Yosser

Its a question to Patrick and all other IT Wizards.

My company will introduce next week some software that will track how much each employee spends on the net surfing etc etc.

But just how much can a boss read into? will they be able to see what I am writing now for example? I usually spend my lunch times and 10 minute breaks in here or a windsurfing forum or surfing e-bay etc, but I think its sort of an invasion of my privacy! what if I need to find out information about if I get hemeroids (noby stiles) or other personal matters? can this software show the bosses what I write in e-mails to family back in Blighty?

It just seems yet another way of big brother keeping tabs on me, that and the fingerprinting at airports, clocking in and out at work and showing my ID everywhere is getting out of hand.

What do you guys n gals think.

NC Penguin

If your employer's just starting to track what employees are doing on the employer's computers, then count yourself lucky. Places I've worked (in the UK) have been doing it for at least a few years.

In fact, when I working on a huge multinational (consists of four big engineering companies from UK, France, US, Sweden) engineering project in London, I one day tried to look at the Oddbins website. I couldn't get to it 'cos it was a forbidden website. Probably because it sold alcohol and the consumption of alcohol was forbidden during working hours.

If the IT department has a good budget, there's no end to how much they can monitor and delve into what you're doing on your computer whilst at work.

You might consider it an invasion of privacy but you have to weigh this up against the following:
you're doing personal stuff during the working day
you're using an employer's machine, bandwidth for personal use
you may be putting your employer's computer network at risk from viruses, worms and other nasty, destructive stuff when you surf the web and download stuff.

Ultimately, it's at the employer's expense and not your own.

I have a friend who works for London Underground. He can no longer even access the web from work. No doubt because too many employees were abusing their access to the web (spending work time reading and downloading, looking at porn. Who knows?)



NC Penguin

Ray

Anything and everything can be logged ...

datcha

Basic answer is YES to all your questions. The software can monitor everything you visit or type - in the example of posting on a forum, even though you're typing as I am now, when you press SUBMIT REPLY all the information you've just typed gets sent across the net as a kinda file. Even though its not live recording of your keystrokes the info is still save-able.

Of course they could even just go to the web address your reply went to and look at what you've written there. Something that is even more James Bond is they can install a little widget between your mouse connector and where it plugs into your PC to record and playback EVERY keystroke you EVER make - great for getting passwords, etc.

Website monitoring is more common than not and flags are raised in a lot of the software when visiting dodgy sites. Even when you print something to a work printer, it can be intercepted and stored.

Also, technically the government can monitor what you're doing online (work or home) as well.

Its a scary online world and there is a lot more information held on your computer usage than you think. The secret is to either stay safe or be smart about what you do, where you do it and exactly how you do it.

For example, increase your Internet Explorer security settings. Flush your cache. Avoid password cookies. Make sure you've got a firewall. Don't email files home from work.

Basically in the majority of instances, internet access is a privilege and should be treated as such. What you do at home is your concern but the Big Brother threat is just the same. Look at all those dumb-asses who registered their credit cards on that kiddy p@rn site.

Ray

... Carnivore is a computer-based system that is designed to allow the FBI, in cooperation with an Internet Service Provider (ISP), to comply with court orders requiring the collection of certain information about emails or other electronic communications to or from a specific user targeted in an investigation."

And we all believe they get court orders for its use...No doubt there is a get out clause in there somewhere

Yosser

Bloody hell...

Its pretty frightening when you think about it. I am very careful at work and only log on like I said at lunch times or maybe a quiet downtime moment (but even that will change now).

Like I said I only ever visit sports websites, health and fitness, watersports that kind of thing, never anything adult xxx etc.
I'm thick, but not stupid.

I can understand why they want to do it, but theres only 5 of us in the office, and we are generally so busy we don't have time to sit here and surf all day. I can't imagine the software being mega-james bond type, as we operate on a tight budget as it is.

The ony reason I use it so much at work is because we have DSL and I can't stand dial up at home, drives me up the bloody wall.
and I ain't paying those bastard Comcast lot anymore money for broadband.

sibsie

Whilst we're on the subject...

I recently installed Zone Alarm onto my latop. I noticed twice yesterday that a message flashed saying someone or something was trying to send my ebay password to British expats.

