Does Your MIS Dept. Block Gun Sites?

[Pointman]

I am the head of IT in our company and I / we don't block anything. Though i will occassionally block a gaming or job site just to let people know they're spending too much time there.

Besides, if I blocked stuff, the log files wouldn't be nearly as interesting!

 

[Bowlcut]

I am part of the MIS department at work. The boss brought up the computer use policy not too long ago and that we could be fired for breaking the rules. Not sure if it was directed at me or a few others that are starting to surf more on gun sites or what. But i doubt it as he is exmilitary and does talk guns with us occasionaly.

And depending on your network you probaly couldnt get around blocking of websites easily. If you are on a Novell type network using Boardermanager with a halfway pairanoid MIS department then you cant get around it. If they shut down ports then you cant... If they didnt then you can use VNC or such to go around. Id go a step further if you can do that, use a VPN tunnel. And use the home box as your route out, set it up to share the internet connection.

 

[Pendragon]

Someone made a comment earlier about redirecting your proxy. That won't work for us because we filter on the firewall/router level. We also block ANYTHING to do with military, etc. I tried to go to the USMC site the other day and it was blocked.

If you have access to the web proxy, you can access anything and your filter will not be able to stop you.

You do this:

go to www.super-proxy.com (fake)

they will have a box where you type in www.nra.org

Your browser will go to a url that looks like:

www.super-proxy.com/!$#@$%#$%@!#213344/

Yet the NRA page will come up.

 

[Moondancer]

Yes, but only during working hours (7:00 am to 5:00 pm). Anything listed as "Violence", "Weapons", game, chat rooms, etc. are blocked during work times. After five pm, though almost anything is opened up.

"Sex" is blocked at all times. Don't ask me how I know.

 

[Jeff OTMG]

I worked for a company that restricted access to gun sites. I got a copy of the corporate internet usage policy and found stuff in there about not using the internet for political purposes and for offensive speech. I went to the legal dept. and filed a complaint that the internet babysitter software they were using, SURFWATCH, was in violation of out internet policy because it was blocking access to a constitutionally protected LEGAL activity supporting the Democrat party platform and that since guns were blocked as part of the 'violence' area I was being accused of being a violent person, which I considered offensive, and if guns were violent why were they legal. I got access.

 

[HarryRod]

Luckily I run my MIS department.





http://www.wheelgun.com

 

[StLGlocker]

I maintain the filtering for my company. Aside from things that could bring us legal trouble (e.g. harassment suits by offended employees) like porn and "Aryan Nation" type crap, everything's pretty much open, including gun-related sites. I only block stuff that has an adverse affect on our bandwidth, for example a doppler radar tracking thing that several people were using. It refreshed itself every 5 seconds, as if a storm's position could change so fast , and it was killing everyone's connection speed.

Other than that, I don't care who does what with their internet access.

 

[Hot brass]

The gun sites are not filtered, but some non gun sites are?

 

[m.i.sanders]

My company blocks "weapons and violance" sites. Luckly, I control the firewall, the webfilter, and pretty much everything else dealing with where people can go. THR is definetly on the approved list. If it was up to me, I wouldn't block the gun sites.

 

[JW2]

Nope

I work for a pretty big company and luckily they don't block anything I have ever tried to access including gun websties and forums. Good thing since some days I have virtually nothing to do other than surf the 'net.

 

[cordex]

I advised the head of IT at our company in the purchase of his last four firearms.

Go ahead ... guess if gun related sites are blocked.

 

[GlocksRock]

Some are, some aren't, I suspect this one will be added to the short list soon.

 

[MeekandMild]

HAR! They didn't give me a cable to plug into the network at work!!

 

[spacemanspiff]

i can send you some CAT5 meek...got enough spare wiring around here so that i could rappel out of this 5th story window.

 

[Raistlin]

My company blocks "weapons and violance" sites. Luckly, I control the firewall, the webfilter, and pretty much everything else dealing with where people can go. THR is definetly on the approved list. If it was up to me, I wouldn't block the gun sites.

Sounds like you're running CheckPoint's Firewall-1. When we had that, I was the admin, so my favorite gun forums were added to the accepted list rather quickly... We use a different firewall now, and it doesn't mention "weapons" or "violence" in the filtering.

 

[45R]

I AM my works IT guy. !!!!

 

[Shazbat]

My company has since Jan. of last year, ar15.com, assaultweb, TFL, glocktalk, even frugal squirrel's.

This site has escaped their radar so far

 

[blades67]

Nope.

If they did, I wouldn't be able to post from work. But I don't post while I'm on the clock. That would be wrong.

 

[RustyHammer]

I am the "computer god" around there! Not blocked. (Sound of thunder, flash of lightning)

 

[dance varmint]

While there are no restrictions here, I browse via my Linux box at home which is on DSL. I use SSH (secure shell) from work to home, and the text browser 'links'. SSH encrypts everything, so nothing can be read by anyone within our LAN, it does not have graphics so it doesn't appear to be time-wasting frivolity, and it does not cache anything on my office computer's drive.

 

[boyd425]

TarpleyG said "We did some studies last year just monitoring and found that roughly 25-30% of an associates time was spent surfing the Internet on non-job-related sites.
What does that mean? Well, for a user making $50,000/yr it means he is getting $12,500 for sitting on his/her duff not doing anything for the company."

Huh, that's not what I get from it. What I see is a company that hires people who behave unethically (will take your study at face value only for the sake of argument, I don't assume the conclusion) and that the same company has supervisor/manager personnel who prefer to have their jobs done by routers and IT studies.
I have -certainly- worked jobs where -I- spent ~20% of the hours between 9am and 5pm surfing sites my employer didn't require me to read, usually in IT work and always in jobs where I was there until 9 or 10 at night every day fixing systems and more then making up for that time. Far too many employers treat their people like simple costs in a ledger, many of those same employers do "studies" with poor premises and predictable results. All Just IMO.

 

[illuminatus99]

nope, don't block any at all.

I worked for one company who did though, I just set up terminal services on my home PC and logged in and surfed from there.

 

[CAP]

No but we do get quarterly reminders about company usage policies.

I'm in IS and we are the keeper of the keys to the kingdom.

 

[UnknownSailor]

Strangely enough, TFL was blocked for me, right before the end, but THR is still able to make it through.