School has blocked DuckDuckGo

[Lewis John]

My school have blocked DuckDuckGo and i don't know why, i think they're watching me, although this is my personal google account i think they still watch me through an application on their pc's, i don't feel safe when this is the case, and they sometimes access to my history when i clear it, they have an education extension on the laptops with no chance of removing it, after the school years we get to keep the laptop, right now i have a L380 Yoga by Lenovo, I really need privacy for my passwords. Please give me some advice.

[LukeSavenije]

don't worry too much. they can't see your passwords. they have a webfilter and probebly a phoxy, which only sees what website you're visiting up to the ip. They see nothing more than this for example most of the times:

MAC: 111-111-111-111

IP: 1.1.1.1

[myselfolli]

You could ask nicely if they would unblock it? I personally use DuckDuckGo as well, since I want to hold Google off from becoming the overlords for just a little while longer.

 

Explain to your IT admins what DDG is and why you use it, you may get lucky

[KuJoe]

7 hours ago, Lewis John said:

i think they're watching me, although this is my personal google account i think they still watch me through an application on their pc's, i don't feel safe when this is the case, and they sometimes access to my history when i clear it

Did you purchase the device from a store or was it provided by the school? If the latter, then you have to live by their rules since it's their device. If you don't like those rules then I suggest purchasing a laptop from a store or online to replace it.

 

[LukeSavenije]

18 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

Did you purchase the device from a store or was it provided by the school? If the later, then you have to live by their rules since it's their device. If you don't like those rules then I suggest purchasing a laptop from a store or online to replace it.

 

well, not entirely true, as if you buy it, it's yours (at most schools at least). But I highly recommend doing what @myselfolli said, as it is a great idea.

[KuJoe]

3 hours ago, LukeSavenije said:

well, not entirely true, as if you buy it, it's yours (at most schools at least). But I highly recommend doing what @myselfolli said, as it is a great idea.

That's why I'm asking how it was obtained. If he paid for it with his own money, then format the drives and do a clean install.

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, KuJoe said:

That's why I'm asking how it was obtained. If he paid for it with his own money, then format the drives and do a clean install.

do schools really install webfilters on the pc's themselfs these days? Here they only have a phoxy with a built in webfilter where you can go through easily (yes I tried and needed 5 minutes for it)

[bcredeur97]

4 hours ago, LukeSavenije said:

don't worry too much. they can't see your passwords. they have a webfilter and probebly a phoxy, which only sees what website you're visiting up to the ip. They see nothing more than this for example most of the times:

MAC: 111-111-111-111

IP: 1.1.1.1

they can see hostname too usually.. so never set your hostname to something that identifies you.

i.e. don't set your iphones name to "George's iPhone"

just use something generic like "myiPhone" or something

 

same with PC's and other devices.

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, bcredeur97 said:

they can see hostname too usually.. so never set your hostname to something that identifies you.

i.e. don't set your iphones name to "George's iPhone"

just use something generic like "myiPhone" or something

 

same with PC's and other devices.

yeah, some can. forget about that one. or just don't try to break the web filter

[KuJoe]

Just now, LukeSavenije said:

do schools really install webfilters on the pc's themselfs these days? Here they only have a phoxy with a built in webfilter where you can go through easily (yes I tried and needed 5 minutes for it)

If it's a school owned laptop then I'm sure they have their own software installed (at least I hope they do). The filtering should be done on the network, but if they want to also filter the content off their network then they'd probably install something locally on the laptop (which again, if he paid for it he should be able to remove it).

[bcredeur97]

7 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

yeah, some can. forget about that one. or just don't try to break the web filter

not even that.. A teacher in high school once told me to plug my laptop into an ethernet cable that was plugged into one of the desktops in the room that wasn't working to access some resource online.

About a week later, another teacher asked me to come see, and led me to the same room. Inside were 4 IT guys who looked very angry.

They pointed to my host name in the list of devices on a screen and said "IS THIS YOURS?!"
I'm honest and it was obvious so I told them yes.

they told me (and yes they used this word lol) "you are forbidden to do this, it messes our IP tables up"

 

I told them about the teacher and they were like "oh.." and asked me who it was.. which I went ahead and told them.. figured it wouldn't end too badly they would probably just ask him to not tell the students that. (and it didn't end badly luckily, I kinda liked the teacher)

That day I made all my hostnames generic on everything.

[LukeSavenije]

12 hours ago, KuJoe said:

If it's a school owned laptop then I'm sure they have their own software installed (at least I hope they do). The filtering should be done on the network, but if they want to also filter the content off their network then they'd probably install something locally on the laptop (which again, if he paid for it he should be able to remove it).

well, for us it's a company that does it. they install office and if you're lucky a browser, but that's literally it. But I use my own laptop, as I think you shouldn't ask 400-600 euro's for a celeron laptop

 

12 hours ago, bcredeur97 said:

not even that.. A teacher in high school once told me to plug my laptop into an ethernet cable that was plugged into one of the desktops in the room that wasn't working to access some resource online.

About a week later, another teacher asked me to come see, and led me to the same room. Inside were 4 IT guys who looked very angry.

They pointed to my host name in the list devices on a screen and said "IS THIS YOURS?!"
I'm honest and it was obvious so I told them yes.

they told me (and yes they used this word lol) "you are forbidden to do this, it messes our IP tables up"

 

I told them about the teacher and they were like "oh.." and asked me who it was.. which I went ahead and told them.. figured it wouldn't end too badly they would probably just ask him to not tell the students that. (and it didn't end badly luckily, I kinda liked the teacher)

That day I made all my hostnames generic on everything.

