Does Your Company Censor the Content for You? 434
"In this case, words were not just filtered out, but the text had been changed so that the document still made sense. I suspect that someone monitoring a log and suddenly saw a document show up a bunch of times with the offending text in it. Then they modified the cached copy (I was viewing it a day after it hit the Slashdot front page) to make the alarm go away.
I have mix feelings about this, on one hand, even though the text in this case was meant as a joke and the content wasn't very offensive, I was using company equipment. But on the other hand, this company is a government regulated entity which isn't above pressuring its employees to vote the way management thinks is best (whether it is or not is a question for history). So I guess I'm scared that the company could push an agenda though 'stealth channels'. I realize that the information I read online can't always be trusted, but there are many people who don't know that. It's probably important to note that, while there is a policy of acceptable computer use, there has never been a notice that they might change the content we see online.
What are the feelings and/or experience of the Slashdot crowd on this?"
Sad but true (Score:5, Funny)
---------
The real Gzip Christ is user number smurf
Re:I am sick of it (Score:2)
I doubt they were filtering... (Score:2, Interesting)
Programatically? Has anyone heard of a proxy/filter doing this? I haven't.
Re:I doubt they were filtering... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I doubt they were filtering... (Score:3, Funny)
Think of seeing that R-Rated action movie cut up for network television. You know the edits themselves were entertaining.
Re:I doubt they were filtering... (Score:3, Informative)
When they had bleeped out the word "fuck" (or something), the captions had the unedited text! I searched the net about it and said for budget reasons sometimes they don't censor captions.
Re:I doubt they were filtering... (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, I just couldn't help it.
Re:I doubt they were filtering... (Score:2)
The first time I saw "Leathal Weapon" was on network TV. The edits in that are particularly amusing, but my favorite "edit" by far was one of Danny Glover's. After being shot in the shoulder and having lye and salt poured in the wound, Glovey says, "Go spit!"
I laughed my ass off... imagine my surprise when I saw the uncut movie a week later and found out Glover really said that. Per
Re:I doubt they were filtering... (Score:2)
Re:I doubt they were filtering... (Score:2)
Has anyone heard of a proxy/filter doing this?
We have Privoxy running at work (and I do here at home). It can do on the fly text mods in it's "playful" mode.
My question is... (Score:2)
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:My question is... (Score:2)
Re:My question is... (Score:2)
Photos of same sex partners.
wbs.
Hell No (Score:3, Interesting)
We don't do content filtering/alteration, though, though I'm guessing our proxy can do it. If you can get to the site, you'll see what's on it. Period. Well, assuming what's on it is available on port 80/443
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
My condolences.... (Score:3, Interesting)
When the current government of ghana was elected, the new govt won every district where the TV and radio had been deregulated, and the old one won every one where they were state controlled.
The power of media is very real, and very scary.
Oh, woe is me! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh, woe is me! (Score:2)
We don't have any NT servers anymore. We're 2000, but since I'm the sysadmin I'm working on Linux. Helps when you bring up to the teachers' union that Linux could save mone
More than likely... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's highly unlikely your company has someone sitting around reading every web page requested through your proxy and quickly censoring it before allowing it to get to you.
No, it's Badly Broken Censorware (Score:2)
Most censorware only blocks pages that aren't algorithmically correct, but there's some out there that also deletes the dirty words, for whatever value of dirty the authors' dirty minds can imagine. Obviously, as you say, it's highly unlikely that your company has a Squadron of Elite Gorillas reading every page looking for political incorrectness; it's probably a word or phrase filter, like the kin
Re:More than likely... (Score:2)
I think the parent post is right on target. According to the message board thread about this article [straightdope.com] the article has been substantially edited since it first appeared (Cecil Ad... err, Ed Zotti himself even chimed in to warn of the pending changes). I read it when it was first posted and, while I don't remember specific differe
Did they inform you? (Score:3, Interesting)
Bottom line: if the company informs you of this, even if it's on page 356, Appendix B of the employee handbook or way down at the bottom of the Rules of Use, then you can't complain about this.
