Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category
Apr
9
Posted in Games, Internet
I’m not one to spawn rumors around the masses of the Internet for self-glorification and e-penis enlargement. But I did come accross some interesting (yet, based) rumor the other day: that Grand Theft Auto IV (for 360 and PS3) could possibly have the infamous “Hot Coffee” mod built-into it. And might not be so hidden, per say.
“Hot Coffee”, for those who don’t know, was a mini-game built into GTA: San Andreas, by the developers themselves. Originally created as an easter egg of sorts, “Hot Coffee” was never meant to be accessible by the public. The mini-game basically consisted of you [the player] controlling CJ [main character] while performing sexual activities with various female individuals in the game. A mod was released in 2005 that enabled the mini-game for public use on the PC, and eventually, on consoles.
Rumor has it that GTA IV will have various adult-themed scenes, or missions, in which you seduce prostitutes to perform various acts of sexual nature. Yes, more of the dirty virtual big pimpin’ that we’ve all grown to love!
To the left is a scene from the GTA IV trailer. To the right is the San Andreas “Hot Coffee” mod in action.
Even if this rumor is being interpreted out of proportion, it would be interesting in and of itself to see how Rockstar Games would depict sexual conduct, as per the likes of the “Hot Coffee” mini-game. in the next-generation of consoles. With tremendously improved graphics in the 360/PS3, we’re talking about a hell of a lot of more attention to detail. Better lighting, better textures, better everything.
Which brings me to another point: ESRB ratings are completely and entirely horse-dung . I don’t understand how a game like San Andreas, with the crappy, pixelated textures of prostitutes that it has, could possibly be rated “Mature” (pre-Hot Coffee publicity) when GTA IV, with its near-perfect representation of the nude female body, could be rated “Mature” as well. The idea of ratings are to establish guidelines for parents to prevent children from getting their dirty paws on games which might influence them in a bad way: in a way which stirs poor morals upon their young, innocent minds.
But GTA IV essentially is an entire game of “Hot Coffee”. The difference in the portrayal of nudity between San Andreas and GTA IV is like night and day. I’ll be damned if a bunch of flat, pixelated textures would have an effect on any teenager’s mind. As technology continues to improve and graphics in games consistently advance in quality, our perception of right and wrong continues to become ever-skewed.
If GTA IV were released five years ago, it’d definitely be worth the notorious AO (”Adults Only”) ESRB rating. Leisure Suit Larry, with it’s sub-quality graphics, was initially awarded the AO rating for “soft-core nudity”, why is GTA IV let off so easy, when it offers a 10x more realistic experience? Then again, I’m also not a proponent of stricter ESRB ratings (ala Jack Thompson), so who am I to complain?
My coffee’s getting cold, until next time…
Digg: http://digg.com/gaming_news/GTA_IV_To_Have_Hot_Coffee
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Feb
22
Posted in Internet, Real World
Just under a month ago, there was a huge battle, of sorts, between me and Langley High School administrators on the legality of creating Internet-based proxies, outside of school time, on private servers. I was accused of being a criminal by assisting students in bypassing the school’s block lists and filters, and was punished on multiple levels for what I did: I had my computer access at school removed, threatened suspension if I didn’t bring down all my proxies, and defamed on a school-wide level.
But now, I have won it all back. With the help of masses of the Internet, through press on such websites as Digg.com and Fark.com, my school, Langley High School, has given me back everything they’ve taken away from me. My respect, my privileges in school, and most importantly, my right to create whatever I want on the Internet outside of school, without having to fear the government’s hammer cracking down on me.
As previously stated, I did nothing wrong. I, personally, did not use my proxies inside the school network, did not create them during school hours, created them on my own privately owned servers, and did not actively promote my service to others in my school. I was simply accused of doing wrong because other students discovered my proxy, and used it during school hours to access websites such as FaceBook.
