IT Employment·20,064 discussions

Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

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Hi guys,

Bit of a tricky situation here. One of our (ageing) managers is trying to access teen sites such as rate my body etc, he appears to have an acount set up on several teen forums (we reports from the websweeper when access is denied). The IT policy clearly states that internet access and email may be monitored so I am happy that the company is within their rights to discipline him. I have spoken to the HR Director who has asked me to monitor it for a while longer. BUT before we confront him is there anything else that we should consider?

Thanks

Topic

Report him to the police

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

If the teen forums indicate illegal activities then report him to the police. There should be zero tolerance on child predators.
If his actions are not illegal (like over 18 sites) then he should be dealt with via company diciplinary actions if warranted.

idiots reply

In reply to Report him to the police

report him to the police? U r an idiot IT person!!

everyone is entitled to an opinion

In reply to idiots reply

don’t be overzealous, bashing others can get you unwanted attention.

Idiots reply

In reply to idiots reply

I do not completely agee with Mr.moondookie. It is the “IT” part of the sentence that I disagree with, otherwise I am in accord. There are many many innocuous forums on the net targeting a teen audience. It seems that the rush to judgment seems to concern the managers age, and the narrow minded views on age appropriate behavior. The over-reaction about child porn is totally out of line. If your run of the mill teen visited these sites, it would attract not so much as a second glance or disapproval. Now, if there is a written rule stating proscribed types of web sites, then censure is in order.

Are you really that stupid ?.

In reply to Idiots reply

First and formost the last thing the company needs is to be involved in a public crimnal prosecution that could involve everyone in that dept so think about the lawyer fees that you conpny will generate if you are involed in that mess, in addition to the nasty publicity you will get. and what if you are wrong ?. what if he was looking for something up for his daughter or nice and turns out it was innocent or worse yet has a logical explanation ?. then you may face a law suit from him. You should be real carefull to just get rid of him for nonperformance not for abuse

Learn to read

In reply to idiots reply

If you had at least average comprehension skills, you would have seen where I said “If the teen forums indicate illegal activities”

Calling someone else an idiot is usually the sign of being one.

Grow up and get a grip on reality.

A bit touchy

In reply to Learn to read

My my, I see that we are a bit sensitive to having our judgment held up to question. Could it be that for you that is a common state of affairs? Thus you have gotten a bit tired of always being second guessed and criticized? As for “Calling someone else an idiot is usually the sign of being one.” That is a twist of logic that is a bit tortured to say the least. Perhaps your logic is as flawed as your judgment

Calling the Police too soon does the following . . .

In reply to A bit touchy

Suppose you call the police before you determined a crime has been committed or who actually has committed the crime and they come out but don?t know how to make heads or tails of the log files(hell experienced admins struggle with it more often than they admit) but in the interest of public safety they would rather arrest a suspected perv than leave one roaming free, after all guilt and innocence is decided in a court of law.

The media outlets run with the story, so now everyone knows the guy is a perv and XYZ Corp employed him.

The guy loses his wife, his job, no decent attorney will represent him and if they would he couldn’t afford them, the neighborhood is quiet because the parents are keeping the kids indoors and the company experiences irreparable bad press.

Later they determine that it wasn’t the guy it was either someone on the cleaning crew or worm infecting his machine and the guy is exonerated of all charges over a mistake. The newspaper runs a one line retraction on the back page, the channel news is featuring an expose? on rat turds in restaurant food and their 30 minute segment is too full to retract and the guy has to find a way to put his life back together with everyone wandering if he actually did it meanwhile the company is fighting to keep it’s customer base in a competitive market labeled as the home of the perv.

I think child predators and molesters should be shot but we should make sure the firing squad is aiming at the right person and that the one up against the wall deserves it.

“Idiots reply”, what is this a school playground?

Explendid answer

In reply to Calling the Police too soon does the following . . .

Until now I didn’t saw anyone troubled with the company and all the IT Administrators are paid to keep it out of things like those.
The better aproach is to block that kind of sites, buy some sort of filter, several anti-virus software have one of those.
(Our company bought an hardware appliance from our anti-virus that works swell)
You aren’t a policeman nor a judge neither a puritan, you are an IT person. It’s your job to prevent that users could use the company’s infraestructure to harm it.

