Over zealous work webfilter

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3 Aug 2003
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Plymouth, UK
What.......just tried to read the thread on the £80M Euromillions jackpot and the web filter in work has blocked it as Gambling........cheers internetz nazi's
 
Ignore random rant......have found a backdoor way in :eek:

Dont click on thread title, but click on one of the links that take you to a thread page......;):D
 
Mum works with a charity to do with child care, their email filter filters out all words to do with child abuse.

Makes internal emails a bit tricky to discuss the business of the charity....
 
Reminds me of my school filter... pretty much everything on the whole internet was blocked (including the bbc) except wikipedia, helicopter, and world cup soccer slime. (So you can tell what occupied our IT lessons, and later on my free periods spent in the sixth form computer room).
 
Blocking is there for a reason, unless it's a mistake.

Have you never encountered the jobsworth who has a little power, and uses that power as often as he can, for the sake of feeling important?

To say that all sites are blocked on merit is a pretty incredible statement to make, when you don't even know which organisation the OP works for, or the filter they use.
 
Have you never encountered the jobsworth who has a little power, and uses that power as often as he can, for the sake of feeling important?

How about a jobsworth, who values his job who was asked to enforce the company IT policy. Which was set by IT and Security to ensure that corporate machines are only used for work purposes and not for gambling, amongst other undesirable uses?

Tell me one common vocation that requires employees to purchase their lottery tickets at work for the greater good of the company, and I'll happily rescind that. :D
 
Have you never encountered the jobsworth who has a little power, and uses that power as often as he can, for the sake of feeling important?

To say that all sites are blocked on merit is a pretty incredible statement to make, when you don't even know which organisation the OP works for, or the filter they use.

I don't need to know what filter they use or what company they work for. If the user feels the site should be unblocked they go to the people looking after it to see why, not try to bypass the security.

Has the OP read the IT Policy as it could be a stackable offence.
 
I don't need to know what filter they use or what company they work for. If the user feels the site should be unblocked they go to the people looking after it to see why, not try to bypass the security.

If you do that in my organisation you get a stock response:

"We blocked it as it is not a work-related site. You need a business case to unblock it."

Thus, they can (and do) block any site they happen to feel like, from the bbc (where Tennis is filtered but Football is not!!!) to articles on networking and VPNs (which they lazily blocked under the category "hacking").
 
Have you never encountered the jobsworth who has a little power, and uses that power as often as he can, for the sake of feeling important?

To say that all sites are blocked on merit is a pretty incredible statement to make, when you don't even know which organisation the OP works for, or the filter they use.

How about a jobsworth, who values his job who was asked to enforce the company IT policy. Which was set by IT and Security to ensure that corporate machines are only used for work purposes and not for gambling, amongst other undesirable uses?

Tell me one common vocation that requires employees to purchase their lottery tickets at work for the greater good of the company, and I'll happily rescind that. :D

Foxeye, meet Jo Bworth, Jo, meet Foxeye.

My favourite jobsworth is the one who blocks internet for everyone in the business (apart from them as they have to administer it), to stop them from wasting company time, but then spends all day reading about WoW and watching cat videos on Youtube.
 
Ah I'm not a jobsworth, I feel the pain of people who haven't discovered SSH tunnelling through an HTTP proxy to a machine at home for unfiltered internet access... ;)
 
Ah I'm not a jobsworth, I feel the pain of people who haven't discovered SSH tunnelling through an HTTP proxy to a machine at home for unfiltered internet access... ;)

I'm sure traffic wardens say the same thing ;)

I actually spoke to one traffic warden who, after giving me a ticket, told me that "we work to provide a necessary and valuable service to the public."

Ironic, since I was on hospital business at the time, and parked in the hospital car park (which is run by a private car park firm, sadly).
 
I don't need to know what filter they use or what company they work for. If the user feels the site should be unblocked they go to the people looking after it to see why, not try to bypass the security.

Has the OP read the IT Policy as it could be a stackable offence.

his HR dept would have to be complete jobsworths to sack him for a minor breach of the 'IT policy' - or they'd have to want to get rid of him anyway and needed the excuse. In reality plenty of people breach IT policies, sometimes you have to in order to get stuff done as the people working in IT are probably the lowest paid/least technical people in the firm and take days to get to your 'ticket'.

Unless you're doing something destructive, downloading porn etc.. you're not likely getting sacked for breaching an 'IT policy'

as for filtering the internet... what a complete joke - firms should treat people as grownups... if someone is dumb enough to visit a porn site at work then they deserve to get sacked - blocking betfair, facebook is ridicules.... if people are wasting work time on those sites (rather than their breaks) then the underlying problem - the desire for them to waste time/do something other than work is still there with the web filter applied... the filter is just removing one visible symptom of an unproductive employee, I doubt it will force them to be more productive - if someone is going to waste time/procrastinate they'll just do it in some other way.
 
I'm sure traffic wardens say the same thing ;)

I actually spoke to one traffic warden who, after giving me a ticket, told me that "we work to provide a necessary and valuable service to the public."

Bit sad that he believes that... the public service aspect in now secondary to blatant revenue generation for local authorities.
 
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