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  • Is it OK to open blocked sites in college/office?

    Kaustubh Katdare

    Administrator

    Updated: Oct 26, 2024
    Views: 1.2K
    In one of the threads, we found out that CEans have different views on whether its OK to open blocked sites in college/office. I believe it can be a very good debate topic.

    Share your views in this thread.

    Here's my opinion on one of the comments posted:

    Originally Posted by The_Big_K #-Link-Snipped-#
    They are blocked for some good purpose. Why do you want to open them, when its not allowed?
    hey that shouldn't be the mentality. Being an engineer one should always try to learn and overcome obstacles. If he is able to bypass through their security then its a lapse from the college's part isn't it ??

    If Steve Wozniak didn't go about fiddling with his weird computer collectibles then we would never had had the beautiful Apple products 😒. Innovation is the key.
    Yes, Engineer should always try to overcome obstacles. However, its also important for an engineer to identify what obstacle he/she is trying to overcome.

    Coming to the point, the sites are blocked because the college does not want students to waste their bandwidth on the sites the college does not want them to visit. A good engineer would rather identify the breach in the system and inform it to the concerned authorities than use it for his/her own advantage.

    For example, if an engineer finds out a way to crack down the ATM machine code; he/she is committing a crime by doing something he/she is not supposed to do. Of course this is not a good analogy, compared to opening opening blocked sites in college.

    What do you all think?
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  • optimystix

    Member • Jan 29, 2010

    well am glad you opened a discussion on this topic. But we are here to think as Engineers and give and share ideas and not decide on being a good engineer or bad engineer . We do have White Hat and Blue Hat hackers don't we ?
    Like in the case of the original thread starter, he wanted to bypass the college restrictions. He should try and overcome it . That's where he learns something, he learns to engineer his way out of the restriction that the college has imposed. We cant help with what he does after that. If he is high on moral conscience then he would have reported later . But even if he didnt one cant really blame him. Is it fair to blame someone just because that person is better than his competitor ?

    only when the first computers were hacked did the people come to know about security issues else would have been oblivious about them.
    Am not supporting hacking and cracking but I believe as an engineer one should know all the things in his field of expertise. without competition there wont be any improvement.
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  • vik001ind

    Member • Jan 29, 2010

    optimystix
    well am glad you opened a discussion on this topic. But we are here to think as Engineers and give and share ideas and not decide on being a good engineer or bad engineer . We do have White Hat and Blue Hat hackers don't we ?
    I haven't heard of blue hat hackers, I think you mean black hat hackers.

    There is no fun in monotonous life if we just follow the things as it is.
    Mostly its curiosity that drives people to do such things & its not so much illegal that concern authority will charge fir against the student. I personally feel its OK to do such things.
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  • optimystix

    Member • Jan 29, 2010

    vik001ind
    I haven't heard of blue hat hackers, I think you mean black hat hackers.

    There is no fun in monotonous life if we just follow the things as it is.
    Mostly its curiosity that drives people to do such things & its not so much illegal that concern authority will charge fir against the student. I personally feel its OK to do such things.
    well the term blue hat is not 'much' used but it does exists in some circles. essentially the white is one which is on the side of ethical hacking ie people working for organisations and governments. black are ofcourse the ones with criminal attitudes and blue is kinda neutral who do it for no particular reason, mostly just to learn stuffs from it and carry on. kinda timepass 😛
    though the term blue hat is not used in general but i have heard about them in some hacker circles
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  • tanmeyamohan

    Member • Jan 29, 2010

    well in my opinion the sites are blocked in an organization to mantain an ambience of officialism and a healthy working environment. Such things really happen for the good, so should not be violated by using proxy sites and all.

    Because all kinds of people exist in a society, some tend to surf explicit content, that kinda destroys the entigrity.
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  • Vega

    Member • Jan 29, 2010

    I agree to Big K. Doing things which are prohibited by responsible authorities is morally incorrect.
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  • Manish Goyal

    Member • Jan 30, 2010

    I can't say anything about office but for college i can say there should be no such restrictions here i am pointing towards college authorities mentality that they want students to only study every time no fun even in college or in computer centre atleast they can provide students to use these sites in free time . but this is also true that breaking such prohibitions is morally incorrect.
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  • optimystix

    Member • Jan 30, 2010

    guys I think we are confusing ourselves with morals/ethics and professionalism

    ethics are not things that can be taught to a person this big.its what he should have learned from his momma. In order to succeed and progress we need to take up challenges.
    tell me guys its way more immoral to kill people then why do we keep armies ??

    this world doesnt stop for anybody . if u think a lot , ull fall behind. as i said if a person is able to bypass college security settings then it shows that this person is smarter than those college people.next time they will try harder. such things help build competition and ultimately helps in improvisation.
    what the person does after bypassing it is upto him. we cant control his motives
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  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Administrator • Jan 30, 2010

    optimystix
    as i said if a person is able to bypass college security settings then it shows that this person is smarter than those college people.next time they will try harder. such things help build competition and ultimately helps in improvisation.
    Would you encourage engineers to breach security and hack into bank online accounts because it shows an engineer is smarter than the engineers who designed the bank's portal?

