aaagh- segwaychat has been blacklisted on my co's server
 

We had a recent incident where an ex-employee enjoyed streaming (ahem) movies on one of our network computers. He's no longer with us, but his legacy is that the general manager dictated a new anti-every thing blocker that blocks streaming videos, sports sites, and chat rooms and lots more. Segwaychat is one of those blocked because it's a "chatroom".

The other popular segway site is not blocked- i guess because the word chat doesn't appear in the url.

Is there any address that would get me into my beloved segway chat?
I'm at a local restaurant now, but I don't care for using an iTouch for serious browsing.

I'll check back at lunch time.

Thanks!
Bud

Google "anonymous proxy".

Some of those may have been blacklisted, too, depending on how thorough your sysadmins are.

However, what I'd recommend is talking to your sysadmins about it, and promising to be good, etc. Apparently, the streaming video is a problem because your company has a low-bandwidth connection (relative to the demand). They may be intentionally limiting usage to company-related business, and circumventing this policy could get you into hot water.

You can emphasize that, despite the URL, it's not actually a chat room, which may or may not have higher bandwidth. (I doubt chat rooms are actually a bandwidth issue, however. This makes me suspect it's as much about getting people not to spend work time on non-work sites, as it is about bandwidth).

I'm not a fan of such policies, in general. If you restrict people from doing personal errands during the workday, they should restrict you from asking for any flexibility at all on things that might impinge on their personal time. It's good business to make it easier for people to balance work and personal life.

Funny
 

In so many ways!

One caution: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, give out information like credit card numbers, private information, or anything that could be used in identity theft, when using one of these proxies.

You can be anonymous, you can be safe, but not both at the same time. These proxies can watch what you send to secure sites.

Do you recommend any particular one of these sites? I looked at the first few and they are kinda scary. All kinds of pop ups and pop unders, etc.

It's not worth downloading a virus or something but if anybody has used a particular one with good results, i'd be willing to give it a shot.

Thanks guys,
bud

You might look at the wikipedia article, and google any candidates for people's comments.

The only thing I've ever used one for is investigating suspicious sites, and I haven't done that in so long I doubt whatever I used (if I remembered it) would still be around.

There is, or at least used to be, one that is a commercial product with shrink-wrapped boxes available in stores.

One thing you can do to minimize the risk is to turn off Javascript (or use the NoScript Firefox plugin). Of course, that may make the site not work, but it should eliminate obnoxious popups, cross-site scripting hacks, etc.

Con men like people who want to be anonymous almost as much as they like people who are greedy, so you're right to be careful.

I still recommend actually talking to your IT folks. But I don't know your situation. It could be a good solution -- or it could be risking your job unnecessarily. Or the job could be not worth worrying about... One could argue that a job that would be at risk for this is inherently not worth worrying about! And, in fact, such a workplace would soon find themselves without my services.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Bud, you could try accessing it by IP. http://67.222.135.161/

Careful
 

The first bit of Bob's advice might well get you around the blockage - but it might also get you the sack. Read your company's policy on internet access. If you purposely bypass restrictions put in place by them then you may be caught out and in the wrong. Bob's advice about speaking to your sys admins is much better advice IMO. If they don't allow it - after speaking to them - so be it.

Thanks guys.
Talking to the sys admins is not an option simply because he's going on the edict of the GM for this dealership. I'm not looking to go to any non-work related sites except I do research on work related sites as part of my job (I'm the internet sales manager). I'm working on a project to use segways as giveaways in relationship to our sales efforts so that's my rationale for needing to access this site so I'm not concerned about getting canned. By the same token, this overreaction by my non-computer GM is making the job a lot more difficult. Hopefully it will blow over, but in the meantime it would be nice to have a way to get to places I need to reliably. For awhile I wasn't even able to access my yahoo mail account.

I'll try the direct IP address and see if that solves the problem. Tiny url didin't work. :)

Where I used to work was VERY sensitive about any internet access. Our IT dept were able to permit specific site access to specific individuals by authorising sites through log-on procedures. This permission needed to be authorised by a higher manager...any possiibility of going down that route?