Random Thoughts II - Page 840

GM · 25th January 2012, 13:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baxton

in the hypothetical "what if he did get caught" we were.

Well, in that situation you wouldn't need logs or an IT sheriff to catch someone watching porn now would you?

Cyberbob · 25th January 2012, 13:38

Option 1: "Excuse me Mr Manager sir, Look at these logs I put into easy to read spreadsheets for your viewing pleasure sir, I'd like to get xyz person fired now please"

Option 2: "Ehh, he's not getting caught in person, he's still doing all his work, it's not a drain on company resources at all, and it's nothing illegal, is it really my business"

Sheriff Baxton to the rescue?

Ab · 25th January 2012, 14:00

I'd be checking my contract and my KPIs and seeing if monitoring http logs for porn access was actually part of my job description. Like, in writing.

Rince · 25th January 2012, 14:06

desktop just this minute told me the following story:
he was remoted into a user's PC and was doing a software install by hand (SCCm had failed) so on his machine he had copied the GUID, back onto user's desktop, opened a command prompt type msiexec <right-click to paste> and instead of the GUID pasting in he gets "oktoberfest upskirt" (the clipboard hadn't passed through in our remote access tool.)

much LOLs

TnT · 25th January 2012, 14:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ab

I'd be checking my contract and my KPIs and seeing if monitoring http logs for porn access was actually part of my job description. Like, in writing.

Conversely, I'd be checking my contract to make sure inappropriate internet access was not cause for immediate termination before I decided to start watching the porn at work, where there was an IT department who would undoubtedly be able to track such viewings.

Seriously guys, 99.9% of workplaces have inappropriate internet use clauses in the contract you sign.

doppelgänger of someone · 25th January 2012, 14:13

1. quiet tap on the shoulder, saying "I'm supposed to report everything. Hardcore porn is not part of our business internet use, so cut it out". (Think of something else if you work in hardcore porn industry.)

2a. If he continues, REPORT and let the management decides (because you don't have his productivity data and how porn habit affects him or the company as a whole).

2b. If he stops, everybody happy.
2bb. Most likely he will reoffend in some future date. Goto 1.

Ab · 25th January 2012, 14:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by TnT

Conversely, I'd be checking my contract to make sure inappropriate internet access was not cause for immediate termination before I decided to start watching the porn at work, where there was an IT department who would undoubtedly be able to track such viewings.

Seriously guys, 99.9% of workplaces have inappropriate internet use clauses in the contract you sign.

Yeah but Madmax is the IT guy, not the pornhound. So it's the covering of Madmax's arse that I'm thinking about.

When sacked guy takes the company to court for unfair dismissal and his lawyer demands to see proof that I had written authority to monitor what his client was doing, I'd hate to have to tell my boss "oh no-one asked me to eavesdrop on him, I just felt like doing it".

Baxton · 25th January 2012, 14:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyberbob

Option 2: "Ehh, he's not getting caught in person, he's still doing all his work, it's not a drain on company resources at all, and it's nothing illegal, is it really my business"

Sheriff Baxton to the rescue?

It is about expectation of responsibility. I have been in jobs where we actively monitor logs for certain alerts. In such it is your job to inform your boss.

If there is no company policy around actively monitoring logs then you might be out of your purview reporting them.

In my specific example, I found something and didn’t report it. It was found and I was pulled across the coals because my employer stated that I had an obligation to my employer to report it not to protect the staff member.

If I thought not reporting might get me in trouble I wouldn't hesitate to throw him to the dogs. Why take a shot for some fk knuckle who can't wait a few hours to watch pron in the privacy of his own home.

Ab said it all better then me :/

Cyberbob · 25th January 2012, 14:33

"Oh I thought I'd take a look at his internet traffic to see if there was anything dodgy, and there was."

One slippery slope later..

"Oh I thought I'd take a look at his emails to see if there was anything dodgy, and there was."

crocos · 25th January 2012, 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyberbob

"Oh I thought I'd take a look at his internet traffic to see if there was anything dodgy, and there was."

One slippery slope later..

"Oh I thought I'd take a look at his emails to see if there was anything dodgy, and there was."

I assume that EVERYTHING I do at my place of work is monitored.

When you don't own the machine, &/or don't own the network the machine is connecting through, surely the default assumption is that everything is monitored?

That's why when I check my personal email through gmail, it's with ssl enabled.

CCS · 25th January 2012, 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyberbob

"Oh I thought I'd take a look at his internet traffic to see if there was anything dodgy, and there was."

