One of my sworn enemies back in my old job was our network administrator. For one, I’m a firm believer that the research and development should be given a fair amount of buffer for them to be able to be creative and productive. I still wondered why the IT department tried to prevent us from being power users while all the tools we needed were built for administrator access. He blocked websites that were perfect sources of information for us. Yet he just won’t budge with the most logical of arguments. Piff.

So as to make things annoying for him, I started my personal (and quite unprofessional) quest of circumventing all the he throws against me and my team. I started using IM IP addresses to get IM access since they’ve blocked URL keywords. I taught everyone how to use proxies and how to use https:// to use secure connections.

One prank that I somehow regret not doing is the old frozen computer trick where you hide all the desktop icons and taskbar and replace your wallpaper with a screenshot of the desktop with all the icons. I wonder how long he’d go fidgeting with it and come up with the always brilliant suggestion of formatting the darned thing. That’s probably the only thing he’s good at anyway. Haha.

Anyway, I’ve stumbled upon this neat article on the Ten Things Your IT Department Won’t Tell You. It practically lists the common things that the IT department blocks or prevents you from doing and the ways you can “beat the system” and be safe about what you do. A pretty helpful guide for those who would want their network admins off their backs.

Then again, if you’re not a true whiz on doing these things, proceed with caution. Chances are, your network admin can have some juicy details (e-mail and IM account passwords) that he can use against you if you haven’t been careful all along.