With the help of some lawyers, who contacted me after the media caught wind of this abuse of power in FCPS, I managed to work up a case (not on a court level), and successfully settled (in my favor) with the school. I got my rights back. And I’m happy now. Thanks guys and gals, all the support was greatly appreciated (however overwhelming), and it’s thanks to each person that supported the case that brings me to where I am today: free.
Digg: http://digg.com/people/Student_Fights_Back_Against_High_School_s_Web_Restrictions/
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Feb
19
Posted in Internet
Most webmasters nowadays are lazy. In fact, that’s usually the impetus behind why they want to become a webmaster in the first place. Nothing better than being your own boss, working at your own pace/time, and best of all, working from the comfort of your own home. But most web-”masters” are actually just web-”wannabes”. Everyday, I have to deal with a handful of people who ask me for help making money on the Internet. Most of them think the Internet is easy to master. Many of them think that writing a blog on WordPress, quite possibly the easiest CMS to manage in the world (as if CMSs weren’t easy enough in and of themselves), makes them an Internet entrepreneur. Almost all of them think short term and look for quick cash opportunities. Only a select few look long term, willing to invest a shit-ton of time and tons of resources into a project which may not reward a single cent till months down the road. In the end, the short term thinkers tend to call it quits in a matter of weeks; the long term thinkers end up with some serious money in the bank.
Nevertheless, there are still many ways to make cash online with minimal effort. Websites like online arcades, proxies, and file hosting services offer valuable services that millions of Internet users use daily. With such a large audience of users to cater to, there is generally a lot of room to take part in these niches. Though competition is fierce, and you’ll find yourself hard-pressed trying to game your SEO to the top of the search results, you can still make a good deal of money if you play your cards right.
Not to mention that these sites are largely autonomous: after the initial setup, you essentially don’t have to do a single thing to keep them running. No need to add content daily, no need to pay a staff to keep the site up to date, no need to even visit the site on a daily basis. They can run and grow on their own, just add water (ahem, just provide the hosting payments).
I, on the side, own a network of 30 or so online arcade websites. Among a few of the smaller ones are AllBestGames.com, ArcadeNoob.com, and BuffGamer.com. Altogether, the three of them rake in nearly $400 a month from Yahoo! Publisher Network and various CPM advertising networks. Do the math, and you’ll see that I earn mid-$X,XXX from the compilation of all the arcade sites that I own.
The best part? I haven’t touched a single one of the arcade sites since late 2006/early 2007, and they still are growing. Each arcade pulls in an average of 500 unique visits a day, with an average of nearly 2,000 pageviews a day. This is the definition of autonomous. Making money (if small in amount) without doing a single thing or spending a single cent on advertising. Word of mouth and viral marketing handled it all for me.
Of course, it took a few months for the sites to get going. Didn’t make a cent for the first six months I ran the network (didn’t have any ads at first so as to attract visitors). Most webmasters would give up at that point. But I held on tight to my portfolio of independent websites, and now, thanks to the likes of Google search referrals, they all receive traffic and make a pretty penny.
I also ran a network of over 50 proxy sites once upon a time. Names like DopeProxy.com, ProxySecks.com, and BRBProxy.com were among a few of the many proxy sites that I ran for a while. Theses extremely easy-to-setup websites made quite a lot of money (around low-$X,XXX a month for all of the proxies combined) for a few months, but as they expanded, server usage increased dramatically, and the proxies started to get blocked by the big name blockers (Websense, McAfee, etc), which decreased US traffic, making the ROI continuously worse as days went by (as advertisers don’t care for international traffic). Ended up shutting them all down, wasn’t worth the stress or the hassle (at least for me, I’m sure a lot of people would love an extra thousand dollars a month of spending money).
So, I conclude that autonomous websites CAN be worthwhile. I would not recommend making them the main focus of your “making money online” ventures, but sprinkled in between bigger projects, they can make be a nice monetary buffer and offer some good supplementary income for you to build off of.