One slippery slope later..

"Oh I thought I'd take a look at his emails to see if there was anything dodgy, and there was."

So what? The company owns the emails anyway. Most companies have rules about what you have in your email.

TnT · 25th January 2012, 14:50

What ^^ they said bob. Erroneous analogy, like seriously flawed.

chiQ · 25th January 2012, 15:01

I look at porn at work. It's a natural side-effect of reading warez sites.

Ab · 25th January 2012, 15:34

I once got summoned into my boss's office (back in what I think of as "the corporate years") and confronted with my http logs.

I worked in the marketing department and of course part of my job was to monitor what sort of coverage my employer's products were getting in the media, so every day I spent a bit of time reading sites like Computerworld, ZDnet, CNET, etc, to keep an eye on press releases and competitor publicity and shit.

Of course those sites ran lots of banner ads, and lots of them were for Seek. And so my http logs were full of http://seek.com.au/banners/*.gif. But boss only saw SEEK.COM.AU in flashing letters.

So I got hauled in to my boss's office for jobseeking on work time.

I a) burst out laughing, b) explained, and c) observed that I had not been presented with a workplace privacy policy and thus had not signed one to confirm that I had read and understood such a policy and thus had not consented to my activity being monitored, so even if I was jobsearching on work time, fuck off. But I was actually working, so fuck off.

Rince · 25th January 2012, 15:58

^^
ignoring your old boss' lack of interwebs savvy, not getting you to sign a code of conduct on day 1 is pretty piss poor.... (might you, don't know long ago this was - this day and age, an IT CoC should be part of your induction/employment pack. We don't give new users (including temps, contractors, onsite vendors, etc) their initial password until they sign the ITCoC.)*

* posted from his work PC, on work time.... :/

GM · 25th January 2012, 16:05

The idea in corporate is to avoid 2 departments as much as possible - IT and HR.

IT/HR are the departments that issue pseudo-decrees and get you to sign policies on asinine issues – they are the vegetables you have to eat, because they are in essence the colon of the corporate organism. Once the ideas and project work have been digested they get passed to the micro-organisms that inhabit it. Whenever an idea or project had a toxic effect to these departments, minor as the case may be, diarrhoea would inevitably flow.

StN · 25th January 2012, 16:15

I/we tend to use the tactful approach in the first instance.

We don't actively monitor logs unless requested to by a concerned manager, but that said some things have arisen in the past that have caused concern and been escalated to decision makers beyond my pay grade.

Enough said about now - it's time for some olden day stuff...

A senior manager at a previous employer was concerned about reports in the media of Intertron pron and requested that we have a look at the logs for anything dodgy (fearing as we all do that the good company name might get dragged into news reports). We decided they were too big (Even back in the '90s) to do by hand, so we did a quick grep for some key phrases. Stumbled across a very steamy IRC session. Noticed that it was from one of the home account dial in IP addresses going out across our special link to the net. Which meant it was one of about 5 people. Narrowed it down even further and it suddenly became clear that it was from the very manager that had asked for the check.

Turns out his home PC was bung, and his teenage daughter had been borrowing his laptop. Naughty girl. I think the upshot was that we reported that nothing of any consequence was found. Would probably have been more embarassing for him if we had brought it up.

Fx. · 25th January 2012, 16:33

doing external IT support few years back, once got the IT contact onsite fired at one of my clients for too much social networking

of course i wasn't looking until the CEO rang me and asked me to look into the contacts internet usage as they thought a lot of time was being wasted, i ran it past my boss and got it in writing from the CEO to monitor it (and leave those notes from the job tickets where he paid me to do it because the contact was the one who signed them off)

feltbadman.jpg

MadMax · 25th January 2012, 16:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by GM

Nobody caught anyone at their desk watching hardcore porn in the conversation we were having.

let's clear that up: he was.

Also, everything you do on the Internet is logged forever

GM · 25th January 2012, 16:56

true. Naughty guy.

Ab · 25th January 2012, 16:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rince

^^
ignoring your old boss' lack of interwebs savvy, not getting you to sign a code of conduct on day 1 is pretty piss poor....

Yeah, would've been 2001 I think? Bronze age in Internet years. (Vquake years = Stone Age)

GM · 25th January 2012, 17:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMax

let's clear that up: he was.

Also, everything you do on the Internet is logged forever

Just out of curiosity, how come if the manager saw the guy watching porn, did he not just bust him right there? And why would you need to pull a log report if the manager witnessed the him watching the porn?