Now if they didn't inform you, that's bad. But before asking Slashdot, I'd ask your sysadmin. Or your BOFH. Or your PHB. Of course, that would involve admitting that you read /. at work, which may or may not be a problem at your company. You may find out it was some overzealous PFY in the systems group who was afraid that the PHB might see "lesbian" on an employee's computer and tomorrow there might be a FOX News story "Employees at Company Foo use corporate networks to access porn." Sure, that's a little far-out, but PHBs are primarily concerned about covering their asses.
Re:Did they inform you? (Score:2)
Really? Wouldn't there also need to be some kind of a "first ammendment override" clause?
Re:Did they inform you? (Score:2)
Really? Wouldn't there also need to be some kind of a "first ammendment override" clause?
No. The First Amendment to the Constitution only limits the actions of the Federal Government, not private institutions.
If I work for a newspaper and they decide not to print my article, it's not censorship, it's editorial control.
Going the other way: If you work for a company, they tell you that you are not to use company resources for per
Re:Did they inform you? (Score:2)
Well if the private institution tried to sue the guy for complaining about their policy on slashdot, it seems the first ammendment would apply (while the fact that there was some fine print would not).
Regardless of the 1st ammendment, it seemed the poster above was confusing the concept of "can't complain" with that of "wouldn't have a case in a court of law"....which are very different
Re:Did they inform you? (Score:2)
My point is that people have the right to speak out if they disagree with something their company does, even if the company has legally protected themselves
Perhaps off topic.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Chain letters = fired
P2P apps = fired
Harassment = fired
Using Internet resources to maintain your own business is also against the rules, but it is very clear that it does allow casual web browsing, news, industry things, even personal websites so long as your duties at work are not interferred with. Coming previously from Big Blue, I found this to be an amazing change.
Re:Perhaps off topic.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh, what you describe sounds exactly like IBM policy to me, last time I certified that I had read it.
Re:define p2p (Score:2)
Sanitized for your protection (Score:3, Interesting)
You have companies that are hypersensitive about any sort of lawsuit involving "sexual harasment" or anything resembling it. Since the court cases have been siding on the side of people who are far too sensitive for their own good, there is some cause for it.
Another part of the equasion are control freaks who worry about what people do at work. They want everything filtered to only allow "work related" things. They want to produce and produce and produce with no thought to anything else in your life while you are there. (These are also the same people who tend to take long lunches and have all sorts of porn on their computers.)
Yet another set are the moral control freaks who think that they need to prevent anyone from seeing anything "naughty". (These tend to be rarer, but I have seen places where this has happened.)
All in all, it just creates contempt and dissatisfaction for the company by the employees. Adults do not like being treated like children, for the most part. People who get treated like this are more likely to bail when the opertunity presents itself. Of course, since MBAs are taught to try and turn all of their employees into interchangable parts, they don't quite get a clue how bad it hurts them in the long run. (Or the short run, for that matter.)
If you are unhappy with the situation (Score:2)
Re:If you are unhappy with the situation (Score:2)
And people wonder why there are labor unions...
Re:If you are unhappy with the situation (Score:2)
And people wonder why there are labor unions...
How could you even compare the two? On one hand we have reading slashdot, chatting with a friend, make a joke about lesbian porn, all while at work. On the other hand we have health and safety violations.
Please, form a union that will lobby for the right to waste time on the clock, thus wasting the company's money. I'd love to see how well that works out.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:YOU ARE ALL WRONG! (Score:2)
I just now read something funny, but I doubt it's because you're trying to be a comedian.
Re:YOU ARE ALL WRONG! (Score:2)
"You automatically lose the argument if you use an unrealistic extreme to prove me wrong." -- NJG.
You may want to read up on Reductio ad absurdum [wikipedia.org]. Whatever your personal distaste for it, it has fine credentials [wolfram.com] as a valid and useful form of argument.
-- MarkusQ
Why does this surprise anyone? (Score:2)
There have been incidents posted here (on Slashdot) before about content/news stories on the big outlets being "updated" without notice. That story you read last week might be "remembered differently" now...
This is simply the next logical step in the erasing history as it happens. Modify content, delete facts or quotes, change facts too.
