As students at CCHS checked their emails the morning of November 2nd, many were perplexed by the email they received from Director of Technology Mr. Dustin Nies.
VPN’s routers that lead personal trafficking or information through other networks, were banned from all students’ iPads. However, a majority of students and teachers had no idea what these mechanisms actually were. VPN is the acronym for Virtual Private Network.
Originally, certain websites were blocked from students’ iPads while on campus. These websites were considered inappropriate or otherwise irrelevant to activities on campus.
The VPNs managed to bypass the system and allowed viewing of any website while still on campus.
Mr. Dustin Nies, already busy in his office with a student and his broken iPad, said, “VPNs can steal information, and we obviously do not want students to bypass anything that is content filtered. We originally saw that students were downloading these [VPNs] and wanted to stop it immediately.”
Mr. Nies sent out an email the following week that warned students thaif they did indeed have these illicit apps on their iPads, other applications like Safari and the camera would become deactivated.
Upon deleting the VPN, Mr. Nies remarked that both Safari and the camera should be restored within minutes, yet some problems remained.
“Students were unable to reactivate Safari and the camera until a few hours or even a day had passed,” he said.
As for other recently restricted apps, two popular games, Whale Trail and Clash of Clans, have made the list.
“Teachers and many students were complaining about how distracting these games had become,” Mr. Nies said.
The games captivated the student body and Mr. Nies managed to estimate that over 1200 students had either or both games on their iPads before the restriction.
“We can see any app that is on the iPad; however, it is difficult to see what is specifically being done on the iPad,” said Mr. Nies.
After asking a few students about the VPNs, it seemed that most were unsure about what exactly they were.
Senior David Ladd had no idea what they were, while Senior Stephen Hooker only slightly knew.
“I know of people who did have them, but don’t anymore. I never needed them, though.”