Archive for Wordpress.com

Maynooth University’s Privatized Network

Posted in Maynooth with tags , , , on September 9, 2024 by telescoper

Quite a few people have contacted me to ask why my access to this blog is banned on Maynooth University campus, as indicated at the top of yesterday’s post. As far as I can see, the block applies not only to this site (telescoper.wordpress.com aka telescoper.blog) but every site with an IP address or addresses (a pair in my case) hosted on the WordPress.com domain. I don’t know how many sites that is, but it’s a lot.

When I asked IT Services at Maynooth why I could neither read no write to my own blog via the campus network, it was explained to me that at some point one of the sites hosted on WordPress was involved in a phishing operation so the whole domain was blocked by the “external provider” as it is deemed a security risk. Actually WordPress.com has very strict control of its security, so this allegation is potentially defamatory and damaging to WordPress business. I wouldn’t be surprised if they take legal action. It doesn’t damage my business of course, as I make no money from this blog, but I nevertheless find it extremely annoying. In any case it seems to me an unreasonable and disproportionate restriction.

It was in February 2024 (while I was away in Australia) that Maynooth University privatized its computer network, handing over control of it to a company called Agile Networks. Apparently, this “external provider” now has complete control over web access from Maynooth University and is not accountable to the University for its actions. It, not the University, decides what websites can be accessed by staff and students. So much for academic freedom.

I might add that there has been a plethora of network service outages recently, so I was amused by the self-congratulatory tone of Agile Networks represented by its takeover of Maynooth’s internet access, e.g.

It has revolutionised the campus. It has made every outdoor area of the campus a viable classroom.

That may be true, but it merely reflects the fact that Maynooth does not have anywhere near enough indoor teaching or student study spaces. I’m sure students will be delighted that it is now deemed acceptable for them to study in the “viable classroom” of the great outdoors, complete with freezing cold and pouring rain!

Anyway, I contacted WordPress to tell them of the problem and they confirmed that nobody from either Maynooth University or Agile Networks has contacted them about the alleged security breach. They said

The ideal situation would be that the service provider reviews our documentation and whitelists the IP…

The situation is obviously not ideal…

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Blog Blocked

Posted in Maynooth with tags , , , on August 27, 2024 by telescoper

I discovered today that this blog is not reachable via the campus network at Maynooth University. I wasn’t actually trying to write a post, which I sometimes do at lunchtimes or after work, but simply to send a link to this blog post to a colleague in the Department. I found I couldn’t make a connection to the blog, getting the dreaded ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT when I tried to do so. I thought it was strange as no other websites were affected and I had no problem connecting to this site from home.

In order to find out what was going on I raised a ticket with Maynooth University IT Services reporting the issues. I quickly got a response saying explaining that this was not the first time they had seen this issue with this particular hosting service (i.e. wordpress.com). It went on:

We were subjected to a phishing campaign originating from a site that shares your hosting address and those addresses are now denied by our firewall policy.

As the phishing origin server is still extant we cannot safely whitelist this IP …without risk of exposing our network to a repeat attack.

Blocking the entire WordPress.com domain because one of its sites was used in a phishing attack seems like overkill to me, but at least the explanation isn’t that the University Management decided to block the blog on campus because I have been critical of its policies. Or is it?

In the past I have sent students links to various educational blog posts from time to time. It looks like I’ll have to stop doing that as they’re not going to be readable on campus unless the firewall policy changes.

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