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Feb
18
Posted in Business, Internet
Though I focus the majority of my efforts online in the intangible realm of advertising, there’s a huge market for online product sales, known as e-commerce industry, which exists. Companies that develop products or services and sell them/charge for them through the Internet. Rather than relying off advertisers to create revenue, their websites serve as portals for users to buy stuff: whether it’s a new computer or subscription to advanced feature’s that a website has to offer, the visitors pay the owner in order to make use of the site (or portion thereof).
Woot.com is one such example of an extremely successful e-commerce venture. The unique online store and community combination serves as a place where tech savvy bargain shoppers can browse for various goods. Each day, Woot.com offers one product for sale at a hugely discounted price (Woot.com negotiates with manufacturers for bulk pricing on overstocked goods in order to be able to offer the discounts) until the product sells out, or until the next day’s product becomes available, whichever comes first.
The structure of the website company entices users to visit daily (thus constantly pumping a continuous flow of traffic) to catch the latest deals. The message boards consist of thousands of bargain shoppers who love to interact, and various inside-jokes (or specials), such as the prized “Bandolier of Carrots” and the infamous “Bag o’ Crap” (a $1 “surprise” product that thousands of Woot! users order simply for the fun of it), make the community an incredibly lively, upbeat place to talk, even if the company’s only goal is to increase sales. How many times do you have users willing to give you money for random junk? Woot.com hit the jackpot.
Woot.com is only one example of e-commerce. There are many other ways to make money online without utilizing advertising. Some individuals specialize in selling their products on eBay to make money. Others resort to the shady gray-market of dealing legal drugs (think online pharmacies) to make their ends meet. And then others offer syndicated adult content for a monthly fee, which, not surprisingly, a handful of people on the Internet are willing to pay for. There are many other ways to make money online without relying on advertising; I may not be able to sum it all up in one post, but take some time to think if you can find a way to sell a product/service online. Maybe you, too, will be thinking “Woot!” when your e-commerce venture hits the limelight.
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Feb
13
Posted in Internet
Oh, I’ve heard the horror stories. Yahoo!’s been kicking out innocent publishers from their poorly organized BETA program for a long time now. For some, Yahoo! accuses the webmasters of click fraud, for others, vague terms such as “lack of conversion”. They never lay out exact reasons or rationale behind their banning; they simply use and abuse their publishers when they feel necessary. Disagree with Yahoo!? Too bad! They obviously don’t care if you care about their relationship with you…
Let me first give you some background on my relationship with Yahoo!. I’ve been a Yahoo! Publisher Network member for almost two solid years now. I am what you would call one of their relatively bigger partners: I’ve been cranking out mid-$XX,XXX annually since the program’s beginning. I was originally invited to the program when I went to the Ad:Tech conference, hosted in New York in 2005, and met up with/became friends with a few representatives from Yahoo!. They wrote my name and information down, and a month or two later, I was invited in one of the first few rounds of publisher invites they sent out.
Anyways, this brings me to the bad news. Recently, I’ve had my ad targeting disabled in the Yahoo! Publisher Network account manager. This is a sad move on Yahoo!’s part, as I have always been a hard-line YPN fanatic when it comes to the never ending Google Adsense vs. YPN debate. For most of my higher traffic sites, I’ve previously switched out Adsense ads in favor of YPN ads, and have produced solid click-through rates and eCPMs ever since my induction into the program in late 2005.
Anyways, Yahoo! claims my “conversion is not meeting with industry standards”, and therefore, they believe removing my ad targeting capabilities will resolve the problem. Rather than taking it on themselves that their horrendous contextual ad targeting FAILS at delivering even 1/4 of what Google has to offer, they take the liberty to blame it all on me, when I am clearly not the one at fault. I have never abused the ad targeting mechanism, never targeted insurance ads on a gaming website, never tried to pry more money than I deserve out of their publisher network.
