Clarifications on our COV learning community (Ning) website

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Wesley Fryer on November 17, 2008 at 4:56pm

I'm attaching a memo which addresses some new questions which have come up from COV-participating district leaders and a commercial vendor providing content filtering services for Oklahoma schools. This regards the open social authentication method used by the current Ning-based COV website / learning community, and a "fairly obscure vulnerability" identified by the vendor.

Attachments:

• cov-learningcommunity-17nov08.pdf, 61 KB

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Andrew Boatman on November 18, 2008 at 8:29am

We are back to a text only version of the Ning site in EPS. The possibility of having open access to FaceBook or other social networking sites allows the district to be liable for any bullying behavior by students. By fully blocking access to these site we can eliminate any culpability in the problem.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Wesley Fryer on November 18, 2008 at 2:52pm

Liability risks are real and must be navigated by school district leaders.

In some cases, however, fear of liability risks can be taken to irrational extremes.

In this case, a commercial vendor providing content filtering services has identified this potential exploit as a "fairly obscure vulnerability." As I explained in the Nov 17th memo, the benefits of full participation in the COV learning community can/should be weighed against this danger.

Hopefully you will at LEAST be provided with unauthenticated (http/port80) access to the COV learning community. We discussed this yesterday with the vendor and they were pretty confident they could do this while prohibiting https/port443 access to Ning sites and the open social authentication scheme, which is apparently the root of the exploit.

Long term the good news is by summer 2009 our COV learning community should be moved over to a Drupal site which will not authenticate via Ning, and this specific exploit/vulnerability will be a non-issue.

If there are others with ideas/suggestions to add to this thread and the suggestions included in the Nov 17th memo please add them.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Wesley Fryer on April 14, 2010 at 8:22pm

One correction to this attached memo. To view COV videos and learning community content, the following TWO websites should be whitelisted on your school district's content filter:

celebrateoklahoma.us
api.ning.com

The video content for our learning community currently streams from the api.ning.com address.

• ▶ Reply