K-12 Web & E-mail Content Filtering

1. K-12 Web & E-mail Content Filtering Brian Steigauf Systems Administrator Lancaster-Lebanon IU 13 brian_steigauf@iu13.org Michael I. DeBakey Network and Systems Administrator michael_debakey@l-spioneers.org Lester S. Stoltzfus Director of Technology lester_stoltzfus@l-spioneers.org Michael Boggess Regional Sales Manager, Lightspeed Systems michael@lightspeedsystems.com DeliveringProfessionalResponsiveQualityService

2. District Information • Encompasses Lampeter, Strasburg, Willow Street, and the southeast corner of the city of Lancaster • 36.2 square miles • 3,225 total students • 470 total number of employees

3. Our Buildings • Five educational buildings (1 HS, 1 MS, 3 ES) • Two non-educational buildings (Administration Building and Maintenance Building) • All on one campus except for one elementary school

4. Traditional Web Filtering Problems • Obtuse and complex whitelist / blacklist • Too much overhead to submission / approval process • I.T.’s “fingerprints” are all over the place • Non-existent or minimal integration with directory service

5. A Checklist for Content Management Decisions CoSN’s (Consortium for School Networking) “Secure District” website: http://www.securedistrict.org/safewired/checklist.cfm Some excellent questions to ask on this topic…

6. CoSN: Philosophical Questions to Ask • Do you want students to be able to direct their own learning or is it more important for teachers to retain control of what goes on in the classroom? • Should different standards be applied, based on the age of the student? • Should school employees be subject to the same rules as students, to their own set of rules or to no rules? • Would you prefer to simply monitor how students and employees use the Internet, rather than blocking their access to sites? • Are there other issues that you want to address at the same time? (Viruses, malware, application security, mail filtering, etc.) • How will school officials respond if students are found to be accessing inappropriate material? • What strategies will your school district use to teach "information literacy?"

7. CoSN: Evaluating Content Management Products • What kinds of content are you concerned about? • What has the experience been with the solution you propose to use? • How are users notified when they try to access a blocked site? • Does the proposed solution address other forms of content besides just Web sites? • How easy would it be for a child to hack into and disable a particular filtering solution? • Does the proposed solution incorporate advertising messages? Will third parties be able to collect information about how your students are accessing the Internet? • If your students speak many different languages, does your proposed solution control access to sites written in languages other than English? • How will the proposed solution serve your district in the future?

8. L-S’s Questions • How easily does the product fit with our existing security model - Firewall, NAT, VPN, “offline” laptops, wireless? • Will it require any fundamental changes to our network topology? • What kind of hardware do we need? • What software do we need to install? Do we need to touch every computer on the network? • How granular is the control? Per student / staff user, per group, per computer, per subnet? • The $64,000 question: Does the authentication mechanism integrate with our existing single sign on model? • Will it cost us $64,000???

9. How About E-Mail? • Spam, open relays, viruses • Attachment limits • Student e-mail accounts hosted or on-site? • Regulations relating to e-mail • Do your “e-Recordkeeping” practices reflect your paper recordkeeping practices? • Archival methods… Are you prepared to store all of that stuff?

10. Lightspeed TTC 7 • Mail and Web Content Filtering • In-Line Filtering for Best Performance • “Internal” and “External” Network Interfaces • Three Web Filter Policy Levels: Student, Staff, Administrative/IT • MS SQL Server 2005 Required for Each TTC Server

11. Lightspeed TTC 7 • Mail and Web Content Filtering • In-Line Filtering for Best Performance • “Internal” and “External” Network Interfaces • Three Web Filter Policy Levels: Student, Staff, Administrative/IT • MS SQL Server 2005 Required for Each TTC Server • Web Filtering Hardware • 1 x Dell PowerEdge 2950 Server • 1 x Silcom Failover card ( 2 x 1000BaseT interfaces) • 1 x Intel PCI NIC (2 x 1000BaseT interfaces)

12. Lightspeed TTC 7 • Mail and Web Content Filtering • In-Line Filtering for Best Performance • “Internal” and “External” Network Interfaces • Three Web Filter Policy Levels: Student, Staff, Administrative/IT • MS SQL Server 2005 Required for Each TTC Server • Web Filtering Hardware • 1 x Dell PowerEdge 2950 Server • 1 x Silcom Failover Card ( 2 x 1000BaseT interfaces) • 1 x Intel PCI NIC (2 x 1000BaseT interfaces) • Mail Filtering Hardware • 1 x Dell PowerEdge 2950 Server • 1 x Intel PCI NIC (2 x 1000BaseT interfaces) • 1 x Dell MD1000 Disk Array

13. Lightspeed TTC 7 • In-Line Installation Always a Best Practice • TTC 7.3 Console • Remote Deployment of Security Agent • “One Stop Shop” for Managing Antivirus Scans and Client Updates • Active Directory-Integrated User, Group, Computer Lookup Functionality • Security Agent • Provides Desktop Antivirus • Provides Scheduled AV Scans and Definition Updates • Provides Program Permissions (L-S Does Not Use This) • Zero Client Configuration Required When Deployed through Console • Correctly Resolves AD Group Membership and Usernames

16. Thank you! Act 48 Code: BL182085