TechnologyClassroom / HOSTS

HOSTS files can help protect educational environments from inappropriate materials online.

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HOSTS

HOSTS files can help protect educational environments from inappropriate materials online, unproductivity, and malware.

Creative Commons License
Copyright © Michael McMahon 2011-2020. Except where otherwise specified, the text on HOSTS by Michael McMahon is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0 (International) (CC-BY-SA 4.0).

This project started out in a production environment within a technology classroom in an after school center in Boston, MA that saw 100+ children each day between the ages of 8 through 18.

The goal of these lists was to only allow games on Fridays while keeping a generally safe environment for children. Creative projects would be made Monday-Thursday.

WARNING: An unmanaged proprietary content filter was used in addition to these HOSTS files. These lists are not complete and do not claim or attempt to be complete.

If you have router access, I would recommend using the individual filters with a Pi-hole.

Manually updating and copying these files can be cumbersome so the process should be automated such as this example for Windows or this example for Mac.

Categories

There are six main types of files here.

  • Filters that make up the rest of the lists.
  • F files allow games.
  • MTWR files block games.
  • win files use the End of Line formatting for Windows systems.
  • unix files use the End of Line formatting for Linux, Mac, routers, and Unix systems.
  • LS files redirect to a local web server instead of giving an error.

Contributions

I am looking for help with the following:

  • Adding domains to the filtered lists found in the filters/ directory.
  • Correcting improper categorazation.

More information

  • localhost is used to configure the loopback interface.
  • Loopbacks can redirect the domain to the IP address of your choosing.
  • 127.0.0.1 goes nowhere.
  • LS files can redirect inappropriate websites to a local web server full of constructive opportunities. This is much better than the alternative of hitting a content filter dead end.
  • This script builds each variation of these files automatically.

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HOSTS files can help protect educational environments from inappropriate materials online.

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