I immediately, of course, emailed the Yahoo! representative that informed me of this non-sense. Ever since ad targeting has been disabled, my click-through rate has remained the same, yet my RPC has plummeted over 80%. Goes to show that I wasn’t abusing the system at all, because my users are equally interested in the stuff that I targeted towards them, as they are the junk that Yahoo! now shows them. After the click-through, it’s not my fault at all if there is no conversion. They can’t possibly run a legit CPC program if they are going to impact publisher’s earnings based on after-click conversion. Then it’s not a CPC program anymore. It’s CPA, and they’re false advertising it as CPC so as to attract a larger market. Go figure.
The Yahoo! representative replied back and failed to even attempt to make a deal to re-instate my targeting powers. She even took the time to let me know that “[they] are doing [me] a favor by disabling [my] Ad Targeting, as [they] only provide this option for [their] long-time partners. Most YPN abusers are banned on the spot, no questions asked.” Thank you ma’am, but I pay for your salary. Stop treating me like a piece of cow dung and realize that this is supposed to be a symbiotic relationship. 50/50. Not Yahoo! > Robert Afnani. Anyways, she didn’t really get that so I gave up. My other two friends at Yahoo! have long since ‘moved on’ in careers, so I really don’t have any top-secret connection anymore to keep me going strong (at least till next Ad:Tech, heh).
The Yahoo! Publisher Network program has really slipped since it began. Gone are the days when RPCs skyrocketed past $1.00 a click. Gone are the days of friendly publisher/customer/client support, when a live Yahoo! representative would help publishers improve their sites to make more money. Gone are the days that Yahoo! cared to build a strong bond between YPN and its respective publishers.
Yahoo! really is a falling knife. I’m going to revert most of my contextual advertising space to Google now.
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Feb
9
Posted in Internet
I’ve bought out many websites in the past. Some purchases have proved to be worthwhile, while others turned out pretty raw. In the end, my results really came down to how much I was prepared for what the site had to offer, and what my expectations for the future were before I bought out the site. Knowing what you are getting yourself involved in ahead of time is half of the game; having the patience to improve upon the site and recover the cost you had to pay to buy it out is the other half. Here’s a brief list of things to look out for before you spend your hard-earned bones on something that could be your next nightmare:
1. Don’t catch the falling knife - obviously, I like to use this phrase. Take a look at graphs of the website’s statistics. Check out third-party statistics as well; never put your full confidence in what the seller has to say about his/her own website. Alexa.com offers good generalizations of traffic/reach over time. You want to buy the site that is on the up and up, not the site that’s heading towards the gutter.
Many webmasters tend to think they have the “magic skills” that will heal a failing website. Sure, it’s possible, but more likely than not, the site will continue to grow/fall apart in the direction it was going before you got your hands on it. Websites are not like stocks: what goes up will not necessarily come down, and what goes down will definitely not come back up unless you have some sort of plan that will bring it back to the limelight.
2. Expect downtime - when buying out an established site, a lot can go wrong. If you are transferring over a site that takes up 20+ GBs of webspace, and collects thousands of unique views a day, you’re going to find yourself depressed in the corner of an inner-city bar, drinking the night away, if you don’t prepare yourself for the worst. DNS/nameserver transfers take 24-72 hours to fully propagate all over the web. This means at least a day or two of downtime, which will definitely take a chunk out of your traffic once the changeover is complete. Let your visitors know that there’s going to be downtime. Surprising them makes them think you’ve either got hacked, taken down by the FBI, or fell off the face of the planet.
Visitors tend to lose interest fast. When you’re down, they find something else to do, and when they find something else to do, they forget to come back to your site. Furthermore, a day or two of downtime could affect your search rankings, and could also tick off some advertisers (esp. if it’s a larger website with direct ad sales). Make sure you have multiple backups of the databases and site stored locally as well. Sometimes, things can really go wrong and files become corrupted beyond all recognition. Better safe then sorry.
3. Know the topic at hand - do not buy a website that you don’t have expertise in. Don’t buy a site that has to do about taking care of cats if you’ve never owned a cat in your entire life. Likewise, don’t buy a site about advanced SEO techniques if you barely know how to edit the .htaccess file on your webserver. Buy a site that you’re interested in, because when it comes down to it, you’re the one who’s going to have to deal with it every single day till the end of time (or when you sell it).