IT school? well, don't know how everyone over here get's away with playing games in the lessons

[Dedayog]

4 hours ago, Lewis John said:

My school have blocked DuckDuckGo and i don't know why, i think they're watching me, although this is my personal google account i think they still watch me through an application on their pc's, i don't feel safe when this is the case, and they sometimes access to my history when i clear it, they have an education extension on the laptops with no chance of removing it, after the school years we get to keep the laptop, right now i have a L380 Yoga by Lenovo, I really need privacy for my passwords. Please give me some advice.

You don't feel safe?  

 

Are you in college?  Paying for the tuition?  

[bcredeur97]

Just now, LukeSavenije said:

IT school? well, don't know how everyone over here get's away with playing games in the lessons

it was actually a community college.. I was a weird kid who did High School and college at the same time and graduated HS with an associates in general studies. it was a neat program hosted inside of a local college here. The particular class I was in at the time that happened was a high school spanish class

I then went to a university and graduated in Informatics and now work in IT myself, though it's at a local business haha

 

 

that's probably a case of everyone doing it so they can't do anything about it really besides try to block it. Or they just don't care. I mean.. kids will be kids. We used to play minecraft alpha/beta in class at the time on our laptops. I even had a server setup at home that we would all get on... In certain classes the teacher didn't care so long as grades remained high (and they did.. we were all pretty smart. I have a really unique school history now that I think about it...)

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, bcredeur97 said:

it was actually a community college.. I was a weird kid who did High School and college at the same time and graduated HS with an associates in general studies. it was a neat program hosted inside of a local college here. The particular class I was in at the time that happened was a high school spanish class

I then went to a university and graduated in Informatics and now work in IT myself, though it's at a local business haha

 

 

that's probably a case of everyone doing it so they can't do anything about it really besides try to block it. Or they just don't care. I mean.. kids will be kids. We used to play minecraft alpha/beta in class at the time on our laptops. I even had a server setup at home that we would all get on... In certain classes the teacher didn't care so long as grades remained high (and they did.. we were all pretty smart. I have a really unique school history now that I think about it...)

well, they are trying to. websites like spotify, netflix, vpn sites, porn (suprise) and some others are already blocked by a bullguard webfilter, but I can still go around it when I'm logged in with tunnelbear for example. Should let them now that soon...

[Sir Asvald]

A piece of advice If you want to use your own laptop with privacy and no ones is monitoring you, use your own connection. Get Mobile broadband.

[Giganthrax]

7 hours ago, Lewis John said:

 Please give me some advice.

Download Tails Linux and install it on a flash drive, and boot it from the flash drive and surf the net that way. 

 

For added anonymity, get TUNNELBEAR! 

 

EDIT: Also, I don't know how college laptops work (we don't get any free laptops here in Eastern Europe), but what stops you from formatting C and installing your own Windows 10 that you bought for 5$ on ebay? 

 

EDIT#2: I really hope you take my Tails Linux advice. I always wanted to do that because it sounds so cool - being the kind of person who needs a flash-drive privacy-oriented OS for super-anonymous web surfing - but I never had any need for that. So if you do it, I can live vicariously through you.

[LinusOnLine]

If it is a school network I assume it demands a login and that the limitations are set by group policies. If they do not demand you to log in to a domain to use the school network it is different though.

[Canada EH]

6 hours ago, KuJoe said:

Did you purchase the device from a store or was it provided by the school? If the later, then you have to live by their rules since it's their device. If you don't like those rules then I suggest purchasing a laptop from a store or online to replace it.

 

However it is the schools wifi, so they can block whatever they wish to.

btw its latter, later is afterwards. Latter is second.

[LinusOnLine]

1 minute ago, Canada EH said:

However it is the schools wifi, so they can block whatever they wish to.

btw its latter, later is afterwards. Latter is second.

Exactly and if they do not set limitations on either domain or wifi level I would be surprised.

[Cameron Goodwin]

7 hours ago, Lewis John said:

My school have blocked DuckDuckGo and i don't know why, i think they're watching me, although this is my personal google account i think they still watch me through an application on their pc's, i don't feel safe when this is the case, and they sometimes access to my history when i clear it, they have an education extension on the laptops with no chance of removing it, after the school years we get to keep the laptop, right now i have a L380 Yoga by Lenovo, I really need privacy for my passwords. Please give me some advice.

Wipe the laptop. Uninstall Google Chrome and basically all programs and redownload them. At least the ones that were affected by the extension. If you want to have total security. Was it by chance called Securely?

[KuJoe]

1 minute ago, Canada EH said:

However it is the schools wifi, so they can block whatever they wish to.

btw its latter, later is afterwards. Latter is second.

Unfortunately the OP is very vague about a lot of things and doesn't provide much detail. If he's expecting privacy on the school's network, then yeah he's completely SOL.

 

Also thanks for correcting that, it was a typo on my end but informative for others.

[Guest]

My school seems to block a lot of things. If you want privacy for just passwords, you could use something like lastpass, but if you want to keep them from seeing anything, install a VPN such as cyberghost, which is free. Is it a school issued device? If not, VPNs should be fine. And are you using an account managed by an administrator? There are few things that they use to monitor you, generally installed as applications or extentions, although this doesn't happen on personal accounts, even if they have control over the wifi. VPN can keep everything transferred through the internet secret.

[LinusOnLine]

Just now, Cameron Goodwin said:

Wipe the laptop. Uninstall Google Chrome and basically all programs and redownload them. At least the ones that were affected by the extension. If you want to have total security. Was it by chance called Securely?

If a requirement is set to first log in to the schools network to get wifi access that will not work. As soon as you log in whatever settings the network admins want you to have is what you get.

[Velcade]

Quit school.  Get a job at a local establishment that has free WiFi. Use that WiFi. Profit?