work took away our Office Communicator :*( (the plot has thickened)

[rudeguy]

iPhone? Android?

Wait for Sprint HTC Supersonic with WiMax?

no cell phones allowed. Too many stupid people would pay attention to their cells instead of doing their job. Have you seen people try to drive/walk and text? Its a good policy.

I'm just complaining while the gears turn. The bosses all hate it because they no longer have an instant way of reaching us. I check my email maybe twice a day, so that's not really instant. Someone will get mad enough to fix it eventually.

 

[lokiju]

Adium/Pidgin can do SSL connections and jabber protocol so if someone there set up a jabber server to connect to, you could easily have a secure in house only IM app.

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Where the hell do you work? Guantanamo?

 

[rudeguy]

Adium/Pidgin can do SSL connections and jabber protocol so if someone there set up a jabber server to connect to, you could easily have a secure in house only IM app.

those are both open source too right?

 

[lokiju]

those are both open source too right?

Yep.

Adium is Os x

Pidgin is Windows

 

[Glitchny]

I love these posts. They make me feel better about where I work every time I read them.

 

[rudeguy]

thanks lokiju!

And yeah Glitchyny...its not the best work environment I have been in, but I love the people I work with and they pay is really good. Plus they really do realize that they demand a lot of us and cut us a lot of slack where they can. CPNI laws are just a pain to deal with and when there is a chance where they are at risk, they company has to err on the side of caution. That's the same reason we can't connect anything to USB...technically a rep could copy millions of customers' data. That would be a huge mess and its just not worth it so someone can charge their phone.

 

[trmiv]

Geez. I think I'd jump out a window if I worked where you work.

 

[ShawnD1]

PortableApps?

This is what I do on school computers. Bring mah own Firefox, MSN, Open Office (not every computer has Office installed), 7-zip, VLC, etc.

if you are caught attaching ANYTHING (even an ipod charger) to a USB port, its instant termination.

Put the data on a CD then copy it to a deeply nested folder in public documents.
my documents/system files/user731b/drivers/tools/penis/documents/portable apps/

Geez. I think I'd jump out a window if I worked where you work.

And the management would not understand why. You mean people get bored when they have literally nothing to do for extended periods of time!?!?1 Johnson, why didn't you tell me that not everone is high on meth and can be easily entertained by staring at the wall? I demand a 20 page report on this "boredom" issue immediately.

 

[Tiamat]

I take it you tried the old version of gmail and still got blocked?

My work blocks the new version of gmail, but not the old.

 

[rudeguy]

I take it you tried the old version of gmail and still got blocked?

My work blocks the new version of gmail, but not the old.

<perk>

link?

 

[ShawnD1]

OP, run the stuff on your home computer and Remote Desktop to your home computer.

Remote Desktop is the best thing ever. There's also a crack that can be applied so you can log in as several people at the same time. You could remotely run stuff from from your kid's computer while he's playing games and he wouldn't even know you're the reason he's lagging so bad

 

[AdamK47]

Lucky! I wish my work would take away Office Communicator. Delays between emails make for great built in excuses.

 

[guyver01]

Anyone know of an encrypted IM client or something similar I could recommend?

Yes.

Office Communicator.

You need an Exchange Admin who knows what he's doing.
Office Communicator supports TLS and SRTP to encrypt and secure signaling and media traffic.

 

[GTaudiophile]

TorChat

 

[Tiamat]

<perk>

link?

Is gmail completely blocked?

At my work place, I have access to gmail in both forms, but it gets shut down after about 5 minutes if using the newer version. If it is completely blocked, you can do nothing about it.

But, if you have access to gmail, if you scroll down while in your inbox to the bottom of the screen, there is a small link that says "older version".

 

[F1N3ST]

There's that one DOS command for sending messages between computers.

 

[guyver01]

There's that one DOS command for sending messages between computers.

NET SEND

 

[Mungla]

Websense blocks all protocols except for www traffic on our network. We have exclusions in place for the very specific applications (secure FTP, Webex, etc) that servers need to access on the internet. This blocks IM or pretty much everything dead in its tracks. Add that with Endpoint Protection and employees can't access any form of removeable media unless we have specific exclusions in place for their device ID. Proper security rules on the SecureWorks devices, routers, firewalls, etc, blocks anything else that slips through the cracks. Needless to say, I was tired of having examiners bitch me out every year and finally cracked down on the workstations. Pretty fun from the IT perspective.

However, I do have a dedicated Redhat server running Jabberd. I use Spark for XP and Pidgin for Win7. Both are completely secure since they cannot communicate to the outside world. Our employees think it's the best thing since sliced cheese..

 

[Pepsei]

we use office communicator... and of course it is for internal network only.

 

[AreaCode707]

My work uses Spark and we're pretty security-minded.

 

[boomerang]

Yeah working at a call center can suck especially when it's run by a hitler boss. I worked at help desk but it was very laid back which was nice. The SR dept is run by a hitler boss though. They actually have to send an email to ask permission to go to the bathroom. For their sake, I hope their lottery group wins.

I'm Shakin' It Boss.

 

[DivideBYZero]

MS Office Communicator does offer encryption.

Extract from the MS White Paper "Deploying Office Live Communications Server 2005 and Office Communicator 2005 at Microsoft":

· TLS encrypts information between servers and clients across TCP/IP ports. The default communications protocol in Live Communications Server is unencrypted TCP.
Note: On the server side, Microsoft IT configured mutual TLS (MTLS) to encrypt information that travels between servers.

:awe:

 

[techs]

Here, use this one:

 

[KMFJD]

Firewire? :^P

Edit:
On a more serious note, can you send email back and forth?

That would take too much work