[H-GEN] Blocking MSN, AIM, AOL, ICQ Chat program

[Robert Stanford]

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On Sun, 2002-06-09 at 15:48, theticus at excite.com wrote:
>  Hiya all out there..
> 
> I'm in the class room situation using Win98 and W2K. Is there a way to block those
chat programs? Has anyone tried it before? Students need to be able to browse the net
but not using those chat program. And can't control the individual from downloading the program and running them.
> 
> Please help on how to block or point me to links, book, script etc.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Theticus

Setting up the machines with no default gateway is one way of doing
this, then with a squid proxy they have no alternative but to use it. 

This also gives you the advantage of being able to monitor their
activity (see SARG)[1] and restrict access to certain sites (see ACL's
in the squid.conf file).

 If they require email and its hosted externaly set up an internal email
server and use fetchmail to bring it all in, a bit more work but well
worth it in the long run. The students can have high speed access to
internal mail and you can filter incoming messages for nasty content.

This sort of setup is great in locations where staff/students are
abusing their internet privileges (and it should be considered a
privilege). 

One place I have such a system quickly discovered their purchasing
officer was spending 6 hours a day looking at porn sites, while their
promotions manager though promoting his portfolio on the etrade website
was more important than his job [2] . One phonecall and their internet
access was restricted to only those sites they _need_. They now save
$500+ a month on not having an excess usage bill. 

[1] This brings in the factor of human engineering, if they know they
are being monitored they will behave. Although with curious students it
may also encourage some hacking.
[2] They are still bleating their innocence.


Robert Stanford

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