In a presentation to the Board of Education Tuesday night, Robert Hartz, the school district's information systems director, said the company that supplies the school's content-filter software failed to send him the necessary paperwork to activate an updated version of the filter prior to the 2004 school year. Hartz also blamed himself for the computer pornography incident, saying he may have overlooked an invoice for the update.
“That's why we didn't get this thing updated in time for the 2004 school year and that's why this incident happened,” Hartz told the board.
When students come to class with excuses like "the dog ate my homework" teachers have a tendency to be a little more suspicious. So let's pretend we're teachers for a moment.
Soooo. You're telling us that none of this would have happened if you were in compliance with federal laws requiring content filtering?
"we didn't get this thing updated in time for the 2004 school year and that's why this incident happened"
And knowing this, you did what to take accountability for this incident?
-sfx- crickets chirping
That's right folks. The Norwich schools are run by very understanding responsible people who - how do I say this politely - ALLOWED AN INNOCENT WOMAN TO ENDURE TWO YEARS OF A PERSONAL HELL... because they didn't pay their bills on time and, by the way, forgot to tell the police, the judge, the defending attorney, the public, THE TRUTH.
But wait, our descent into this theater of the absurd would be incomplete without the reporting of this very same event by the Norwich Bulletin.
In an article entitled "Norwich Porn a Fluke" by Daniel Axelrod we get a slightly different spin:
Hartz said Norwich's filtering software generally worked in 2004, but new offensive sites weren't blocked partly because Symantec, creator of the school's WebNOT computer filter, failed to send him a licensing certificate to activate the software's updates feature.
"I don't think we've ever compromised on being able to fund our firewall ... and (other) filtering software," Norwich Superintendent Pam Aubin said. "We're very lucky to fund a full-time information systems director."
Okay let's be teachers again.
So now I'm hearing Symantec is the reason we didn't have a safe computing environment!
"Norwich's filtering software generally worked in 2004, but new offensive sites weren't blocked partly because Symantec, creator of the school's WebNOT computer filter, failed to send him [Hartz] a licensing certificate to activate the software's updates feature."
So it's not YOUR FAULT for not paying a bill?
""I don't think we've ever compromised on being able to fund our firewall ... and (other) filtering software," Norwich Superintendent", Pam Aubin said."
You don't think you've ever been compromised...
-sfx- crickets chirping
Well, these two stories are very interesting aren't they?
If I were a stockholder in Symantec, I'd be on the phone right now with my teacher's hat on.
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