WiFi--Open, Closed or Filtered?

[tedanderson]

He doesn't like that someone's first visit(s) to church would be exclusionary in any way.

I can respect that. And if the church advertises Wi-Fi availability then being restrictive would be a bad idea. I don't know what the setup is like but I think that if I was offering Wi-Fi to the congregation, I would get a separate DSL modem on a separate line that was not connected to the church's main network. That way if there is a problem with abuse or malicious activity, it only affects the other wireless users and not the network that is used for church business.

As for filtering, I tend to straddle the fence because on one hand, I believe in the concept that locks are for honest people and even though nobody comes to church with the intention to surf porn, I don't even want the availability to exist. On the other hand I find myself in situations where I can't get to a site that I REALLY need to get to because the filter determined that "clean" terminology was vulgar in nature.

[JordanN]

Right now, our wireless network is open and unfiltered.

We used to filter using IPCOP + Dansguardian, but we moved recently and we haven't put the filter back into place.

Wireless is open because of the difficulty of implementing security (choosing a method, and training staff and volunteers).

Eventually, I will be separating the wireless and implementing OpenVPN. This way, staff will be able to work securely from anywhere, and we will still be able to attract people by offering free wireless, without exposing our private network.

Basically, security and convenience are opposites. As a Linux nerd, I like to be very secure. However, working in a church environment, I understand how painful it can be to convince staff members of the benefits of that security, especially when it becomes an inconvenience (our content filter blocking their favorite news sites because it contains a bad word or inappropriate subject matter).

Sometimes, you have to give up until something bad happens. It's just how it is sometimes. Oh, and when that bad event occurs, you'll still get blamed for it. Don't you love working at a church?

[jflash]

Because both our youth pastors primarily use laptops, we have wifi in the youth building only, and that is password protected. We don't have wifi available anywhere else because we feel that it would distract from why we're there in the first place. Besides, the only place it would be needed as part of the service is in our contemporary service, where we have a high-end system as it is. And besides, in the event that I wanted to use my laptop, it wouldn't be too difficult to just swap the ethernet cable over.

[WillowStang]

Both for us as well. Free/open for guests, (though I think it's firewalled) and secure for staff/volunteers.

[nathandiehl]

About two years ago, our senior pastor got a nasty porn popup just as someone knocked on his door. He was not happy about it, and ever since then, I've not had any problems getting appropriations to filter out porn.
In the next year, I am looking to install another access point in the main sanctuary (as currently, the coverage is spotty in the sanctuary due to steel and concrete!). I would also like to install an access point in our basement, but there are no existing wires through the concrete floor, so I'd have to drill a hole, and I'm not sure about that....hehe

Thanks for your input guys! I really appreciate it!

[Riggs]

We have an encrypted wireless network. It's only used from the church staff (up to 8 people). We don't use any filter software.

[tedanderson]

Originally Posted by nathandiehl

About two years ago, our senior pastor got a nasty porn popup just as someone knocked on his door.

I imagine that there was nothing that he would have been able to say that could explain himself out of the situation.

Sometimes I think about how the internet is overrun with porn rather than being overrun with the good news of the gospel. You can type "JESUS" into a search engine and eventually find a porn site yet you cannot type "PORN" into a search engine and find bible verses that address pornography.

[[Admin] osborn4]

Originally Posted by tedanderson

...yet you cannot type "PORN" into a search engine and find bible verses that address pornography.

I don't know about that. I haven't tried it myself, but I would imagine that xxxchurch and other sites like that would come up in that search.

[nathandiehl]

Originally Posted by tedanderson

yet you cannot type "PORN" into a search engine and find bible verses that address pornography.

Yeah, my brother gets loads of hits on his (Christian) blog site when he talks about porn, and is sure to tag it with lots of porn-type words...so he's trying--but it's hard to get better search rankings than the big industry with loads of $$$$...that's probably why there isn't a lot of this going on.

[tedanderson]

True, even though money can drive christian sites into the higher rankings, popularity and tagging can do it too. If enough of us built websites this form of "reverse tagging" it would make it much harder to surf for porn without encountering a christian message.

On the other hand, I think that most churches and christian based organizations would be against having anything remotely pornographic associated with their site. It would take a great deal of courage to withstand the criticism and persecution if you had a site called, www:super-big-juggs:com which appeared to be a normal porn site until you got past the age disclaimer and agreed to the terms of the site.

[MGHunter4462]

Our church as only been in our current building for about a year. Prior to that we only had wired internet. Our WI FI is free and unfiltered. We don't advertise we have WI FI. Not many people know it. We're in an area that there aren't any neighbors close enough to use it either.

[gower2352]

We recently just upgraded our church's wired system when we switched over to a VOIP/Internet provider. Our access is unfiltered and we do have it password protected as there are apartment building all around us. Really though we see no need to publicize it or keep it secret.Usually the only people that use it is concert groups when they bring in their laptop they like to use the internet but that is really about all.