The Hopewell Valley Regional School District uses two hardware devices to perform web and e-mail filtering, both from the manufacturer Barracuda Networks. The Barracuda Web Filter is designed to enforce organizational Internet usage policies through content filtering, application blocking, and best-of-breed spyware protection. The Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall is an integrated hardware and software solution designed to protect our e-mail server from spam, viruses, spoofing, phishing and spyware attacks.

Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall

E-mail is a key communications tool within the school district. The Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall provides a powerful, easy-to-use and affordable solution for complete protection of the Hopewell Valley Regional School District's email infrastructure. It eliminates spam and virus intrusions while safeguarding the school district with content inspection based on policy for both inbound and outbound e-mail. The Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall protects against spam, viruses, spyware/malware, phishing, spoofing, denial of service attacks and more.

Bloxx Web Filter

The Bloxx Web Filter is an appliance-based solution first put in place in the spring of 2012.  It uses Tru-View Technology to help the Hopewell Valley Regional School District to monitor and control user access to web content which may potentially lower student and staff productivity, expose the school district to risk and liability, or pose network security threats.  The Tru-View Technology uses internationally patent pending technology to analyse and block web sites quicker and more accurately than we've ever been able to previously. Offering an advanced layer of protection, Tru-View Technology combines established technology with innovative and intelligent identification and analysis techniques to rapidly classify web content in real-time. Tru-View Technology provides live classification of requested web content, even if the content has not been seen by anyone before, to determine if it is in accordance with our Internet access policies.

In the past, the focus was on "opening or closing" specific categories and we posted that to this web page. The complexity of the web filtering now goes way beyond the use of categories. The Bloxx device employs many filtering policies that effect content filtering, too many and too complex to post on this site. 

Both Mr. Brower and Mr. Schmidt encourage you to contact their office should you wish to learn more about the e-mail and web filtering systems now in place in the Hopewell Valley Regional School District.