UK fires civil servants for viewing porn

[BJ_M]

i guess a few OT members here are out of a job!!!!!!

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- The British government has fired 19 civil servants and disciplined more than 200 in an unprecedented crackdown on viewing Internet pornography at work, officials said Thursday.

Breaking the story with a front-page headline "Ministry of Porn," The Sun newspaper said staff at the Department of Work and Pensions had accessed 2 million pages of Web porn in the last year. One employee alone accessed 103,000 hardcore images.
The department would not confirm these figures, but said its probe also resulted in one criminal prosecution and a police investigation into two others,

The crackdown is believed to be the biggest of its kind by a UK government agency on employees' Web-surfing habits.

"The (department) takes the misuse of its (information technology) systems very seriously," a department spokeswoman said.

"We regularly scan the computers to determine the presence of offensive or inappropriate material. Disciplinary action has been taken and it may lead to criminal prosecution."

Companies worldwide have invested heavily in elaborate filtering software and devised comprehensive Internet usage guidelines to keep employees from surfing porn sites or downloading free music and movies off the Net on company time.

The measures have had mixed results though -- even among high-tech firms with advanced computer firewalls.

In 2002, PC maker Hewlett-Packard suspended more than 100 staff in Britain and Ireland for using company e-mail to circulate pornographic material.

Surveys repeatedly show that pornographic sites are among the most popular with everyday Internet users.

The British roundup came after a probe into employees' usage of computers and the ministry's data network between July 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004, the department spokeswoman said.

If child pornography is found, police are called, she added.

The Sun said the probe was sparked when one civil servant was caught viewing Web porn at his desk.

The department spokeswoman said the ministry has firewall software installed on PCs, but she could not explain how it may have been circumvented to access the sites. "The Internet, being as huge as it is, things do get through," she added.

Copyright 2004 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[yoda313]

Hello,

BJ_M - Woa, Freaked out there for a moment. I thought Cap copied your signature pic. Then I saw you ripped off cap's avatar.

Whew, everything is making sense now. I thought there were two of each of you. Too weird.

Kevin

[BJ_M]

not the same avatar


just the same cat , before and after (100,000 volts) pics

[Capmaster]

Yours has that punk thing going on

[ViRaL1]

Looking at the article I just have to wonder how dumb some people can be.

[zzyzzx]

[flaninacupboard]

I told you all i had a work internet ban, right.....?

10,300 a year, that's a lot! about 40 a day. you'd thing someone looking at that much porn would do it from home instead, idiot. they just ruin it for the rest of us. and my taxes pay their wages dammit! i'm paying for him to sit on his ass and look at porn! why can't i get paid to sit on my ass and look at porn. Like Capmaster does.

[DVD_Ripper]

OK, the dude that viewed 100k images ... that's one thing... but if that were true here, at my office, then I would be out of a job too with the occassional image posted here. (yes, a few of them would be construed as porn I would venture to guess)

[Doramius]

I only download and view porn at home. I really don't download much of anything at work. I just view computer part websites, Videohelp.com, yahoo, hotmail, google, msn, various sites of information that's posted on videohelp. Mostly just surfing the net for the heck of it. 8)