I have been able to access the PopChiX forums without any trouble at work for months. A couple of weeks ago my works web security system, Websense, has flagged it in the category of "games" so I can not access it at all. I am wondering from people who are better at IT stuff than I if there is a way we can get it "unblocked" by one way or another. Even if it was under the category of "hobbies" I could at least use my 15 minutes of web quota time. As long as it is under the category of "games" I could get in trouble for even trying to pull up the site. The weird thing is that the main PopChiX site is not blocked, just the forums. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
I'm not sure how much this will help, but when I was in high school, we had a very strict filter. In order to get around it, we used circumventors. Try Stupid Censorship they have a mailing list of other sites too in case that one gets blocked. Hopefully that'll help.
Do you know who might be in charge of the IT stuff at your work, because you might be able to have a word with them, to find out why it is blocked, and maybe get it onto a unblocked or even a white list
I mean there is proxies an that sort of stuff, but most of the time they dont work, and even if they did, and the IT staff or who ever is in charge of it catches you using it to evade it, then you get in bigger trouble.
My advice would not to use proxies to use it (Just incase your thinking of it)
Yeah, please don't go around your IT department, most companies have you sign Internet and computer policies that tell you that you cannot do it. I get PISSED when people do that, and it usually doesn't end well. If you have a cool admin, you can try questioning the filter. I get people asking me all the time to unblock sites that my content filter locks out, and most of the time I do it (Except for damn Facebook. I'll NEVER unblock FB.. they keep asking though)
Yea, it all depends on whos in charge of that stuff, and you can go asking to see why it got blocked, then you might be able to question it, but doing anything stupid will just make it worse
Yeah, pretty much what Eith said. If you're in good with someone in the IT dept, you could ask them about helping you out. Otherwise, I'd leave it alone. Asking someone in IT to unblock a gaming website might piss the wrong person off and the last thing you want is to be in a situation where they're monitoring all your internet traffic specifically or being reported to your manager for some potential work internet usage violation.
I agree, most of us IT people are pretty flexible as long as you make sure we know you're not doing on company time cause if we unblock it and you are, we get in trouble too. But I've done it for a couple people in our office that I know are trust worthy.
It depends on how they're filtering it, sometimes you can get around it by going through another site like the Altavista Babelfish translator, it'll put the page through the translator and you could still see it, or one of the "low fi" site tunnels like http://www.loband.org/ (this is a handy site that lets you view any page in "low band" mode, without images and stuff).
But as the others said, if you do get some time officially to browse the web during the day, then it's worth asking your friendly sys admin if it's okay to get it unblocked. Definitely don't resort to using Proxies and the like, if they catch you doing that you could end up in trouble.
Thank you for all the feedback. Proxy servers are not allowed at our work and I could get in some serious trouble if I used them. I have gotten www.loband.org to work on the site I am planning on using it sparingly though. I don't want to attract too much attention. The normal course of action to get a site unblocked is to get supervisor approval and I know right now that it is not going to happen any time soon. <sigh> at least now I have a back door to post something if I want. I have seen sites become blocked and then unblocked from time to time (like www.he-man.org) so I am hoping that this site will be the same.
It used to be the same in a place I worked. They'd tighten up the rules a bit from time to them, then unblock some more sites and things would go back to normal.
I am planning on using it sparingly though. I don't want to attract too much attention. The normal course of action to get a site unblocked is to get supervisor approval and I know right now that it is not going to happen any time soon. <sigh> at least now I have a back door to post something if I want. I have seen sites become blocked and then unblocked from time to time (like www.he-man.org) so I am hoping that this site will be the same.
