Thursday, August 20, 2009

My name is Sam, and I have a problem

Recently my employer has started blocking access to a myriad of web services. Originally it was stated that these blocks were to prevent employees from accesses websites that are forbidden under our polices (gambling and porn) as well as curb the heavy amount of bandwidth use (mostly due to streaming media) that we had been racking up.

The implementation of this new policy really forced me to examine my internet addition as I discovered which site were and weren't being blocked. Below is a list of sites/catagories which are now blocked followed with my reactions.

Social media - While this shows that the people making decisions don't really understand the usefulness of these new means of networking I know that they were being overused by many co-workers (probably including me). I can cope with this.

Wulffmorgenthaler - probably not the most appropriate site to check out during work, but it's no worse than some of the "humorous" e-mails that get forwarded around endlessly. I can cope.

Pwned on camera - see above. I can cope.

Blogger - When you try to access a blogger blog, the blocking software says that this falls into the category of "Forums & Newsgroups" which are blocked, this category includes many blogging services (not wordpress for whatever reason) as well as many forums. This was my first set of blocked sites that I found objectionable, as I use a wide variety of forums to gain information about ducts and pipes. This is what I view as being one of the strengths of the internet, the virtually unlimited amount of information that is available on it. This resulted in medium annoyance and heavy head scratching. (luckily the mechanical engineering group have a blog set up, so I have since gained access to Blogger).

Sports - An interesting group of sites to block, as news sites were not blocked. I can cope (even once fantasy football starts)

Games - It makes complete sense to me to block this category, while I am guilty of playing games at work sometimes, I realize that I shouldn't be doing so. I can cope.

Porn - [Don't worry, while porn is blocked, the porn entry in Wikipedia is not (I think, I haven't checked it)] Who looks at porn at work (we don't have private offices). Blocking this makes perfect sense as it is part of our corporate policies but didn't realize that we were having problems with people looking at porn. I understand, and can cope.

Streaming media
- This is what I thought the whole filter system was for, streaming media eats up an incredible amount of bandwidth which the company has to pay for. Although this is the most heavily abused category of web usage I still think that this can easily be monitored and dealt with on a one by one basis. I can cope.

Web based e-mail
- Discovering this almost caused me to have an aneurysm. That may be an overstatement, but I did have to spend several minutes on the roof of the parking garage cursing loudly to my brother on the phone. A good part of my life is spent online, utilizing numerous tools to connect to people in my life, and all of those internet resources are funneled to me through my gmail account. In addition to that I have been forced to use my gmail account when the one provided to me by my employer is too sissy to perform a needed task (I am limited to 5 MB file size and a total of 80 MB of storage, seriously). While I can understand limiting my usage of the previously mentioned sites, by preventing me from using gmail I am unable to even be alerted if someone tried to use them to contact me. A lot of cursing and thinking about quitting my job. (As previously mentioned the mechanical engineering group has a blogger blog set up, to view this blog one needs a gmail account, thus I was able to argue my need of access, along with this access came a greatly reduced amount of cursing and feeling bad for myself) (And yes, I do realize I have an internet addiction problem)
While I understand that many companies have much stricter internet filters in place, I don't care. These internet restrictions were not implemented due to security concerns or because of widespread abuse. They were implemented because a small group of people did not know how to responsibly use the internet and their managers weren't able to address these issues.

During one of the many conversations with my brother on this issue he used a phrase that I think is very appropriate, "Penny wise, pound foolish." While I can understand someone looking at the sites being blocked and pointing out that most of them do not have any business application, they lose sight of the fact that if I am able to spend a few minutes catching up with my friends outside of work, I am much more willing to stay at work until late at night/early in the morning.

I imagine that this policy will be changing a lot in the near future, even as it was implemented it was being questioned by in the company above my own plebeian class. I'm sure I will write about it as it changes, as complaining is something I never get tired of.

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