Firewalled

A firewall is a device or set of devices configured to permit, deny, encrypt, or proxy all computer traffic between different security domains based upon a set of rules and other criteria. A firewall is normally used to protect a computer from unauthorised access from external sources as well as to prevent a program from communication over the net without the user’s permission. It is also used in corporations and educational institutions to restrict access to certain sites and features on the internet. No, this is not a technical post but I thought one should have a little idea about the topic at hand.

In the recent past, I have had to deal with a couple of firewalls which is the reason why I decided to write about it. My first run in with restricted internet happened when I was doing my internship in an IT company. The company was insanely paranoid about information security and had probably taken every possible measure to block out almost all possible websites. It took a while for me to grasp the gravity of the situation. I could understand social networking sites were blocked in order to prevent employees wasting time on them, but I was a little confused about why even email couldn’t be accessed and I was prohibited from using gmail and the like. With no real tasks assigned to me, I was finding it hard to pass time so I decided to read comics, and that was when I discovered that even these sites were blocked. I was a little intrigued and decided to dig a little bit and discovered, though unconfirmed, that every website that had .com in its URL was blocked, and some sites had been deliberately unblocked. Although it was taking information security to a paranoid level, I could still understand the need to an extent.

Now my current situation is a little different than what I underwent in the IT firm. I am in a post graduate college doing an MBA and the college felt that it was prudent to firewall our Wi-Fi connection to prevent hogging up of bandwidth by some students, because of which they restricted downloads and blocked out torrents and P2P file sharing software like Limewire. This wasn’t a very unusual move as it is done in most educational institutions which provide an internet connection to their students. However there were certain anomalies, although these more popular means of downloading were blocked, the college didn’t take the trouble to block out sites which offered direct downloading. This flaw in their system will definitely be exploited by the students as and when required.

This was quite acceptable though, because despite the inconvenience caused, blocking large downloads was expected for the greater good of all the students. The college had almost no restrictions when it came to surfing the net, and very little content was actually blocked. Orkut, one of the most popular social networking sites was blocked, probably because of the legal issues that it had been having recently. This was quite an irritant for most people but it was a minor setback which could be overcome with the use of proxies. But, and it’s a nice, loud, throaty but, other social networking sites had unhindered access. Some of the equally popular sites like Facebook could easily be accessed anywhere in the campus. Which made the act of blocking out Orkut, dumb, unnecessary and redundant.

The last straw though, was that many instant messaging software like Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger are also blocked by our institute. Gtalk though, works perfectly, and so do all web messengers. This only meant that the authorities just wanted to be difficult and annoying, exacting sadistic pleasure through needless acts of oppression.

I was a little confused by these hair brained schemes thought by the higher authorities and after a fair amount of contemplation, came to the conclusion that this is probably what Management is all about. If you feel you can’t implement a strategy perfectly, and foresee flaws and loopholes which will be exploited, then do something to convince yourself that you tried, and at the same time confuse your target audience. If you can’t beat them, confuse them.


fire wall

–noun

1. a partition made of fireproof material to prevent the spread of a fire from one part of a building or ship to another or to isolate an engine compartment, as on a plane, automobile, etc.
2. an integrated collection of security measures designed to prevent unauthorized electronic access to a networked computer system.