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Question

EEAA believed that it was off topic. Actually it's pretty pertinent to serverfault, and you can learn as a sysadmin, how to avoid users to circumvent your protection. One can both learn and prevent.

BONUS FUN: Motivation is

This question does not appear to be about server, networking, or related infrastructure administration

Obviously browsing websites with restrictions it's not about networking or infrastructure administration. Clearly

Obviously there is something wrong here.

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    I'd also add your meta questions would be so much better received if they didn't feel like personal attacks. As this does. Focus on the problem and make a case, rather than immediately going on the offensive Oct 17, 2016 at 15:37
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    You might want to review how you ask questions. Immediately pointing the finger at a moderator and saying he's unfair. Making a sarcastic remark about a standardized close reason. Yes obviously something is wrong here, you don't know this site and you think going on the offensive is a good way to start a conversation / discussion.
    – Reaces
    Oct 17, 2016 at 17:30
  • @Reaces I point the finger because it's unfair. I don't need to tell myself fairy tales. IT'S NOT OFF TOPIC. I'M NOT CIRCUMVENTING ANY RULES. I'M HIDING WHAT I BROWSE. IF AN IP IT'S BLOCKED OUTSIDE I WILL BE BLOCKED ANYWAY NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY. I AM VISITING ALLOWED WEBSITES AND I DON'T WANT THE URL DISCLOSED. WHY AND WHEN ARE MY PROBLEM, YOUR DUTY IS TO RE READ THE RULES AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS. IF YOUTUBE IT'S BLOCKED BY A FIREWALL I CAN MASK THE URL AS MUCH AS I LIKE, THE IP WILL BE BLOCKED ANYWAY Oct 19, 2016 at 12:37
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    @LiquidCore What makes you possibly think your question is on topic. You're the end user of a corporate laptop asking us to find a way for you to circumvent monitoring. We're not in the business of spending our time trying to find silly ways to do useless things that go against the spirit of corporate policy. The topicality of a site is determined by community vote, and currently it looks like it is 13 to 0 against you.
    – Reaces
    Oct 19, 2016 at 14:12
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    @LiquidCore Your machine has policy applied to it by corporate IT that enables them to monitor your browsing. Ethics aside, there's a reason they put that policy in place, and we will not aid you in circumventing rules that they put in place. If you do not wish to be subject to their monitoring, then take it up with them. Or don't use your work machine for personal browsing.
    – EEAA
    Oct 19, 2016 at 15:46

6 Answers 6

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Eh. Don't just see that he's a mod, check out his overall reputation too. That said, as a long time user of the site, I agree.

That said, "How to hide/mask visited url/ip from monitoring software installed on the machine?" is essentially a question about circumventing corporate policy for personal use.

Server Fault is for questions about managing information technology systems in a business environment.This is about trying to get around the tools used for managing information technology systems. If you really need to not be monitored, well, don't do it on work hardware

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In general moderators are active community members and quite aware of what our community considers topical or not.

In this case your question appears to be about circumventing monitoring software installed on your system, which is specifically listed as one of the topics not to ask about on both the site introduction tour and the on-topic help page. There is nothing personal in closing your question as off-topic.

As far as I'm aware there is no desire to change the scope of ServerFault in that regard either. Blackhat techniques may be of interest to our community, but ServerFault is not the place to discuss them. The typical role of a professional system and network administrator is to enforce policies (which we usually don't determine nor necessarily endorse) and therefore we prefer to answer questions on how to that better or more reliable/userfriendly, rather than discussing policy circumvention.

As the close reason invites you to, if your questions is being misunderstood, please edit the question and it will reviewed and will be re-opened if your edit did make suitable and on-topic.

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  • Where you see the circumventing point, in my question yet has to be discovered. Oct 19, 2016 at 12:26
  • Your question is literally titled: "How to hide/mask visited url/ip from monitoring software installed on the machine?" if not about circumventing your monitoring software what else is it about?
    – HBruijn
    Oct 19, 2016 at 13:28
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    Masking the url from a software which records what i've visited. In my case it's an antivirus, which has nothing to do about blocking my traffic. I don't want to escape navigation rules, that would be easily made through a proxy. Oct 19, 2016 at 13:43
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Please try and be objective here. Serverfault as a community sets its topicality expectations. As a representative of the community, I made a call on the topicality of your question. You disagreed, which you have the right to do. I suggested that you come here and post your reasoning as to why it should be on-topic, which you did. (thanks!)

Taking a quick glance at the voting on your question and the answers you've received, it is clear that the community disagrees with your arguments. At this point, perhaps consider that your view differs from this site. That's just fine. Continuing with your arguments at this point is going to yield you diminishing returns, as will the sarcastic and disrespectful comments. Take a step back and a deep breath. No one is forcing you to use Server Fault, and neither does anyone have a right to receive answers for questions posted here.

As others have mentioned, if you wish to escalate this to SO employees, you're free to do so using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page. I hope that's not necessary, though.

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  • Over half his comments are attempts at sarcasm. You will find no objectivity here.
    – Reaces
    Oct 19, 2016 at 20:06
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It's clearly offtopic. I would vote to keep it closed even if you edit it as you clearly try to bypass security measure on a network.

Use your LTE/3G network on your phone for your personal's need.

The fact is, even if you don't have anything installed in your computer to monitor you it exist transparent proxy anyway to be sure you don't break the enterprise's rule.

Want to install Tor ? explain that to your boss why you used Tor.. In my office even installing Firefox need an approval... and for another customer I was doing an remote inventory, when the boss seen the list, an employee get fired two minute later because of bittorrent.

So my advice stay, use your phone.

and please, don't personal attack a user, mod or not. ppl there give their time, they are not paid to help, so please don't trash them.

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To answer your headline question: if you believe a moderator has acted inappropriately, you should raise the issue here on meta, or use the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of every page to get in touch with Stack Overflow employees.

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  • WOW I thought the big SERVERFAULT META logo up there meant we were on meta.... WWOOOOPS Oct 19, 2016 at 12:27
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    Hence why I said "here on meta".
    – womble Mod
    Oct 20, 2016 at 0:08
  • @wombie Your comment was totally useless. I've already asked here. You're giving me the same advice after I followed it? Oct 20, 2016 at 8:43
  • @LiquidCore Please remember - answers posted here, and on Server Fault main, are not only for the original person that asked the question. The answers are also for anyone else that comes upon the Q&A in the future. I understand that you may not think this answer is particularly useful, but I can assure that others could find it useful in the future. Therein lies its value.
    – EEAA
    Oct 20, 2016 at 21:29
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I tossed an extra downvote on the question, since it is abundantly clear that it has nothing to do with professional system administration. If AV software is causing a problem, the administrator configures it to stop causing a problem or removes it, as policy may permit. They do not try to find squirrelly ways to circumvent it.

If it were a case where the moderator acted inappropriately, we would discuss it here and reverse the moderator's action. But, the moderator did not act inappropriately. We have endless consensus on this type of question and even made a close reason specifically for it at one point.

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    @LiquidCore I have yet to see one argument from you that your question is a practical issue you are encountering in the process of managing an IT environment. And how it is not a literal example of the not on topic rule unauthorized use or misuse of IT systems . If anything, everyone here is way too nice to you considering your constant childish insults and boorish behavior.
    – Reaces
    Oct 20, 2016 at 14:12

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