[committee] [scissa.exec] Fwd: CONCERNS REGARDING INTERNET SERVICES AT ECU (fwd)

[Bob Adamson]

I thought you guys should know how bad the oppression is at ECU, so I 
asked their exec if I could forward this email to you all.

Andrew Adamson
UCC President
bob at ucc.asn.au

|"The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live."     |
| ---Peter's Laws                                                        |

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jetha CHAN [mailto:jethac at our.ecu.edu.au]
Sent: Thursday, 16 February 2012 4:03 PM
To: Elizabeth WILSON
Subject: Re: CONCERNS REGARDING INTERNET SERVICES AT ECU

 

Dear Madam,

 

Re: CONCERNS REGARDING INTERNET SERVICES AT ECU

 

Greetings and congratulations on your new position.

 

On behalf of the Computer and Security Student Association (CASSA), the official student association of the School of Computer and Security Science, I would like to petition for unrestricted, unfiltered internet access availability
at ECU.  With respect, we believe that the current level of service provided to students is deplorable and in need of severe reform.

 

The current implementation, of which we are sure you are aware, involves a restrictive firewall, mandatory use of a web proxy server as a result only the web can be accessed, with the wider internet rendered inaccessible. Futhermore,
the web access that is available is subject to draconian censorship measures via the ContentKeeper system. The procedures provided to have content unblocked are available but are not acted on in any way, as a consequence valuable
learning resources are kept out of reach. While we understand the need for auditing for liability purposes, the current system is a severe overreaction to the situation at hand.

 

In addition, we feel that the quality of ECU's current wireless infrastructure has not kept pace with the rapid adoption of technology by the student body; wireless signal on campus is not to be counted on, even in classrooms,
especially in those classes where a high proportion of students have laptops and expect to be able to access the network (as of 2012, this is most classes).

 

This is problematic for any number of reasons, many of them with a severe impact on the student body:

 

Firewall - port restrictions:

It is not possible for students to easily SSH to their own external servers for administrative tasks - almost hypocritical given that instruction and training in such is offered by the School;

2)      Severe conflicts with certain private SVN configurations - students hosting final year projects on their own hosting accounts, for instance, have found it impossible to save changes to their repositories from behind the ECU
firewall;

3)      Game design and programming students cannot access Xbox Live (a game publishing and testing platform) from behind the firewall to see what their global peers have done, nor to even deploy their own games to Xbox 360 consoles
for testing purposes (even if the development machine and console are in the same room, an Xbox Live handshake is required).

4)      In a university that teaches computer science it is shameful that the university would take the stance that the only value provided by the Internet is web access.

 

ContentKeeper:

1)      Numerous web resources relating to hacking and computer security are blocked - this prevents research and study of security-related topics for a plurality of our membership;

2)      Innocuous, widely-used services such as TwitPic have their images blocked, severely limiting the ability of ECU students to take part in global conversations;

3)      Highly-respected technical news and review sites such as Anandtech have their images blocked, restricting the ability for students to gather technical information

4)      In the last 4 years, we have yet to see an unblock request actioned.

5)      There is no feedback system in place to notify a requester of the outcome of any requests for content to be unblocked.

 

In a University it is necessary for many different and sometimes objectionable points to be discussed. Information that is not illegal to access but might otherwise be objectionable or offensive to some shouldn’t be removed from
valid discussion or scrutiny within a academic context based on the rule sets of a content filtering system.

 

Wireless:

Wireless coverage in several buildings is unreliable to the point of being virtually non-existant

 

Due in no small part to the issues herein, students have as of the last twelve months seen no other alternative but to spend their own money on 3G/4G connections or to tether their phones to their computers. As a result students in a
school of computer science are abandoning the use of ECU computing and Internet facilities in favour of their own resources to fulfil their basic coursework and learning needs. What should be a needless expense when studying at a
well-respected tertiary institution, is a heavy burden for students already struggling to cope financially. It is also embarrassing for us as ECU students to have to explain our Internet situation to visiting students from other
institutions.

 

While we can appreciate the university's desire to limit liability, we feel that the current approach to Internet security is both excessive and flawed.  No other university's Internet policy is as restrictive or as draconian as that
implemented by ECU, and it is nonetheless ineffective - a security blanket, nothing more.  Legitimate sites are blocked without recourse and yet questionable sites remain (ContentKeeper is particularly bad at screening non-English
content).

 

We would like to reiterate as a key point, that ECU is the only University in Australia & New Zealand that does not provide access to the full Internet without port blocking to their students.

 

In view of the restrictions placed on students, the damage to our national reputation, and the questionable efficacy of the measures in question, we recommend and request:

 

1)      Firewall rules be modified to allow full outgoing access to the resources that the Internet provides.

2)      Web content filtering be reviewed with respect to the content blocked, the strategies and processes employed for removal of blocked content and the consideration of the wealth of educational material blocked by the
ContentKeeper system.

3)      Wireless infrastructure on both campuses be upgraded to fit the growing needs of the student body.

 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at president at cassa.org.au - we realise that these are significant requests, and would welcome a constructive dialogue with you if at all possible.

 

Kind regards,

 



Jetha Chan

Secretary

Computer and Security Student Association

 

0425 433 881

jethachan at gmail.com / jethac at our.ecu.edu.au


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