5 ms·

I thought the same thing regarding legacy sites. My workplace blocks file sharing and image hosting websites, so I've been acutely aware of the impact to UX rec

by jmts 10y ago

I thought the same thing regarding legacy sites. My workplace blocks file sharing and image hosting websites, so I've been acutely aware of the impact to UX recently when domains disappear. I can be almost certain now that when there are no images on a blog or stackoverflow post that they were hosted on imgur. I've been considering this for a while but it seems somewhat curious to me that not so long ago hotlinking was a big no-no and as sites disappeared broken image icons on small websites multiplied, and now we have an increasing number of CDNs where hotlinking is essentially the intended usage.

Dylan16807 10y ago
Have you asked what the justification is for allowing general internet sites but not image hosting sites? I can't imagine it's at all reasonable.
- technion 10y ago
  It's a fairly common rule in an enterprise. Unless you can guarantee that imgur will never host porn, it's going to get blocked per an HR policy.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    But you can't guarantee that random blogs don't host porn either.
    - tyingq 10y ago
      I believe it's mostly about legal liability vs actual effectiveness. If someone watching porn causes someone else to file a hostile workplace suit, you can show that you invested in whatever is the standard off the shelf tech to prevent it. It's all kind of silly today now that most people walk around work with 4g phones with high res screens. That leaves preventing malware on company PCs as the sole actual reasoning.
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        And why would the liability be different between random sites and imgur? I fully understand the idea of blocking both. I don't understand the idea of only blocking imgur.
        tyingq 10y ago
        It's meeting the legal definition of "reasonable care" to buy an industry standard blocking tool and maintain it with software updates. The companies that use this software are checking boxes like "no porn", "no gambling". They aren't typically making URL level decisions. The stuff that sneaks by will happen because filtering isn't perfect. The makers of the software categorize popular sites with tags (porn, file sharing, proxy avoidance, hate speech, etc). Less popular sites get content keyword filtering...so something like porn images without porn words can slip by.
        jmts 10y ago
        This is a reasonable description of the internet filters we have. There is a lot more than just file sharing sites blocked, and they usually specify the category they are blocked under. The others just don't affect me as much. Though my above comment about IP paranoia still stands. We have other policies around access to email, USB permissions, bans of VM software etc purely to raise the bar above 'easy' leaks.
    - technion 10y ago
      The genuine answer in many enterprises to something like that is "really? Time to block random blogs then".
    - pjc50 10y ago
      Hilariously, EE Mobile in the UK does the reverse of this. Quite a lot of random blogs are blocked, but imgur and reddit are not blocked. Although if you're foolish enough to access reddit over http not https, certain subreddits are blocked. Corporate systems don't care about a mythical "100% effective", they just want a porn blocking solution with acceptable false negatives. Which gets rid of imgur.
  - philh 10y ago
    > Unless you can guarantee that imgur will never host porn Enterprise policies don't need to be that enthusiastic before they'll block imgur. Imgur does in fact host porn.
- jmts 10y ago
  Paranoia surrounding potential IP theft and leaks.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
I never thought to archive all of Imgur for links from SO, but now I will! Thanks for mentioning this!
tyingq 10y ago
Common enough that countermeasures exist: https://github.com/davisstu/imgur-to-filmot https://github.com/davisstu/imgur-to-filmot (Chrome plugin that rewrites imgur links to point at some kind of imgur proxy that sits on a lesser known domain. No idea if this particular one works still.)

by jmts 10y ago

Dylan16807 10y ago

Have you asked what the justification is for allowing general internet sites but not image hosting sites? I can't imagine it's at all reasonable.

technion 10y ago
It's a fairly common rule in an enterprise. Unless you can guarantee that imgur will never host porn, it's going to get blocked per an HR policy.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  But you can't guarantee that random blogs don't host porn either.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    I believe it's mostly about legal liability vs actual effectiveness. If someone watching porn causes someone else to file a hostile workplace suit, you can show that you invested in whatever is the standard off the shelf tech to prevent it. It's all kind of silly today now that most people walk around work with 4g phones with high res screens. That leaves preventing malware on company PCs as the sole actual reasoning.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      And why would the liability be different between random sites and imgur? I fully understand the idea of blocking both. I don't understand the idea of only blocking imgur.
      - tyingq 10y ago
        It's meeting the legal definition of "reasonable care" to buy an industry standard blocking tool and maintain it with software updates. The companies that use this software are checking boxes like "no porn", "no gambling". They aren't typically making URL level decisions. The stuff that sneaks by will happen because filtering isn't perfect. The makers of the software categorize popular sites with tags (porn, file sharing, proxy avoidance, hate speech, etc). Less popular sites get content keyword filtering...so something like porn images without porn words can slip by.
        jmts 10y ago
        This is a reasonable description of the internet filters we have. There is a lot more than just file sharing sites blocked, and they usually specify the category they are blocked under. The others just don't affect me as much. Though my above comment about IP paranoia still stands. We have other policies around access to email, USB permissions, bans of VM software etc purely to raise the bar above 'easy' leaks.
  - technion 10y ago
    The genuine answer in many enterprises to something like that is "really? Time to block random blogs then".
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Hilariously, EE Mobile in the UK does the reverse of this. Quite a lot of random blogs are blocked, but imgur and reddit are not blocked. Although if you're foolish enough to access reddit over http not https, certain subreddits are blocked. Corporate systems don't care about a mythical "100% effective", they just want a porn blocking solution with acceptable false negatives. Which gets rid of imgur.
- philh 10y ago
  > Unless you can guarantee that imgur will never host porn Enterprise policies don't need to be that enthusiastic before they'll block imgur. Imgur does in fact host porn.
jmts 10y ago
Paranoia surrounding potential IP theft and leaks.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

I never thought to archive all of Imgur for links from SO, but now I will! Thanks for mentioning this!

tyingq 10y ago

Common enough that countermeasures exist: https://github.com/davisstu/imgur-to-filmot https://github.com/davisstu/imgur-to-filmot (Chrome plugin that rewrites imgur links to point at some kind of imgur proxy that sits on a lesser known domain. No idea if this particular one works still.)