They Look At Porn All Day, So Others Won't Be Able To

from the quite-a-job dept

Ever wonder what sort of person takes a job looking at porn sites all day for web filtering companies? While (for some) it may sound like a dream job, those who have it say it isn't as much fun as you'd think. They also feel the need to keep their browsers as small as possible for people walking by their desks. I find it somewhat amusing that inside a company where they build porn filters, you're much more likely to accidentally see some porn as you're walking around the office. However, the group of people who work in the "porn filtering" department seem to be a little clique at the company. They eat lunch together. They hang out together on weekends... and they even share amusing websites with one another. The company has made counsellers available to the porn surfers, if they feel they need it. However, it sounds like it's not a problem for most of them. They quote one saying, "You become desensitized. It's just porn." Of course, this is the same company that has stuff on their webpage trying to scare potential buyers about the dangers of porn.
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  1. identicon
    Oliver Wendell Jones, 2 May 2003 @ 11:47am

    Ghostzilla?

    I use a browser called Ghostzilla that is pretty sweet for surfing the web at work. It hides itself as a document window in whatever application you have open at the time and displays all text as light gray on a white background (which is very hard to read from a distance) and shows dotted line boxes where images are supposed to be. Move the mouse over the box and the image appears in black and white. Move the mouse outside the window and the window goes away instantly revealing whatever you're supposed to be working on at the time.

    Why can't they use a browser like that if they're really concerned about what their employees or coworkers might be seeing by accident?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Bent, 2 May 2003 @ 12:33pm

    Re: Ghostzilla?

    Hmmm... Ghostzilla sounds like a very, very bad idea -- you might be hiding stuff from people who walk up to your desk, but the network admins sure can see where you go. Don't think you're anonymous out there!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Duffman, 2 May 2003 @ 1:04pm

    Porn surfing

    When I did some work for national defense, there was one guy who went through the intel gathered from various sources' computers. He had a screen across his cubicle due the immense amount of porn he had to go through.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Oliver Wendell Jones, 2 May 2003 @ 2:59pm

    Re: Ghostzilla?

    Ben,

    I don't surf any sites I shouldn't from work, just probably spend more time surfing than I should. This way when someone walks into my cubicle they don't see a screen full of color, they see what looks like an open e-mail in my Outlook app window and when I move my mouse away it turns into a real e-mail window.

    Based on the amount of HTML based, image intensive porn spam I get, either they don't care about naughty pictures on the network or there are too many other people getting the same SPAM for them to filter through it all.

    I've noticed recently that a majority of the spam I get (30-50 per day) the To: and CC: lines contain other people from within my company but from locations all over the globe, and it's usually the same set of names I'm seeing. Kind of makes me wonder what twisted path all of our e-mails went through before ending up in some spammer's list of 'real' addresses.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 May 2003 @ 8:44am

    according to Edwin Meeze...

    ...they should all be sexual deviant child molestors now...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 May 2003 @ 8:49am

    Re: Ghostzilla?

    yeah... nobody's anonymous!

    That's why I keep a stash of fake subscription
    porn sites blocked to all execpt my work's subnet.
    Then, when somebody leaves their terminal
    unattended, I surf out to these sites (this is
    much better than sending out a work-section
    broadcast e-mail saying something completely
    stupid and unlikely. You'd be surprised how
    quickly you can climb the corproate ladder when
    thouse around you are busy getting fired.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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