This page has been blocked (Score:2)
Thanks for surfing on company time....
Oh Yeah (Score:2)
Anonymizer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Anonymizer (Score:3, Informative)
But you have to pay... (Score:2)
Yeah. Sure.
Dan Aris
Re:Anonymizer (Score:2)
IF it's in violation of the policy. It's doubtful it would be; surfing some sites through it might be, but proving that was happening is more difficult.
However, once they find out about specific anonymizing site, they would most likely block it.
Re:What employer *doesn't* block Anonymizer? (Score:2)
The easy way around this: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The easy way around this: (Score:2)
Don't be a Dick! (Score:3, Funny)
As in
Dear Dick,
We enjoyed dinner the other evening...
Three things (Score:5, Insightful)
2) "But on the other hand, this company is a government regulated entity which isn't above pressuring its employees to vote the way management thinks is best (whether it is or not is a question for history). So I guess I'm scared that the company could push an agenda though 'stealth channels'." Honestly, if your concern is that democracy is being subverted by your employer's policies of mind control you may want to just work elsewhere.
3) No, whatever filters you have aren't there to surreptitiously insert pro-Arianna Huffington messages in Something Awful. They're there because if you and your friend discuss the NumLock article and say "lesbian porn" loud enough for a coworker to hear, she can sue the company for sexual harassment over the creation of a hostile workplace environment, and take money out of everyone else's pockets.
Re:Three things (Score:2)
Re: Lawyers (Score:2)
As a devout anarchist, I'm horribly offended at your lawyers remark. You'll be hearing from my baseball bat.
As a reformed geek, I'm horribly offended by your use of the word "baseball". You'll be hearing from my laptop.
Re:Three things (Score:2)
Cleanly rewriting text with any "inappropriate" content -- difficult.
Bullshit. Make a list of words in the form of "part of speech"="word". Then you just need any of many available products that break sentences into parts of speech, and check for any "word"s, and replace them with any word from your dictionary that is also "part of speech". A little tweaking and you can even make it appear on topic. Sometimes it wouldn't make sense, but most of the time it would make perfect sense. It's called "Mad L
bypassing the filters (Score:2)
Therefore, I have circumvented it by tunneling most of my traffic through SSH to external machines running the squid http proxy and socks (for IM).
All they will see is intermittent encrypted traffic on port 22 (or whatever port your SSH server is on). Of course it would help if you have an excuse for needing an SSH connection. I'm covered as several servers und
Re:bypassing the filters (Score:2)
Some of the weaker filters will also not block pages that are framed on another URL. If you have access to a webserver you could just create an html fo
Re:bypassing the filters (Score:2)
Re:bypassing the filters (Score:2)
Easy enough to set up your SSH software to listen on another port, or even tunnel through HTTPS, etc.
An exercise in probability (Score:5, Insightful)
A) A person at the poster's company edits incoming web pages to sanitize them.
B) A program is able to remove offensive language while leaving a result that makes sense.
C) Two versions of the article were posted on the original website at various times, and due to caching the poster and his friend are seeing different versions.
D) The poster is in error about or inventing what they saw on the page.
Happens Where I Work (Score:5, Funny)
At least the company I work at is honest! (Score:4, Funny)
teaching high school (Score:3, Informative)
I only found out about it after a friend responded to me asking me what I was trying to say.
Corporate voting "recommendations"... (Score:2)
At many of my (previous) employers, there are political action committees (PACs) to which management is "strongly" encouraged to donate, and exempt employees are recommended to donate.
among their usual actions are a election-time list of candidates whose views on industry-relevant issues are favorable to the company.
Violation of Copyrights (Score:2)
Bill
i'd start a job search (Score:3, Interesting)
First I would stop any "above and beyond" performance. I would do my job as it was expected of me but I surely wouldn't work weekend or late hours anymore. The office is a 2 way street. I supply my abilities and do the work, they pay me. Thats the usual way it goes. But I also am willing to go above and beyond without complaining because I'm given the leeway in my internet and personal time while at work. If that went away so would the extra stuff. I give them more, they should give me more as well.
