How many of you have your PCs blocked at work?

[shooter1201]

My employer uses 'BESS'(It's a real B!TCH, too!) to block 'certain' sites. I am truly surprised that I can still access THIS website. One site that I was able to access yesterday, is now blocked.

For example: www freetranslations.com is a website that I used last year with my Spanish-speaking students. It is now blocked because 'Bess' claims it has 'exploitable links'. Translation? Their POS programming isn't up to par, so they simply block a site, rather than working around the 'problem'.

George Orwell had NO IDEA how true his book '1984' would end up being.....

[TheSpoon]

Our online access has a block, and I have no problem. I only got blocked once in the past year, and that was while accessing an online EMT handbook b/c of graphic materials...blood n' gore and the word 'sex" (as in male or female or other)

[Niteshift]

They tried that on me one, using the blocks contained in Explorer.

You can't access a lot of things that we need, like the sex offender database etc.

It only lasted a day.

[TexReserve]

I am employed as a computer technician for a school district, and our browser software is definitely blocking. If not the boys and girls would not need any classes on sex education. It kinda sucks if I want to browse a lot at work. Tried to go to Glock Talk and it blocked that. Guess I'll just have to wait to go to the gun sites when I am at home.

Stay safe all.

[klar]

My work has a block on all chat sites. I can access a forum like here but all of what I do is monitored. I guess that way they can see who is visiting the sexual explict areas during working hours.

Klar

[RoadWarrior]

Our service is down altogether right now. Our computers have a program on them that captures every keystroke, and even captures pictures of the screen every so often. Sounds to me like they don't trust us. I just wait until I get home to surf, it's nobody's d*mn business what I do online.

[Mitzi]

I have a friend who is a high school teacher. Another teacher friend asked her to help him block sites in the library computer because of the kids. To do this, they came to come up with words, like boobs, to block the sites that came up on that word. Well, she said she was sitting there calling out all the words thse thought might be in a pornographic site and he would then block the site.
She said she was horrified to lok up and see an buch of students standing behind them, shocked! lol!

[Bravo8]

We use We-Blocker. It's a real pain in the ***, because it blocks some sites for strange reasons. For example, I can't access anything in Yahoo except the front page, because, according to We-Blocker, it contains "pornography".

Now I use Netscape, which doesn't seem to be too compatible with the blocker, b/c I can access anything without tripping the censor.

[Summer Rain]

I don't know what type of blocker my employer uses, but it's a pain in the neck. I can't even access sites about body armor, this BIG red hand pops up and says Access Denied! Dayum, that's scared the heck out of me. I thought a SWAT team of IS guys were going to come rushing into my cubucle! LOL .. guess I'll have to wait till I get home to get into certain sites.

[shooter1201]

At one point, my police department's website was blocked. Go figure....

[Niteshift]

That was how I got the blocks removed right away....... I showed them that we couldn't access the Sheriff's Office website because it was unrated.

[RachelR]

My company doesn't block anything.. but everything is logged. A specialist was just fired actually for viewing porn online at work.. How stupid is that!

[unhappycop]

Most cops where I am don't have open online internet access. We can get it but it is closely monitored by the Intel cell.

We have a windows based e-mail system that runs through the police mainframe. This has a censoring/vetting program on it, which rejects mail containing certain words and phrases. We can send pictures because it is used to email offender photos around the state. It will reject MPEG's because people were sending little stick-flick grabs. It also monitors bulk email usage.

A few people got in the p00 because they were sending bulk porn and jokes to their mates etc...

[mp200901]

Deleted as contained outdated information.

[unhappycop]

You see, I don't completely disagree with their policy, MJP. This is because my mother has a few work associates who send her jokes etc. The volume of some of this stuff from ONE PERSON sometimes takes up to an hour to download (all the JPEGs, MPEGS, MP3s, WAVs etc...) Given that it ties up her modem and download speed for that long how much work is this person NOT doing while sending all the crap. Bear in mind each email is going to 20-30 people, so she has to compile the user list etc...

I can (and HAVE) seen MASSIVE productivity losses form this sort of carry on, and I'm sure police departments (like to corporate world) are not oblivious to it.... Forget about "civil/human rights" issues. Not a flame, but COME ON!!!!!! These are work performance issues. Or perhaps the department could charge the employees with "obtain benefit by deception" (fraud), for taking their salary while not doing their job. JUST JOKING BY THE WAY!!