We are not supposed to check commerical e-mail accounts (like Yahoo or Hotmail) at work. The IT people think we will bring in a virus. I talked to my mother at lunch and she was having a bad day so I decided to send her a Yahoo greeting for cheer. I know not to open anything odd that comes to the account. Anyway, when I clicked on the link to Yahoo mail, this window came up reading “Access Denied!” The name of the program which wouldn’t let me to the site was called Super Scout, or something of that ilk. Is Super Scout going to report to the IT people that I tried to see something not suitable for work? I hope not; my boss would flip, even if it is just checking personal e-mail. :mad:
Probably nothing at all will happen. Your company has bigger fish to fry.
Thanks, Plan B. That’s a cool name.
I actually work for a town, a teeny-little town.
BTW, Hallmark.com has a free e-cards too, in case you ever want to send a card from work. No tip-off re: Yahoo or Hotmail that way.
I work in a County government building and get that message all the time. I am a contractor so they can’t really fire me. Every time I pull up the Pit, The Onion, or Savage Love I get busted. I just wait a bit and try again and it seems to work fine. I should probably stop doing this, but in your case I wouldn’t sweat it too much.
Then I think you have even less to worry about. Usually no one cares until you get into trouble for something else, then they may have a right to investigate your computer usage. There are a few IT guys who are real Nazis about this stuff. They prefer to go on fishing expeditions to see who they can nab. Doesn’t happen that often and even they wouldn’t be excited about an attempt to get on yahoo.
I’m a geek at an ad agency. I have much better things to do than follow up on every penny-ante access denied report.
I get denied access from all sorts of completely harmless stuff. I don’t worry about it.
Although I used to be denied access from here and all of a sudden now I can access no problem…occasionally I think the IT guys are out to get me and it’s a trap. Then I put my tin foil hat back on and all is well.
I’m one of those paranoid IT people . You have nothing to worry about.
Somewhere there is a log file that details the site you tried to access, the time you tried to access it, your computer name, your name, your social security number, and the name of your next door neighbor’s pet iguana from when you were 12. That log file will sit on a server for six months, then will be permanently archived to tape. The tape will sit in off-site storage for 7 years, safe from rain, sleet, snow, and dark of night.
Nobody will ever look at the contents of that log file. We really don’t care what web sites you visit. You could spend 12 hours a day surfing porn sites, and we really don’t care as long as you don’t download anything onto your computer that you shouldn’t. Of course, 99.44% of people are apparently stupid enough to click “Yes” to any and all windows that pop up when they are surfing the 'Net, we need to have these kinds of restrictions.
In fact, the very fact that you are concerned enough to post here means that the policy is working (at least on you). And without people like you, your IT department wouldn’t be able to justify the money they spent on their Internet filtering software, so they really should be thanking you!
Damn, I’m glad I don’t work where you work!
I can browse anywhere I want to at work. Nothing’s blocked, no policy exists. As long as I’m getting my work done and I’m not tying up their available bandwidth with serious pipe-clogging activity, they really don’t seem to care. Was that way at my previous 3 jobs.
I’ve tried to visit some blocked sites at work…for some reason, I can access Drudge Report, but I can’t search the archives. No one has come for me in handcuffs.
Once, I clicked on a link during the 2000 election purporting to be a site to petition the inclusion of third party candidates in the televised debates. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a porn site, complete with a detailed description of some porn star’s labia surgery.
I immediately got out, and told my boss what happened. Nothing ever came of it, but I wanted her to know what happened in case IT came and said, “Your employee Ivylass is searching for porn sites.”
I got them to unblock one site…it was my children’s school website. I asked why it was blocked, they checked and unblocked it.
Don’t sweat it. They only get upset when you download games and stuff onto the company drive. (Yes, someone downloaded games!!)
I was the IT security manager for the place that I work at. We use Super Scout (the hand and all that). All the software does is check against a list of “forbidden” sites. You can tweak it to add what you like, so that the drones can’t access stuff. I turned off all the email sites (we have active virus scanning), all the financial sites (it’s quicker to do your banking on the net than on the phone) and all the sports news sites (better you have a window with score updates than listen to a radio).
The best response when you get an “access denied” message is to call your IT people and tell them “I don’t know what I did but I got this screen with a hand and some message or other. Do you want to come and have a look or should I just forget about it?” Guess what the answer will be.
Alternatively you could become the security manager and then the only person checking what you do is…you.
AHunter3 I’m the same way at work. I don’t even think there IS tracking software.
We don’t really have work to do here, anyway, so I get paid to dabble in the SDMB!
I love this job. 
I was in charge of the web tracking software at my old job, and we ran monthly reports on web surfing statistics. No one ever got busted for doing something simple like checking their email (which we also blocked. They do bring in viruses!), but it on several occasions it flagged people who were doing serious porn surfing at work.