CNET reports that Gartner execs have told the crowd attending Gartner Symposium that it’s time to relax the network restrictions a bit:
[Gartner analysts] argu[ed] that corporate computing departments shouldn’t block social networking and that security shouldn’t completely lock down communications with the outside world. And even if information technology authorities want to shut down such activity, they can’t.
That is quite a change from IT “lock it all down” policies that I’ve seen spiraling out of control. In my mind, it would be a welcome change. Lockdowns of corporate networks have gone past the point of annoyance into the realm of complete productivity busting. Over the last year, I’ve encountered being blocked from reading essential information regarding Linux system administration (reason: bikinis and/or lingerie. Seriously.) to being locked out of my corporate network entirely due to a password change that didn’t propagate to my maven settings (lost time: roughly four hours).
What’s amusing is, as the article says, blocking is futile. I was able to get to the blocked Linux forum by using my iPhone. I can do the same with social networking services. Ditto instant messaging services that are also actively blocked. The only drawback is that is takes a bit longer.
I’ll just have to wait and see if this takes hold in the corporate world.
