Flickr...BANNED!

rich_eason

rich_eason

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Yeap thats right came in to work this morning to have the usual coffee and browse through TPF and started to notice a load of the dreaded red crosses. Then tried to access Flickr and it appears that the "IT Powers that be" have decided to add Flickr to the banned list....:razz:

So any images hosted on Flickr are no longer displayed which makes my life in the forum somewhat more difficult to deal with so from now on, for my sake at least, can you all include full text descriptions of any images that are posted? ;)

Not too much to ask is it? :naughty: :LOL:
 
Bad news indeed ! :thumbsdown:- Makes you wonder what goes on in their heads when deciding what is and what isn't allowed.

Most of the places I've worked at have always managed to ban this sort of thing in a very sloppy manner.
If their ban list is run via an internal proxy server, and you have access to IE or Firefox options you should be able to add Flickr into the "bypass proxy" box.

Failing that, if it's a firewall controlled ban and you've usually got a machine running indoors, you could set up an ssh tunnel and use that as a proxy server to bypass their banlists etc.

There's usually a way round it if you try hard enough, but might have repercussions if you get caught (depending on your conract terms etc.)....
 
^^ Be very careful if you decide to do that...as the poster correctly states there may be repercussions, in my experience there would DEFINITELY be repercussions.
I am Information Manager for an international group of companies and in all cases in all countries anyone caught doing that would be immediately dismissed and would also leave themselves open to one of the many laws covering misuse of computer systems which could lead to criminal prosecution.

It's a pain when things are blocked or banned but best thing to do is see if there are any channels within your organisation whereby you can request certain sites to be reinstated (probably through HR rather than the IT dept).

Cheers,
Mark Morb
 
If I ran a company with employees, I'd ban just about every site going right off the bat. I wouldn't be paying people to **** around on the net all day. It's been proven that access to the net does nothing for productvity. I'd have a couple of machines in the lunch area with general access, and that's it. If people need access to specific sites for work reasons, then they would have to run it past the IT department first.
 
Breaker said:
If I ran a company with employees, I'd ban just about every site going right off the bat. I wouldn't be paying people to **** around on the net all day. It's been proven that access to the net does nothing for productvity. I'd have a couple of machines in the lunch area with general access, and that's it. If people need access to specific sites for work reasons, then they would have to run it past the IT department first.
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That's a case of the tail wagging the dog I'm afraid, and is definitely the wrong way around. It should be up to the business to determine if a site should be accessible to users, not IT. If the business determines it is or should be, then IT should allow access... not be the determinants as to whether it should be or not.
 
theMusicMan said:
That's a case of the tail wagging the dog I'm afraid, and is definitely the wrong way around. It should be up to the business to determine if a site should be accessible to users, not IT. If the business determines it is or should be, then IT should allow access... not be the determinants as to whether it should be or not.
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IT do not generally decide any of that...I have never worked anywhere where IT independently decide what can be looked at online. It is always senior management and decided as part of company policy, usually involving the IT director. You only get the "IT are in charge" attitude in much smaller companies.
Also a lot of companies have third parties managing their web access who will often apply content filtering based on various technologies and lists of blacklisted sites.
Content blocking is normally done as a means to protect a company from allowing it's systems to be used for illegal activities. It's not normally done as a means of persecuting employees.
It is usually a good idea, as mentioned above, to supply dedicated PC's which have access to a much broader variety of sites and are available at breaks or lunch (although there is still a long list of provisos with this situation).
Trust me the law regarding, responsibility and culpability of internet based offences is an absolute minefield so it's no wonder that most companies just block it all....just don't lay all the blame at the IT depts door, they are usually just following orders ;)
 
Breaker said:
If I ran a company with employees, I'd ban just about every site going right off the bat. I wouldn't be paying people to **** around on the net all day. It's been proven that access to the net does nothing for productvity. I'd have a couple of machines in the lunch area with general access, and that's it. If people need access to specific sites for work reasons, then they would have to run it past the IT department first.
Click to expand...

:LOL: - you're joking right?
Was there no possible way to procrastinate before the Internet was invented? Used responsibly it's a great tool for most things work related from document templates & sample, forums dedicated to solving specific and otherwise difficult to figure out connundrums to useful information about the traffic at the other end of the country where you absolutely must deliver something.

Agree with other sentiments that it's usually for protective reasons that sites get blocked rather than productivity reasons, and to be honest, I've found in the past, that if you allow people a little more freedom, and the ability to be responsible for themselves most of them tend to work a darn site harder than the ones you treat like irresponsible miscreants.
 
Interestingly the flickr site is banned at my workplace also. Although, what I have noticed is that I can view SOME images that are hosted by Flickr. For example, I posted some photos I took on good friday in general photography and I am able to view some of them, but others come up with red crosses. Must be to do which which servers they are hosted on or something.

To be honest, its probably a good thing as I would no doubt just be browsing flickr all day :nono:
 
Breaker said:
If I ran a company with employees, I'd ban just about every site going right off the bat. I wouldn't be paying people to **** around on the net all day. It's been proven that access to the net does nothing for productvity. I'd have a couple of machines in the lunch area with general access, and that's it. If people need access to specific sites for work reasons, then they would have to run it past the IT department first.
Click to expand...


:LOL:

nail > head though, definately.

I'm with you on this, I dont use a PC at work, well, not connected to the internet, I'm an electrician, judging by the amount of time I waste on the interwebs when I'm at home, I certainly wouldn't get any actuall work done if I was sat infront of one all damn day.
Stop all un-neccesary traffic, all personal crap, booking holidays, reading band reviews, browsing flickr and all that nonsense.
If the productivity goes down, sack em.
After what I've seen in most office environments, they've been getting away with it for too long, the workload expectation must be far too low when for 5 hours per day are spent buggering about with personal entertainment crap, and they still get the work done.....what work...???
I dont expect anyone who works in this environment to agree, you all know who you are:D

I need a title not bitter or twisted party pooper:)
 
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