4. Make friends with the visitors - dedicated visitors tend to dislike site takeovers. The reason why they usually visit a site is because they like how things are going. When you buy out a site, you’re changing things up. And society doesn’t like change. Unless you plan to hire the owner and his staff to continue the maintenance of the site, a lot of things are going to be different. And people will notice, so don’t try and hide it. If anything, make it clear that you’ve bought out the site. Don’t make it too corporate-feeling though, you don’t want to scare off habitual visitors. Make it something smooth, like “Johnny is going to college now, so I’m going to run the site for a bit, but he’s going to continue to give me advice on how to run it for you all”. Corny example, yes, but make up something along those lines.
5. Don’t pay too much - generally, my formula for a website’s value is 10 to 18 times the website’s monthly income. However, there are a lot of other factors which should affect your pitch to the owner. If the site is unique (in design, coding, topic), you should offer more. If the site is just a run-off-the-mill forum site, or anything else based off a publicly available CMS, offer less. Your pitch should reflect the amount of effort the owner put into developing the site. Also, adjust your offer to reflect the site’s growth potential. A site that is niched and hard to expand is worth considerably less than a site which has the potential to attract millions of users.
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Feb
7
Posted in Internet
The other day, I was talking to a webmaster friend about working on a new joint project together. While brainstorming for ideas, a few different routes were investigated. Should we make one, unique website, which dominates its respective niche and churns out money, or create hundreds of small, easy-to-setup throwaway sites which collectively make a good deal of cash? How about make a large network of arcade gaming sites, publicize them on a massive scale (by pouring thousands into Adsense and other advertising programs), monetize them, then kick back and reap the return? Sounds easy enough.
Personally, I find that a balance of large and small sites is the perfect portfolio. It’s much better to keep your eggs split into many different baskets, especially online. In a virtual world where your money-making machines are intangible, and consist only of thousands of lines of code stored in a server somewhere far away from your home, there’s no telling what can go wrong. Server outage, DDoS attack, site hacking, script corruption, crazy man with a gun raiding your datacenter: they all can ruin your day. With large, thoughtful sites set as your main “income generators” and your small, pre-scripted sites set up as “backup generators“, you’ll be sure to have a steady flow of money coming in everyday of the week.
Owning large websites can have its benefits. For one, they look much better on your portfolio. When company’s are interviewing you for a new job, they’d much someone who was the chief editor, lead designer, and founder of IGN.com then someone who uploaded a bunch of pre-made arcade templates to a server and pressed the magic “GO” button on the install script. These are two totally opposite extremes, but it gets the point across.
They’re also more brand-able. A large website consists of a site which has a vast following of users. You can easily leave an image in user’s heads when they visit; they’ll remember what your unique website’s domain name is called, but they won’t remember what ‘the arcade site’s name that their friend yelled to them from the other side of the computer classroom’ is. Not to mention that more brand-ability means more advertisers. Advertisers love associating their product/service with a web property that’s known to lead its respective niche; brand-ability means more money for you!
Everyday I see tons of new webmasters make this decision. Do they want to be ingenious and rock the Internet with the latest idea? Kevin Rose of Digg.com did that. Mark Zuckerberg of FaceBook.com did that. John Chow of JohnChow.com did that. Or do they want to be the “lame ducks” of the Internet generation: feed off the larger sites, attract users through black hat SEO techniques, and copy the money making techniques of thousands of other Internet developers?
Which path will you follow to your success?
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Feb
4
Posted in Internet
The creation of a strong image is what brings success to individuals, partnerships, and even corporations. People need to know who you are, what you do, where you do it, why you do it, and how you do it in order to be interested in what you have to offer. And interested people means WoM (word-of-mouth), which means more sales and more traffic. It’s a damn domino effect!
