You try to argue with these retarded “IT guys” yourself. They do what they’re told or what they believe is right, sometimes without any common sense. If you come to them to complain about a web browser of all things, they’ll just laugh in your face. Most schools and companies take their restrictions and rules very seriously.
Because if you use Chrome, you might as well just use AOL?
i don’t think that the school’s system administrator would give any fuck tbh
my personal website apparently had NSFW materials on it before i bought the domain, and it’s blocked in my highschool for pornography. i tried talking to them and explain that it shouldn’t be blocked and they didn’t care
I guess if you used one of those smaller USB sticks, like some that SanDisk and other manufacturers make, you could run it off of there. Or if the computer has a “flush-fit” SD card, you could use the SD card and hardly anyone would pay attention to that.
Or, you could file down one of the SanDisk ones to make it even smaller (probably at the cost of aesthetics)
This wouldn’t be hacking. Overzealous administrators might consider it hacking, but it is on the student’s USB stick, and the student would be using software provided by the student - essentially cutting out the administrator.
Even broken versions of PortableApps most often affect the portable app’s files - most of the applications provided on there cannot access administrative features or conduct privilege escalation.
The only way an administrator would find out would be if you approached them directly, or are keeping an active log of processes running on the machine. And, of course, if they didn’t find out that you had been using a portable storage device or network share to use the software on.
Basically, it’s fine, so long as it doesn’t pose a threat to the network security. Although it isn’t recommended, you can totally do this and 9 times out of 10 get away with it. I’ve even run GZDoom on public computers before without an issue.
Replace it with Arch.
Speaking of someone who’s seen a little bit of a school IT department, the block on Firefox may not actually be malicious.
Chrome has admin policies that allow an IT admin to block certain extensions or whitelist them. Also schools are switching over to chromebooks and google apps for education because it’s easier to manage and much cheaper then Windows + office.
I’ve seen a school district where kids would download VPN browser extensions like betternet and then get around the school web filter wasting bandwidth by watching illegal movies or playing games. Without a third party solution Firefox has terrible management. I suppose the easiest thing you could do is block the Firefox add ons page entirely. The IT department I interned under ended up blocking certain chrome extensions from active directory but you could certainly go as far as only whitelisting extensions the teachers use.
I get that Firefox users are very much concerned with choice, but on a school network these devices are owned by the school and measures are in place to keep students from being stupid. Also, it’s not impossible for women to work in a school IT department. I interned under a lady who was one of the help desk for a school district. “IT Guys” sounds like you’re on the path to offending somebody.
School networks are a walled garden because parents don’t want their kids viewing porn or being served with a lawsuit from the MPAA. Also kids don’t give a crap about copyright law. They’ll watch deadpool in school if they have access to it.
There’s a point where idealism has to give way to practicality, and on a school network I think that tradeoff is that you can’t let students do whatever they want on devices paid for by taxpayers, and you have to at least attempt to keep them from doing so.
edit: You can check out just how much control Google gives you from Active Directory here
edit2: Some school websites actually do need firefox to work (e.g Chrome lacks NPAPI support, which some teachers need for some student accessible websites that use older plugins), which is why the school I worked with had Firefox on student computers, but Chrome overall is just easier to manage.
why does OP feel so entitled that they deserve to run whatever software they want on a machine that doesn’t belong to them?
Well, afaik hacking laws are pretty vague, and asshole admins could press charges. That’s just the result of having people make laws about stuff they don’t understand.
You can set admin policies on Firefox as well. Also, it’s rather strange that the student apparently had permission to install Firefox (which is a permission allowing much more damage), but not to run it.
To be honest that’s a bit of a weird argument, given how much money people tend to pay to attend post-secondary institutions.
It might fly in a business setting, where you’re hired to use whatever equipment your bosses want you to use as-is, but last I checked the students are the ones ultimately paying the IT staff at most educational institutions.
And I certainly hope that they aren’t teaching anyone web-related courses at an institution which only permits the use of Chrome. That’s a downright terrifying thought.
At least within the UK, the main law used within computer crime in regards to hacking is the Computer Misuse Act (1990).
Bear in mind, not a lawyer - see professional help if afflicted.
The main section of the Act that would apply in this instance would be section 3ZA, which, broadly stating, covers “unauthorised acts causing, or creating serious risk of, serious damage”.
Usually a student would have to agree to an End User License Agreement (EULA) before using a computer - therefore making the student liable if any personal information or damage to the computer has been conducted. These are usually displayed as an “OK” box, like most pieces of software, like iTunes or Google Chrome.
Basically, the student can be prosecuted if:
-
a. The student breaks the EULA (which, in this scenario, is probably the first port-of-call)
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b. The student breaks the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (most likely Section 3ZA).
You can set up ADM for firefox, but as far as I know Mozilla has nothing to do with that.
Google offers it’s own GPO template.
I assume firefoxadm/FirefoxADMX is managed by a third party and as such it’s probably not as well supported by future firefox changes.
Mozilla has Firefox ESR, but I’m not sure what, if anything they’re doing to make firefox enterprise management more solid.
Also managing execution permissions on a windows network kinda sounds like a pain in the butt because you pretty much have to figure out what if any applications need to be run, whereas in a chromebook all the important stuff is handled by google and you can whitelist the apps you need.
Windows does give you a fine level of control over software, but that level of control makes it really easy to break things on a managed network and from what I saw a school help desk might be unwilling to go that far, especially if you’re dealing with a lot of software packages that each need other software packages to function. The most the school did was block spotify from being installed on student accounts because students loved to stream it.
Kids need to learn to text editing, not a program.
the fact that firefox wasn’t installed already tells me that this was most likely not at a university, in which case you definitely wouldn’t want school kids running their own programs, but even so most universities make you sign agreements stating you won’t run your own software without approval before they give you an account (mine did) and rightly so, because universities have massive networks of high performance computers which aren’t cheap and you wouldn’t want some dodgy game screwing that up.
I’m pretty sure in the US, there doesn’t need to be any risk involved, just unauthorized access, but I might be wrong. US law has some pretty stupid shit anyways. A minor went to court for producing and distributing cp because he sent his girlfriend some nudes… You can go on the sex offender list, the same one rapists are on, if police catch you skinny dipping or peeing outside. It’s pretty fucked, and I have the feeling that it’s not going to get better.
Yeah, let’s hope it’s just a small high school (and that they don’t offer a web development program without properly explaining things).
I do somewhat agree on limiting the software students can run on expensive shared hardware, or perhaps in a “public” computer area in a library or what-not. But in a student lab, or (worse) a personal device loaned out by the school, they are probably doing their students a disservice by not allowing them to learn. There is a difference between getting your students to sign an agreement to not damage your hardware, and getting students to subsidize hardware and not letting them use it to learn.
In a public lab, maybe. But it all depends on the purpose of the computer, as I mentioned in another comment. Exploring and screwing up are part of the learning process, and it’s often a flimsy excuse to hide behind security.
After all, this stuff is a big part of what IT departments are paid to do. It veers towards laziness and calls their credentials into question if they cannot even offer alternative browsers.
Yeah, if it’s just a “public” highschool lab then it’s a bit more understandable (though I agree that even then there are still better ways to do things).