Big Brother is now Watching me!

[NoCage]

It depends on what software they are using to monitor your web surfing. Some use logon credentials (doman/username), some use IP addresses. Getting around that can be tricky, a good network admin./security dude will bust you. I've run LiveWire before (I think that's the name) that can see everything you do on your PC, and in non-obtrusive mode, so you wouldn't even know it.

My advice is to find out who in the I.T. department gathers the data and/or runs these reports, and get the low-down from them. They may be be pretty laid back and could help you out. Not that you would, but definitely stay away from **** or other divisive sites, those are the "harassment" type sites where you could run into legal liability issues with H.R. Companies will nail your *** for that **** nowadays. Time spent on a mostly harmless forum wouldn't be viewed as career-ending... normally.

 

[TriggerT]

the fact that they feel the need to electronically spy on people pissed me off.

I bet the "fact" that employees use company time and equipment to *not* do their jobs (you know - the one you get *paid* for) pisses them off too.

Dude, I am at my desk by 5 am most days, and don't go home until 5 at night. Then there is the work I do at home. Don't fooking go there! Oh, did I mention weekends? :angry:

 

[TriggerT]

To be honest guys, I enjoy the game. ...

I bet you enjoyed dancing untethered around crevasses as well... :blink:

:lol:

How did you know I used to mountain climb? I don't think we ever talked about that. FYI the bottom of a crevasse is a damn dark, and damn cold place.

 

[ShawnKing]

the fact that they feel the need to electronically spy on people pissed me off.

I bet the "fact" that employees use company time and equipment to *not* do their jobs (you know - the one you get *paid* for) pisses them off too.

Dude, I am at my desk by 5 am most days, and don't go home until 5 at night. Then there is the work I do at home. Don't fooking go there! Oh, did I mention weekends? :angry:

So? None of that matters. The company owns the equipment, the Net connection and, oh by the way, *your time* when you are working for them.

Look at it this way - how happy would you be if you took your FJR in for servicing and the mechanic spent two hours surfing the net, one hour fixing your bike and charged you for three hours of labor? Not very, huh? Same diff, dude. Yeah, I went there....

 

[wheatonFJR]

To be honest guys, I enjoy the game. ...

I bet you enjoyed dancing untethered around crevasses as well... :blink:

:lol:

How did you know I used to mountain climb? I don't think we ever talked about that. FYI the bottom of a crevasse is a damn dark, and damn cold place.

I am a savant and mind reader...AND you told me a long time ago...a few hours before I made the most squiddly pass of my life. Yer workin too hard man...yer forgetting stuff. :lol: :lol:

 

[wheatonFJR]

the fact that they feel the need to electronically spy on people pissed me off.

I bet the "fact" that employees use company time and equipment to *not* do their jobs (you know - the one you get *paid* for) pisses them off too.

Dude, I am at my desk by 5 am most days, and don't go home until 5 at night. Then there is the work I do at home. Don't fooking go there! Oh, did I mention weekends? :angry:

So? None of that matters. The company owns the equipment, the Net connection and, oh by the way, *your time* when you are working for them.

Look at it this way - how happy would you be if you took your FJR in for servicing and the mechanic spent two hours surfing the net, one hour fixing your bike and charged you for three hours of labor? Not very, huh? Same diff, dude. Yeah, I went there....

I hear what yer sayin' Shawn...but put a sock in it. TriggerT gets more done in a day than you ever will...I'm guessin.

 

[k7lvo]

the fact that they feel the need to electronically spy on people pissed me off.

I bet the "fact" that employees use company time and equipment to *not* do their jobs (you know - the one you get *paid* for) pisses them off too.

Dude, I am at my desk by 5 am most days, and don't go home until 5 at night. Then there is the work I do at home. Don't fooking go there! Oh, did I mention weekends? :angry:

If you're salaried, you're probably screwed... Assuming that you're hourly, I think they're trying to tell you something. It's time to stop working when you're not being paid to do so. Show up, punch in, work, punch out, FORGET ABOUT WORK, and go home. If all the work doesn't get done, explain to them - using short words that even middle-management-control-freaks can understand - that they need to compensate you for work performed. Since they now choose to take away the compensation of a relaxed working environment, they will now get to replace that compensation with cold, hard, cash.

