How to stay under the radar at work.

[Shari]

Okay, I'm not a major internet surfer at work, nor do I play games, but occasionally it is nice to come here, or Flickr and kill some time.

Apparantly, someone's had their hand slapped (not me) at work for going to websites on work time, so we were all formally warned.

If I'm on a network server, how easy is it for someone to pop onto my computer files from another computer to spy on what I'm doing online? I mean, how can they TELL I'm at this website if I have my internet options set to not save any websites?


I know some work-slacking computer guru coughwezascough can give me a clue here.

[Wezas]

Basically it doesn't matter if you clean up all your files, don't store any history, etc.

They see your computer going out to the internet and it bringing back a certain page. There's no easy way around it.

[Drew]

Yeah any office with a decent amount of tech-savvy can tell every page you bring up.

[Artha]

You can try out Circumventor...I'm pretty sure it encrypts every page you go to, but I couldn't tell you how effective that'll be. I used it at school and never got in trouble for going to disallowed websites.

[AnticorRifling]

Use of any type of website/program/proxy to get around work seeing what you do is just throwing up a big red flag to your admins that says "ZOMG I R trying to be sneaky lawls"

We are computer nerds, not retards. We know the tricks, hell we use the tricks. If I see someone's machine is pulling every website as encrypted I'm just going to remote to that machine and see what's going on. More often than not using some sort of third party program/site/proxy causes me to pause and investigate more than just seeing someone going to www.nakedhamsterswithhandcuffs.com

[Soulpieced]

Don't surf the Internet at work.

[Buckwheet]

I gave up trying to get around it.

Now I just remote into a windows machine at home or on the internet in a datacenter somewhere.

Windows XP should have that terminal service.

[Fission]

Might also be good to consider if deliberately trying to circumvent company policy after a formal warning was issued just to visit Flickr is worth the potential outcome.

[Parker]

It's a real shame that www.nakedhamsterwithhandcuffs.com isn't a valid site...that just happens to be my favorite fetish.

[War Angel]

After being in an admins office, and watching their program which scanned what each computer monitor currently had opened for 15 seconds at a time, I figured it was time to stop going ANYWHERE on the web. I guess it just depends on how closely you're monitored.

[Fission]

Probably want to extend the same sort of consideration toward personal email at work too. If they're starting to monitor web usage, email may not be far off if they're not watching it already.

[Bobmuhthol]

The best way to disable their voyeur software (if they even have it where you work) is to delete the registry of your machine.

Other than that, remove the ethernet cable from your NIC. That'll show 'em.

[Sean of the Thread]

Get permission to use gotomypc or some other remote for home/office use. Hell make them pay for it.

[Kranar]

After being in an admins office, and watching their program which scanned what each computer monitor currently had opened for 15 seconds at a time, I figured it was time to stop going ANYWHERE on the web. I guess it just depends on how closely you're monitored.


That is pretty scary.

[Artha]

My school had a program like that for awhile. Was called SyncronEyes. Eventually they stopped using that and started using one called Lucifer which logs every program you open.

[Apotheosis]

Keyloggers, screencaptures are just a few of the toys. If your company is IT savvy, and most big ones are, you can't get away with it.

I would just not care, or pick 1 or 2 sites you can safely use.

[Shari]

Ah well no big deal if I can't. It wasn't like I was going to super bad websites (other than this one!) so I'll just deal. The company I work for isn't super IT savvy, hell, the accounting program we use is almost 12 years old and runs off of MSDOS.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<hell, the accounting program we use is almost 12 years old and runs off of MSDOS.>>

Embarrassing. Even I have Peachtree Accounting software.

[Jennaen]

...the accounting program we use is almost 12 years old and runs off of MSDOS.

Sounds like my new job, complete with an antique version of Great Plains. *cries* Having used Peachtree & QuickBooks previously... the DOS version of Great Plains makes me feel like I'm back in my accounting classes posting to T accounts on paper... except I type instead of write.

[CrystalTears]

One of our IT guys got busted recently for spending a stupid amount of time working on his home business/website during work hours. They don't care about what you do on your own time, i.e. lunch, or if you're actually getting your work done, but some people who abuse it think they won't get busted but they do.

He was called into his boss' office and confronted about what he was doing and said he only did it during his lunch hour. His boss had a screenshot of his website with the clock time showing something other than 12-1. He gawked. Heh.

[Sean of the Thread]

ROFL When busted never lie in that situation.. give an ambiguous answer and see if they're bluffing THEN LIE!.

[Cyprion]

I always enjoy remotely connecting to a machine without them knowing. Then keep closing the window they are in and watching them just open it right back up. over and over. I try giving them a hint to stop, most don't learn, and it involves a walk down to their desk. Our proxy blocks alot, anything not blocked is pretty much free game. Only really care when the user is streaming music, opens holes in the network, and the government doesn't like that very much, to say the least.

[DeV]

At my previous company my boss would always catch me on the net. Once she caught me playing Gemstone using Wizard and I told her it was a program I was using for work related research. She seriously believed me. Eventually she told me she didn't care if I surfed the net throughout the day, just as long as my work was finished at close time.

Around that time they also banned AIM from being installed on our computers, so I installed GAIM instead and used it without interruption.

Thankfully, our proxies didn't block a damn thing.

[Stanley Burrell]

Working in medical centers means that you have a library space that is always available for any internet related BS.

All my BS'ing has been done in non-laboratory locations. I felt uncomfortable and experienced flaccid limpidness at having an Allman Brothers' CD playing at 3 decibels, albeit in the PI's or semi-grad students' laboratories. Being a nurse's bitch, I was highly inclined to use my feet through most of the day and also utilized la biblioteca for some amounts of BS.

This summer, it's garage painting/gardening + other Feudal serf-type work, so I'll definitely be blasting the Wu-Tang Clan (maybe.)

The Rza be producin' phat beats. Holla'.

Stanley Burrell.