So many questions. To clear this issue up of course.

StN · 25th January 2012, 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ab

Yeah, would've been 2001 I think? Bronze age in Internet years. (Vquake years = Stone Age)

Jeepers - my story may well pre-date fire...

(I remember sitting at the next desk waiting for the Quake ftp site to come online for the first release)

A Corpse · 25th January 2012, 21:37

I grabbed Q1 shareware off a BBS at midnight while at a lan. 2am, download finished, figured I'd give it a quick look.

No sleep was had that day.

edit: Thinking back, was "shareware" code for pirated? I didn't see any limitations tbh.

tor · 25th January 2012, 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by A Corpse

I grabbed Q1 shareware off a BBS at midnight while at a lan. 2am, download finished, figured I'd give it a quick look.

No sleep was had that day.

edit: Thinking back, was "shareware" code for pirated? I didn't see any limitations tbh.

Shareware quake was first level only from memory.

Redneck · 25th January 2012, 22:10

First episode, actually. One level would be a demo

Golden Teapot · 25th January 2012, 22:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ab

I'd be checking my contract and my KPIs and seeing if monitoring http logs for porn access was actually part of my job description. Like, in writing.

But IT people have also sorts of funny ideas. My favorite is that minimising costs is the same as maximising profit. Or that arguing with an employee for two hours who is paid much more than $100 an hour is a great idea when the spend needed is $25.

The harsh reality is that what happens in porn cases depends on the person. If they're well connected and important then at worst they might get spoken to.

I know one lucky person who had to drop into a passing conversation with two very senior staff at an organisation that email discussions on the benefits of certain probably not legal products on performance during sexual trysts were exactly the sorts of things that would be noticed.

I had another case where our then CEO was watching something on my PC that undoubtedly fell far outside of the sort of thing many would get away with. I was hoping to get caught because he parted commenting that if anyone asked questions to send them to him since they did not have authority to question him.

I've had staff who have done chronically not well thought out things though as I am sure many others have too. In one case there was a suggestion that something was obscene - I simply provided a link to the relevant page of the legislation and suggested that more care was needed when making accusations otherwise they might end up on the receiving end of an expensive to defend complaint. In another case I had HR wanting to either fire the person or at the very least flame grill them. The situation was absurdly blown out of proportion and I had the then CRO offering to help defend the employee; it was comical really.

Most people are going to end up in very serious trouble for things that really don't hurt anyone. I'd think very carefully about the implications of taking away someone livelihood if it were me - there will often be much nicer ways of getting an outcome if one is needed.

wazza · 25th January 2012, 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden Teapot

Most people are going to end up in very serious trouble for things that really don't hurt anyone. I'd think very carefully about the implications of taking away someone livelihood if it were me - there will often be much nicer ways of getting an outcome if one is needed.

Yes

MadMax · 25th January 2012, 23:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by GM

So many questions. To clear this issue up of course.

logs brought it to our attention. i was advised to report it to management. his manager checked security footage but wasn't clear enough. i later alerted his manager when it was occurring and he was snapped.

i highly doubt he'll be fired.

miss-use of company equipment aside, no-one's mentioned time wasting?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden Teapot

But IT people have also sorts of funny ideas. My favorite is that minimising costs is the same as maximising profit.

see, that ain't me. i've had to put up such problems left over from the previous person that had my role who did exactly that sorta thing. i don't cheap out on crap gear

MadMax · 25th January 2012, 23:38

we could have had cheaper android tablets (actually, they couldn't have really - they suck that hard) but no, they got ipads. they could have had crappy cell phones but no, staff get phones that can tether so they do away with their aircards or get iphones.

Spoon1 · 25th January 2012, 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by ?>Superman

http://gizmodo.com/5878901/confirmed...e-you-can-bone

Ab, i'm buying you one of these for xmas ;D

I love the first comment

Golden Teapot · 26th January 2012, 09:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMax

miss-use of company equipment aside, no-one's mentioned time wasting?

There's nothing to suggest there was wasted time based upon what you have posted. The reality is, in almost all workplaces, that allowing an employee to engage in a bit of side recreation leads to an overall more productive result. To be clear, letting staff use the telephone and computer for a bit of personal stuff is nearly always going to lead to a better business outcome compared to preventing personal use.

The best way to work out if someone is being adequately productive is to be clear in terms of what is expected and to measure against this.

