#privacy #smoothwall #IT Does anyone know anything about Smoothwall by #Qoria? My child's school is asking that all parents help them to install a certificate on their devices. Their reasoning is that the certificate allows them to check websites accessed through their network even if they use secure systems and without the certificate, some traffic remains hidden. I'm concerned about this, but not entirely sure of how much damage they can do with a certificate. @pluralistic @evacide @eff

@goosehydra @pluralistic @evacide @eff

They want to do some sort of filtering or blocking based on the content of web sites. Back in the day you could just monitor the network traffic. Now you can't, everything is encrypted. If you install their certificate it means that you let them see *everything* that device does on the web.

You might not find this appropriate. Many do not. Some get a separate device for school and put the certificate on that. Some simply don't use the school WiFi. You should ask about the specific consequences of refusing the installation of the certificate.

@upofadown Thanks! When you say "everything", does that include the content of the website? Like, if someone with the certificate logs into a banking website, they can see the bank details? Does it include passwords? E-Mail content?

@upofadown Also, with regard to e-mail, if it does enable them to see the content, would they see the content of all e-mail if the account syncs with a server?

We're a little privacy focused and I don't like the idea of people reading the content. I don't understand why they don't just block social media and porn or whatever on their network.

@goosehydra They would see what the user of the device sees. So definitely content of the website.They could get banking credentials when the user logs in, although, they will promise not to do that.

They would see any webmail like Gmail. I don't know if they would see email done on a separate email client like Thunderbird. That is something you could ask them.

Blocking is harder these days due to some technical improvements recently enacted to hide what websites users are going to. So they would need the certificate. Also, these sorts of systems are sometimes sold on the idea that the system can automatically detect potential self harm and cyber-bullying.