I figured I should write this up before some of our more colorful writers got hold of it.

Fair Point (4.00 / 1)

Can you say "Big Brother?" I agree the original "we know what you're looking at" software should have been enough. $120,000 is two or three Human Service workers we could still be employing. At least some salesperson made his/her company some more money, and some paranoid, small person can now block the masses from what this person(s) deems harmful.  

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by: HSTGonzo @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 12:15:10 PM UTC

Hey! (0.00 / 0)

Why is the lounge so busy lately?...

The filtering software should be in place sometime later this year (Tucker said he hopes it would be ready for the start of the new fiscal year in July, but said that was an optimistic assessment) and will cover all computers used as part of Vermont's executive branch of government.

He said that would include staff at the Statehouse in Montpelier, but not the shared computers used by visitors or those used by lawmakers in their lounge.

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by: BP @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 14:14:33 PM UTC

Good catch, Julie! (0.00 / 0)

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by: Sue Prent @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 15:17:27 PM UTC

"Other"? (4.00 / 2)

"...pornographic and other inappropriate Web sites..."

Can you spell GMD, boys and girls?...

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."  --Frank Zappa

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by: jvwalt @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 15:56:35 PM UTC

And DailyKos, and ... (4.00 / 1)

You'd be amazed at how often progressive and/or democratic sites are blocked by IT admins (which, whose demographics, some reason, tend to have a very large percentage of Ron Paul accolytes), but not outright hate sites, like Little Green Footballs (yes, that's a real name). They also block sites based on personal preferences and biases that have nothing to do with the appropriateness of employee access to those sites.

Beware the Everyday Brutality of the Averted Gaze

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by: mataliandy @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 16:13:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've always wondered.... (0.00 / 0)

Who the hell looks at porn at work? Usually, porn watching often accompanies another activity which is most certainly something one can't do in a cubicle. I don't get it, as apparently some people are able to, er, pull it off.

You can read JD's latest at five before chaos. Politics. Godlessness. Music. Films of questionable quality. It's all there, folks.

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by: JDRyan @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 16:02:40 PM UTC

I Was Thinking the Same (0.00 / 0)

All I can conclude: the problem isn't with lowly cubicle workers, but actually those who have their own offices (ie, higher ups!).  

"GMD's once proud libertarian-socialist"

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by: wdh3 @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 17:15:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sadly (0.00 / 0)

Having managed young "web 2.0" software engineers (aka: easy, fast internet access), I can tell you that cubicle dwellers do, indeed, surf porn at work.

They tend not to participate in activities other than staring during their tenure in cube land. They do, however, get fired. Typical corporate policy is "one strike and you're out."

Beware the Everyday Brutality of the Averted Gaze

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by: mataliandy @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 17:33:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A lot of the outside companies (4.00 / 1)

Use exactly the same blacklist databases as everyone else, but add their own custom queries on top. If the state already has the ability to monitor internet use, then this outside contract will do only one thing: block a couple of more web sites, but probably no more porn.

Generally, these contract houses simply provide a service where IT admins from around the country can flag sites for blacklisting. Unfortunately, there's often "collateral damage" - because some admins can be over-zealous or biased, so they will block sites unnecessarily, leading to the service blocking, for example, sites discussing breast cancer, because of they contain the word breast; or political blogs on one side of the political spectrum, but not the other; or the sites of software vendors they do not personally want their employers to consider. This overlaid data is distributed to ALL subscribers, so the sites blocked are blocked at all companies, not just the one where the IT admin was blocking things that did not need blocking. (I have had personal experience trying to get a software company unblocked. It's a total pain in the neck, and there's nothing to prevent re-blocking in the future.)

It's a huge waste of money.  

Beware the Everyday Brutality of the Averted Gaze

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by: mataliandy @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 16:06:30 PM UTC

Bureaucratic obsessions worse than prurient obsessions (4.00 / 2)

120,000 Bananas for something that will work only for those state workers who choose to allow it to work.

For 120,000K, the state probably gets a "better" product than your typical blocking software. Or maybe it doesn't, who really knows the way this idiots fall for the marketing of consultants. Never underestimate a republican bureaucrat's eagerness to spend $120,000.00 of our money on a product that doesn't work as well as shareware, open-source software, a $200 Staples product, or a preexisting solution already in their desk drawer.

Assuming the software is so much better for the extra $119,750 (minus licenses) that the state pays for it, that basically translates into three extra clicks to access your favorite snatch site rather than the normal 2 mouse clicks.

This is not about filtering, this is about M86 finding an easy mark in David Tucker, commissioner of DII, and selling him a product that won't work and which he doesn't need.

Will someone please CHALLENGE this simplistic thinking and CHANGE the Douglas team's naive wasteful spending.

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by: Pschauk Paughpette @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 16:28:14 PM UTC

The expense that keeps expensing (4.00 / 2)

No indication of what the update subscription fees will be.  If it's anything like the software our school district is forced to pay for, it will be a substantial fraction of the original cost.  Each. And. Every. Year.

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by: Michael Inners @ Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 22:17:14 PM UTC

Keeping it local as always, huh, Governor? (4.00 / 1)

"[...] The money will go to purchase the software and expertise of a company called M86, which has offices in California, the United Kingdom and Israel [...]"

Nice. Nothing like spending local tax dollars to encourage local work, eh. Look, if you're hellbent on wasting $120K on this futile exercise, could you at least use it as a stimulus package (no pun intended, given the context) and hire a local company to pretend to block whatever offends you, rather than send the money overseas?

If WPAACS (Watching Porn As A Civil Servant) is already a fire-able offense, then surely all they need to do is enforce the rules. Is wasting our tax dollars really the only thing they're eminently capable of in Montpelier?

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by: thingwarbler @ Wed Apr 14, 2010 at 15:00:13 PM UTC