Forum Moderators: open
So picture if you may - you are on lunch and wanted to check you e-mail - so you try and access yahoo and this message pops up on you screen
The ****** Proxy Server Has Denied Access to this Site
---------------------------------------------The site you were attempting to visit has been categorized as:
'free stuff'*
The local network policy prohibits access to pages within this category.
We make every effort to accurately categorize the sites in our filter list. If you feel the category shown above is incorrect, please report the site you attempted to visit to your local System Administrator.
This attempt at accessing a blocked site has been logged.
*changes relevant to the site type
Have I missed something here? since when was yahoo a free stuff site, In fact haw do you define free stuff?
anyway it transpires that not only are they banning the 'less legitimate' sites, which I can understand to a point, but they are taking a militant stance on all of the web. Sites are banned under a catagory, the catagories include: 'adult', 'games', 'free stuff', 'personal sites (err what?)', 'harmful' and my personal favourite 'useless stuff'.
What makes this intolerable is that it seems to have no real reflection on the usefulness or content of the site and is quite insulting - a page of the RNIB website is banned under 'useless stuff'!
Not only that they a logging my attempts! I have heard from a member of the security team they use key logging scripts too, and to rub salt into the wounds facilities like internet options and access to temp interent files are disabled (so thats killed view source! you get the picture)
I tell you I will be chucking all the preverbial teddies out of my preverbial pram if WW gets blocked - I might even spit my dummy out too!
Thanks for listening I needed to air that ('in my own time' big brother)
Ta
Limbo
Try putting yourself in your employer's shoes. Why should he pay for you and other employees to check your personal mail or surf on play sites?
related 2001 thread
[webmasterworld.com...]
Didn't want violins but sympathy would have been nice ;)
'useless stuff' grumble grumble - my sites are not 'useless' - yes I suppose thats why I'm hacked off...grumble grumble.
Heh! Ask anybody here, you're talking to the wrong guy.
One day the filters blocked Google. When we asked why, the admin said that it was filed under "inappropriate content". Microsoft.com was blocked for a while as well, but I'm not sure under what category. So we couldn't get windows updates. That was funny.
So they're stupid. I can see them being useful and reasonable, but when they're utterly incompetently managed, that makes it just a farce.
Our spam filters, btw, don't screen out viagra sales pitches, but they do block email from our clients, including email to our hotline.
Sigh. I have got to get out of this monkey house.
Heh! Ask anybody here, you're talking to the wrong guy
No worries :)
Sigh. I have got to get out of this monkey house.
Now thats a statement I can empathise with!
If you pay peanuts.....
I found that in the last London based company I worked for I felt more like a coding grunt than ever. With my working day basically sitting in a corner wearing an uncomfortable suit (in case senior management wandered by), not being able to listen to music (in case senior management wandered by and wanted my instant attention) and being expected to pull 7.30-7.30 with my lunch break being based at the desk (incase some system failed). They had denied access to hotmail, yahoo etc... so limbo you have my sympathy :) I wouldn't want to be back.
But then I've also worked in places where some senior management spent most of the day browsing p.rn. That company was much more relaxed... but went bust.
OK... rant but at least I'm only wasting my own time now.
Try thinking of it this way: If I pay peanuts, it's because all corporate funds earmarked for employee compensations are instead going for filters, key-stroke tracking applications and surveilance cameras this year due to drastic declines in productivity and revenues.
Respectfully Submitted
Management.
</devil's advocate from the Human Resource Management/Accounting perspective.>
<no offense intended :)
Pendanticist.
If i did i would find it totally acceptable for all users to hate me (even more than they do already that is)
I used to work in an office where you couldnt do more or less anything on the net without prior say so from the sadmin, but i found that most of my colleugues spent most of their time trying to figure out ways of trying to get round the filters than they were orignally spending browsing 'useless stuff'
And i think the most important factor here is that the clever folks in your office have got the categorisation of site so badly wrong. So its probable that they are making your job harder to do, rather than increasing productivity.
[news.zdnet.co.uk...]
[zdnet.com.com...]
Quick stuff pulled out.
I suppose I take the fairly common sense point of view that if someone is doing a good job that's all that matters and if they want to spend 5 minutes here and there checking their personal email or looking at non-work sites (or posting in Foo!) then it really doesn't matter. In some jobs that's the only thing that keeps people sane..
clever folks in your office have got the categorisation of site so badly wrong
I would replace the the word 'clever' with clue and less!
Pendanticist - are you the admin support guy I phoned this afternoon with a list of sites as long as my arm that I need unblocking so I can get back to learning CSS and PHP at no cost to the company? ;)
Ivana - I don't count this as a proper job - let me know if you find one, I'd love that.
....I have just realised that this post is becoming more ironic the more I rant...
Microsoft.com was blocked for a while as well, but I'm not sure under what category.
Has to be "useless stuff".
:raises hand: Yo.
> 'useless stuff'
I figured someone had to say it, but didn't want to say it myself.
I work for a rather large British organisation who in their wisdom has made some recent changes to their 'staff electronic media policy'(yawn).
Yawn?
Limbo, I'm absolutely appalled by your blatant disregard for company policy. What could possibly be more important?......:)
Pendanticist - are you the admin support guy I phoned this afternoon with a list of sites as long as my arm that I need unblocking so I can get back to learning CSS and PHP at no cost to the company? ;)
I am. In keeping with older, more established traditions, we've ordered the appropriate complete paperback libraries, (both PHP and CSS) from "NO Copy and Paste Publishing, Ltd." of Hackensack, NJ. You should expect to receive them soon. Shipping has been pre-paid, however the items themselves will be C.O.D. in the amount of $342.02 US.
We sincerely hope this has answered your concerns and feel free to call upon us anytime.
R/S
The Head Dude.
LOL!
Pendanticist.
Should work feel like a ditctatorship?
No it should not.
Does it act, feel, smell and look like a dictatorship though?
Unfortunately yes.
Is there anything you can do about it?
Quit, get fired. That's about all.
Does it stink?
Completely.
I'm just going to rant bitterly for a moment: I've just found out that it's in my company's best financial interests to induce me to quit, as their unemployment tax is assessed based on how many of their former employees claim the benefits. So if they can convince me to walk out, they save big-- in the U.S. (NY State in particular) quitters aren't eligible for benefits.
So if your working environment is utterly ridiculous and terrible, don't quit-- first try to work it out, of course, with the management and your co-workers and all that, but if they're ludicrous, you're only doing them a favor by quitting.
Should work feel like a ditctatorship?
Thats the way it is.
We thought we were fairly open about our non-work internet access policy (no adult or gambling) as long as it didn't interfer with work.
We then had an employee quit and try to collect unemployment because we wouldn't let him play everquest all day long. It fell under interfering with work.
The rules are a little tighter now.
jb
