Protect Me from Me

I started work for a new client last week. (I should point out that while I’m new to this contract, my employer has been providing staff to this client for years.) This particular client is an exceptionally large company -- I won’t say which company, because it really doesn’t matter. Experience tells me that all large companies are prone to the same aggravations, hazards, and politics. Indeed, as the following chart illustrates, the amount of politics and other nonsense grows exponentially with the size of the company:

Notwithstanding the increased requirements for political correctness, the excessive corporate policies, and the other frustrations that go with working for a large company, I’ll say that the first week or two on any programming job is generally the pits. The first week is usually spent painfully installing and configuring development tools, trying to learn where everything is, and pouring over documentation so boring it makes reading congressional appropriation reports seem thrilling by comparison.

This contract is no exception. What is exceptional is that I managed to trip the Network Monitor on the proxy server on my very first day. (Technically, it was my 3rd day, but since it took them 2 days to get my network login to work, it was my first day on their network.)

I was busy going about the business of configuring my machine, which for me, involves installing Firefox along with a few of my favorite extensions. One of these extensions is for BugMeNot. (If you’re not familiar with BugMeNot, you should go visit the site right now! Essentially, they provide a publicly maintained database of login information for Websites with compulsory registration, and they have a really cool extension for Firefox.)

So I navigate to the BugMeNot site, and what happens? I get this nastly little message from the proxy server telling the world what a naughty boy I've been:

Shame on me! How dare I try to safeguard my privacy! It's a good thing that proxy server was there to protect me. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened? Why, I might have actually avoided using my real email address to read an article from the New York Times! Scandalous!

At first, I was baffled that BugMeNot would be blocked. I thought about it for a bit, and then conceded that since BugMeNot is essentially password sharing, it's not entirely unreasonable to put it in the "Hacking" category if you follow the absolute letter of the law (forget about the spririt of the law, though). Since this company obviously has the "hacking" category checked in their Web filter criteria, that means no BugMeNot.

Armed with a better understanding that Big Brother is watching, I resolved to be more careful with my surfing habits at work. And then... I tripped the monitor again the very next day. This time it was for "Adult Content". What was the this offensive content? What lurid, depraved, Website was I trying to visit using this company's network? It was a page on Snopes (another must-read site that addresses urban legends). I give up.

The problem, I believe, is that we have become such a litigious society that large companies have to take steps to protect themselves, if only to show due dilligence. It's unfortunate, and also a slippery slope. Once a company asserts that it is responsible for some content by censoring it, it becomes legally liable for all content. This in turn forces these companies to become even more restrictive.

I find the whole thing offensive. Maybe I should sue.