Proxy Servers

[Kevin D. Clark]

> I do get the idea that the university would require a proxy for users 
> on its internal network to access the web.  But is it really sensible 
> to do it the other way around, or is it as clueless as it looks to me 
> right now?

It makes *some* sense.

The university at which I am a graduate student has some electronic
subscriptions to various journals (think IEEE and ACM, among others)
that they make available for their students.  The organizations that
offer these subscriptions charge money for these things.

By offering a proxy, the university can offer access to these
electronic subscriptions to people on the network (inside and outside
the university's network).

Put it this way:  a couple of weeks ago when I needed a technical
paper for my grad school work, I was very appreciative of the fact
that I didn't have to drive to the university library in order to
access these electronic subscriptions -- I was able to get the paper
from my desk at work.

The system that I used wasn't exactly a web proxy {per se}, so, in
general the rest of my network traffic didn't go through the
university's network.  Obviously, this wouldn't be ideal.

I wouldn't characterize the proxy idea as being completely clueless.

Regards,

--kevin
-- 
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