On the Internet, branding is no less aggressive as it is in the real world (TV, newspapers, trade shows, etc). With the intense competition for publicity as the over-saturated Internet ad market grows, companies sometimes go a long way (with increasingly deeper pockets) in order to get the word out on their new releases. The traditional methods of advertising no longer work: Internet users have turned a blind eye to the boring standard IAB spots we’ve been using for years. Aligning products and services with high traffic websites is the new thing, and effective branding is the key to doing it.
There are a three main ways of implementing branding successfully online:
3. The “we’re better than them” method - the company flexes its muscles and makes users feel as though there is no competition; that the company is superior, no questions asked. Effective in viral WoM.
Ex. Microsoft blasts Gamespot.com’s PS3 section homepage with Xbox 360 wallpaper and super-leaderboard-size ads.
2. The “we care about our partners” method - the company tries to show that they care for a service (such as a website) by aligning themselves in a personal way. Effective in spreading positive reaction towards the advertiser in a large community.
Ex. Axe purchases “presented by” statement on PSP3D.com’s logo, and performs a site ad spot takeover.
1. The “we are really rich” method - the company slams the target audience with a large amount of advertising, and likewise, press attention in order to create an “in-your-face” effect which imprints an image in user’s heads. Effective in getting users to remember said product/service, as well as spreading WoM.
Ex. Storm Warning Unrated DVD performs full site takeover (wallpaper + roadblock + logo). The works.
As you can see, the advertising techniques presented above are, simply put, ruthless. Some viewers would call them annoying, others would call them marketing masterpieces. But the gist of it is that the early techniques for advertising are obsolete. With interstitial, video pre-roll, and other types of interactive advertising popping up all over the Internet, webmasters are trying their best to make more room for more ads, and advertisers are trying their best to better allocate their ad dollars to achieve the biggest bang for the buck.
In 2008, it’s all about the branding. The 468×60 banner of yesteryear is worthless.
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Feb
2
Posted in Internet
Whelp, what a day! The blog landed on the homepage of both Digg.com and Fark.com, two of the leading Internet community news/content sharing websites. Thanks guys!
A few people have mentioned I need a server upgrade. Well, yes and no. I own a few dedicated servers for all the websites I run; I am not running off some shared hosting crap that some have suggested. This blog currently runs on a Intel Xeon 3060 Dual Core Conroe Processor with 4 GB of registered RAM. Today’s downtime was not bottlenecked by a connection overload, but actually, a CPU overload. Memory usage maxed out at 93.6%, with the highest recorded server load at 121.06 (cPanel experts, you should know what I’m talking about).
Reason? Well, since I haven’t used WordPress in a while, I kinda over-estimated its efficiency at processing large requests of data. It really stinks. Probably one of the worst pre-made CMSs that I’ve had to deal with. Furthermore, this blog actually runs on the dedicated server of one of my other, rather large, forum websites, which also has a poorly coded CMS (vBulletin). I wasn’t really anticipating the immense scale of attention that the stories received, so I didn’t get a chance to properly prepare the server for heavy load (minimize useless services, enable caching, etc).
So yeah, there you have it. In an effort to protect the uptime of my other site, which is a money maker (this blog makes peanuts; I can’t sacrifice real sites for the blog unfortunately), I was basically forced to temporarily suspend this blog (hence the 404, 403, 550 errors people were complaining about) so as to ensure the main site’s uptime.
I pay unlimited bandwidth for my rack of servers, and as much as I appreciate hordes of people informing me the blog is down, I don’t appreciate derogatory comments regarding my server and administration of the server thereof. I have complex load-balanced, multi-server setups for some really big sites. My point? I’m no amateur, I’ve been running high-traffic websites for years and have dealt with the ‘Digg Effect’ many times successfully.
People tend to be overly-stereotypical that teenagers don’t know jack about servers and all the advanced techniques needed to properly maintain a website. But I consider my age is a bonus, not something to be shy about; Internet is my turf and ain’t no one gonna call me an amateur without proof to back it up!
