is that not why they have the “stealth” option or sumfin????
stealth will drop the avatars, smilies, pics etc and stops the logs your employers have of your web use containng pr0n sites (people use these sites for their avatars and also link bare dodgy pics from to SJ)
the lack of pics may also stop you getting in trouble if your boss walks over and looks at your screen 😉
but the filtering companies are getting smarter (i’ve been doing research into them recently, a friend of mine once worked for one of their resellers and has provided me with useful info).
First generation web filters were fairly blunt instruments, they would often block a site for the wrong reasons (PV was blocked from many public libraries because of its drugs content, despite our discussion being no worse than an average college or sixth form social studies class) – it was also difficult to assess whether message boards and other “dynamic” (i.e fast changing) content sites should the permitted.
now they have both software and humans monitoring message boards, They assess the boards on content (how many swear words, links to “inappropriate” sites, whether the moderators take action or not) and if too much “bad” stuff is there it is blocked, but sometimes only certain pictures or certain threads. Even so this is done by an anonymous, unaccountable “posse comitatus” of corporate web users 🙁
Some filters (not all) do this without warning the end user, but still keep logs for bosses/IT depts 🙁
There are no easy solutions to get round this, other than only doing your party-surfing from home, and letting us know (from your home account if necessary) if you or your friends ever see party sites being blocked.
Its 2005, not 1995 and the business world now controls much of the internet. They put the money and resources in to the bulk of it, and they define the rules. One of these is that companies decide what their employees can and can’t look at.
You either have to put up with this if you want to use these resources, or start adding your own less monitored resources such as sharing broadband links between your friends/communities using either fixed or wireless networking (which is the original ethos of the internet).
