I've never had any problem accessing SigForum from work and I've been here in the same office, same employer, same computer/network/login for almost two years.

Yesterday, while I was already logged in and browsing interesting threads, I hit the (Lightspeed System) firewall, blocking SF as "weapons". A quick reload of the page worked every time to get around it. That happened maybe three times.

I would have thought it was a fluke, but it just happened again, this time when trying to load the home page.

Do Lightspeed System firewalls just suck so badly or have short attention spans... or what?

-Rob

blocking software isn't necessarily the same as firewall software.
companies use site/category blocking software to keep employees from accessing non work related sties & junking up the network(youtube, sports, etc). Firewall is to keep intruders out & is usually separate.

You can block sites with firewalls, but it's usually pretty labor intensive to keep up with & easy for someone to get around. blocking 'youtube.com' is effective, unless you know how to use a proxy. Blocking software can 'learn' and add sites & look for redirects and/or inspect the packets for blocking a specific protocol (streaming video, for example). Nothing will kill speed like someone connecting to a 4k netflix/amazon stream.

Sometimes my works' intranet blocks sigforum & sometimes it can get through. I just use my phone. I realize my employer doesn't want me on sigforum 'on the clock' or using their resources for accessing the site.

We don't have a large IT staff, and they're working with incredibly limited means and outdated technology.

They block known proxy sites, but there's nothing I can't get to launching TOR from a flash drive.

-Rob

Maybe they updated the firmware or content filtering software for the firewall.

quote:

Originally posted by BurtonRW:
They block known proxy sites, but there's nothing I can't get to launching TOR from a flash drive.

-Rob

It's really not that hard to block Tor.

's a funny ol' thing. I once saw somebody claim it was "impossible" to block Skype, too. (Skype was purposely designed to get around firewall blocking.) They were wrong

I don't know that I've hard of Lightspeed Systems firewalls. That in and of itself leads me to believe their software is probably not the greatest, and may be suffering from a bug.

If you are comfortable doing so, just ask whoever manages the firewall if they can either unblock the category "weapon sites" or at least unblock sigforum.com.

This will never be a problem for me at my current employer for two reasons:
1. I control the firewall
2. The company owner is a serious gun collector.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by BurtonRW:
They block known proxy sites, but there's nothing I can't get to launching TOR from a flash drive.

-Rob

It's really not that hard to block Tor.

Oh, I'm aware. My previous (more sophisticated) employer wasn't that dumb. On the other hand, I was able to talk one of the IT chicks into giving me admin access to the network, so I suppose there were still some security issues.

-Rob

it could be that whatever source they use to categorize or check against categories was affected by the Amazon S3 outage on the East Coast yesterday. Lots of services use amazon hosting services and servers and it was a major CF for some of my customers.

I'm betting this was what it was.

Network security is beyond the comprehension of most it professionals. Web filtering is only going to be successful using products built specifically for that purpose. Ive been a net admin for 16 years and still see small outfits trying to content filter with $600 sonicwalls and wonder why their staff can still get to youtube...