Blimmin' websense!

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The proxy server at work (Websense) has been filtering out most public photo-sharing sites for a while now. One of the few exceptions was all bar the farm5 server on Flickr, so at least I could see SOME photo posts. :cautious:

As of this afternoon, the whole of Flickr is filtered so bang goes my TP browsing enjoyment. They don't even relax it during our lunch time. :razz:

The explanation from the networks team is that it's set by the supplier in the filter list and they don't touch it as it's 'industry standard'. I've been advised to escalate it to HR if there's a problem. :nono:

PCI compliance. What a bore! :shake:

'Why not use your iPhone?', you might ask.
Because despite having an Orange mast on the roof, 3G doesn't work in the office. It works briefly (with 2 bars) early in the morning but soon fades to nothing as more people try to use it. There's no public WiFi spot within reach.

Fed up. Rant over. :)
 
I dopn't like the sound of this. Especially as we use the same here at work :(
 
As long as TP works everything will still be OK...!

I mean, if TP stopped working, I'd have no reason to go to work! :LOL:
 
We have websense and blackspider, it does filter loads of stuff but there is a way around it.............if ya want to pm me:naughty:
 
We've had websense for ages. It is supplier set, however you can put exceptions into it.

However you generally needs a good business case for doing that!
 
Quite.
I'll keep my job, thanks! :eek:)
 
We have webmarshal at our place, and that's all over the place, sometimes you can even get on the Bing search page as it thinks it's short for bingo :( . You can't look on ebay, but going to a horse betting site is fine.
 
Dangermouse1964 said:
We have websense and blackspider, it does filter loads of stuff but there is a way around it.............if ya want to pm me:naughty:
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Thanks, but it's been made quite clear what the consequences of that will be! :)wave:)
 
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This web filtering is stupid where I work, we need to go to certain sites to price things up and we couldnt do it with the filter........this applies to everyone who works for our company, so the bosses who paid a vast amount for this gave the go ahead to let IT give us all the way around it and now everyone just use tinterweb as normal with this shield doing nothing, and still they have to pay for it and it wont be cheap but still they recon its good money spent stopping us doing our jobs that make the money to keep the big wigs afloat...............madness innit
 
The clue's in the wave, and it's not a 'hello' type. :eek:)
 
He's saying that if employees are found circumventing the system they'll be clearing out their desk at the end of the day.

it would be interesting to know whether or not personal websites are blocked during the lunch hour... i know some companies allow an hour where you can browse on what you want, and even although our work is entirely unfiltered, lunch time is mostly when i post on TP, other times i just have a quick peek to see what's occurin...
 
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DM, In your case maybe.
I'd want (hypothetically) to circumvent security merely for more pleasurable web browsing.
Not that I'd ever attempt it of course!
 
trencheel303 said:
He's saying that if employees are found circumventing the system they'll be clearing out their desk at the end of the day.
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There is that if its a strict regime, but as most people are here most days during working time I am sure its being done already, now if it was a porn site they were on then that would be different but its just a photography site with no keyloggers or anyone spamming them with malware........quite safe really(y)
 
Thing is, I work for a large company where IT forms a large part of the infrastructure.
The rules are strict and necessary to have us comply with PCI regulations.
There would be insurance and legal implications without it, see?
Doesn't mean I have to like it. :eek:(
 
Dangermouse1964 said:
we were told how to do it by IT so we could actually do our job so ........what is your point:thinking:
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His point is most companies have a very strict IT acceptable use policy - and breach of that policy is a matter to be dealt with by HR. Usually with a disciplinary hearing and sometimes resulting in dismissal.

Companies take this very seriously now. In my case, even if IT did provide info on how to get around the web filter then it would not make any difference - it would still be ME who is breaking the IT acceptable use policy which is written into my terms of employment. HR would simply discipline me and the person in IT who told me how to do it.
 
Although it sure has it's disadvantages (like a massively variable workload, one day I can be worked to breaking point and the next I can take two calls the entire day) the above is one of the reasons I love working in a small company. We don't have HR department, an IT department... it's just us!!
 
thats crap, they must be able to change filtering category entries.. we can on our other brand unit.

but like trench says, working in IT has its advantages.. like unrestricted internet over "spare" 24mb ADSL lines :D
 
I can think of a couple of reasons why they can't/won't change the settings.

Their Security Policy might not let them change categories or individual entries without formal change control requests which would probably involve business cases, risk assessments etc. If that's the case then they aren't likely to undertake an expensive review for a photography forum...

Their websense proxy might be a managed service - that's a whole other world of complication lol

Oh, and as Richard quite rightly points out, never ever try to bypass proxy content filtering at work. It'll inevitably be a serious breach of your company's security policy and could lead to dismissal.
 
Indeed.
I was never looking for a way to circumvent it as I'm all too aware of the price of doing so.
I was just moaning about the tightening of the rules.
 
Islander said:
I can think of a couple of reasons why they can't/won't change the settings.

Their Security Policy might not let them change categories or individual entries without formal change control requests which would probably involve business cases, risk assessments etc. If that's the case then they aren't likely to undertake an expensive review for a photography forum...

Their websense proxy might be a managed service - that's a whole other world of complication lol

Oh, and as Richard quite rightly points out, never ever try to bypass proxy content filtering at work. It'll inevitably be a serious breach of your company's security policy and could lead to dismissal.
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completely agree, however in the OPs case id like to see how they enable sites for legitimate reasons if they wont touch it due to "industry standard".

i suspect it was a bit of a fob off (guilty your honour :D) knowing it wasnt work related.
 
neil_g said:
completely agree, however in the OPs case id like to see how they enable sites for legitimate reasons if they wont touch it due to "industry standard".

i suspect it was a bit of a fob off (guilty your honour :D) knowing it wasnt work related.
Click to expand...

The OP mentioned PCI so it was probably a compliance fear related knee-jerk :LOL:
 
neil_g said:
believe me being the guy that locks some sites out here im well aware of the moaning that goes on surrounding this lol

most of the time though it is done for good reasons, for example i recently locked down mporas media servers to conserve our bandwidth.
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I set and manage Security Policy :D
 
We have the same thing at my place, but using sonicwall...

However facebook, twitter, TP, Flickr, Photobucket... pretty much most sites are viewable.. we get it quite easy...

The IT manager goes thru records every so often apparently just to check were not doing anything silly!!

there has only been 2 occasions i know of where peole have been disciplined for looking at "the wrong things"....

Guess im just lucky!!
 
No websense, no proxy, no filtering and no monitoring here. No HR department, no IT department, in fact no departments at all either. Anyone touching the router gets an earful from me though :naughty:

Such IT policy as we have amounts to "You can install whatever you like on your office computer but if you break it you'd better fix it."

PCI? We process cards through a standalone PDQ terminal that dials up on a phone line and don't store the numbers. Online processing will be done via a third party site, if the bank providing merchant services and the third party processing site can ever get their act together. It's been an utter nightmare of paperwork, miscommunication and inefficiency. Not at our end. We are currently re-applying for the merchant accounts as despite having account numbers which the bank admits are theirs and issued to us by them, the bank has no record of them meaning they can't interface with the processing site. Splendid. We started this in the middle of 2009 with a different third party site and eventually that collapsed as the bank couldn't sort things out with them either.

Complete nightmare, basically. And it's meant me having to do php and mysql, which I don't like :p.
 
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