Slashdot Mirror
FOI Request Reveals UK Houses of Parliament Workers' Passion For Adult Content
Anita Hunt (lissnup) writes "Hot on the heels of Dave Cameron's demands to make such content universally 'opt-in,' the Independent reports 'Westminster computers were prevented from accessing sex sites 114,844 times last November alone and on 55,552 in April, while February saw just 15 and in June officials blocked 397 attempts.' No explanation has been offered for the variation, although it would be interesting to know if the fall in the number of recorded/reported attempts coincides with the date the FOI request was filed."
They 'reclassified' accessing sex sites to count just recreational visits, not for research, study or to watch the "Prime Minister Fucks a pig" video(*).
(* for those who dont know its a reference to a show called Black Mirror by Charlie Brooker)
Those figures look bogus.
One month has 114,000 accesses, another month just 15.
I'm suspicious of those figures.
Of course, I do still expect that they are a bunch of porn hounds.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
First off, the definition of "sex site" is always questionable in this kind of situation, especially a workplace. Second, an infected computer is a pretty effective way to "hit" a lot of porn in a short period of time, at least as network monitors would count them. Third, it's been several months, meaning any number of variables could have changed that would significantly change the quantity of "hits".
It feels silly to count "hits" in this day and age. I'd better stop reading this thread before I get nostalgic for the days when I got to hate Geocities.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I'm guessing this play would no longer find as large an audience.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
either that or a corresponding increase in the number of members and staffers with internet-enabled mobiles.
they did not get "moral" overnight without reason (such as embarrassment, job loss, run out of office, loss of funds, loss of political clout, whatever.. or some people no longer get logged at all anymore)
Thought we got rid of them 400 years ago - seems they found their way back...
and started looking for those nudes of Kate from their home machines.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
So-called "Fair Work Australia" the Australian Labor government's workplace commission declare that using your employer's facilities during work hours to distribute pornography to fellow employees is not a sackable offence.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/sending-porn-emails-at-work-no-longer-a-sackable-offence-fair-work-commission-rules/story-fni0fit3-1226710444957
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/porn-emails-at-work-not-automatic-sacking-offence/4933426
http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/porn-not-an-automatic-sacking-offence-tribunal-20130903-2t3ki.html
Three Victorian postal workers were dismissed after using the Australia Post email system to distribute sexually explicit material in their Dandenong workplace. They appealed, and the full bench of the Fair Work Commission - in a non-unanimous judgement - found the terminations were harsh and the workers could be reinstated. Two of the three commissioners said in a statement: "There is an emerging trend... regarding the accessing, sending or receiving and storing pornography by an employee as a form of serious misconduct that invariably merits termination of employment."
> FOI Request Reveals UK Houses of Parliament Workers' Passion For Adult Content
OH THANK GOD, they're normal human beings.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
nuff said
What bothers me about this is content is filtered in the first place. True, respect for politicians is at an all time low, but they are supposed to represent the public and the idea that someone, unidentified can control what information these representatives have access to is troubling on principle.
Privatize the government and this shit wouldn't happen. Basic economics. Statists around here are too dumb to understand this though.
We have bluecoat in my office and I frequently hit a link for generally something funny and get BLOCKED: ADULT CONTENT warnings. Fact is, in most workplaces EXCEEDINGLY few people are actually stupid enough to genuinely look at pornography on the computers, far more often it's a false match or an interesting interpretation of what constitutes "adult content"
This article isn't worth a damn but it will get your average person up in arms about those "scumbags in Parliament!!!"
Move along, nothing to see here.
No, say it isn't so!
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-01-23/
To update it to today, "So you're pitting your intelligence against the collective sex drive of everyone?"
--
BMO
Then there's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-TA57L0kuc
If everyone's allowed to look at porn, then you, who writes the laws, are not superior for you are not above them but standing alongside them.
Just like the catholic church wants no one else diddling little boys, the republicans want no other men having sex with college boys, the UK government wants to be the only ones around able to download titties.
All of those initiatives to ban things for "morality" only ever come down to a single thing: "Because I want to be more special than you are"
We have a no porn policy posted at work as part of the hostile work environment compliance. We have a corporate filter with a splash page providing warnings. Policy does acknowledge the occasional mis-directed web page, bad search result, ads for adult content or products. Even Slashdot provided some warning pages due to some troll links that are NSFW.
Even though I have never searched for Adult content at work, I get the splash several times a week. Sometimes several ads on an otherwise normal page have shrunken warning splash screens so based on counts alone, normal web activity including surfing Slashdot is good for several hits to several 10's of hits on a Adult or other restricted site link. Hacking is the other big reason I see the warning page, but the description given for the reason the site is blocked is for hacking. When I follow info following Defcon talks often provides prohibited advertisements or articles or "Hacking" websites.
If you are not on a corporate filter/proxy, then you may not realise how easy it is to add to these counters without even trying.
The truth shall set you free!
Due to embedded iframes everywhere you look, i bet a lot of the blocked 'attempts' were due to these, and not the true intent.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Your server filters will only register blocks when the client browser requests it, which probably means they are running ad-blockers in their browsers now. Seriously nothing to be excited over. Browse the web 'unprotected' and you'll get porn ads.
Nothing to see here.
They are listing the number of blocked events. If they adjusted the filter to not block, the sudden fall in numbers would be explained.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I posted this elsewhere too...
Government Spokesperson said: "We do not consider the data to provide an accurate representation of the number of purposeful requests made by network users. [There are a] variety of ways in which websites can be designed to act, react and interact and due to the potential operation of third party software."
So they admit that their own statistics for their own filtering software are probably junk, and yet theyre happy to propose filtering and blocking on ALL of us {UK} because of some statistics about protecting children and the harm of pron.
"Some parliamentary staffers also hit back at the claims, blaming overzealous smut filters for mis-classifying innocent websites: The problem with the Porn Story Parliament Computers thing is that sometimes PICTs filter blocks news stories as pornographic"
Our elected representatives are researching news of the day on a filtered connection that may or may not be providing them with the full range of results. Then they decide if theyre going to be bothered to vote on a motion that they may or may not be fully informed about?
And they wonder why those of us with a least a passing interest and knowledge of how the series of connected tubes works, are telling them that the proposed new laws are a disaster?
There wasn't just a fall in blocks; there was also a rise. That's called a "spike," and it can be indicative of abnormal behavior, especially when said spike goes from 15, to 55,000, to 400. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature can see that this is an anomaly.
Moron.
Naw, they just all got private iPads (albeit invariably on the taxpayer dime).
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!