If you are using google and are being blocked from visiting the sites it returns from your search, click on the “Cached” link below the matched site. This will return the cached version of the document directly from google.com. You may still get errors from the graphics on the page because they are retrieved from the original site even though you are looking at the cached copy. If that causes problems, turn off image loading and you should be okay.
Severian:
I haven’t had to do that yet. So far no employer of mine has expressed an opinion or set a policy regarding how I may use “the internet”, and the fact that I’ve done it using my own computer has really been besides the point. I have set up my own SMTP server (OS X’s sendmail) and with a Black Box “mux” I could access my dialup account via their digital phone lines and thereby provide my own internet connection — something I’ve contemplated for those times when their network is down more than in anticipation of having to work around Net Nanny or Suftwatch or whatever it’s called.
We’ve got the standard stuff blocked here. Pron and hate sites etc. They just blocked the Yahoo! Forum for investors for our company though. Apparently our computer support division has a new boss and everyone was making fun of him on the forum. So, the company blocked it.
[bump]
OK, now I really can’t figure this out. My workplace has apparently blocked a website which I know for sure has no objectionable content. It’s my childhood friend’s website; she is an artist, and she posted some baby pictures on her site. Our company’s policy is that we are allowed to use the Internet as long as it doesn’t interfere with our work; to me, lunchtime certainly should be OK. She doesn’t do nudes or anything; the last time I looked at her site, it had samples of her work (mostly portraits and the occasional mural; the only nudes I remember were a copy of a detail of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and that sort of thing. Certainly nothing that any Westerner would consider pornographic.)
The server is her own; it’s not on Geocities or anything that might come up on the radar of most blocking software. You can check it out yourself at www.gradiva.com. I don’t get it; my workplace is now banning random individual art sites, but not Hotmail or wedding planning sites or a zillion other things that might actually matter in terms of worker productivity. Can anyone figure out how this, of all the random sites in the world, got blocked? I mean I can certainly look at it from home, but the whole thing has no logic.
Maybe she’s named the .jpgs something “naughty” that the filter is catching like babynudeintub.jpg .(Just a WAG tho)
There was also the comment section which has things like:
The “E” word could be a flag, or “Censorship” could be one too…
Some companies, particularly banks, also use software that can detect fleshtones in image files and block them as “potential nudity”. It could be something to do with that.
Let’s see, now. I work at a large high-tech company owned by two engineers, one of whom is extremely paranoid, so security in general is pretty tight, and that includes internet security.
[ul][li] We can’t stream RealMedia, but we can stream Windows Media. I have no idea why one but not the other.[/li][li] No number-only IP web addresses (e.g. 216.221.xx.xx) can be accessed. Period. We get a big warning with the company logo.[/li][li] I used to be able to access the SD and the SDMB, able to post and everything. While I could post new threads, the only way to reply to a thread was to use the ‘quote’ function, then delete the quote as needed. ‘Reply’ on its own would cause an error. WTF? [/li][li] Around last December, I found I could no longer post to the SDMB at all, though I could still read the boards.[/li][li] This spring, I found I could no longer access the SDMB or the SD - I’d get the aforementioned big warning page with the nasty, imposing company logo. I figure it’s because they canned a lot of people in the IS department, so they had to get software to make up for them, since there’s less people to track our surfing.[/li][li] I got a slightly naughty email from my SO with the word “fuck” in it somewhere. Came in with “[SPAM-WARN]” (spam warning) before the subject line.[/li][li] I wanted to access the Stinkyfeet (see: stinkymeat) project to send my co-worker (who hates feet) a picture of the guy’s rotting feet. I accidentally typed “smellyfeet.com” in the address bar. Apparently, that’s a porn site. I got a different warning page, saying something like “Did you know that accessing this kind of web site from work is against company policy? If you try to access this kind of site again an email could be sent to your manager!” [/li][li] They blocked Hotmail for all of two days once, then it came back. Same with fugly.com. [/ul][/li]
The fun never stops.
There are firewall-free “internet workstations” scattered throughout the three buildings that I can steal to if I want to check the boards and post. But it’s a pain.
In any case, I was spending far too much time on the SDMB anyway.
My workplace blocks all sites concerning wine of all things. Guess they don’t want us ordering booze on the job.
As far as I know, there are no sites that are blocked at my current workplace (I work for a university, so the free flow of information is important).
I used to work for the Navy, though, and they had a crude filter that would block sex and sports sites. Imagine my irritation when I tried to go to the USS Essex and the USS Sussex web sites and was blocked. I hope they’ve improved that filter over time.
My husband works for a public school, and as you can imagine, they block porn sites there. However, the kids have figured out that if you go to plastic surgery sites, some of them have pictures of before and after boob jobs, and they try to sneak those in when they think the teacher isn’t looking. Clever.
No one has mentioned it so far, but do these filters all block the various anonymizer websites out there?