Golden Teapot · 26th January 2012, 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMax

see, that ain't me. i've had to put up such problems left over from the previous person that had my role who did exactly that sorta thing. i don't cheap out on crap gear

I'm assuming you're trying to pull a fast one on me? You'd be one-in-a-million if you're like this.

tor · 26th January 2012, 09:45

Man I don't want to sit next to a dude with a boner.
Nor do I want to suspect that he is off to the shared bathroom to engage in "side recreation".

Pepsi · 26th January 2012, 10:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by tor

Man I don't want to sit next to a dude with a boner.
Nor do I want to suspect that he is off to the shared bathroom to engage in "side recreation".

Exact thing happened to me at work once, although it was my fault for supplying the porn in the first place.. just didn't think he'd start watching it while it was just him and I in the office.

He chucked the cd into his machine, started heavy breathing for a while and then informed me he was off to have a wank in the toilets. Also informed me it was a good one when he got back. lol

GM · 26th January 2012, 10:18

cEvin · 26th January 2012, 10:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pepsi

He chucked the cd into his machine, started heavy breathing for a while and then informed me he was off to have a wank in the toilets. Also informed me it was a good one when he got back. lol

Where did you and wazza work together?

wazza · 26th January 2012, 10:58

I've never been into p0rn :/

GM · 26th January 2012, 11:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pepsi

Exact thing happened to me at work once, although it was my fault for supplying the porn in the first place.. just didn't think he'd start watching it while it was just him and I in the office.

He chucked the cd into his machine, started heavy breathing for a while and then informed me he was off to have a wank in the toilets. Also informed me it was a good one when he got back. lol

CCS · 26th January 2012, 11:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pepsi

Exact thing happened to me at work once, although it was my fault for supplying the porn in the first place.. just didn't think he'd start watching it while it was just him and I in the office.

He chucked the cd into his machine, started heavy breathing for a while and then informed me he was off to have a wank in the toilets. Also informed me it was a good one when he got back. lol

25th January 2012, 14:06	#33564
Rince SLUTS!!!!!!!	desktop just this minute told me the following story: he was remoted into a user's PC and was doing a software install by hand (SCCm had failed) so on his machine he had copied the GUID, back onto user's desktop, opened a command prompt type msiexec <right-click to paste> and instead of the GUID pasting in he gets "oktoberfest upskirt" (the clipboard hadn't passed through in our remote access tool.) much LOLs __________________ Slow internet is worse than no internet. It's like putting your penis in once and then being required to make out for 2 hours --Matt "The Oatmeal" Inman

25th January 2012, 15:01	#33573
chiQ Frag-muff	I look at porn at work. It's a natural side-effect of reading warez sites. __________________ Gaming/phone/computing platforms are not indicative of groinal/physical/cognitive impressiveness.

25th January 2012, 15:58	#33575
Rince SLUTS!!!!!!!	^^ ignoring your old boss' lack of interwebs savvy, not getting you to sign a code of conduct on day 1 is pretty piss poor.... (might you, don't know long ago this was - this day and age, an IT CoC should be part of your induction/employment pack. We don't give new users (including temps, contractors, onsite vendors, etc) their initial password until they sign the ITCoC.)* * posted from his work PC, on work time.... :/ __________________ Slow internet is worse than no internet. It's like putting your penis in once and then being required to make out for 2 hours --Matt "The Oatmeal" Inman

25th January 2012, 21:37	#33584
A Corpse talkative lurker	I grabbed Q1 shareware off a BBS at midnight while at a lan. 2am, download finished, figured I'd give it a quick look. No sleep was had that day. edit: Thinking back, was "shareware" code for pirated? I didn't see any limitations tbh. __________________ Broke my addiction! Bye bye Eve, hello Minecraft. Wait... >_<

25th January 2012, 13:38	#33562
Cyberbob	Option 1: "Excuse me Mr Manager sir, Look at these logs I put into easy to read spreadsheets for your viewing pleasure sir, I'd like to get xyz person fired now please" Option 2: "Ehh, he's not getting caught in person, he's still doing all his work, it's not a drain on company resources at all, and it's nothing illegal, is it really my business" Sheriff Baxton to the rescue? __________________ ɹǝʌo sᴉ ǝɯɐƃ ʎɥʇ

25th January 2012, 14:00	#33563
Ab A mariachi ogre snorkel	I'd be checking my contract and my KPIs and seeing if monitoring http logs for porn access was actually part of my job description. Like, in writing.