Where I work we used to pretty much be on the job 16-18 hours a day. No, we weren't on the clock for >8 hours, but it was common to work on reports and stuff at home during the evening. During the day if we were waiting for software to load, etc, we would check our personal email or look at the forum, etc. Now, email and forum sites are locked out of the system, they have GPS's on our trucks and we have to document every time we take a dump. Just the paper work takes a couple of hours a day, and the job stays at "the office," period.

Technology is nice, but:

1) how many times a day are we told that "the computer won't let you do that!"

2) it gives control freaks the ability to control much more tightly.

Bottom line: (sometimes) the numbers on the spreadsheet can be made to look real pretty, but, something that THESE spreadsheets never measure, at the end of the day IS THE CUSTOMER GETTING A BETTER PRODUCT/EXPERIENCE?

 

[TriggerT]

I just deleted a 3 paragraph response to justify myself. WHY.

i will say I am salary, and I don't need to justify my actions to anyone here.

I started this to find out how to keep a little of my privacy. Mission accomplished. Done. Over and out.

 

[otrfjr]

Torpark: https://www.download.com/Torpark/3000-2356_4-10586817.html

 

[Bounce]

So does anyone have any suggestions on how to surf the forum, and not get caught?

do it from home where you pay the bills and not your company.

Yes, it is. And getting fired would be some what of a relief at this point.

step to the plate, get a new job, and quit. why wait for them to fire you "for cause" (inappropriate use of company resources and/or falsifying time cards)?

no need to wait to get fired. why depend on unemployment/wellfare when you can step up and move on?

Like I said, more than anything, I like being a pain in their *** when they come up with stupid ideas like this.

What's stupid about not wanting to waste their investment and resources? The IT structure is there to support the company's business, not your addiciton.

I started this to find out how to keep a little of my privacy. Mission accomplished. Done. Over and out.

partly. but the wording made it clear that you also started it to vent. those who see both sides of such stories pointed out the lack of solid footing you had for the vent part. no need to get upset about the reality check.

 

[DaSpyda]

Did the company have you sign an "IT Policy" declaration?

Guidelines are in there, and I would also sit down with your boss to gather his thoughts on what you want to do during the day.

 

[mdisher]

Torpark: https://www.download.com/Torpark/3000-2356_4-10586817.html

What this does is let you surf the remote site anonymously. As in if you come to my website, I won't be able to trace it back to you.

What is does NOT do, is keep you anonymous to your IT department. They still see the same requests as if you went to www.yahoo.com, only instead of going direct you're being routed elsewhere first.

Apps like this get our attention faster than not using them at all.

-MD

 

[mdisher]

I've stayed out of this for the most part but felt it time to chime in because I see this from both sides. I'm the one responsible for keeping track of where our resources go.

We use tools like WebSense (for logging not filtering), Scruitinizer (so see where our bandwidth is going), as well as other nefarious things to help keep our users on the straight and narrow. (That's said with tongue in cheek).

Our environment here is very 'Open'. We don't restrict anything, but we do monitor. We monitor for a number of reasons:

1) Bandwidth, while it's never been cheaper still isn't free. We host our own stuff and do so proudly. We like for our 'Customers', the folks who are paramount in the Salary Continuation Program to have a good experience when the visit and download our software. Bad experiences because there isn't bandwidth to serve their needs is counter productive to the Salary Continuation Program.

Examples: We had a user bring in a Slingbox to 'watch TV at lunch' streaming his saved TV shows from home, sucking up considerable bandwidth, much more so than is advertised, and oh, it was non-stop, not just at lunch. This was not a good day (for him or us). March madness time, our bandwidth utilization usually goes nutz, even though we provide 3) large screen TV's for folks to mingle and watch their favorite schools play.

2) People, (not all, but most) are in inherently lazy, that coupled with doing something that you don't actually LOVE doing will drive them to do things that aren't necessarily core to their job. (QA testing is monotonous to say the least, and doing design/engineering work on a product that you don't actually love also sucks, but the work still has to get done). We watch for trends... People doing stuff out of the ordinary... If all of a sudden your non-business internet related activities jump out of bounds; you're bored, don't have enough to do, or something is wrong. We leave open the possibility that you're having a bad day, that **** happens, but if the trend continues we'll talk about that.

3) People, outside of being lazy, are often dumb. If you need proof, just go to YouTube. When people do dumb things it costs the company money, money that we'd all rather have paid to people like me and ultimately you the employee and/or spent on benefits like 100% paid medical, Foosball tables in the break room, etc, etc.

