By the personal order of the Fuhrer

"This software was developed in the labs of the Abwehr by the personal instructions of the Fuhrer!" -
So says a particularly uncomfortable and buggy program is one of my acquaintances.

Internet and children
It will be a question of Russian schools, the Internet, which is everywhere carried out, and the care of the state that children do not go to porn sites and do not read too much.

Since there are already Internet in ALL Russian schools, and somewhere else there are 2-3 connections, one way or another they use it. The state represented by the Ministry of Education and for some reason the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation is extremely concerned about where they go.

If the first couple of years of this whistle check came and looked through IE magazine (which, however, was not so stupid, although most teachers learned to clean magazines, and not because they watch porn, but because they are so calmer), now everything otherwise.
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Then the next particularly evil system was invented, which will be discussed in the article. Each informatics teacher in each school is responsible for ensuring that the content filtering program (specifically, the PCF from the CIAIR ) is installed, configured and actually works. Check now comes and tries to open porn everywhere. It opens up - the teacher is waiting for responsibility, right up to the criminal one (there will not be any proofs, but the teachers are very intimidated).

Content Filtering Program
I ran into this situation when an acquaintance computer science teacher turned for help. The program worked for several months, although it behaved strangely at times. Then she stopped filtering, although she watched sites.

At one o'clock, the program reported that it was outdated and offered to be updated. Refreshed and did not work anymore, stating that "you are not a PCF administrator".

I did a reinstall. The staff uninstall was deleted so that the program was not installed later, again informing us that we are not the administrator of the PCF. I cleaned the registry and system folders from traces of the PCF.
Re-installed the program.

The program was installed, but did not connect to the PCF server, informing alert that the “Error connecting to the server” (as stated in the manual, it needs port 8080 and port 53, which were open).

He cursed, demolished the program again, downloaded the new version and started to install.

I must say that the program has a very unusual system of installation, activation and licensing. There are the following items:
1. File * .id, issued on a flash drive from the area.
2. A disc with an outdated version (as I understand it, they release updates quite often)
3. A key, sent by mail already personally to the teacher, consists of 10 characters.
4. The program installer.exe, which is responsible for obtaining updates and updating keys from step 2.
5. Two pairs of usernames and passwords for access to the site shkola.edu.ru
6. Several instructions, descriptions of which do not correspond to the programs (questions are asked other, actions are not performed, these sections cannot be found)

The installation process includes (I acted according to the instructions to the best of my understanding):
- launch installer
- enter the key, get the distribution from the site (after entering the password, of course)
- getting the distribution kit, installing the distribution kit with the * .id file application
- restart the installer. There was a surprise waiting for me. The program immediately announced that there is a more recent version (I installed the version downloaded at 9.45 pm yesterday at 22.00) and offered to upgrade. After the update, the program reported that it will not start, because Cannot connect to servicepcf.manager.
Further, according to the instructions, I could not go with all the effort.

I must say that there is a technical support hotline working around the clock. I called there, I was met by a very polite, but sleepy and sluggish administrator, Sergey. I described the problem, he said that he would ask the specialist a question. For several minutes I listened to the music of Brahms, Beethoven and even Mendelssohn.
After that, I was told that the program can not be put on top of the previous version, it must be removed.

I reported that the registry was cleaned, and the program was updated itself. I was told to have to reinstall. Well, okay, but how? It turned out that you need to write in the command line

"C: \ program files \ pcf \ uninstall.exe" / tricky key

I must say that Sergey was well prepared and explained it like this:

Start-Run - cmd - did a black window appear? - write in quotes ...

Slash was described as “a button that is above the 8th key on the numeric keypad.”

While Sergei was gurgling his polite words on the phone, I quickly took down and put the program down. It started up (thank Cthulhu), but did not connect to the server for the blacklist, saying that our license is already being used on another machine.

I will explain that in general, the program is put on all student computers, and our license is for 30 users with one key and a license file. However, what in this case was called a license is hard for me to say.

I told Sergey about the difficulty. He offered to wait, and I plunged into the world of classical music. A couple of minutes later, Sergey reappeared and asked the same questions again: which version, asked for the access card number for the portal shkola.edu.ru . After a small beethoven break, I was dictated by a certain five-digit number.

I asked what it is. It turned out that this is a TICKET NUMBER, under which the application of technical support will be processed and after 8 hours a response should arrive at the registration soap.

And that is all. Dead end.

I have no doubt that attempts to resolve this issue through an intermediary, and even via e-mail, are doomed to long torment, or even failure.

Now the program keeps a log of visited sites, but does not connect to the PCF server and does not have blacklist.

Of course, the computer science teacher will not pass.

I would really like someone to answer my questions (I sent this text with a description of the problems to the technical support system) :

1. Why is it so difficult? Why does this program need licensing? Why are the keys? It is developed for state money, and the parent has the right to put it for himself at home for the child (probably, this does not contradict the “Education” national project)?
2. Why is the program so often updated and so ugly buggy? The operating system on the machine is extremely standard and healthy - XP, direct access to the Internet, licensed Kaspersky.
3. Why is an adequate and intelligent computer science teacher, who easily installs and updates a bunch of programs, including Kaspersky, photoshop and corel, offices of all stripes, can't just make it work?
4. Why start all this mu with a round-the-clock t / n, portal access cards, a wild number of crypto-resistant passwords and keys to solve a fairly typical and even simple (experts correct me) tasks?

Again, mastering budgets ???

And finally.
I am not a stranger to the education system, I worked in college, now I teach in the university, my relatives work in schools. I am convinced that a normal teacher who knows IT, owns an audience, teaches a reasonable set of skills (wait for an article on the USE in computer science !!!), students will never have the opportunity to climb pornographic sites in class.
You can not just let the children on the Internet. This is not computer science lessons, this is hack-work.
The Internet is necessary for children at school for the decision of strictly tasks. In addition, in conditions where every second home has anlim, the PCF school systems simply rest.

Conclusion
I am not an expert on the notorious PKF.
Perhaps I didn’t understand the instructions, got rid of it, or I was just unlucky. But now there is a steady feeling that when developing and implementing, they did not think about the convenience of the program, not about its performance (which at least costs the requirement to install it independently on all client computers separately or on a server OS, which are extremely rare in schools). In a word - "... according to the personal instructions of the Führer!"

Couldn't it be easier, better and cheaper to solve this problem?

upd :

A technical support representative of the PCF developer company (not the “First Aid” portal) contacted me and clarified some points:
- why the license is issued alone (it turns out, they can / should be downloaded from the site under your login), and issuing them on a flash drive is an initiative of local leaders
- why everything is so difficult (the requirement of customers of systems)
- the presence of so many difficulties during installation and technical support (peculiarities of interaction with the First Aid portal)
- the system update is caused by its wide functionality (he sent a large letter, I rate their work (or at least the approach) as professional
- the program is not yet compatible with usergate and some other proxies, the requirement to work with server operating systems is from the customer
- such a complex system is also due to the fact that client administrators in the region want to see the number of registered users and the statistics of visits
- activation by key .id is a binding of a specific computer with statistics on the site
- Megaversion is separated from customers of the system

The name of this person is Sergey Rodionov, srodionov mail on cair.ru

I express my gratitude to him in public, it was extremely pleasant to communicate.