Big trouble

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

Getting in trouble. At work, we use a content-filtering application called Websense to keep people from visiting sports sites and porn sites and checking their stocks at work. Prior to its installation, one of the most commonly visited sites in our firewall logs was ESPN.com. Well, I set off Websense this afternoon:

Status: The Websense category "Sports" is filtered.

URL: http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/compatible_drives.html

As you can pretty clearly see from the URL, I was wanting to see if the CD-R drive we have is compatible with Ghost 7.5. Websense didn’t see it that way.

I printed that message out and hung it on my cubicle wall. That’s what we do with bizarre and amusing Websense messages.

So I just had to do a little research. It would appear that Sabu is the name of a professional wrestler. I learn something new every day. But that raises the debate of whether professional wrestling is a sport. Websense and I disagree once again.

Hey, I never said I learn something useful every day…

And that leads me straight into this:

How I once almost accidentally stole a piano from some Mormons. It was my junior year of college, and I was living next door to the Lutheran church just off campus. I was walking out to my car, which was parked on the church parking lot, when a guy walked up to me.

“Can you get me into that church?” he asked, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

“Why do you need in the church?” I asked.

“I’m here to deliver a piano,” he said.

I had no idea what the church would want with a new piano, but seeing as I hadn’t set foot in the place all year, what did I know? I had a key for emergencies, and this seemed like one. “Hang on,” I said. “I’ll run in and get a key.”

So I came back out with a key, unlocked the door, and the guy wheeled the piano off his truck. “Any idea where they want this?” he asked as he wheeled it through the door.

Seeing as I didn’t even know they were getting a piano, I definitely didn’t know where they wanted it.

“We’ll just leave it here in the Narthex,” I said. “That way Pastor will see it first thing when he walks in, and he can move it where he wants it.” (That’d teach him for not being there when a piano was due to be delivered.)

“This is 305 S. College Avenue, isn’t it?”

I paused. I didn’t know the church’s address off the top of my head, but seeing as I lived next door at 206 S. College Ave., I knew the church’s address wasn’t an odd number. So I told him that.

“Where else is there a church on College Avenue?” he asked me.

There was none. I racked my brain for a minute. “Let me step outside and see what the building number is.” This was Columbia, after all. Maybe they did put even- and odd-numbered buildings on the same side of the street, for all I knew. They do everything else screwy in that town. Then a thought hit me out of the blue. “I wonder what the address of that Mormon thing across the street is?”

So I peered across the street at our squarish, utilitarian-styled neighbor. “Institute of Religion. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” the sign read. Then I looked for a building number. Indeed, it was the address the piano delivery guy was looking for.

He thanked me and wheeled the piano out the door and back into his truck.

I locked the door back up, then went back inside to put the key away. “Have I ever got a story for you,” I said to the first guy I spotted.

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15 thoughts on “Big trouble

  • February 20, 2002 at 11:14 am
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    Actually, it’s the Symantec website in general that is classified in the sports category. Maybe they have a side business of providing the latest sports scores with every new virus definition update.

    I guess I probably should have reported it a couple weeks ago when I first encountered the problem. 🙂

  • February 20, 2002 at 11:16 am
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    Scratch that, the symantec website in general WAS categorized as sports. I guess it has been fixed in websense now.

  • February 25, 2003 at 3:15 pm
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    Hello Im from Maui Hawaii and i just wanted to know how a person can take off websense off the computer im in school right now i attend Lahainaluna and websense blocks mostly every dang site on the internet i just wanna know how to unblock the site i want if you can help me please help me out…..THANK YOU

  • February 25, 2003 at 6:20 pm
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    Tsk Tsk. Trying to disable the people’s software.

    That’s what public Internet and friends with broadband are for.

    Hint: Knoppix.

  • September 5, 2003 at 9:47 am
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    im in school right now in Dallas, TX and im wnderin how the hell you take websense off too. its pissin me off cuz everything damn thing on here is blcked by it pretty much. so any1 out there that knos how to disable it PLEASE tell me. Thanks

  • November 18, 2003 at 12:45 am
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    Dave, I think this is like one of those refrigerated bread-dough starter thingies. The ones you have to feed every once in a while?

    I think if you feed this thread a little bit, it has the potential to become bigger than Sotec.

    And not only that, there’s a veritable universe of kewl d00dz just waiting for you to answer their questions, without them taking time to digest Rich’s hint. You could be, like, so phat. Or bad. Or whatever the adoration word-of-the-day is.