Then I would start looking for a new job. Its easier to find a job when you have one.
Re:i'd start a job search (Score:2)
I beg to differ.
Before leaving a job, I'd work extra hard for the last few weeks. When a new potential employer calls to ask about past job performance, your boss will likely give them a good review of you [like 'He has been finishing projects ahead of schedule.
Re:i'd start a job search (Score:2)
Keep in mind that for many employers, policy forbids giving any information beyond the 'legal requirement', good or bad,
Legality? (Score:3, Interesting)
Once you edit content, you as the ISP lose your "no liability" status as to what gets sent and received by your system. That's why some colleges got sued by the RIAA when they tried to slow (but not stop) file sharing.
What I've discovered (Score:3, Funny)
[Vote Bush]
Curses, expletives, slang is part of communication (Score:2)
For instance, if I get an email from a customer telling me: "your software is fucking terrible!" then I know this is really bad. If I read instead, "your software is gosh darn poor" then this carries somewhat less force.
You see what I'm getting at? T
No, my company does not censor content. (Score:2, Funny)
No my company does not censor content.
It is a good company with excellent benefits and competitive pay.
They support the community and donate generously to local charities and organizations such as [@orglist@].
@companyname@ is an equal opportunity employer.
%UNDEFINED: @companyname@
%UNDEFINED: @orglist@
%CHECK FILTERBOT_GLOBALS.INI
What does it change it to (Score:2)
If as you say the text had been changed so that the document still made sense well you could replace every occurance of the offending phrase with \random and it would make sense.
The smurf example in the first post is an extreme but you could probably have substitutes for all the offending words in their varying formats nouns, verbs etc and not destroy the grammer. But I think it would be impossible to not destro
Re:What does it change it to (Score:2)
Like this: (using any adjective noun combination, and noticing the DOS prompt)
where is the offenstive material? (Score:2)
Upon a careful rereading I came up with two possibilities. First, and most likely is the math lesson on bitwise math operators. In my experience the average person get very offended why I start talking about math. On several occasions I have feared for my life. Most of the time, though, the bird I am chatting up just wal
Filter shmilter (assuming you can SSH) (Score:2)
Probably possible to do something similar with mail, at least with an outside address.
If you don't have SSH access it *might* be possible to actually run your SSH tunnel out your companies port 80. Assuming that such a thing wou
Censor? (Score:2)
We don't have filters (Score:2)
At another place I worked, I must say there's nothing quite like showing a new realtime log analyzer to your boss and seeing it pop up a bunch of suspicious animal porn (?) links during the first minute, after several days of rather uneventful testing.
Try JAP (Score:2)
I use it at work even though they don't filter anything (or so they say, but they can still log where one goes).
It is pretty "smart" in the sense that it also re-routes all the DNS requests through them, thus nobody will be any wiser on where you're going, all they see is an SSL connection going somewhere, I guess they could decide to block the ip-block, but supposly the system can get around this as well.
There were some concerns recently as the B
Our town library does this for the Web (Score:2)
Our town public library filters out words like that from the public-access Web terminals.
A couple of years ago, I was reading a friend's journal online, where he seemed to say that someone had sent him an E. Another page showed me a list of " ing lists". It turned out that they block out a certain set of words from all pages-- and one of the words was "mail"! (They have a special room with computers which let you read email, and you have to pay for that, so I guess that must be why.) Of course nobody ever
I sent a mail which bounced... (Score:2)
Make a few bucks (Score:2)
I would have thought more of /. moderators (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet if I sent mail to Wired News asking the same question this guy asked, if someone was to write back, they would probably inform me of the fact that the pages was modified, then cached.
In these days of companies losing money, laying off workers, etc there's no IT department I've seen who has the funds to hire an army of people to dynamically change content for their employees.
You'd also think, if there was software that was intended to do wide scale dynamic changes web content the moderators of one of the biggest geek sites on the planet would know about it.
Be wise.. !
Company property (Score:3, Interesting)
I know I am taking it far, but the real truth here is that you really don't have a lot to say about how a company uses it's equipment and if you don't like it your options are limited, put up with it or leave.