Half the Battle

In reply to Explendid answer

At one of the companies I contract for, I give a new hire orientations on policies. One thing I make sure is loud and clear is the statement that ?If you perform illegal activities on the company network, I will find out and I will prosecute?. I don?t cite examples I don?t elaborate, the statement is self explanatory.

I maintain content filters and I could spend my entire day tweaking and refining and testing it, placing ACL?s on the routers, writing rules for the firewall, eliminating analog lines in cubicles and offices, ensuring that GSM broadband wireless cards aren?t used inappropriately I could make the environment so damn sanitized that they wouldn?t even be able to browse this forum because of the title of the page, but the way I see it, we suspect someone may be trying to access a teen sites. Maybe the guy is trying to check up on his daughter?s post, maybe he?s trying lure a youth. Do you just say as long ?as it doesn?t happen here it is not my problem?? It?s fairly common knowledge that child predators have a mental disease that they can neither control nor stop. If you placed safeguards in your network and prevented it from occurring then good for you, you?ve done half the battle but what if the guy really is a pedophile? You have an obligation to society not to mention you co-workers to determine what his motives are. That may actually mean securing the workstation so you can prove the chain of custody remains intact, and lowering the restrictions on the content filter.

Guilt is immediately labeled by the press

In reply to Calling the Police too soon does the following . . .

You can skip right over the cops, guilt is already decided by accusation alone, and by the press alone.

This is because, for this era and generation, anyone over the age of 18 even casually looking at a fully-clothed teen is a perv, and perv = the new communist. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism)

just my humble opinion …

Teen or underage

In reply to Calling the Police too soon does the following . . .

whats all this talk about police if you go to a “TEEN” Porn site most of the woman are 18 – 50 is this the sort of site he is going too or are we talking little kiddies ?

How can you tell…

In reply to Teen or underage

If the models used were actually underage? I’m 25 and look ~15….

I agree

In reply to Learn to read

ditto

using the word “Idiot” in this forum doesn’t make you a genius!

In reply to idiots reply

You should be careful when calling someone names, especially in a discussion forum like this. If someone takes enough offense to it they could contact a TR moderator and you might have your account suspended or worse.

Plus making statements like the one you made doesn’t make you sound any more intelligent. Think before you speak is something that applies to everyone.

As for getting back to the main discussion, IT should be monitoring it and working with HR on this one. Since the issue has already been brought up with HR and they’ve asked IT to continue monitoring it, that’s all that really needs to be done. In the end, HR will work with upper mgmt to consider what needs to be done including contacting the authorities if necessary but since we really don’t know the extent & content of the sites that this mgr is frequenting, it’s a little harsh and a bit of an over reaction to say call the police. In the end, that will be HR/Mgmt’s call to make, not the IT Dept’s.

Let’s control the tempers in this forum though, no one needs to read your hate posts.

Wow hold on a sec, discipline means…

In reply to Report him to the police

Talk to the man, give him the policy and have him read it in front of you, explain that the sites are examples of this and have him sign the policy with the notations that he has been provided with examples and understands how to use the internet for its intended corporate use. Keep your word. If you say you will follow up in 24 hours with some kind of action, do it and don’t let him down. If he proves himself incapable of keeping his word write up the action plan that will lead to his dismissal based on that. Document and communicate to ensure responsibility and integrity is handled. More is at stake than corporate appraisal, there is the man in question, his family, his co-workers, etc. Be a stand for the people you monitor and protect them against lax and inappropriate behavior.

Another Way

In reply to Wow hold on a sec, discipline means…

We offer a service that prevents the problem of employees viewing porn. Works like a proxy server. Doesn’t require maintainance. Cheaper to deploy.
http://www.safefromsites.com

I agree

In reply to Report him to the police

Wholeheartedly

For every action…

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

If applicable, I would report him to the police and upper management and start looking for another job. My reasons for this go back to an old rule at Bell Labs that goes something like this:

1. If your manager is an alcoholic and you report him/her your career with the company is over because you weren?t loyal to your manager.
2. If your manager is an alcoholic and you don?t report him/her, when the company finds out, your career with the company is over because you weren?t loyal to the company.

