I maintain a static blog in Arabic where I don't publish its link anywhere, and it doesn't belong to sitemap.xml and is not available on the search engines. I usually write about my thoughts and feelings in this blog in my own native language, it served another purpose in the past but no longer. I just write there from time to time, every couple of months, and I don't share it with anyone. Although I read it myself from time to time, just to remember how I felt in the past and how I was thinking about things. It is not super personal, and it doesn't include personal details or anything.

I usually access from my phone during commute or on my computer at home (usually after 12 AM because this is when I have level of Loneliness and sadness that makes me want to write). I have been doing this for years and I never had any problem accessing it, until recently. I was staying late at my office at CERN and overstayed until it was very late, I just wanted to take a break and the thought of reading my blog came to my mind, I opened the link, and I was greeted with this message:

My first reaction was what the hell is the greyware? I have never heard of it before so I had to search about it, and I found out that it is a type of software that is not necessarily malicious but can be used for harmful purposes, and it is often blocked by firewalls. There are not much that people would say about it. It boils down to that it is not a virus or malware, but it is something that can be used for bad purposes and might cause harm to the users, so it is blocked by firewalls as a precautionary measure. So this basically would apply to social media, new outlets and any website that serve ads and collect data about the users. Maybe the website of propaganda and fake news. But my sad and lonely blog that I don't share with anyone and doesn't have any ads or collect any data about the visitors -and it doesn't have any visitor except me- is blocked (Yes, I know it is a false positive, but it is still sad). I don't even know how the firewall here gets their list of greyware, and it is funny but at least I knew something new about the absurdity of the current internet situation. Of course, I could just contact CERN Security Team and open a ServiceNow ticket to ask them to unblock it, but I don't think I will do that, In part because I will not waste someone time on something that is not important, and in part because I would feel embarrassed to ask them to see it and read it to see it is not harmful, and I don't want to do that. I will just live with the fact that my sad thoughts are considered as greyware at my place of work and blocked by the firewall, and I will just access it from my phone when I am outside the office.

Disclaimer: I am not blaming CERN for this, I understand that they have to protect their network, and they have to block anything that might be harmful, and I am sure that they have a good reason for blocking it, but it is funny observation. But on the other hand, I have very sad/dark writing in some of my posts there so yes, I can see how it would be harmful :).