Are You Working in an Oppressive Corporation?

Firewalls. Proxy Servers. They’re there to keep you safe, right? And to keep the bad guys from ruining the corporate network? Really? Hmm. Let’s think about that for a minute.

Are there websites which come up as blocked when you try to visit them? I know that, for me, when I’m at work there are. I’m told that they’re blocked for “adult content,” or for “dating,” or for “social networking,” or for “malicious software.” That last one gets me quite often, because programmers and hackers are often trying to accomplish some of the same things: send emails, manipulate the registry, change files on disk, etc. I’m “protected” from the sites of hackers, so have to go elsewhere to find the answers to my legitimate programming questions. Because the solutions are provided by hackers … means they’re somehow unsafe?

I run a safe (Firefox) browser, believe me: it annoys ME how many times I have to explain to RefControl, NoScript, RequestPolicy, and/or FlashBlock that I really do want to allow a site to run some script, or display some content from a site that’s different than the site I’m visiting, or to see a Flash video (in the case of RefControl, though, I haven’t had to say much except, “don’t tell the stupid site where I found them, because they don’t need to know!”).

Am I immune to viruses or malware? No: Conficker got onto my work computer and it’s still having a few echoes of that trauma. But I’m not an idiot, either, which is why I’m wondering: is blocking me from all of these “harmful” things a method of social control rather than something which protects the organization? I believe that the case for proxy servers acting as “protection” may have recently been blurred, by the idiot idea that “chat” is a valid reason to block a site. Yes, that’s right: sites which exist for the sole purpose of “chat” are now blocked where I’m consulting.

Why? Well, ScanSafe says that chat is unproductive, and that some huge percentage of the traffic they’ve successfully killed has to do with chat.

Yes, you heard correctly: typing a message into a chat window takes up time. Time which would otherwise be spent getting up from one’s desk, walking around a dozen cubicles, and asking a question which could have been typed out in 15 seconds. Or, you know, time which could be spent sending a text message of, “do I need to go to the grocery store on the way home,” with all of the elaborate hoops it takes to get the phone to do such a thing, rather than taking the 5 seconds to ask the question, and the 10 seconds in response.

I realize that I’m inordinately attached to chatting: I’ve spent the last 15 years with a chat window open, of some sort or other. True, the first 2 of those 15 years was with Windows Messenger, asking questions of the other accountants. Those were the dark, old days of chat, when you had to be on the same network, and nobody much had a web browser. Yes: those days. Since about 1997, though, I’ve had a chat window up which could connect to T., and have asked and answered hundreds of simple questions such as, “where did you put my wallet when you unpacked the luggage?” Those questions which take no time whatsoever to answer (“In your computer bag, sorry, I didn’t think you had anything important in it.”) in chat, but which would require a phone call or a text message to answer otherwise.

So, for over a dozen years I’ve had an always-on connection to home, and perhaps a few coworkers. This week, that connection was ended interrupted by ScanSafe.

My solution? Well, I could have installed some chat software on our ISP (and thought very hard about doing just that). But, rather than go down that route, I went with EFF’s TOR, coupled with a portable version of Firefox browser. This has the added benefit of anonymizing my communication, by routing it through a very twisty path. It also lets me chat with T. and with one of the other programmers, both things which I would not willingly do without.

If you work in an oppressive corporation, consider downloading one of the bundles. Yes, your work owns your computer. It does not own you. If you’re unproductive, I would hope that somebody would notice. If, however, you’re more productive by bypassing their idiotic “security” measures? Good for you, and I truly hope that you can make it work.

-D

P.S.: An added benefit, of course, is that you could check your FaceHook while at work, if you’re silly enough to still have an account.

P.P.S: I bet the network admin is going crazy, looking at my traffic: just about all of my connections have been over secure connections (HTTPS), even my searches (with Ixquick). So, I’m not leaving him much of an idea of what I’m doing on the web. Surveillance? Yeah: evil stuff. Let’s see how long it takes him to work up the nerve to ask me what it is I’m doing, not letting him spy on me.