Data Decryption

Background

As part of our duty of care of students and in line with College policies, Flinders has implemented the capacity to inspect secure encrypted (https) internet traffic in order to filter undesirable content. Our intention is to avoid inspecting encrypted government, banking and other financial websites, however it is possible that some sites will still be decrypted.

Step-by-step guide

To determine whether a particular site you are using is being decrypted see below.

Windows and Mac

1. Look for a padlock icon next to the website address (URL) of the page you are visiting.
    

2. Hover your mouse pointer over the padlock icon to see who has "verified" the connection.
   
   

   In Chrome the following steps are needed:

   1. Click on the padlock icon. 
       
   2. Select Details.
      
   3. Select View Certificate
       
   4. In the certificate box that appears. If Flinders is decrypting, you will see.
      

Android devices

1. Look for a padlock icon next to the website address (URL) of the page you are visiting.
   
   
2. Tap the padlock icon.
   
   
3. Tap View certificate and look for the Common name entry.
   
   
   • If the connection is verified by "Flinders CC College Issuing CA"  then the Flinders network is decrypting the traffic from that site.
     
   • If the connection is verified by another source, then data from that site remains encrypted between the source and your browser.
     

iOS devices

Note that, at present, iOS devices don't offer a similar method for checking the verifier.