Outside of all the protection we have in place, people still find ways to break **** and bring viri into the organization. While this is generally contained, it's still expensive. Last week we lost two man-days restoring machines from backups from people who followed what they thought were links to NY-Times Articles that hosed their PC's. One IT guy, two full days to blow away and restore machines from tape. Two engineers down for almost an entire day each, simply because someone was dumb... But we realize **** happens too and you can't protect everyone from everything.

We all have our diversions, and we all need them. I'm posting this from work, and it's perfectly acceptable. Are there days it gets in the way of my work? Sure... But not usually to the extent that it's a problem. I stay later, and get **** done as is needed.

More importantly we monitor to cover our *****. In this crazy litigious society we live in. We have to keep tabs on what's going on in our work place. From Copyright infringement, to someone with a gambling problem who works in finance, to someone searching for a way to off their spouse. You'd be amazed at what people will do at work that some wouldn't do at their own home.

[Ramble OFF]

[Note much Sarcasm mixed in]

 

[TriggerT]

It's a good thing I came her to get a lecture on my work ethics. After all, I have never been fired from a job in my life. I have been promoted constantly at my job. My current work load, which I am staying on top of, is more than 3.5 times than anyone else in my department. I put in a total of more than 60-70 hours per week. I am salaried, so I consider myself to be on the clock 24/7 to the point of taking work phone calls sometimes at 4:30 am, and sometimes at 10:15 pm on Sunday nights.

Sometimes this forum provides a great deal of enjoyment and information, sometimes it seams bound and determined to suck the joy out of my day.

 

[mdisher]

It's a good thing I came her to get a lecture on my work ethics. After all, I have never been fired from a job in my life. I have been promoted constantly at my job. My current work load, which I am staying on top of, is more than 3.5 times than anyone else in my department. I put in a total of more than 60-70 hours per week. I am salaried, so I consider myself to be on the clock 24/7 to the point of taking work phone calls sometimes at 4:30 am, and sometimes at 10:15 pm on Sunday nights.
Sometimes this forum provides a great deal of enjoyment and information, sometimes it seams bound and determined to suck the joy out of my day.

I never commented on your ethics, nor did I judge them. I was just pointing out the other side of the issue... If you took it that way then you're mistaken.

-MD

 

[uctofeej]

At my last job, we were allowed to have the occasional drink on the job and actually encouraged to surf **** sites -- because they are on the cutting edge of the Internet. Damn, I miss that job.

 

[Fred W]

Sometimes this forum provides a great deal of enjoyment and information, sometimes it seams bound and determined to suck the joy out of my day.

Nobody can suck the joy out of your day unless you let them.

They may be bound and determined, but if you laugh it off, who wins?

 

[uctofeej]

Nobody can suck the joy out of your day unless you let them. They may be bound and determined, but if you laugh it off, who wins?

Uh, Fred, that sounds like something right out of 7 Habits of Highly Effective Sheeple

 

[LDRydr]

Outside of all the protection we have in place, people still find ways to break **** and bring viri into the organization. While this is generally contained, it's still expensive. Last week we lost two man-days restoring machines from backups from people who followed what they thought were links to NY-Times Articles that hosed their PC's. One IT guy, two full days to blow away and restore machines from tape. Two engineers down for almost an entire day each, simply because someone was dumb... But we realize **** happens too and you can't protect everyone from everything.
SNIP

More importantly we monitor to cover our *****. In this crazy litigious society we live in. We have to keep tabs on what's going on in our work place. From Copyright infringement, to someone with a gambling problem who works in finance, to someone searching for a way to off their spouse. You'd be amazed at what people will do at work that some wouldn't do at their own home.

I'm personally glad somebody finally brought up this side of the argument. Your comments in the first paragraph are what kept me in business for years, supporting the IT needs of about 30 small businesses. Employees screw up the systems and the small business owner gets the bill. I never understood why my clients tolerated this kind of activity.

Your comments in the last paragraph are why I've moved into the much more lucrative field of computer forensics. More and more businesses are simply not going to put up with this crap loss of productivity and its associated costs any longer. Employees that that don't adhere to company internet & computer-use policy (if they have one) will have their employment terminated and have no recourse after a computer investigation documents their activity.

 

[Fred W]

Nobody can suck the joy out of your day unless you let them. They may be bound and determined, but if you laugh it off, who wins?

Uh, Fred, that sounds like something right out of 7 Habits of Highly Effective Sheeple

What kind of habit is that? You'll probably be needing a pair of these...

Baa-aaa-aaa!!!