monitoring employees at work

[Apotheosis]

so, recently, i have heard how companies have been monitoring employee actions on the computers for some time now. How prevalent is this in most organizations?

One friend of mine runs a small IT company, and has a system in place where he not only logs IM conversations, but keystrokes, and actions as well. He ended up firing his secretary due to the fact that she was A> overstating her hours, and B> Talking shit about the business on her blog. (she had a bad attitude to begin with)

An acquaintence of mine actually lost his job, for poor performance (one of many reasons) but his boss wasn't afraid to mention that he was being consistently called a "prick" in my acquaintence's e-mails.

Finally, I have read more than one news article relating to employees being fired for everything from blogging to having their own porn site.

[Celephais]

Heh, see my previous thread http://forum.gsplayers.com/viewthread.php?tid=17068 :-P

This can vary a lot. I know my company monitors the DNS server but they are too busy to be scrutinizing over it. A lot of employees use AIM and our network admins do too so it doesn't matter.

I was under the impression they had to inform you somewhere if they were reading your emails, but no idea.

Use non-corporate email if that's a concern.
Set up your host file/use ip address not named pipes if you think someone is skimming the DNS lookup log. (You had a pervious post about host files, open "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc
hosts" in notepad, go to www.dnsstuff.com and make entries in the file, that way you won't hit your servers DNS lookup server. enter stuff like "64.235.230.232 forum.gsplayers.com&quot
And don't look at porn at work...

[fiendwish]

I know the school district I taught in was doing it seven years ago. The admin had some good times looking over my shoulder.

[SpunGirl]

I know that the websites I visit at work, as well as any emails I send, are looked at carefully. This is because of the possibility of collusion with someone outside the room in my job. IM programs are strictly forbidden, and I would never talk shit about my bosses in emails or anything else. I also wouldn't be retarded enough to post in my blog while at work.

It states in our company email and internet policies that we can use them for personal use in a limited amount, and as long as we don't hurt minors, break laws, harm productivity, etc. IT is mad at us right now because someone on another shift downloaded partypoker.net on one of the computers, and somehow an ASSLOAD of spyware came with it. IT spent like all day trying to delete all of it and the d00d who was playing poker at work wound up with a few unpaid days off.

-K

[4a6c1]

The company we are on right now does it semi for i dont know what the hell reasons, apparently. The employees sign something during the hiring process. I dont report abuse in my offices however. If I feel the need to restrict someones internet access for any reason they get 2 warnings and then a termination. The need to police someones thoughts is not for me. If it interferes with work they dont need to be there.

[Leetahkin]

My company is too large to watch everyone all the time. They have certain words flagged that they get a notice of, whether the word(s) is in an email, on the website, on an attachment, etc. They also have a lot of websites blocked, play.net being one of them.

I know of people who go to the web and play card games from an online website, which I think is teasing that fine line too much. They've been doing it for years, and are still there.

IT can watch, but I think they need a reason and complaint to. They can confiscate our computers if they have a good complaint. I think if they receive enough hits of attempted blocked sites, or flagged words, they can investigate themselves without a complaint though.

IT can remotely access our computers and run updates while we are gone at night. Just this gets some people in my group bitching, wondering what "IT was doing with their computer". I get so sick of it. It's not our computer, it's a company computer.

That said, I am on the PC all day at work, and I even update my journal from work or read one of many news websites I have flagged. Oh, check airline tickets and even purchase them, etc. No problems yet, though I'm actually surprised with the amount of websites I CAN access while there.

[Apotheosis]

Well, I would just follow IT policies to the dot, especially if you work with smaller companies and your boss is paranoid. Just to be careful, and if you aren't doing anything really wrong, you probably won't get in trouble.

That said, calling your boss a dick is probably a bad idea. Revealing company secrets to people is probably a bad idea as well. Just, people should start realizing that there really is very little anonymity on the internet as well as with computers that aren't secured by them.

[Tsa`ah]

As with anything, this varies from state to state. I don't believe any notice is required in IL in regards to monitoring etc, though it is up to each company to make their policies known or make the prohibitive changes in their system.

Aside from that, I don't believe in privacy when it comes to a work related anything, unless you're doing work at home on your own computer with your own connection.

Work is work. If your employer doesn't want you to surf, chat, or play ... don't surf, chat, or play. Don't use your company e-mail as a private e-mail account and don't attempt to install anything on a computer that doesn't belong to you.

When I hear about how someone was "unjustly" terminated for something they were doing in the privacy of their cubicle on a company computer ... I tend to laugh.

If you want privacy and freedom ... work is not the place to explore either, do it at home.

[Andreal]

If the company owns it, pays for the internet, it is their dollar. They can allow you to do what they want with it. If they don't like how you are using THEIR computer, they should be allow to terminate your employment. Not only that, possibly even sue you for using THEIR computer and THEIR internet to do things that they told you not to do.

Think about it like a company car, if you work in California, and take the car to vegas, is it that much of a difference? ((Well, yes it is, but in principal, no.))

[SpunGirl]

The other day this chick I work with wanted to check some info on www.bj21.com, and she accidentally went to www.bj.com, which is of course, a porn site. It was hilarious.

-K