25th January 2012, 14:13	#33566
doppelgänger of someone	1. quiet tap on the shoulder, saying "I'm supposed to report everything. Hardcore porn is not part of our business internet use, so cut it out". (Think of something else if you work in hardcore porn industry.) 2a. If he continues, REPORT and let the management decides (because you don't have his productivity data and how porn habit affects him or the company as a whole). 2b. If he stops, everybody happy. 2bb. Most likely he will reoffend in some future date. Goto 1. Last edited by doppelgänger of someone : 25th January 2012 at 14:18.

25th January 2012, 14:33	#33569
Cyberbob	"Oh I thought I'd take a look at his internet traffic to see if there was anything dodgy, and there was." One slippery slope later.. "Oh I thought I'd take a look at his emails to see if there was anything dodgy, and there was." __________________ ɹǝʌo sᴉ ǝɯɐƃ ʎɥʇ

25th January 2012, 14:50	#33572
TnT	What ^^ they said bob. Erroneous analogy, like seriously flawed.

25th January 2012, 15:34	#33574
Ab A mariachi ogre snorkel	I once got summoned into my boss's office (back in what I think of as "the corporate years") and confronted with my http logs. I worked in the marketing department and of course part of my job was to monitor what sort of coverage my employer's products were getting in the media, so every day I spent a bit of time reading sites like Computerworld, ZDnet, CNET, etc, to keep an eye on press releases and competitor publicity and shit. Of course those sites ran lots of banner ads, and lots of them were for Seek. And so my http logs were full of http://seek.com.au/banners/*.gif. But boss only saw SEEK.COM.AU in flashing letters. So I got hauled in to my boss's office for jobseeking on work time. I a) burst out laughing, b) explained, and c) observed that I had not been presented with a workplace privacy policy and thus had not signed one to confirm that I had read and understood such a policy and thus had not consented to my activity being monitored, so even if I was jobsearching on work time, fuck off. But I was actually working, so fuck off.

25th January 2012, 16:05	#33576
GM	The idea in corporate is to avoid 2 departments as much as possible - IT and HR. IT/HR are the departments that issue pseudo-decrees and get you to sign policies on asinine issues – they are the vegetables you have to eat, because they are in essence the colon of the corporate organism. Once the ideas and project work have been digested they get passed to the micro-organisms that inhabit it. Whenever an idea or project had a toxic effect to these departments, minor as the case may be, diarrhoea would inevitably flow.

25th January 2012, 16:15	#33577
StN I have detailed files	I/we tend to use the tactful approach in the first instance. We don't actively monitor logs unless requested to by a concerned manager, but that said some things have arisen in the past that have caused concern and been escalated to decision makers beyond my pay grade. Enough said about now - it's time for some olden day stuff... A senior manager at a previous employer was concerned about reports in the media of Intertron pron and requested that we have a look at the logs for anything dodgy (fearing as we all do that the good company name might get dragged into news reports). We decided they were too big (Even back in the '90s) to do by hand, so we did a quick grep for some key phrases. Stumbled across a very steamy IRC session. Noticed that it was from one of the home account dial in IP addresses going out across our special link to the net. Which meant it was one of about 5 people. Narrowed it down even further and it suddenly became clear that it was from the very manager that had asked for the check. Turns out his home PC was bung, and his teenage daughter had been borrowing his laptop. Naughty girl. I think the upshot was that we reported that nothing of any consequence was found. Would probably have been more embarassing for him if we had brought it up.

25th January 2012, 16:33	#33578
Fx.	doing external IT support few years back, once got the IT contact onsite fired at one of my clients for too much social networking of course i wasn't looking until the CEO rang me and asked me to look into the contacts internet usage as they thought a lot of time was being wasted, i ran it past my boss and got it in writing from the CEO to monitor it (and leave those notes from the job tickets where he paid me to do it because the contact was the one who signed them off) feltbadman.jpg

25th January 2012, 22:10	#33586
Redneck	First episode, actually. One level would be a demo

25th January 2012, 23:38	#33590
MadMax Stuff	we could have had cheaper android tablets (actually, they couldn't have really - they suck that hard) but no, they got ipads. they could have had crappy cell phones but no, staff get phones that can tether so they do away with their aircards or get iphones.

26th January 2012, 09:45	#33594
tor	Man I don't want to sit next to a dude with a boner. Nor do I want to suspect that he is off to the shared bathroom to engage in "side recreation".

26th January 2012, 10:58	#33598
wazza flex	I've never been into p0rn :/