It may not seem right but perhaps that is because we feel freedom should extend into our jobs but the reality of it is that we sell some of our freedom when we accept a paycheck. We all know this and have to somehow accept it and live with it.
Violation of free speech (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the company's network and computer, so they should be free to BLOCK any content they want, but they shouldn't be able to use that power to mislead the reader into believing the publisher was saying something that they didn't. It's fine if they want to ban me from using their phone to make personal calls; but if they allow me to make personal calls they mustn't secretly use voice processing hardware to alter the words I hear or speak.
It is a violation of free speech because it *secretly* robs the content publishers of opportunities to deliver their intended message. If they block a web site or inform the user that the content has been altered, the user still knows they can go elsewhere and access the unmodified content. But when it is altered secretly, the user is misled into believing the content had certain information, without the knowledge that they need to go elsewhere to see the real infromation.
I can smell a lawsuit from the content publishers brewing.
Corporate Rights (Score:3, Interesting)
1. It is their computer.
2. It is their network.
3. It is their monitor, it is their hard drive.
4. They paid for it, they can do what they want with it.
5. You are their whor^H^H^H^Hemployee.
6. They paid for you, they can do what they want with you.
Simply put, your rights as an employee are subservient to their rights as an employer in terms of the information you access in their emplyoy. Yes; you have rights over theirs when it comes to discrimination issues (age, gender, race, creed) but, in terms of information, censorship is entirely their right.
7. You have the right to leave at any time without notice and without fear of reprisal.
Re:Corporate Rights (Score:3, Insightful)
So what? The author is made nervous by the company's creepy abuse of its power; the author's remedies include leaving or, if said creepy abuse of power is in violation of contract or state or Federal law, suing. That doesn't make the abuse of power any less creepy.
Speaking of creepy: I find it profoundly creepy that people tend to respond to "thing X is unethical/obnoxious/gross and I don't like it" with "no, thing X is not actually against the law". It lends all too much credence to the idea that ne
Re:Would rather have it blocked (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I can tell, it's probably still under the umbrella of "legality" for a corporation to censor incoming email content, since they can argue they own the network and the systems, and add the assertion that "your email at work is not private".
I've always felt that email should have the assumption of being private, since it's just the electronic equivalen
Re:Would rather have it blocked (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Would rather have it blocked (Score:2)
There's no doubt in my mind that they are legally entitled to restrict whether any given content travels over their internal networks.
That isn't quite what they've done though; they've altered, apparently without permission or acknowledgement, someone else's w
Re:Would rather have it blocked (Score:2)
there are countries where letter privacy(doesn't matter if it's postal delivered or not) applies to email, on work servers, as well. if it's protected by any password(look, all it needs that accessing it normally needs a password) or some such, it's assumed the same status as if it was a closed letter with your name that was delivered on your work desk, and yes such mail is for you and somebody else opening it can be a very serious crime.
likewise
Re:Uh oh (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm glad at the company I'm at now, I was able to justify my own DSL connection for lab use
As for the PGP, the company I'm at now, encourages the use of PGP for email
Re:Uh oh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:simple filtering test (Score:2, Funny)
Re:simple filtering test (Score:2)
Re:Well you are at work (Score:2)
When I have a problem, I often turn to google and paste in the error message, or a description of the problem, and generally google will come back with some usenet posting or mailing list posting that will help. Not sure I could deal without that.
Also, with
If all you
Re:Well you are at work (Score:2)
And thats just for projects and R&D work. A web browser, outlook, and 2 instant messaging applications are open the entire time I am at work. Messaging is not only useful for planning lunch and contacting people for personal reasons but also excellent for inside the office to exchange files or quick messages. Much faster than em
Re:I do. (Score:2)
I call BS.
You filter because you want people to work the entire time and run the business like a factory. I wonder what your turn-over rate is.
Re:I do. (Score:2)
Its not about the job or the work, its about respect. In a work place if the employe
Re:SCO's real secret documents revealed! (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.pornolize.com/cgi-bin/pornolize2/porno
Re:Yes ours does, but only by blocking (Score:2)
Re:Tough filtering (Score:2)