Anyone ever heard of such a thing?

dunroving

A state employee in NC recently was fired for inappropriate internet use at work. Not only had he downloaded 1,000's of porn images to his hard drive (and systematically categorized them!) but they figured out he had spent hundreds of hours surfing porn sites and working with (categorizing, etc.) his downloaded porn on his hard drive, when he was supposed to be working. Not only was he fired, he had to reimburse the state for all the hours he was paid for working but was surfing.

When you hear something like that it's not hard to justify an employer's right to know if you're surfing instead of working, but it's the little fish like us that get caught in the net. I firmly believe in even avoiding the appearance of impropriety. These days I don't even check my Hotmail account at work, and I don't use my work email address for anything but business. Ironically, I use my home computer to do work all the time, and work a lot of overtime at home (that's the nature of being a college professor), so I feel I have every right, theoretically, to spend 10 minutes during my lunch hour ordering stuff from Amazon.com, or checking the expats Web site. But I don't. Because if my boss walks in and sees me looking at a Web site that is clearly not work-related, I don't even want to have to justify it.


And if you're wondering, I'm at home right now, using my $40 a month broadband internet account and my own computer....

Jan Alaska

Yosser they're probably more interested in folks who download huge amounts of music etc than people using e-mail etc. I know where hubby works they mainly target people who try and download stuff.

Jan

Duncan Roberts

I have heard of people being fired for sending emails that management didnt agree with the content, sexest jokes, insults, etc, etc.

My brother-in-law was warned about spending too much time surfing, but he did it for 6 hours one day so you can understand that!

Interestingly, where my wife works they filter pretty much every website, sports, cooking, anything alcohol related, most forums and sometimes even news. i got a shock one time when i was there and wanted to check the footie scores when a message popped up saying i was trying to go to an unauthorized webpage and my activities had been logged.

When you really get down to it, although they can do things they generally dont routinely look at your activity. If you do something major then they might, they might also look back through everything you ever did and then clobber you!

As long as you dont install anything, go to dodgy sites or spend all day surfing you will genarally go unoticed

NC Penguin

Spam emails can be problems at work too.

For example, my manager, a woman who certainly doesn't look at porn sites (doesn't even have time to do this from her work machine. She's on the road so much), has been receiving porn spam at her work email address.

Not just a couple a day but at least a dozen a day since the beginning of the year. She contacted the IT Helpdesk for our department to get this stopped.

She has no idea how the porn sites obtained her email address and the IT Helpdesk thinks that her work email address was sold to the sites...



NC Penguin

Jan Alaska

hubby used to get lots (70+ a day) of porno spam at his old work e-mail addy .. was a former rather disgruntled employee apparently, when he changed jobs and changed e-mail addy he actually missed his daily dose of "debbie gets new boobs daily"

Jan

Jan Alaska

oooooooo forgot to mention that I signed up for a MSN email addy (just for the net passport) and I get about 10 spam emails a day, Big GRR at MSN

Jan

mark270864

I just fixed up my sister's first home PC on which she was bundled 3 months free AOL access. As that appeared to be the best way to get lil' sis' online asap I signed her up.

Within two days of being assigned a new AOL email address she got THREE spam messages from companies that have no link with Time Warner/AOL whatsoever. How the hell .... ? Fortunately so far none of them are dubious in nature. As a footnote, in that time we didn't enter the AOL address into any web forms etc. ( she already has a Hotmail account that she uses exclusively for email ).

Moral of the story for me : Don't trust any of 'em no matter how "clean" they may seem ( and also if they tell you they don't give away your email address - yeah right ! ) All ISP's are out to make a profit and your email address is just another vehicle.

Cynically, Mark

datcha

A lot of spammers just send emails to *anything*@aol.com and the like as there are so many aol addresses out there, at least some of them will get through.

Be especially wary about posting messages onto Usenet as a lot of email addys get harvested for future spam automatically by naughty people.

As a kind of side note, these days EVERYTHING on the net gets archived. Something you may have said in an online forum may one day come back to haunt you!

My recommendation: get edjamacated as to how the net works.


Cheers,
David.