Monitoring of work IT

[DIFFBROOK]

I've done something silly and viewed a site at work that I shouldn't. It wasn't hard pornography, but its still gonna get me into bother.

How do work systems monitor such activity? And is it a certainty that it will be picked up

And before I get it , yes I'll get my P45

 

[Giraffe]

If its like my work, provided you haven't downloaded a virus or anything you'll probably be fine.

The fact you can get onto that kind of filth at work suggests that their systems are pretty poor so seems unlikely to me that they are monitoring the use of every pc.

 

[Uncle C]

If its like my work, provided you haven't downloaded a virus or anything you'll probably be fine.

The fact you can get onto that kind of filth at work suggests that their systems are pretty poor so seems unlikely to me that they are monitoring the use of every pc.

My brother works in IT for Lewes District Council.

He is able to monitor every key stroke of every PC in all the local district council offices. He regularly sees people surfing 'bad' sites and doing things like booking their holidays on line. It is also recorded how much of your working day is wasted on non business Internet use.

Believe me, the evidence is there and stored for every employee. I guess this is the case for many big businesses. If they want to sack anyone, without compensation, they have all the evidence they need.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

I think what he said, if they value you they will turn a blind eye once or twice but if they are looking for ANY excuse to get rid without reason or compo BINGO they have it.

I am sure you are in the former though so you'll be fine.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

At work I regulalry go on NSC, IMBD ( movie site ), BBC News and William Hill. That keeps me in the know for all I am interested in.

If you type in anything to do with porno you could be in trouble.

 

[Uncle C]

At work I regulalry go on NSC, IMBD ( movie site ), BBC News and William Hill. That keeps me in the know for all I am interested in.

If you type in anything to do with porno you could be in trouble.

If I was an employer I would ensure that all employees are doing the work I am paying them for.

So visitting sites like NSC during coffee breaks and lunch hours would be OK, but wasting time on there during work time would be a big no no.

Suppose you were paying a bloke by the hour to refit your kitchen and he spent 2 hours of your time a day on internet forums. Would you accept this?

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

As a former internet enforcer I know that there are various options.

Most places these days will monitor everything but it depends on the company how enforce this. You'll probbaly have some kind of acceptable use policy that says what you can and can't do. Some places use filtering software to block access to certain types of site but if you keep trying to get to sites you shouldn't then this will still be logged and likely to be followed up.

Other places will let you get access to the sites and in effect, give you enough rope to hang yourself.

Either way, how quickly this is reported depends on the size of the company and the seriousness of the offence. They could also be going through your previous history to decide if this is a one off or if you are a serial offender.

Good luck.

 

[Voice of Reason]

Do the right thing, which is, own up to your manager that you may have "inadvertantly" accessed a banned site.

Do something procative, don't sit and wait!

 

[NMH]

You deserve to be in trouble for it Diffbrook.

However, you 'could' say that "a mate thought it would be amusing to tell me to visit this url, so I had a moment waiting for this and that and typed it in without knowing what it was".

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

If I was an employer I would ensure that all employees are doing the work I am paying them for.

So visitting sites like NSC during coffee breaks and lunch hours would be OK, but wasting time on there during work time would be a big no no.

Suppose you were paying a bloke by the hour to refit your kitchen and he spent 2 hours of your time a day on internet forums. Would you accept this?

I am self employed, ok they provide the office and computer etc but I pay a lot of my commissions to them for this facility.

 

[bhaexpress]

Actually what's more to the point is why your firewall didn't block this dodgy site. If the firewall is set up properly you should be 'protected' from unsuitable sites. For example, where I am now you can't get on NSC because of bad language whereas you can access Brightonfans.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Should you own up, mmm, ticky one, they may not have spotted it, it is on your hard drive forever whatever it is, tricky one for sure.

 

[Giraffe]

Actually what's more to the point is why your firewall didn't block this dodgy site. If the firewall is set up properly you should be 'protected' from unsuitable sites. For example, where I am now you can't get on NSC because of bad language whereas you can access Brightonfans.

Thats the point I was trying to make. Most good firewalls would stop this. Therefore it suggests the IT is not that good and therefore monitoring may be equally poor.

Ours allows Brightonfans but not NSC. Must be saying something

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

North Stand Polls is blocked where I work. I wonder why ?.

 

[ali jenkins]

There are some retro football shirt shops in Brighton where I know for a FACT that the owner spends large chunks of his day on NSC

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

He is self employed so its not a problem.

 

[Uncle C]

There are two issues here.

The first is accessing improper sites, and it could be argued that Firewalls should stop this.

The second is the notion of fraud by an employee, whereby you are paid to do a certain job but are surfing the Net instead.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Diff - PM me the site and I will give my verdict as to the severity.

 

[Mr deez]

He is self employed so its not a problem.

It could also be argued he is 'researching marketing opportunities'

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

My main 'crime' is internal emails which are not exactly 'work related'. This is against the organisations 'email protocol' and we are told that they can read all. This is bourne out by the above but, in an orgainsation of many thousands you would wonder how they could possibly waste the time.

I think we are all told that the technology is there to trace all emails, phonecalls, texts etc but we don't stop using them.

As for wasting the employers time, well good point. But I see those around me chatting on the phone or physically going tochat with people, both of which take much longer than a few brief emails.

It does worry me that the ammo would be there if they wanted to do the dirty.