On the weekend, I added a layer of security to our system, Dansguardian on the firewall. I was expecting a bunch of teachers to be at my door with pitch-forks by 9:30 on Monday but it was not until today near noon that I got feedback. The principal came in and told me a teacher had been searching for images appropriate for Remembrance Day. I checked it out as I left for lunch and indeed a page of search results on Bing was being blocked. Later when I had some slack time, I found the blockage in the Dansguardian’s log and verified that I got the same result with a different OS and a different browser. I re-tuned Dansguardian from young children, 50, to 80 and the page came through full of poppies and appropriate images. I scrolled down a bit and found the problem: nude pictures in amongst the flowers. I put the setting back to 50. The system is working but it is better to err on the safe side.
We do have a safer system now with virus-scanning on the Internet and kid-filtering but there may yet be frayed nerve-endings. A system like this cannot please everyone. I can also keep track of the logs to see what is being blocked to whitelist things. It will all work out in the end.
You can always try inbetween, like 60, or 55
It is possible to configure dansguardian on a per-user basis. I’m no expert, but the functionality is there; if teachers do require additional flexability in their search, or a supervised or trusted student needs to research an iffy topic, it could be carried out without disrupting other student accounts.
I’ve done some brief work with dansguardian.
It’s impressive.