If, however, you choose to say nothing you?re an accessory after the fact. Anyway that you look at it finding a new position might be in order.

Thanks for the replies…

In reply to For every action…

It is OK I won’t need to find another job…..yet.

Seriously though, what precautions should we take to make sure that this doesn’t backfire on the company? Is there anything I should do to reinforece our position? We have a web filter, a fair usage policy and I have kept the email reports.

I must also stress that I suspect that he is behaving in this manner and that it hasn’t been proven.

Close the Proxy

In reply to Thanks for the replies…

Set a proxy rule to just block those sites.

Then it won’t be an issue.

USE the IT Policy…..

In reply to Thanks for the replies…

I think if you will be double care, use the it policy and make a statment for you boss,about the best for all the company, specially if any co-worked ask, you have use the it policy and you statment for you boos.
Definitive ask for it fire, and you will be just make you work.
good look.

You people amaze me

In reply to Thanks for the replies…

In a country that encourages and legalizes same sex marriages and other perverted behaviour, do you mean that looking at images on the web is really a problem? Get real. Deal with issues like spending billions on trying to rid the planet of races and ethnic groups who do not fit your white elitist ideal.

Woah woah,

In reply to You people amaze me

Wait just one second. How in hell did we get from “I’m unsure what to do with this problem” to degrading a country that “legalizes same sex marriages and other perverted behaviour”?

Second. We may not agree, but you’re entitled to your opinion on the same sex marraige bit of course. I’m not disputing that. But it was hardly necessary in this thread. What’s funny is you call everyone else “white elitists” and (more or less) accuse them of plotting genocide, yet this homophobic knee-jerk reaction isn’t elitist or prejudiced at all? Not even a bit?

Grow up. Stick to the topic or move to the politics room with Maxwell. I rarely (if ever) agree with him, but I’d like to see you hold a candle to him. Would be worth a good laugh I’d think.

What really amazes me is…

In reply to You people amaze me

A very sticky problem to say the least and I have nothing to help you with it. If one could ever get to the real answers instead of all the personal opinions you might stand a chance.

This forum is supposed to be a place for expressing IT related ideas, for finding help with problems. More and more what I see when I come here is the same mindless and quite often bigoted prattle that you can find in any chat room, spouted by what appear to be some pretty uneducated “IT people”.
And to make matters worse, I’m betting most of these people are being paid by some company for doing a job they aren’t doing. Time for me to stop wasting the 10 minutes a week I spend on this crap.

Let me make sure I undersatnd you

In reply to You people amaze me

You are saying that if a person is gay then they are a pervert, but an adult using company time and resources to look at images of potentially naked underage children, is alright in your books? Never mind suggesting people deal with other issues, you obviously have some of your own issues to deal with, like homophobia for one. Looking at images on the web is not an issue, unless it is an adult looking at children. Now that is perverted.

The issue here is that this man is potentially a danger to young children, and while he must be assumed innocent until proven guilty, the company has a societal obligation to report this man and let the authorities handle it.

Relax All, this is just flame bait…

In reply to You people amaze me

Look at zyp’s account create date and relax…just a post from a sad and pathetic individual who has no recourse but to be inflammatory to get attention. Nothing to see here…move along 🙂

Make Sure,

In reply to Thanks for the replies…

Hi kcross,
I’ve been in a situation like you are in.
Here’s a tip: Make sure!!!
Make sure you have plenty of log files.
Make a list of the sites visited, time spent online, everything that the person in question has done, make sure you have it on paper.
Make sure your guns are loaded properly so they won’t backfire. When the time comes, make sure you have a good plan of attack.
Good Luck!

I have dealt with this before!

