How to Use a School Computer 101

Now that I've escaped the system... I mean CMS... I should probably write down what I've learned over the past two years about how to get around the stupid, completely locked-down computer systems they have.

In 9th grade, they didn't let me take a computer course other than Computer Applications I, which was extraordinarily easy. Thankfully, Ms. Camia let us do pretty much anything we wanted with the computers for most of the class. I had plenty of time to find workarounds for the different blocks the school system has on the computers.

The big thing you have to remember is that with the Altreis Client software they have installed on every computer in the whole school system, anythime they want, they can look at exactly what you're doing on your computer.

In the Networking class I took last year (which was awesome, by the way), we got to take a tour of the campus the day before spring break, to take a look firsthand at the different servers, wiring closets, etc. around campus. In the computer lab, the school's head tech guy (I don't remember his exact position) showed us some of the utilities he could use remotely. He pulled up Altreis Client, and (randomly) picked the computer in my English teacher's classroom. In the split seconds before the guy could shut down the window, we got to look at my teacher's inbox, including a sligtly embarrasing e-mail from a parent asking about her daughter's poor grades.

Here's what this means. If you're just messing around a little on your computer, getting around the blocks to, say, check your e-mail, surf the web, and play some games, they don't care. Too many people do that sort of thing for them to worry about it on a case-by-case basis. If you're thinking about doing something even semi-illegal, save it for home. They can catch you, and they can nail you.

The biggest thing you will need to get around is the blocks the school system puts on certain internet sites. They use some web filtering software on their servers that blocks sites that are classified as anything they don't want you to see. This means no games, no forums, no pretty much anything that you would normally do at home.

Standard MO for avoiding this kind of web filter software is to find a website that acts as a CGI proxy, such as www.parkersproxy.com. (This particular site may not be online anymore, but it's one that we were able to use for months.) The problem with this technique is, of course, that they can block those sites too. The solution? Find another site. Googling web proxys usually doesn't work because they've usually blocked all of the proxies that have been around long enough to be ranked relatively high on Google. What I would reccomend is to join a mailing list from your home e-mail that sends out new web proxies every few days. (You can do this at peacefire.org.) The sites on the mailing lists are often blocked after just a couple of days, but by then, another mailing comes out with new sites for you to use.

Anyone who has tried to use the crummy version of IE on the school computers knows that they have installed a version of the software that doesn't let you download pretty much anything. The simple solution, if you will always be using the same computer (for a class or something), is to download an alternate web browser, such as Firefox or Opera. You may need to change the internet settings of Firefox to configure the default gateway, etc. correctly. You can try checking Internet Explorer to see if you can find that info, or check with your school's resident computer geek. (There's always at least one.)

Installing software on the computer, in itself, has not been a problem in the past for me. The thing is, they regularly check the start menus, and delete all of the icons other than the software provided with the computer. Since you can't directly access the hard drive (without the workaround I'm going to show you), it can be a pain in the butt to access your software again. Make sure that you either install the software in your own directory, or install it to the hard drive and create a shortcut in your own directory.

In their seemingly infinite wisdom (or not), the school system trys to keep you from accessing the hard drive on your own computer. All of the data of the school system is stored on their own remote servers, and then downloaded into your computer when you log in. As I've said, you can install things to the hard drive without too much problem, but they try to keep you from accessing it. (On a side note, I was amazed when I accessed the hard drive of my Comp Apps I computer for the first time that there was so much software installed to it by former students, that they were just not able to use.)

A workaround may be to try to use Internet Explorer or Firefox to try and access the C:/ directory, but when you try it, it gives you some sort of "permission not given" error message. But when we try to do the same thing in Opera, alas, it works just fine. The directories appear like hyperlinks on a web page, which is fine for accessing them, but you can't rearrange files or do most anything you can normally do in Windows Explorer. One thing that I did not try, but would probably work, is to download an alternate Explorer-type program to access the C drive.

Okay, a few last tips. First of all, don't put too much stuff into your directory. Keep the amount of data in your directory very low, below 256 MB at max, and they won't get too suspicious. (Microsoft Office files are extremely bloated, so a quarter of a gig for a student's directory is possible.) The kid who sat in front of me in Comp Apps I put 2 gigs of emulated Nintendo games on his computer, and he almost got into some deep trouble. If my teacher hadn't put in a good word for him, he could have been suspended, easy.

Make sure your teacher is at least somewhat okay with what you're doing. Don't try installing a bunch of stuff on your computer if your teacher never gives you any free time to mess around with the computer. My Comp Apps I teacher didn't care what we did, so I could do all of this stuff to my computer at will. You know your computer teacher better than I do.

Again, don't do anything too illegal. Save your filesharing software for home. If you're gonna put emulated games onto your computer, keep them to a minimum. Don't visit websites, especially the ones they normally blocked, looking at stuff that's NSFW.

A good practice is to save files that you wouldn't want the school system to directly see in folders named something like "schoolwork". This most definately will not keep them from finding something really bad that you want to hide, especially becuase they can just search for a filetype, but it's a good practice for something like storing a few MP3s in your directory.

If you've got a lot of data, save it to the hard drive, and use a technique listed above to access it. They only routinely check the students' individual directories.

Ok, that's pretty much everything I've learned. (I may edit this later if I remember something.) Remember: Use common sense, and don't do anything they would kick you out of school if they caught you doing.