Sort of on today's topic...

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Tech support at a college, with the usual student filters. Complaints from a science class - they can't look up all the elements on the web.

Arsenic, and its glorious poison properties? Not a problem.

Plutonium, and how to build a nuclear bomb? No hassles.

Bismuth, ingredient in anti-tummy-upset medicines, useful in x-ray scans and otherwise quite safe?

This site has been blocked due to inappropriate content (Pornography). Your attempt at access has been logged. Please refer to the SchoolSite IT policies.

The word Bismuth has an evil word inside it: BISMUTH.

We amended the filters that day.

Comments

[flinkie.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the cirCUMference filter once. Or the fact that, like 8 years ago, I couldn't access a certain nationwide print-shop's own website - FROM THEIR OWN INTERNET EQUIPPED COMPUTER - because "kink" was a bad word according to their filter.

God, I missed all the good porn stories; I spent five and a half years working for UPS's tech support but never got to delete a damn thing. Sigh.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

Along those lines, I had to help a HR department figure out why emails containing resumes were being quarantined. Turns out the applicants had all graduated Magna Cum Laude.

[wyrdrune.livejournal.com]

Had a similar problem with a recruitment company and candidates who were using "Virgin" as their ISP.

[azzy23.livejournal.com]

At the company you used to work for (and I still work for) there used to be a belgian gent named Ben DeCock (pronounced DeCoucgh *glottal stop*).

a) Bah hah.
b) We all called him "Bendy"

[zendequervain.livejournal.com]

That is AWESOME. :D

[forge.livejournal.com]

bwahahaha

[kalium.livejournal.com]

I remember being unable to look up anything containing the word "ASSignment" in high school, heh.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Note to self: If setting up a porn site, have all the visible text coded as renamed minigraphics and set all the spiderable text to "the", "and" and random selections from popular baby names sites.

[tnjade.livejournal.com]

When I was on the BBSes (back in the day), we couldn't say SaTURDay. :)

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

lol, yup. i work for a major regional hospital, and it's difficult to filter the web. we can't keyword filter at all, how are you going to look up vaginal lesions, penis implants, or breast cancer?!~?!?!

and recently i worked for an isp who's market was filtered internet, they gave us internet for free.

that was good, but i never could look up any information on anything related to one of my favorite authors, and whenever there was a new movie made based on his work i was thwarted at every turn.

he wrote the books that the movies bladerunner, total recall, minority report, as well as most recently the movie NEXT which comes out this weekend.

his name?

Philip K Dick

[(Anonymous)]

LOL, as soon as you said "favorite authors" and "new movies", I knew it had to be Dick. YOu know what's fun? Conversations along the lins of "Oooh, I love King" "Me too! I love Dick... wait!"

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

hehehehe, he also wrote the book "valis" ;)

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

I figured it had to be Dick. Always good when you're saying which authors you love, and you use surnames "Ooh, I love Dick.. Wait!!"

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

lol, yup!

he also wrote the book VALIS :)

[evilbill1782.livejournal.com]

LOL... surely they'd have filted Arsenic, considering it contains the word ARSE ;)

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

I dunno if it's an urban legend - but i heard that the Scunthorpe library site was blocked from within the library, for part of the URL

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Nope it most certainly wasn't an urban legend. When I worked in the UK, we had to get our university filters to allow anything with Scunthorpe through, including their email. Academics get a bit twitchy when they don't get mail from colleagues at other institutions.

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

Thankyou! It's one of those things you hear around, and you're never quite sure if it's real or not. I googled Scunthorpe first to make sure it was a place, and it seemed feasible that it'd be true, but it's nice to hear it from someone who has had to deal with it.

Academics are very good at getting twitchy!

[mystikkk.livejournal.com]

One of my current clients had a horrible time receiving email about their new project ... in Essex county. Filters suck :P

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

I can't remember his first name, but we had someone whose surname was Cock. He had to stop putting his surname in his signature till we got the filter changed.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Does somebody need to take another turn with the regular expression tutorial? :)

besides, "smut" is so 19th century ..