HISD Technology

Sam Curtsinger

Technician and Webmaster

We use Squid and DansGuardian as our internet proxy and filter.  This software resides on Redhat Linux servers.

Internet content is filtered in many different ways:

• Many websites are entirely blocked.  Our list of blocked websites is massive and is provided by the DansGuardian service.
• All web pages are reviewed for content by the filter.  This review is based on keywords or combinations of words or phrases that are questionable or objectionable.
• A log of internet activity is reviewed by the technology staff and we manually block new websites that are not included in our primary filtering service.  This is not a common situation since most objectionable websites are blocked based on keywords, phrases and other content.
• We block content based on a file extension.  For instance, we routinely block .exe files, zip files, etc. that can spawn either spam or viruses.
• We block internet content such as chat services, many types of streamed video or audio content, forums, etc.
• Web pages that contain words that may be considered objectionable by the filter may actually provide solid educational content.  In this case, we can manually override the filter.

If you encounter a website within the HISD network that you feel is not proper for student access, please notify me and we will immediately block the website.

If a website that you need for research is blocked you can fill out the form that the filter provides and we will review the website.  If we feel that it does not expose any content that would be inappropriate for the students we will 'exception' the website for your use.

All students of the Hereford Independent School District must sign the Acceptable Use Policy at the beginning of the school year.  This policy states the proper use of computers within the district and indicates the consequences of violations of the policy.