ask-mark.com

A post a slashdot about students in Texas receiving suspensions for bypassing online filters has sparked quite a discussion (not surprisingly) about schools, technology and liability. Cliff at slashdot concluded the post by asking this:

While security breaches by students are something to take seriously, should school administrations continue with their knee-jerk mentality to something like this, especially at the times when its obvious that no malicious intent was involved?

I agree that the terms of the punishments, reported to be suspensions of up to three months, may be excessive, but without any details on the school policy or what actually transpired, I can only guess that the administrators felt that the length of the suspensions were appropriate for what was done. However, I disagree with the contributor’s comment that "the school district be liable for their own insecurity." The contributor goes on to ask, "Why are they punishing so many students for something that should be handled from the district’s end?"

It does not matter that the district was unable to prevent students from bypassing the filters. The fact is that the students likely violated an acceptable use policy, and therefore needed to be punished. As a public institution with limited resources, the school district has to prioritize how it manages its technology infrastructure. It is important to patch up any security holes, but it is impractical to spend half your day, every day, trying to block every known proxy server.

The discussion is lively, and like many discussions of socio-political nature, there are some very vocal sides in the discussion. Check it out.