Anti-NET Surfing Laws in ITBHU

What an average guy of ITBHU wants in his span of 4 years stay at institute with B. Tech degree. A little bit of free space and time taken from society to live best years of his life. He enjoys his life to full extent with little bit of studies of engineering. Most of guys aim for MBA, GRE, Core area or a Software job. Nothing more and nothing less is expected. He is self content with his studies, entertainment and extra circular activities. Surfing Internet is primary pass time for ITians except playing games on LAN or watching movies.

He surfs Internet, watch movies (rarely porn) but all in limits. Guys uses proxy server to open the ORKUT or any other website (for minor purpose) banned by CC at ITBHU. Now all this is going to be changed by the shrewd behavior of our college.

Now new software has been in testing condition by CC. They are using software called Websense. Some of the affected sites are imdb, YouTube, cricinfo, stage6 etc. It is the courtesy of this software that blogging is also banned. On putting my blog address, it replies that the Websense category "Social Networking and Personal Sites" is filtered.

I am blogging this in night after 12’o’clock. Now, that will be the time for entertainment. Anyone wise enough can tell that banning site like cricinfo, imdb, santabanta is insane. They also do not put a heavy load on server. Hardly any student can read news all the time and closed its room for entertainment. To enjoy life and build career is the basic philosophy of student life.

Surfing the Internet is not a big issue to blow up but due to courtesy of CC it became. They can counter-claim that downloading movies, games, songs are misuse of Internet provided in the hostel. But any student will denies the fact that he did not watch movie or play games.CC has crossed the limits of power by banning all sites that fall under the category 'entertainment' , 'streaming media' , 'hacking' , 'proxy avoidance' to name a few there may be more categories We guys need to something about it. Even Wikipedia states that "It has come under criticism from civil liberties groups on grounds that it restricts the free flow of speech".

PS some of the affected sites are imdb, youtube, cricinfo, stage6, blogger, most of the forums etc..... About WEBSENSE in the public forum : “Hehe, the whole idea of Websense is so you cannot bypass it. The only way you will get this to work is by using an anonymous type proxy that Websense have not yet classified in their database. The other issue you will have is if your organization is running the Websense Webcatcher. This will send a list of uncategorized website to Websense. The more hits they get the high up the list for checking it goes so it basically gets added into their database quicker.”

It sounds patriotic but this is time for all of us to stand together and fight for free voice. If this websense is put by force then student community will find a way to nullify it. Because this is a challenge for ITians to counter these preservative measures. I hope that authorities will realize that buying software like websense will be wastage of money for ITBHU.