# Sigh... I'm blocked from The Game Room forum at work now. How do they know? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [February 22, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sigh-im-blocked-from-the-game-room-forum-at-work-now-how-do-they-know/572250 "2011-02-22T17:48:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sigh-im-blocked-from-the-game-room-forum-at-work-now-how-do-they-know/572250/21 "2011-02-23T12:50:43Z")
> [@TubaDiva](#): > > Dunno what they might have in place at your office but where my Mom works IT (and her supervisor) can see exactly what they’re doing/what they’re typing/where they go/what they’re looking at. Local government office – they’re on camera too, apparently. It’s like working in a fishbowl except that fish have more privacy. > > While all this certainly sounds extreme (at least to me, naive person who works from home), I suspect more and more places of business nowadays are intrusive like that. > > I’m so sorry this is happening to you and I hope some sort of reasonable workaround can be found. Actually I’m surprised any of you have access to the Dope at work at all, considering. They definitely _can_ where I work - but with 20,000 employees, I just think it would take too much effort to analyze everything that everyone does. eta: instead, they just block tons of sites and don’t give us great speed ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sigh-im-blocked-from-the-game-room-forum-at-work-now-how-do-they-know/572250/22 "2011-02-23T12:56:48Z")
I once reviewed a book with a title that could be construed as suggestive if you had that kind of a mind, and e-mailed the review to my editor. After deadline, she e-mailed me to ask me where my copy was. I answered that I had sent it well in advance of deadline, and sent it again. She didn’t get my reply and called me, thinking I was sick or something, as I never miss deadlines. Of course, it had gone into her spam. ---
**Author:** ![tellmenolies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tellmenolies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellmenolies)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sigh-im-blocked-from-the-game-room-forum-at-work-now-how-do-they-know/572250/23 "2011-02-23T15:15:31Z")
Sometimes people block sites, (especially with a lot of employees) even without seeing or knowing them. I know where I work they monitor HOW LONG you’ve been on a site and it gets flagged then reviewed. If it’s not work related it gets banned. Sucks, yeah cause I usually get on things (facebook) when my work is done. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sigh-im-blocked-from-the-game-room-forum-at-work-now-how-do-they-know/572250/24 "2011-02-23T19:25:30Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I’ve heard that some computer systems won’t let you mention Scunthorpe, a perfectly good Old Norse name for a town. There’s at least one major (generally left-wing) blog whose software blocks comments containing the word So CIALIS m. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sigh-im-blocked-from-the-game-room-forum-at-work-now-how-do-they-know/572250/25 "2011-02-23T19:50:55Z")
I’ve worked at places that have a whitelist. In other words EVERYTHING is blocked and you hvae to contact the admin to get into a site. The site is given either permanent access or is accessable for a day or so. When I did IT for a hotel, we had tons of tools to block and montior, but we never used them at the hotel level. I know corporate could look but I don’t know if they did. Our people were very good, few people actually used the Internet improperly. Most of the personal sites were like banking sites (employees probably checking to see if their direct deposit hit) or stocks or newsites. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sigh-im-blocked-from-the-game-room-forum-at-work-now-how-do-they-know/572250.md?page=1)