Y Combinator is prohibited

26 pointsvnuk17y ago24 comments

I've been reading HN for couple of months now and I'm really happy with the news that people subit etc. Also, I'm working in my own startup for around two years now and doing just fine :)

Recently I've sent a link to YCombinator's HN to all my friends and one of them (who works in multinational bank) replied to me with this:

IWSS Security Event Access to the URL http://news.ycombinator.com/news is currently restricted because it belongs to the Company Prohibited Sites category group.

26 pointsvnuk17y ago24 comments

I've been reading HN for couple of months now and I'm really happy with the news that people subit etc. Also, I'm working in my own startup for around two years now and doing just fine :)

Recently I've sent a link to YCombinator's HN to all my friends and one of them (who works in multinational bank) replied to me with this:

IWSS Security Event Access to the URL http://news.ycombinator.com/news is currently restricted because it belongs to the Company Prohibited Sites category group.

24 comments

21 comments · 10 top-level

trickjarrett17y ago· 3 in thread

I expect it was the use of 'Hacker' in the page content and meta tags.

eru17y ago

I had a similar experience at the company where I write my Diplomarbeit (thesis). My Ubuntu could not update libpcsclite1, because the proxy did not allow to fetch the package. Playing a bit with the URL a bit revealed that libpcsclite1 includes 'clit'. I had to fire up tor to get around that prude proxy.

[I was able to install Ubuntu in the first place, because I work at a department that does software development for rolling stock scheduling optimization. We are nearly the only ones in the company with computer that are not locked up.]

bvttf17y ago

That's what happened here, it was even blocked as category: hacking. Only lasted about a week, though. Comforting in a way that they had a human check.

1 more reply

wightnoise17y ago

Happened at my work too, I emailed the person in charge of the filter to allow access, next day it was unblocked.

andr17y ago· 3 in thread

Try http://hackerne.ws/ or http://icombinator.net/ or use your phone.

jcl17y ago

Also: http://news.ycombinator.org

fiaz17y ago

didn't know those existed...are those owned/operated by PG?

csomar17y ago

icombinator.net no. the other one is not mentioning it..

brentr17y ago· 3 in thread

Shouldn't these people be working when they are at work?

RandomPersona17y ago

If you're honestly asking this question, I think you've missed the point of a lot of what's said here on HN.

You might even want to pick up a copy of "The Hacker Ethic" by Pekka Himanen.

brentr17y ago

I understand well what is said here. With that said, if you are at work, you do your work. Also, you should not be using corporate bandwith to catch up on your own reading agenda. Do that at home.

2 more replies

tom17y ago

Yes, they should. That said, lunch / coffee break HN is something I look forward to. I get to keep up on with (some parts) of the startup world and generally learn something new every day. Of course my optometrist would freak if he knew I was using my break time to read HN ...

ahpeeyem17y ago· 1 in thread

Big companies often use an off the shelf content filtering setup whose support contract includes blocked site lists with regular updates. I used to work for a bank that used one called SurfControl (who apparently have been acquired by WebSense: http://www.websense.com/site/scwelcome/index.html).

So every now and then at work I would return to a site I'd been visiting regularly and it would be blocked after a new URL database update had come through. Sometimes it would eventually be unblocked again some time after that.

chacha10217y ago

My School has blockers unfourtunately. Blocked me from reading a government website about suicide for an english report.

ntoll17y ago· 1 in thread

I got bitten by this when I worked at an Investment Bank in London. It made me realise how much I valued my freedom to choose what and where I browse. Sad really, as IT staff in big mega-corps could probably do with an injection of entrepreneurial spirit.

Brushfire17y ago

Its likely an automated/keyword filter, or a list they bought from someone else.

Turning off all filtering invites phishing, spyware, malware into your network, so thats not a great solution. My bet is that 9 times out of 10, if you email IT and they check it out, they can get it whitelisted.

CalmQuiet17y ago

Perhaps the bank wishes to avoid brain-drain... and hopes to prevent its IT people from discovering more enlightened employment opportunities in more open parts of the world economy? :/

JeremyChase17y ago

You should also be aware that many large companies have tools to see what you have surfed, and for how often you do so.

If you can ssh out, just forward a port to a Squid proxy on a machine at home or use one of the low cost VPS providers. Then setup your browser to use said proxy on the local port.

You can forward ports on Windows using Putty, and of course you can use Linux/OS X to do this easily.

wallflower17y ago

You can always browse off the mobile network using an iPhone (like I frequently do)

jrg_uk17y ago

This message is just from Trend Micro's Interscan Web Security Suite product (that's the "IWSS" bit. It's typically hooked into existing web proxies via ICAP.)

Trend have an "interesting" track-record of site categorisation, but it's possible that the URL is correctly categorised and the operators of the IWSS have chosen to block that category.

Then again, the people that Trend employ to visit websites probably just saw the name "Hacker news" and filed it as 'hacking'/bad stuff. They probably don't spend too much time on any individual web site.

thelonecabbage17y ago

perhaps the staggering volume of content to keep up with on HN is proving a distraction to their workers.

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