Stupid Web Filtering...

[phillipjfry]

So its week 3 at my new job (please hold ur applause)and I'm supporting the new computers that are being installed from the previous night. Needless to say, after the first day of deployment there is alot of downtime (all of which is spent running around these forums). As the days go on, more and more websites are being filtered and I get the nice default webpage saying "this content is not allowed blah blah blah". I tried googling for some sites that offer free web proxys and today, to my surprise, all those websites that have anything to do with web proxies are now blocked. Any ideas? Should I keep looking up on google for web proxy sites until I find one that isnt blocked and see how long I can get away with it? Also if I click on links to "forbidden" sites (eg. clicking on google for web proxy sites), does that throw up a red flag in the logs saying some individual is trying needlessly to look up proxies? Any and all comments and suggestions welcome. I love this site and shiver at the thought of someday Macrumors.com might end up on the block list...

 

[emw]

So its week 3 at my new job

My suggestion - try to make it to week 4 of your new job. Your company sounds like they have a fairly strict internet usage policy and your choices are to abide by it or look for a new job.

While at work, painful as it may be, you should be doing work (do as I say, not as I do...) not worrying about surfing the 'net. Sure it sucks - and I've been in situations with highly restricted access myself - but you may need to confine your MR time to when you get home at night.

Searching out sites for proxies may or may not throw up a red flag, depending on the software their using for monitoring, but even if you found one, getting it to work may be difficult as well. Just be happy you can get to MR now.

 

[phillipjfry]

Well without really disclosing the somewhat sensitive nature of my job site, there really, honestly, truely, isn't anything to do after the first few days. Being stuck in a satellite job site and having to kill four days of nothingness leaves me no other recourse. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your "keep to your work" idea, but as I was told by my much-higher-ups; downtime is the hardest part to deal with at my job. I guess I should stick to the sites I am allowed and be happy I can keep up with everyone on MR

 

[emw]

I guess I should stick to the sites I am allowed and be happy I can keep up with everyone on MR

I suppose you could set yourself up with some wireless broadband service, and surf outside the work firewall.

Of course, that might be a little expensive for a few days of downtime.

 

[phillipjfry]

That might also be a possibility, but since I am one of the very very few tech's who do not own a laptop; SOL

The financial prospects of this job has started ideas of going completely Apple by the end of the year, with my first imac and first ipod being ordered at the end of january, followed by a MB purchase by mid-year.
The lack of myspace-ing and youtube-ing is really demoralizing and causes for loss of production, I should inform my upper-management about this and hopefully they might consider allowing our (us techies) accounts to bypass the filter.

 

[baummer]

That might also be a possibility, but since I am one of the very very few tech's who do not own a laptop; SOL

The financial prospects of this job has started ideas of going completely Apple by the end of the year, with my first imac and first ipod being ordered at the end of january, followed by a MB purchase by mid-year.
The lack of myspace-ing and youtube-ing is really demoralizing and causes for loss of production, I should inform my upper-management about this and hopefully they might consider allowing our (us techies) accounts to bypass the filter.

Workaround: find some sites relevant to the work you're doing, and ones that are blocked. Inform them of this and that you should be given unrestricted web usage in order for you to do well at your charges.