In reply to Thanks for the replies…

Hi I had to deal with this type of situation before. What I did as a manager was to gather all the information I could on the person I turned on bots to let me know when the person was going to the sites in question. I then took all the information I had to there manager and let them deal with it. Yes I am a protector of the network and it is my responability to not let these things happen, but it is not my job to be the police let upper management handle it.
In my case upper management did nothing to the person as they were all friends. I in turn wrote a long letter explaining my feelings on the matter and I kept all the information I had gathered and when I left the company shortly after the problem happen I sent a nice letter to the police with a CD containing all the evidence and the person was arrested and the company got a nice fine.
That is my story. I agree with some of the other folks I hate people who go to porn sites and yes I do think they should all be shot. But the one thing we all need to realize is if we did something about the sites in the first place then we would not have to police them….

Dealt poorly with this before

In reply to I have dealt with this before!

Well now aren’t we the smug self rightous prig. You wrote “I hate people who go to porn sites and yes I do think they should all be shot.” My my you and a few mullahs and ayatollahs are in quite good company. You say you left the company shortly afterwards–how about shoved out for an abrasive temperment, extreme reactionary views, with a dangerous propensity to violence. You are one sick puppy. You also wrote ” not my job to be the police,” and you did just that. You may think that you fixed them, but they will get the last laugh. Try and get a good reference from them. No doubt they will see you blackballed in the profession. You reap what you sew pal. Anger, hate, revenge, and all of your nasty, negative, narrow mindedness will come back to haunt you.

perfect people in an imperfect world

In reply to Dealt poorly with this before

I feel the gravity if that respons “dad” thanks for the spiel, i’m sure that will get me far in life.

Dont wait too long

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

IF the gut is a preditor he needs to be stopped NOW!!! How would you feel if the guy turns out to be a pedophile and you have saved a child from harm???!! Given the companies monitoring policies, you have every right to monitor his email and web use and do not act you are as guilty as he is !!!!! CAll the police and turn in all monmitored records! DO NOT WAIT!

Do your job, don’t be foolish.

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

The challenge is to do your job and stop there.

I am assuming that you were asked to review the websweeper logs. You have reported the issue to HR. That fulfills your obligation. You have taken a stand for what is right. Getting the police involved is ABSOLUTELY NOT your responsibility. If the senior management of the company wants to take that step, they can. Hopefully after consulting legal counsel.

IMO, if YOU take that path you set yourself up for legal liability. Right now it appears only that you know he has tried to access these sites. That is NOT a crime. Perhaps not in good taste, not terribly smart and perhaps in violation of company policy, but not a crime. You have no reason to assume his intentions or his actions.

Report the mess. Let someone who has responsibility in this area proceed from here. (Frankly, I would not proceed on just the word of an HR manager. There are too many legal implications.)

I wish you well.

I’d lawyer up myself

In reply to Do your job, don’t be foolish.

If I were in kcross’ shoes, I’d lawyer up myself. Now. Even thinking bad things about a manager can be a career-ending move in some companies. More so if you are 100% correct.

If a company has a “HR Pro” on staff, likely they will do something stupid, then check with legal counsel afterwards.

100% agree

In reply to Do your job, don’t be foolish.

The employee did something stupid, not illegal. You cant assume he is a predator becasue he visited a site that rates teenage bodies. Remember that PLayboy models or any model for that matter are teens 18 and 19, not over 21 in most cases. The company should have had a plan all along for this type of situation and not shooting from the hip. I would document and counsel the situation to the employee as inappropriate behavior with a zero tolerance re-occurance. If their is any lip from him, so long. Then issue a mandate to all employees to sign an agreement that this surfing will not be tolerated following termination. Then I would block the site. You will cover your butt, prevent future occurances, and prevent other employees from engaging in that practice.

Agree – Let HR Do Its Job

In reply to Do your job, don’t be foolish.

The responsibility for handling this situation belongs in the hands of HR and upper management. Let them do their jobs.

The IT group will probably never know how the situation has been handled, if the HR group has any sort of ethics.

Your job is done. Let others do theirs.

Where are you based?

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

if you’re in the UK, it very much depends on the evidence you can collect, and how you do it.

Let me know if you’re in the UK, as, if you are, you just landed in evidence collection hell.

(oh, and welcome, I thought I was the only one in that particular spot!)

