Technology & Learning - September 2008 - (Page 31)

Sealing Up Pesky Proxy Tunnels The war between those who strive to restrict inappropriate Internet access and those who seek to outwit the filters has heated up. The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in the use of anonymous proxies to tunnel through districts’ filtering systems. No sooner do districts block a particular proxy than a dozen others spring up to take its place. Proxies have attained new levels of sophistication and accessibility, thanks to new encryption methods and increased availability of open-source software and freeware. lion-entry content database. “At Lightspeed we utilize over 5 million students to help us identify and block new proxies every day. We appreciate their assistance in compiling the most comprehensive ‘blocked proxy’ category in the industry,” says Scott Garrison, President of Lightspeed Systems. inspections of traffic when an unknown URL, domain, or IP address is accessed. Lightspeed continually updates “on-thefly,” deep-packet traffic inspection methods and delivers them to TTC users on a nightly basis. Those THE ENCRYPTION PROBLEM The increased use of encryption by proxies poses new challenges for filters. One of the most popular proxy applications, UltraSurf 8.0, has “implemented a complex proxy with complete transparency and a high level of encryption on the Microsoft Internet Explorer platform,” according to the developer. The Lightspeed Security Agent arms districts against programs such as UltraSurf in multiple ways. By blocking the “security proxy” category, administrators can prevent students from getting to UltraReach.com to download the application. If a student does succeed in downloading the proxy service from somewhere else on the Internet, the Security Agent will identify the proxy application as a virus and keep the executable from running. Finally, IT staff can configure the Security Agent to disable read/write access to removable media to prevent users from downloading unwanted programs from a thumb drive. ONGOING EFFORTS BY LIGHTSPEED The increased use of encryption by proxies poses new challenges for filters. Fortunately for those who are tasked with enforcing an AUP, filters today have some impressive weapons in their own arsenals. Lightspeed Systems employs a multipronged defense against proxies as part of its all-inclusive solution, Total Traffic Control. One method is to daily collect and analyze all the “unknown” sites its customers have attempted to access. “Unknown” sites are those domains, IP addresses, or URLs that are not already in Lightspeed’s twenty-mil- Two types of proxies can allow users to “tunnel” through a filter and access blocked sites: True Web proxies (Web and email servers) can generally be identified by their use of standard protocols to proxy Web traffic. These protocols are continually analyzed by the systematic processes of the Lightspeed Categorization Engine, and added to the “security proxy” category of the database, which is updated hourly. CGI proxies (scripts and programs that run on Web servers) are more difficult to recognize and isolate due to the analysis required to identify the Web servers supporting the execution of the proxy CGI scripts. Through a comprehensive analysis of identified proxy domains, Lightspeed Systems has developed several custom decoders. These decoders come into play through deep-packet For more information on combating proxies, please visit: www.lightspeedsystems.com/proxies A DV E R TO R I A L TECH & LEARNING | 31 http://www.UltraReach.com http://www.lightspeedsystems.com/proxies

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Technology & Learning - September 2008

Technology & Learning 9/08 Contents Editor’s Desk News & Trends Put to the Test Lessons on Leadership What, You Worry? Back Office Business How to Get your MEd Online What’s New Student Response Systems Get Smarter Leader of the Year Profile: She’s Got Game

Technology & Learning - September 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.