    There's a thin line of difference between hacking & cracking.

    I personally have experienced the loss of productivity because the social networking websites were accessible from the company offices. To those who want to access social networking sites, which in my opinion add no value to one's knowledge (the focus is on pocking into others lives, debate? 😉 ), can always access them from Internet cafe or at home. College, office is not the perfect place to do it.

    One may argue that companies like Google (and many product companies) allow employees to freely access social networking sites and yet be productive. That's right, but one must pay attention to the work environment they have and in turn, social networking helps the company's business.

    What say, people? 😀
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  • optimystix

    Member • Jan 30, 2010

    The_Big_K
    Would you encourage engineers to breach security and hack into bank online accounts because it shows an engineer is smarter than the engineers who designed the bank's portal?
    that is exactly what white hat hackers are supposed to do. to find out loop holes in the current system to make it more secure from outside. how do these whites manage that if they keep thinking that its immoral to do so? not all whites are employed by these companies. they work for pleasure[mostly come under these blues] and to gain knowledge.

    about social networking sites, even I agree that indulging in them[be it mafia wars,farm ville, tweeting or just scrapping] is an utter waste of time. but there are positives in them too. i too hate chit chatting on these sites but i do visit a lot of informative communities and try to learn from there.
    just like this forum, they are one of the better ways to indulge in man to man brainstorms.
    coming back to the topic, i genuinely believe that theres no harming in doing something like trying to bypass a security as long as its for informational purpose and as long as we keep our ethics right.

    i can give u examples of numerous top ranking computer sites/blogs whose authors put up hacks and cracks on all types pf software biggies and never get sued.
    giving out a crack to public may be illegal to some but one can always argue that its being done for informational purpose. now how public intends to use it depends on them and that's where a disclaimer comes to the rescue 😛 bu that doesnt stop them from putting up these things which can be of informative value

    ive vented my opinions a lot on this topic. wont be posting any more but i wud love to see others posting on what they think is right or wrong.
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  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Administrator • Jan 30, 2010

    Agreed. However, the white hat hackers are paid for the hacking. That means the bank appoints them to hack the site and the bank is aware of it.
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  • vik001ind

    Member • Jan 30, 2010

    optimystix
    well the term blue hat is not 'much' used but it does exists in some circles. essentially the white is one which is on the side of ethical hacking ie people working for organisations and governments. black are ofcourse the ones with criminal attitudes and blue is kinda neutral who do it for no particular reason, mostly just to learn stuffs from it and carry on. kinda timepass 😛
    though the term blue hat is not used in general but i have heard about them in some hacker circles
    The hacker terminology for hackers which lies between black or white hackers are called grey hat hacker not blue hat hackers. They are sort of neutral & possess qualities of both type of hackers & can play from either side ethical or unethical.
    Blue hat hackers are a type of white hat hackers that are used by microsoft for pentesting their product. The term is exclusively used by microsoft.
    See this --- #-Link-Snipped-#
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  • optimystix

    Member • Jan 31, 2010

    vik001ind
    The hacker terminology for hackers which lies between black or white hackers are called grey hat hacker not blue hat hackers. They are sort of neutral & possess qualities of both type of hackers & can play from either side ethical or unethical.
    Blue hat hackers are a type of white hat hackers that are used by microsoft for pentesting their product. The term is exclusively used by microsoft.
    See this --- #-Link-Snipped-#
    thanks for correcting me.. i bungled up in between them. sry, i originally meant grey when i was saying tat...my bad
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  • callyD

    Member • Jan 31, 2010

    The sites are blocked for a reason. If you have a legitimate reason for using the site – talk to someone in charge. I'm against hacking the network... play at home work at college/ office would be good.
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  • Prasad Ajinkya

    Member • Jan 31, 2010

    vik, you are missing the point which is being discussed 😀.

    #-Link-Snipped-# says,
    tell me guys its way more immoral to kill people then why do we keep armies ??
    I don't think it is immoral to kill people. If a person deserves to be killed because of his deeds, then so be it.

    It is immoral to open NSFW sites at your workplace, and it is unethical to try and work around laws that enforce this. Understand the finer nuances of these terms.
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  • Ashraf HZ

    Member • Feb 1, 2010

    There are circumstances where you must be absolute. You can't really determine who wants to hack into the block sites for the sake of wasting time, or who wants to hack just for the sake of learning. Its a similar case with existing laws; you get caught stealing because you don't want to pay, or you get caught stealing because you have to support your family. You can't always have provisions for both instances, regardless of the intentions.

    If you want to do something with good intentions, there are always ways and other channels of doing it.
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