What employees see vs. the truth

A colleague sent this screen capture to me. It’s what he got on his work computer after he tried to access this site, StopBlocking.org:

That’s right. Websense — maker of site-blocking tools — blocked this site. Now, Websense could have been truthful in its explanation for why it blocks access to StopBlocking.org. It could have said, “We’re not providing access to this site because if you read it and agree with it, you may no longer want to pay us for our products.” Instead, Websense resorts to dishonesty. In case you can’t read the small print, here’s what it says:

“Security risk blocked for your protection. This Websense category is filtered: Proxy Avoidance. Sites in this category may pose a security threat to network resources or private information, and are blocked by your organization.”

Let’s be clear: This is a WordPress blog and a WikiMedia wiki. It’s nothing but text and graphic images. There is no software to download, no forms to complete. You need a password to edit the wiki, but that’s just to keep spammers out. No personal information is collected as part of the password process. And you don’t have to be a wiki editor to read the wiki contents, so there’s no need to even get a password if you don’t want to contribute to the contents.

In other words, in absolutely no way is StopBlocking.org a security risk.

I can’t say I’m surprised. Any company that would make up numbers about lost productivity would make up excuses to mask the real reason they don’t want you to read the contents of a website.