Recently, at work, I wanted to convert some nroff files to html. (If you've never heard of nroff, you may want to skip this post.) I have nothing against nroff exactly, but I kind of consider it obsolete (is it really?) and make it a point to not learn it. So, confident that this is a problem that has been solved before, I went to Google and entered "nroff to html". The top site was the roffit tool by the kind and generous Daniel at http://daniel.haxx.se/projects/roffit/. When I clicked on that link (try it, especially if you're at work, and let me know if you can connect) I got a message (thankfully I no longer get the big red stop sign) saying that the site was blocked because it is a "Hacking" site.
Since this was something I felt I needed to do my job efficiently (I mean, I could have taken a few days or whatever to learn nroff and make my own converter), I was puzzled. I found another C program that claimed to do the job, but it didn't really work well for me. I called the first line computer support at work and asked what the process was for getting a site unblocked. I was given the procedure, but also advised that it was rather unlikely that I would be permitted to download and execute code from an internet site that was blocked by the automatic system.
Hacking can mean various things in different circles, so I can't be sure what meaning was intended by the web filter at work. One meaning is "Unauthorized use, or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network." This, of course, begs the question of whether hackers are are people who like to convert nroff files to html. Or, do hackers pepper the web with perl scripts with hidden malicious code, for their own nefarious purposes? (They may do that too, but I trust the security and permissions of our UNIX boxes at work.)
As for solving my original problem, let's just say that it no longer is one.
1 comment:
I'm able to access the site at my workplace. I'm not sure what the policy is at my workplace regarding blocked web sites. There's the obvious stuff that's blocked, of course. Gambling sites are blocked, I know. One year, on the first two days of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, they blocked Yahoo, ESPN, and other sites that update the scores of the games. I'm not sure if it was to minimize network traffic or to minimize wasting of time. I think all it accomplished was to encourage more people to take those two afternoons off, which is what I do now. There are certain newsgroups that are blocked. I used to sometimes read rec.games.bridge during lunch time, but now it's blocked. I can subscribe to it, but no articles come through. I've never heard of nroff, BTW.
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