[squid-users] (possibly dynamic?) multiple port forwarding in the same internal Network ...

[Albretch Mueller]

On 5/25/21, Antony Stone <Antony.Stone at squid.open.source.it> wrote:
> I've returned to your original question here, after discussing several
> points
> already in some detail, and I can't help wondering - why are you trying to
> do
> all this in browsers and web proxies, by manipulating network communications
> in ways that were not indended?

> That would seem to me to be a far simpler solution to your requirement,
> assuming I have now correctly understood that you essentially want a teacher
> to share their screen with the students, and for the students not to be able
> to "wander off on their own" into the general Internet.

 Unfortunately (or, probably, actually fortunately!) most of the
information out there is on the web and virtually anyone relate to it
naturally as their first step/view out there, but the web has become
way too wild to invite it into a TaL environment. I think "the best
possible world" we could possibly benefit from when it comes to the
web is by doing your best at "cutting the crap" in the most
functional, least taxing way you possibly could. Also, content on the
web changes in its own unpredictable ways and even subject matter
experts (with more than one responsibility) can't keep up with its
content. Yet, I do think that there are ways to do that by (a more or
less explicit description of what I have in mind):

 a) teacher has lesson plan(s) which include links to the web

 b) those links include pages on the web, which content she could
sanitize by "simply" clicking on the upper left and lower right corner
of the content area (firefox' js-based page reader isn't that great),
just clicking on the first of a number of linked pages (they do such
idiotic things to make you watch their ads) ... just two or three
clicks on pages you have on your field of view at this very moment,
anyway. That feature can be easily programmed based on a JavaFX
Webview, which would internally parse the page in an XPath kind of way
and "automatically" submit that XML-ish data to some sort of DB which
an ICAP server uses for its own parsing logic, for it to "know" what
to do with responses relating to such requested URLs ...

> Why not give the students a video conferencing / screen sharing application
> such as MS Teams, Jitsi, Zoom, etc and then block them from accessing
> websites
> during lessons?

 I (personally and generally) find those video conferencing/screen
sharing applications way too taxing for busy teachers and too
constraining for students. You would have to rewrite your lesson
plans, redesign your presentations. Also, all forms of communications
have their own intersubjective aspects. You can't reasonably expect to
regiment a class as if it were a marching squadron. Students have
their own ways to direct their own conscious attention, take thinking
pauses, … as they interact with their learning environments.

 lbrtchx