Bloody Website Filter!

2005-04-15 | by Jamie | Categories: Deep Thoughts

This is what I now see at work whenever I try to access any of the Aomori blogs hosted by Blogger. Either the journals of Ewen, Mary, both Lukes, Akiko and all the rest of you Blogspot.com people have all recently seen a dramatic increase in "adult sex" in their contents or my school's Trend Micro InterScan WebManager filtering system has become even fussier than ever before. For months now I haven't been able to access all sorts of other seemingly harmless websites including eBay, Amazon.com, the Aomori Yahoo Listserve, and any website that starts with an IP address. On top of that I can't log into "Friend's Only" Live Journals, use instant messaging or rss readers, ftp into Avoidinglife.com to upload anything, or do P2P file sharing anymore.

How the Hell does the school expect me to do my job if I can't sit at my desk all day and amuse myself? Soon there will be nothing left for me to do with my time except study Japanese. That's assuming the filter doesn't find some way to extend its fascist rule beyond the digital world and block access to the books on my desk too. Anyway, if anyone knows of a good way to get around this annoying thing please let me know. I've already tried using free proxy servers, but they don't seem to work for some reason. The school's firewall perhaps? What's wrong with a little adult sex at school anyway? If the students don't get their sex education here, they're just gonna get it on the streets from the various DVD porn shacks scattered around town or from inside just about any magazine sold in this country.

19 feedbacks » •

19 comments

Comment from: Luke (biffa) [Visitor] · http://biffasblog.blogspot.com

My thoughts exactly. Maybe it's time to switch to Livejournal? They really are fascists at the board of ed. though because I often use my blog to practise Japanese writing and other things like that. If they expect us to sit in these crummy little offices all week with only two or three hours work to do and no interesting internet material to keep the time ticking over then bull. I'm glad I'm leaving this rabbit warren soon anyway.

2005-04-15 @ 12:52

Comment from: Luke (biffa) [Visitor] · http://biffasblog.blogspot.com

And I'll tell you something else as well. This means more nap time in the tatami room from now on.

2005-04-15 @ 13:24

Comment from: Jamie [Member] · http://www.avoidinglife.com

Are you saying you have the same problem Luke? Did it just start for you today as well?

2005-04-15 @ 13:37

Comment from: [Visitor]

a temporary, but sometimes slow and frustrating way around some blocks is this german site:

http://www.kniff.de/cgi-bin/cgiproxy/nph-proxy.cgi

2005-04-15 @ 13:59

Comment from: Ewen [Visitor] · http://www.fog-on-the-wyn.blogspot.com

I just tried linking to some blogs through your site there Jamie, same thing happened to me. Guess you won't get to see the new pigeon porn story on my website then.

2005-04-15 @ 13:59

Comment from: Hugh [Visitor] · http://www.tamenobu.com

Yeah, something's definitely changed today. I think the solution is obviously for Jamie to host everyone's site! I can still access Friends' livejournals, amazon, ebay tho. Your firewall might be a bit more kibishii.

2005-04-15 @ 14:02

Comment from: Jamie [Member] · http://www.avoidinglife.com

Thanks mysterious poster. That German site seems to work.. well sort of anyway. Most of those kind of proxy sites (like anonymizer.com etc.) are already blocked, but that German one was obscure enough to get through the cracks.

2005-04-15 @ 14:22

Comment from: Luke Elliot [Visitor] · http://gaijinlore.blogspot.com

Yeah, sorry for all the adult content lately, Jamie. I don't think Kazamaura has heard about the existence of firewalls yet. Either that, or they're pragmatists and realize that there's just no point with all those triple-letter-before-y DVD vending shacks all up and down route 279.

2005-04-15 @ 14:25

Comment from: Joshua Zimmerman [Visitor] · http://www.joshuazimmerman.com

Man, this doesn't give me much to look forward to this next year when I end up doing JET. I mean study! Japanese! In Japan! Those slave drivers!

