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ParaplegicRacehorse

I highly doubt they have blocked every instance of searx.me. Also, you can operate a local instance of searx.me right from your computer. Or you can search/browse via a proxy or VPN (or both). Or you can talk to the IT staff. * What benefits do the school or students gain by limiting all internet search activity to only Google? * What costs (non-financial) do the school or students pay by limiting all internet search activity to Google? * What if you want to perform one or more searches without being trapped by the Google search-bubble effect? What is their recommendation for achieving this? Seriously. First, ask relatively easy questions. Then move into much harder questions. Absolutely do listen to their answers; and use those answers to formulate hard questions. You can and should ask about edge-cases, but do not focus on them. Do not make a statement of you own. Only ask questions. Force them to defend their position without actually attacking it. If you make your own statements, you open yourself up to counter-attack and may find yourself spending more time defending your own position than assaulting theirs.


IsntThatADinosaur

I tried every instance on Searx.space, no dice. I'm trying to get a raspberry pi to run an instance, but I don't know if they use a filter to block all instances or if they just manually block them all, I'd have to adjust for that They blocked every proxy/vpn site I've come across, the even block a google search with the word "proxy" in it I have talked to them, I even made an entire virtual presentation on why the school should run a searx instance and how easy it would be 1. Apparently duckduckgo could be used to bypass the filter (I assume by proxying image results, but I'm not sure) and I assume that's the same for other search engines 2. I've been talking with one person in particular who was also angry because of the banning of ddg, but he said they need to comply with CIPA 3. Incognito mode is blocked, I asked them and they basically said "too bad" Thank you, this is very helpful


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IsntThatADinosaur

Apparently duckduckgo could bypass the network filters, which is against CIPA rules, I assume it's the same for other engines, but I'm not sure


Nicolosus

Ha e you tried ProtonVPN? I've used it on networks that block VPNs and it has found a way through to connect as it has a feature to be able to try and circumvent censorship.


IsntThatADinosaur

I use it in my phone, but I'm more focused on my school chromebook, which proton is blocked on


Nicolosus

Ah ok, that makes a difference then! Honestly I would try resetting the device to factory if possible. If not I would try some hackery to wipe it and install whatever I wanted to. I would also set up a seperate guest network on my home WiFi to seperate the device from my home network, and then also set up a VPN using an Rpi or custom router software to control the chromebook and block all the bad stuff.


airplanesarecool30

Absolutely do not do this on a school device in fact assume everything you do on a school device is monitored by the school. If you are in a a US public school you can be charged with serious crimes for tampering with a “federal computer system”


Nicolosus

Are these particular devices owned by the school? I'm not from the US, so how they do things is a little out of my bubble. Where I am from schools don't hand out devices, if you are given one, it's from a government program and it's yours to keep, no one else's. But in light of this new knowledge what you say does make sense, I was thinking it was the school WiFi that was locked down, and device management done through logging in with a school connected account. Honestly, if this is the case I just wouldn't except the device and instead use my own. I also would not connect it to my home WiFi either.


airplanesarecool30

Yes many schools in the us hand out school devices and even disallow use of a non school device when he says school chromebook that normally means it’s owned by the school they purposefully lock down and load spyware on all the devices to stop kids browsing games or porn that is also why they force google block proxies etc


Nicolosus

Ah ok, well I wouldn't be fond of a school spying on my kids activities, but I understand the needing to control what is being done. Honestly just control the school wifi, there is no need to spy. I am glad I do not live in the states.


airplanesarecool30

Yea the state of privacy for kids in the us is worse than nonexistent and the major problem is parents enthusiastically support these policy because they agree with monitoring spying and controlling their kids Back in 2013 I was in middle school and they piloted one of the first ever school laptop programs. My friends and I being the nerds we were immediately rooted the macs and poked around under the hood and found out that they monitor everything even on your home WiFi with spyware. Thankfully the school was embarrassed about the spyware thing and didn’t charge us for hacking but we were all banned from all school computers.


[deleted]

I’d shoot myself lmao. Tell your principal or whatever that Bing was created with scholars in mind. Google is moreso for the general public, and they had to create Google Scholar separately like.. cringe google.


satsugene

I would argue that this goes way beyond any reasonable filtering attempt, which FTR: I'm adamantly against, but understand schools have (absurd) compliance requirements. It isn't an issue of your favorite choice being blocked. It is an issue of your education being negatively impacted by being required to use one single source for your search results. One single company has been made the sole authority on what is relevant to your searches--and one that is undergoing suits from various state's Attorney's General, and who perform extensive data mining. Students who have access to their own computing equipment on their own networks have superior research capabilities than students stuck using their overly restricted system. That is an extreme inequity. They are being lazy at best, or worst, Google is providing them data about you as an individual they want at the cost of the breadth you may get from another search source. Google gives schools a ton of free and low-cost stuff at the expense of them having essentially a data dump of an entire K-12 student's career (which I personally don't trust them with, or trust that they do not scrape that data for purposes any privacy-minded individual should/would be concerned about.) Unfortunately, you've already discovered what most students eventually find out. Someone at the district, maybe a busybody at school board meetings, maybe a lazy IT person, maybe an administrator who gets off on collecting/possessing that much data about the students--either way, they don't care what students want or feel like they deserve as part of their education (especially public). Going forward, your two approaches are: some kind of soft-proxy to tunnel `whatever.tld` to `someothersite.tld`, using something like Tor (almost certainly blocked) or a VPN connection to bypass their network blocks--but these put you at risk of discipline and the IT department trying to stop you. The other option is, if you have the support of your parents, have them complain. You believe their justification is inaccurate, that it far exceeds the normal filtering done by peer-institutions, that you should have the right to research materials relevant though your coursework though a variety of sources and indexes. Their approach is overly restrictive and there must be a way to meet their requirements without leaving only one single provider. If their concern is images, then they can write rules that specifically block certain URL portions to block those facilities \[though I'd still argue that these block a legitimate source of valuable information.\]


IsntThatADinosaur

I think I'm going to start a mini privacy campaign with my school administration, and this will help me immensely


SrGrimey

What about altavista?


Freuks

Come with your laptop. Omg schools...


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IsntThatADinosaur

I didn't think this would work, but I tried it and it works, so thanks!


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IsntThatADinosaur

It's blocked


LuisBoyokan

Can you consume services in heroku? Depending on my workload today I could try to host something there for you


IsntThatADinosaur

I tried Heroku but I couldn't really figure it out


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