JCR Forum - Internet access?

I've heard some rumours that Merton is installing web filtering software for use on JCR students. Is it true?
Eg: http://mcit.merton.ox.ac.uk/ talks about web monitoring.
If true it's a little worrying as the college has mostly kept out of our internet usage until now...

It's already installed - certain pages come up with :
" Request denied by Merton College WatchGuard HTTP proxy.
Reason: one or more categories denied helper='MertonWebBlocker' details=[block category]"
Apparently (hearsay, no definite facts here), a new server was installed last Thursday that came preprogrammed with a load of blocks in place, including social networking sites (no facebook!). This category has since been removed, plus (I guess) a load of the less serious ones - but not all of them (I imagine they just haven't thought of it yet). For example, library.ox.ac.uk was blocked the other day, and I've found that sites in the "humour" and "games" categories are still blocked - google homepage was a sea of blocked widgets :P. "Motor vehicles" is also blocked, bizarrely.
I imagine the point is to block porn and known adware/spyware/warez/p2p/etc sites. Not that I've been going around checking.

Should have looked at the link first: the disruption on the 23rd was probably why OLIS was down.

Are games blocked? like cod 4, wow and steam?

Matthew: Well, it's called WebBlocker, and those games are technically on the Internet, as opposed to being webpages. So, probably not blocked. I can't say for sure, though.
Still, if you can think with Portals(TM), I'm sure you can figure out a way to play whatever games you want to... :-)

Steam seems to work fine, assuming it's already installed/you have the install file - the steam website's blocked. I don't have COD 4 with me, and WoW...ugh.
In-browser games are blocked though.

So Facebook still works?

On a similar note - what are the arrangements for getting internet set up once we reach college? What do we have to do to get access to the college computers, and to the internet in our rooms - apparently this is just a matter of pidging a form to Steve Williams, but how quickly does it get sorted?

If you arrive Monday and pidge your form, you should have internet up by tuesday.
These filters don't sound good, but nothing too hard to get around if people really want to.

Yes, facebook works now.
Mark's right, and if you're really keen, you can find out your MAC address ahead of time so you can fill in your form as soon as you get here (http://mcit.merton.ox.ac.uk/mac.htm). With all the new registrations, it might take a short while, but there's always the computers in the OWL library is you need to check something quickly - most of these machines require an account, which you can register for, and some are open-access, though you can only access a few sites (pro tip: email yourself any link on one of the open-access machines to go on whatever you want)