering tools and access whatever they want on the
Web anonymously, from social networking sites like MySpace to pornography,
and new tunnel sites are rapidly increasing. “Tunnel sites present a particularly
serious problem for education because of their popularity among Internet
savvy young people, who are constantly motivated by the age-old challenge
of ‘getting around the system’,” says Smith.
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When Smith’s IT team discovered high school students bypassing their
former filtering solution through tunneling sites, their first challenge
was determining exactly how many and who. Like many other schools, computer
workstations at Jordan-Elbridge are shared; further, their filter not only
wasn’t blocking tunnel sites, it couldn’t provide the detailed reporting
required to identify the extent of the problem.
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| Finding an advanced Internet security solution at minimal cost is part
of the challenge for a school district on a budget. Most budget tools filter
by IP addresses, and therefore cannot identify actual users and the sites
they are going to. |
Smith found Burstek’s bt-LogAnalyzer software to be the ideal solution
for their ISA server environment. “The software integrates seamlessly into
Active Directory, so we were able to generate reports on Internet activity
by actual user name or group membership” He adds.
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The school was able to take disciplinary action with the students and
reinforce the school’s Acceptable Use Policy with the entire student body.
However, reporting on the problem was only part of the solution, and Smith
quickly added Burstek’s bt-WebFilter to block access to Anonymizers and
proxy sites and all other inappropriate Web content.
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“At the heart of our software is a dynamic, robust control list with
over 50 categories, including Anonymizers”, says Michael Faisst, Director
of Product Development Burstek. The list is continuously updated with new
sites and content. “We also offer customers the opportunity to contribute
to the control list in a program called Web Extras, as Jordan-Elbridge does,”
Faisst added. “They regularly run reports on sites that students are trying
to access and send them to our control list technicians for integration.”
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Of course, not all inappropriate access is intentional, which is why
a vital learning tool like the Web can also be a dangerous place for children.
Faisst says that in addition to curious minds, a miss-key or click can quickly
lead to the wrong places if unfiltered. “Burstek prevents the infection
of malicious code and spyware obtained through inadvertent activity as well,
which protects organizations from security threats before they enter the
network,” he added.
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Delivering CIPA compliance as well as confidence in student protection
for parents and school administrators are vital parts of the mission, says
Smith. “Keeping the kids safe is what it’s’ all about. Burstek enables us
to monitor and protect them from both accidental and intentional access,
and allows us to deliver safe Internet access for learning.”
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Burstek has been providing affordable, sophisticated Internet security
solutions to global organizations since 1997. Flagship software tools, bt-WebFilter
and bt-LogAnalyzer enable thousands of businesses, schools and non-profit
organizations to turn the Internet into a powerful, safe tool for all of
their users.
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To learn more about anonymous proxy and tunneling sites or Internet
security solutions, visit our website at
www.burstek.com.
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All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective
owners.
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