A31-101203-1124email-KS2DH-Website_Blocking

Page 1 of 3 David Hotchkiss - Re: Web site blocking From: To: Date: Subject: CC:

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Karen Saginor David Hotchkiss 12/3/2010 11:24 AM Re: Web site blocking Anthony Costa; Bonnie Gratch-Lindauer; Chancellor Griffin <dgriffin@ccsf.edu>; Fred Teti <fteti@ccsf.edu>; Kim Wise; Venette Cook

Hi Dr. Hotchkiss, The student at the library was using his own computer with a wireless connection through City College, not a computer in one of our labs. I've been given urls for two websites which could not be accessed for research for a class assignment: www.pinkboxjapan.com/ http://www.erossf.com/ These websites are still blocked. On my computer, I get the message shown at the end of this email.

Immediately below is a message from Tim Ryan on October 1 which shows that the category "adult-and-pornography" is being blocked on your authority, although it is NOT one of the categories related to security.

Although it may seem helpful to use software to enforce usage policies, the inability of software to distinguish between research needs vs other uses makes it an inappropriate tool for City College. Decisions about what content is or is not acceptable for instruction are the purview of the faculty.

I would be very glad to talk about this further with you. In the meantime, please direct your staff to change the firewall settings to remove adult-and-pornography from the categories blocked.

Thanks, Karen Saginor Academic Senate President City College of San Francisco Box E-202 ksaginor@ccsf.edu (415) 452-5058 >>> Tim Ryan 10/1/2010 12:37 PM >>> AllI want to clarify recent changes regarding network access. We recently installed a firewall from Palo Alto Networks in order to improve network security and protect CCSF computing systems. This is in addition to our Checkpoint firewall and uses a proprietary technology called App-ID for traffic classification which gives us the ability to block certain categories of traffic. We are currently blocking the following 10 categories: adult-and-pornography bot-nets

file://C:\Documents and Settings\dhotchkiss\Local Settings\Temp\XPgrpwise\4E9C3243P...

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Page 2 of 3 hacking keyloggers-and-monitoring malware-sites open-http-proxies peer-to-peer phishing-and-other-frauds proxy-avoidance-and-anonymizers spyware-and-adware Nine of these are directly related to security, the adult category is being blocked because it is listed in the CCSF Computer Usage Policy as an example of Harassment. Other categories may be blocked in the future as directed by our CTO, he only recently became aware of this issue and requires some time period to evaluate the associated policies and determine the impact to the college community. I specifically unblocked Games and Online-Gambling as it is not clear how encompassing these categories are and what the legitimate uses may be.

We have allowed access to all categories in the past and need to inform the college community and acknowledge their feedback prior to making significant changes in this area. At present, we have received inquiries from some of our constituent groups regarding the blocking of adult sites. They may want to state that they have a right to this type of access in which case they will need to justify their reasoning and explain why the Computer Usage Policy should be changed. In the meantime, we do not want to complicate the issue by including Gaming sites which would possibly make it easier to question the overall process we are following. I realize there are other policies within CCSF that could potentially be enforced by the Palo Alto Networks firewall, these changes may be implemented in the future as they are evaluated and as we are directed by our CTO. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on this information, thank you.

Tim Ryan Network Manager City College of SF Phone: 415-452-5352 Email: tryan@ccsf.edu

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;----------------------------------------------------------Access to the web page you were trying to visit has been blocked in accordance with company policy. Please contact your system administrator if you believe this is in error.

User: 10.100.32.27 URL: www.erossf.com/ Category: adult-and-pornography â&#x20AC;&#x201D;---------------------------------------------------------->>> David Hotchkiss 12/3/2010 8:07 AM >>> Karen In order to expedite my investigation of what happened, I would like to know the URL of the site the student was attempting to access.

Thanks -David A. Hotchkiss, Ph.D., PMP Chief Technology Officer San Francisco Community College District

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Page 3 of 3 Phone: 415.452.5586 >>> On 12/2/2010 at 2:51 PM, Karen Saginor < ksaginor@ccsf.edu > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

Hi Dr. Hotchkiss, Remember that problem a few months ago with a firewall blocking access to game web sites? I believe the resolution to that included an understanding that ITS would not impose content filtering.

I've recently learned that a student conducting legitimate research at the library has encountered the same access denial screen. Please let me know how this is being resolved.

As the library case illustrates, City College's policy on internet usage is highly dependent on context - a particular web page is not acceptable or acceptable depending on whether it's being used for entertainment or as a resource for an assignment. It is not part of City College policy for content or site filtering utilities to take that decision away from librarians and other faculty.

If you want to chat about this, my cell phone number is 860-4173.

Thanks, Karen Saginor Academic Senate President City College of San Francisco Box E-202 ksaginor@ccsf.edu (415) 452-5058

file://C:\Documents and Settings\dhotchkiss\Local Settings\Temp\XPgrpwise\4E9C3243P...

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