Should You Learn to Bypass Firewalls and Proxy Servers?
Written by Ryan on April 27, 2009 4:57 am -
I recently wrote an article for MakeUseOf titled “How to Bypass Firewalls & Get Into Blocked Firewalls in School or At Work With FreeProxy.” The article generated a significant flurry of comments that I only partially expected. What I didn’t expect was the significant emotional response from many of the IT administrators who found the article. They bring up a question that demands an answer - should you learn to bypass firewalls and proxy servers?
Some of The Background
I should provide a bit of background for writing an article on how to bypass firewalls and proxy servers. My own IT career is an interesting one. I started out as an Electrical Engineer - at least that’s my chosen, “credentialed” profession. However, through high school and college, I was always heavily into computers - to the extent that I gravitated towards, and was promoted by, each of the computer-related employers that I worked for during and after college. So, what does a guy end up doing who has both Engineering and Computer experience? That’s easy - computer automation of manufacturing machinery.
Being a person in such a position, I have a unique view of both the people who work in the offices and on the factory “floor,” as well as a good overview of the “background” IT that runs the computer systems. Also, being an applications programmer, I have the unique perspective of being an IT professional with a need to install software and modify PC settings to suit the needs of automation software packages. However, what I’ve noticed over the past few years is that IT security, not only where I work but also across the entire IT industry, appears to be taking the issue of IT security to a ridiculous extreme.
Does IT Security Require Folks to Bypass Firewalls and Proxy Servers?
Whenever I search for articles to write on MakeUseOf, I look for topics that are provocative, informational and current. I also search for what a majority of people are hunting for on the Internet. To my amused surprise, I discovered that every month thousands of students are searching for how to bypass firewalls and proxy servers. Does this mean that there are thousands of students who are out to hunt for porn or other sites that could be harmful to network security?
To answer that question, let’s get back to my scenerio. I work with a number of other IT applications folks who have to deal with IT security “patches” constantly breaking our applications. We have more problems with IT security than we do with any of the viruses that occasionally come out. To put it in perspective - my computers at home are protected by the weakest security imaginable. I don’t even bother with Wi-Fi security. If some dude wants to drive out to the middle of nowhere in hicksville, Maine just to use my Wi-Fi connection, you’re welcome to it!
In the end, my home PC’s run far faster and more efficiently than any of the computers at work which are bogged down by excessive security software, patches and filtering. I use Facebook, blogs and several IM applications, but I also run a single version of Symantec that’s constantly updated with the latest virus definitions. I’ve never had an issue with viruses - and the occasional adware or malware gets swept up in the weekly scan.
The Controversy of Content vs. Security is a Reminder of IT “Elitism”
Back to the MakeUseOf article. Most of the IT admins who’ve responded are very sincere guys. Some are apologetic, and others are a little more in-your-face regarding the need for stringent IT security. However, what their responses show is that in general the IT security industry feels a calling to protect folks from themselves. Teens need to have content filtered on high school and college networks, that goes without question. But to what extent? Who says what content is appropriate - and don’t people understand the slippery slope that introduces in regards to freedom of speech and expression?
I understand this mentality from IT security folks, because it was the same situation back in the 90’s. I recall back at UMaine when “computing” was essentially a huge IBM Mainframe, and you did your work on a small “dumb” terminal in the computer clusters. There was no such thing as a networked PC computer cluster - those were machines you used to type word or excel files and print. The Internet was not yet fully matured - or even really “born.”
What I recall back then was a certain elitist mentality by the guys behind the glass windows who sat in the Mainframe room. That mainframe was god. The data and traffic that went to and from it was monitored and filtered by those guys. They took their job quite seriously, and they had many of the same sort of controls to prevent email spamming and other abuses. Of course, the “online” population mostly consisted of us computer geeks at the time - but the controls were in place, and those guys who worked with “God” (the mainframe) started to get a taste of what IT Security elitism feels like. You are in control. You say what gets through and what doesn’t. And you “know best.”
IT Security Elitism Today
With the explosion of the Internet through the 90s, and with the advent of the terrorist threat in 2001, you can see the explosion of IT egotism following suit. Many of us who have moved on in the IT field into applications and support are finding that our own jobs are far less productive because the computers that we install our applications on are constantly changing configuration and “breaking” our apps. The answer is always that the “patches” are for the sake of security. In most cases, when we (the apps geeks) look into that security patch, we learn that the danger does not even apply in our specific case - but the patches are applied across the board. Corporate doesn’t know any better, they believe what they are told by the IT security manager - and IT security thrives on the Internet “fear factor” regarding the potential security threat of viruses, malware and spyware.
I ask you - how real is that threat? And how counterproductive is it when your own IT security group is causing more damage to your company’s productivity than any viruses ever would?
That’s my point of view - I welcome yours!
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