Websense: Site blocking at Colleges?

From: Thomas M. Heaney (tmheaney_at_teachingcollege.com)
Date: 10/12/04

  • Next message: Richard S. Westmoreland: "Re: Websense: Site blocking at Colleges?" 
    Date: 12 Oct 2004 06:59:08 -0700

    I work at a college that uses Websense to block and filter websites
    for reasons of security and bandwidth. Basically, this includes any
    multi-media sites or files (e.g. RealPlayer streams), any web-based
    email system, and just about anything that can remotely be defined as
    "entertainment." Faculty and students have complained, but the
    network administrators state that this is needed in order to protect
    the network.

    I contacted Websense to find out if they have any other colleges or
    universities as current customers, but the sales rep I spoke to
    admitted that he didn't know of any. From the research I've done, it
    looks like a few colleges used Websense in the late 1990s and as late
    as 2002 (mostly in the UK), but I can't find any colleges presently
    using it.

    Does anyone know of any public institutions of higher education that
    block categories of websites? Does anyone have any first-hand
    experience of this at their college?

    Thanks,
    th1234eaney@456frc.edu (Take out the numbers for my valid email
    address.)

  • Next message: Richard S. Westmoreland: "Re: Websense: Site blocking at Colleges?"