    Speaking of WOTD, perhaps you have a rich, superfluous^H^H^Hid relative (so cool, he’s electric – get it?) who would like to string along some whippersnappers. Hmmmm . . .

  • November 18, 2003 at 3:56 pm
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    Steve A, indeed, R. Collins’ existence is cumbersome. I know this from the many nights he has passed into unconsciousness on the divan in my main den. However, I must correct your assertion that he is rich. He is more properly “ripe”. The rich can afford to buy undergarments, bathe, and dress in the clothes of one’s own gender. R. Collins galavants about wearing a skirt, relieving his excessive flatulence. Draw your own conclusions.

    As to Raigin and jackson, they are obviously products of the American elementary school system, as evidenced by the lack of capitalization, pidgin spelling, and use of numerals as syllables in their posts. A pity that Internet access is provided to those who cannot communicate proficiently, except to post their email addresses for the next harvester to pick up. My advice is to first find a better education, an education rooted in the basics: classical languages, fencing, horsemanship, and so forth. Once literate and less vulgar, they may realize that Websense exists to keep those without OC48 Internet connectivity from hurting themselves.

  • November 18, 2003 at 4:23 pm
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    Note to any of you trying to disable Websense: It runs on the network. Not on the local computer. YOU CANNOT DISABLE IT. So give it up, OK? Read Sportscenter and the Britney Spears fanzines at home.

  • December 9, 2003 at 2:55 pm
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    How do i disable websense at school?

    PLEASE EMAIL ME!

  • December 11, 2003 at 12:16 pm
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    Lucas, your fellow kindergarten d00ds have already asked this question. David has already answered it. Let me rephrase his answer for you: you can’t. Please refrain from eating the glue that you are apparently sniffing.

  • January 7, 2004 at 10:48 pm
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    Let me put it this way Websense in on the PROXY server that the LAN is set to CONNECT to the internet with, thats a giantic hint if you think for a sec, but it can be done, in fact this scheme works with most filters (especially if the IT department is staffed by uneducated people with napoleon complexes and “control issues”

  • January 9, 2004 at 1:21 am
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    If Websense is run through the firewall (which is how crafty IT types like the guy who sits in the cube across from me set it up), then, no, you cannot disable it.

    And Will, it’s not about control issues and Napoleon complexes. Usually it’s about plain and simple liability. Pr0n passed around the office or school makes the school or business liable for sexual harrassment. Not to mention the owner of the T1 has the right to determine how that resource is going to be used. Your constitutional right to see Pamela Anderson naked ends the moment someone else pays the bill for the Internet connection. As my first Journalism professor used to put it, “My constitutional rights end at the tip of your nose.”

  • January 10, 2004 at 2:19 pm
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    my apoligies dave i was not referring to IT people in general, just at our school, they just get a bit too over-controlling of the network, and refuse to listen to the input of others, they even refuse to allow students to work the tech office, even for an internship-type program, but i digress.
    in my opinion when the filter gets in the way of doing legitimate research, for example: religious tolerance or some current events, that i have to do during class, i have to find alternatives, many of the teachers actually support disabling the filter because it’s just as much of a hassle for them and, with a few exceptions, they monitor their students on the internet and know when they are accessing inappropriate content. I kind of see it as traking an accident-prone drivers car and restricting it to 20 miles an hour instead of trying to teach them defensive driving.

    By the way, the scheme i alluded to does work (at our school) and has foiled websense, and Dans Guardian (I think thats the name), so that can clue you in on something.

  • January 10, 2004 at 2:20 pm
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    my apoligies dave i was not referring to IT people in general, just at our school, they just get a bit too over-controlling of the network, and refuse to listen to the input of others, they even refuse to allow students to work the tech office, even for an internship-type program, but i digress.
    in my opinion when the filter gets in the way of doing legitimate research, for example: religious tolerance or some current events, that i have to do during class, i have to find alternatives, many of the teachers actually support disabling the filter because it’s just as much of a hassle for them and, with a few exceptions, they monitor their students on the internet and know when they are accessing inappropriate content. I kind of see it as taking an accident-prone drivers car and restricting it to 20 miles an hour instead of trying to teach them defensive driving.

    By the way, the scheme i alluded to does work (at our school) and has foiled websense, and Dans Guardian (I think thats the name), so that can clue you in on something.

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