Back in 2005 it emerged that the independent schools price-fixing enquiry began after two former students of Winchester College hacked into the school system, then forwarded files to the Office of Fair Trading.

Hacking is not an unusual phenomenon, but this case did highlight that the chief threat is often internal rather than outsiders looking to break in for commercial gain. The issue of network security remains a problem especially for schools trying to block sites and online services from their students. Whilst quite possible to do, there is a serious cost in equipment, software and labour. However, even with the latest products it can still be very hard to stop determined students from accessing their favourite sites.

School IT administrators are now also having to grapple with students using circumventors, CGI proxies and external wireless networks to access restricted sites. Circumventors are web pages that literally allow a user to pass through onto another blocked site. CGI proxies allow similar access using a system known as proxy avoidance where data is encrypted and IP addresses are hidden. The conflict between IT administrators and students is literally an hour by hour, day by day battle but wireless networking is making this even harder. Some schools are now seeing local unsecured wireless networks being used by students and even dedicated external wireless networks being established by students who control the access themselves, allowing them to bypass the school’s system completely. The IT cat and mouse game in schools seems just like the storyline in The Great Escape - just swap guns and barbed wire for IP filters and network monitoring software and the inmates for students. All that’s lacking is the music – think some sort of atonal MP3 file (noise) rather than the film’s catchy whistling.