GG

Agree with Deacon

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

I would bring this up to your Manager/Supervisor and let them know what HR has told you to do. Any information that HR might request I would CC your supervisor on it.

Keep monitoring the logs. The reason that HR wants it is most likely to have a substantial amount of evidence to lay out in front of him.

If the sites are not 18 and over (if your in the States) then I would suggest you and your manager inform HR and encourage them to contact local authorities. They are going to want the information as well.

FYI….I went through this when I served overseas and had to monitor the proxy. First time offenders that went to sites and it wasn’t an accident or a pop up got a strongly worded email showing them the date, time and sites they accessed or tried accessing (If the time showed longer than 1 minute we knew it wasn’t a mistake due to the slow connection we had 128K for 1400 members). If it happened again then they lost access and all the logs were forwarded on to their supervisors and the JAG on base. They were informed of this during their inprocessing as well as signed paperwork for their accounts.

At least once a day I was forwarding information to supervisors and the JAG.

Does he have a teenager?

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Most likely it is what it appears to be – but sometimes parents go a little crazy trying to find out exactly what thier kids are up to. Not that I don’t understand but they have usually waited until there is some kind of severe problem and they don’t have a good relationship with thier child(ren). This is also why their child has a problem so what to do? Spying, snooping and even following the child are all options – and I could say these are not good options but sometimes I would rather see this and even understand it compared to the parent who does nothing.
If this is not what is going on you may have a predator to deal with and this is definately unpleasant. Be very careful of dealing with a predator they don’t like being thwarted and if this is obsessive behavior this person may become violent or strike out. A responsible adult has to protect children. I have personally not visited these sites yet but I hear more and more about these kinds of sites on the internet including one called My Place that predators have been stalking and all I can say is that maybe parents need to keep thier children from using these sites – and exactly what is the thrill of these sites for children anyway? It sounds to me like these children need more real social interaction and something to keep them busy so they are not bored and lonely. All in all one of the most difficult problems to come out of this new tech age.

My Place is not the problem

In reply to Does he have a teenager?

The problem is that when Biff and Lolita post thier pics and personal information on my space, they do it in complete confidence that only their boyfried or girlfrind will see it.

(There is a side question as to why Denmark, The Netherlands, Mexico, Thailand and so on do not have the predator / child killing problem we have in the US, but I think I’ll leave that to the paid Socilogists.)

Thanks again….

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

I think we have a reasonable strategy now thanks to your replies. Deacon’s response puts my position into perspective, so I am collating all of the relevent data for the HR Director. I have been asked to monitor the situation for another week then HR will confront the manager (who I must add is not MY manager). We have considered all possibilities such as:

-Spying on his kids
-Links sent in email / spam that he innocently clicked
-Advising the kids?? – (we haven’t seen any posts from him)

A couple of things add to it being slightly siniter though:

-Made a fuss about wanting a desk that was out of view in a recent office reshuffle.
-When we first started getting reports about denied access the manager asked for a laptop to ‘work from home’ even though he works on a shop floor 90% o the time.
-A few of the urls relate to members only sections of adult msn groups.

gadgetgirl – I am in the UK.

Thanks again, wish us luck.

How are you monitoring?

In reply to Thanks again….

Remember to CYA at all times. Get something in writing from HR that authorises you to monitor. Work to your Incident Investigation guidelines, work in tandem with a witness, and for goodness sake if you’re looking at his email account, remember the constrains you’re working under regarding RIPA, the EU Privacy & Monitoring Directive, and Sex Offences Act 2003.

I may be preaching to the converted, but as you have private mail disabled this was the only way of telling you to be careful!

GG

Red Flags

In reply to Thanks again….

2 out of the 3 things would have raised red flags to me. The laptop request and the urls.

The first one wouldn’t have because people do like their privacy but combined with the other 2 sets off bells in my head.

And like Gadget said…CYA.

thanks again–kcross

In reply to Thanks again….