2005-04-15 @ 15:34

Comment from: Francois [Visitor]

Nothing here in Shichinohe. I can still access everything I want.
Sorry I can't help Jamie, I don't know enough about pc to help you.

2005-04-15 @ 16:18

Comment from: Luke (biffa) [Visitor] · http://biffasblog.blogspot.com

Yeah, I can't even access my own blog now. I got the technician to come down and have a look. He said it was a filter applied from the board of education. He insisted that he knew nothing about it. If the board of education are doing it then maybe it's just high school ALTs who have lost access.

2005-04-15 @ 16:39

Comment from: Jamie [Member] · http://www.avoidinglife.com

Maybe by blocking Blogger the BOE is trying to prevent students from starting their own blogs about their crappy teachers and schools. We the bloggers of Aomori should unite and file a formal complaint with Melanie!

2005-04-15 @ 16:59

Comment from: Jacob [Visitor]

Can't pass up commenting on the crazy BOE. I had the same problem when I first moved to Nishi HS. I was blocked from hotmail, blogger, your sites, and anything that had chat romotely linked to it. Found out that i was using a non-assigned IPs, and any IP that isn't assigned to a specific person is under tighter regulation through Trend Micro. So I tracked down the office computer guy, who looks a lot like the dude on SNL, and forced him to give me my own IP address. He relented, mostly because he and I were the only two people in the school who knew what IP stood for, and I could then access everything. Sometime in December I lost Messenger, and in January I lost the ability to upload and ftp my website. I also couldn't make any bit torrent programs run properly. I'm thinking the static IP lets them decide what to take away. :( At any rate, using loophole methods seems to be the only way around. Like the huge lists of free proxies that are only a google away. they are slow like the german site, but work in a pinch. Keep us posted if you find some speedy solutions!

2005-04-16 @ 11:57

Comment from: Jamie [Member] · http://www.avoidinglife.com

Yeah, it's basically the same situation with me. I've had a few encounters with the BoE computer guy (maybe the same guy you spoke to), but nothing good ever seems to come of it. Last time was when my computer was blamed for knocking out the school network for a week! What did I do? I just asked them to set up my computer the same was as all the other teacher's computers, but they always seem either unable or uninterested in doing so. Now it doesn't seem to matter since as of last October ALL teachers at work seem to be stuck with this damn filter, not just me. None of those big lists of free proxies seem to work for me either.. all I got is that shitty German site now, and it barely works. They are impairing my ability to Internationalize damnit!!

2005-04-16 @ 12:36

Comment from: Jacob [Visitor]

guess you could always surf the net on your keitai.

2005-04-16 @ 16:07

Comment from: queen t [Visitor] · http://www.ayaduafe.com/takeyah

it's just your school/BOE. it has nothing to do with porn or anything like that. it could be something as simple as someone getting a virus then they block everything (happened at my tech schoollast year). i couldn't even access the lesson plans that I e-mailed to my teacher. it could also be their indirect way of telling you "um,...you're browsing too much"

2005-04-17 @ 04:20

Comment from: Sorcha [Visitor]

yep me too...but ewen's site is rubbish so am not too worries about that...

2005-04-17 @ 13:49

Comment from: Mary [Visitor]

me too! it's so frustrating, I can't access yahoo.co.uk but I can access yahoo.co.jp - why WHY? (unfortunately tho unlike Sorch I can still access Ewen's blog). I asked our computer guy but he muttered something about it being a system the Ken have put in place and so there's nothing they can do about it locally. Surely it's no coincidence that it's affected all of us at exactly the same time - and just after all the April changes too when they're likely to impose a new computer system?

I want my email back! Help!

2005-04-20 @ 14:19

Comment from: Jamie [Member] · http://www.avoidinglife.com

It's so weird. For some reason yahoo.co.uk works fine for me. I don't get why certain sites are blocked for some of us, while others are blocked for different people... yet we all started experiencing problems on the same day. I bet if their IT guy at the Ken-sho started getting baraged by complaints from angry gaijin something would get done about it... that is unless he enjoys talking to gaijin.

2005-04-20 @ 14:40

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