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Feb
1
Posted in Internet, Real World
Well, it’s kinda early in the morning to make a blog post, and I gotta run, but I awoke to 300 emails (200 from WordPress CMS informing me of unapproved comments, and another 100 from individuals supporting my case). Seems like my last blog post regarding FCPS’s crackdown on my proxy has sparked quite a debate (predominately one-sided, in my favor) online regarding student rights. I’d like to take a second to thank visitors from Fark.com for providing me with a blast of support and publicity regarding this issue.
Most everyone is suggesting I contact a lawyer and sue for libel/slander/rights. I will attempt to contact the various student rights organizations (ACLU, FIRE, EFF) and see if they can give me a hand in this. I will also try to acquire a copy of the email that was sent to nearly all the staff in the school and I will post it publicly when I get a chance to do so.
Here’s a part of the FCPS Student Rights And Responsibilities which seems to be of interest to the handful that believe FCPS does have some say:
“FCPS information systems are operated for the mutual benefit of all users. The use of the FCPS network is a privilege, not a right. Users should not do, or attempt to do, anything that might disrupt the operation of the network or equipment and/or interfere with the learning of other students or work of other FCPS employees. The FCPS network is connected to the Internet, a network of networks, which enables people to interact with millions of networks and computers. All access to the FCPS network shall be preapproved by the principal or program manager. The school or office may restrict or terminate any user’s access, without prior notice, if such action is deemed necessary to maintain computing availability and security for other users of the systems. Other disciplinary action may be imposed as stated in the Fairfax County Public Schools Student Responsibilities and Rights (SR&R) document. FCPS implements Internet filtering on all FCPS sites in accordance with the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act. Schools will continually educate students on personal safety practices and effective techniques for identifying and evaluating information and its sources.”
and
“• Help maintain the integrity of the school information system. Deliberate tampering or experimentation is not allowed; this includes the use of FCPS network and resources to illicitly access, tamper with, or experiment with systems outside FCPS.”
My thoughts regarding this:
1. I did not attempt to disrupt the learning environment and/or network/equipment of the school. They could have easily just blocked my proxy (which, they have done so now, after the accusation) and called it a day. It’s not my responsibility to make sure students don’t access proxies while in class. Hell, this is what the IT dept. is paid to do, right?
2. I did not make the proxy while on school grounds, did not use any FCPS equipment to put the proxy online, and did not take any measures promote my proxy as a means for accessing denied sites in school. I simply put a website up on my private server in my free time at home, and told two friends about it (outside of school). They told a few others, who told some other students, who told the whole school, not me.
A few people have also suggested that though I am right, I am a “brat” for making such a monumental case out of this. Please do keep in mind that I did not try to instigate this case in any way; I did not tell people about the proxy while in class (until I was accused by the administration), I actually did not setup the proxy to bypass filters in school, and I may fail out of one of my tech classes because of my restricted computer access. Not to mention I now get looks walking down the hallway.
Speaking of looks, yesterday I went to the library to print out an essay for one my classes. As I sat down and used my friend’s account to access my email and print out the essay, a librarian, who definitely does not know my name/information (as I rarely go to the library, pft), walked over and asked me what my name was. I responded “Robert” and she told me I had to get off the computers now and leave the library. True story. No idea how she knew who I was, I wonder if my “mugshot” was included as an attachment to the mass email. You never know.
Many people have requested contact information for my school/school system (here is the website). As much as I am frustrated over this case, I really don’t want to disturb the personal lives of the administrators and IT staff of the school, and will not name names publicly, as I am almost done with high school anyways and I don’t need any reason to not graduate. Feel free to help me by expressing your discontent with the decisions of the administrators, but please, no threats and no drama.
When I was pulled into the office and accused, I made sure to let the administrator know that I will get the masses of the Internet to support me on this. “Go ahead and do that”, she said, with a smug grin. Thank you all for making this fight for rights and respect easier.
More updates soon.
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