Well, I must say that your latest post puts a different twist on things. Indeed, this is a delicate situation. There are more than a few things to consider. He is older, but maybe valued, perhaps part of the institutional memory and thus his departure would hurt the company’s efficiency. Lets say what he is doing is indiscreet but not illegal (for conversations sake)but accessing the network from home decidedly puts the company net at risk, malware on his laptop etc. If this is a big shop, bound by set in stone rules and written procedures, then Mr. Cross is hamstrung by procedural rules that must be adhered to–or else. If the mgr. in question has a prickly disposition, that does not help. I wish to suggest, if this is a smaller shop, with a rather informal “lets all get along and just get things done” atmosphere, perhaps a quiet word just might make things go away. Something like a “say mate, if I were you,— the IT dept knows EVERYTHING that goes on in their little cottage, and there have been a few rumbles that things are a bit out of order.” This person might take the hint. Anyway, in my experience, sometimes the judicious and friendly quiet word has served to straighten out a few sticky problems that could have difficult ramifications if not handled deftly one on one. Oh yes, remind him that home DSL lines are becoming quite affordable you know.

Not knowing the laws in the UK

In reply to Thanks again….

Keep very detailed logs of his actions. Keep HR updated to his violations of company policy. “Teen sites” is a broad phrase. If they are child porn sites, then yes, you have a duty to contact law enforcement. If you can prove, (e-mails?) he is trying to meet unders, contact law enforcement.

In the US, looking at girls is not illegal, but can get you fired. Hiring and firing is not an IT job, providing the documentation is.

Now, if you could get HR on board, then tell the old perv that the laptop needs a software upgrade and run a forensic analysis on it, you may be able to get back to the IT thing.

Have You Considered…

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Have you considering the possibility that he might have a legitimate reason for monitoring these sites? Like a son or daughter that he’s keeping an eye on?

Read

In reply to Have You Considered…

Have a look at his last post, he mentions that that may also be a possibility and they’re taking that into consideration.

Got no experience with that sort of thing, I guess it goes to show in someways you do monitor those sorts of things.

Lets not have everyone jumping onto the paedofile/sex/child predator, there are plenty of ‘teen’ sites out there and they’re all listed as 18 over. In my 5 years in a boarding house, thats all the boys looked at, there wasn’t anythingelse…and if there was it was too hard to find. Let dealings with outside agencies occur between your superiors and the agency, then you’re less likely to get in the poop.

Sorry, no.

In reply to Read

He’s an “ageing” manager (as stated by OP), he has managed to wangle a seat where he’s not overseen, and he’s looking at teen sites.

1. As a manager, he should be well aware of his companys’ policies on both computer usage and internet usage

2. He has no legitimate reason to demand not to be overseen unless he is in a position where external people may see his monitor, and he’s a financial guy, or, he’s like me, and is in security and monitoring (where we can easily cause offence by checking accessed websites when someone has committed an infraction)

3. THIS IS A BUSINESS MACHINE!! If he wants to keep an eye on his “teens” why not do it at home, where there are no restrictions? Why risk his job doing it from work?

Alarms bells ringing? Yup, very loudly and the smoke is just starting to rise on this one.

GG

All Good Points GG

In reply to Sorry, no.

Every single one of the points she made is on the ball.

Being a manager he should know better and he should know or have a clue on the usage rules.

IF your in financial I can see why you would have a seat/desk away from other folks so you have warning if they are coming to you. That is how it is with my wife’s work. All the financial folks have cubes but they are sitting in a way that someone can’t come up behind them and see the screen by accident.

As a work machine I would assume that when they log on there is the nice little script pop up warning them of monitoring and that it is a company computer. Obviously he is ignoring that fact.

KCross….your the person with the knowledge of how to monitor useage. Obviously HR isn’t. As the monitor it is in your job to notify Hr of these issues.

One thing you might want to try is to get with HR and your manager/supervisor and maybe lay down some ground work. If you can, set up a daily filter or report that emails you stats of who and when and length of stay on sites that are deemed inappropriate.

That was something I had set up as a monitor. I had the log in ID, the time and date and length of visit to the site and the site name. If the visit was more than 10 seconds (I added in the human factor of wondering “What the hell is this?”). Our SOPs as I said before was a warning email to the user and their supervisor. After that it went to the JAG (In civilian terms the Base Lawyer) for violations of the standing general order (which was huge!)

Never make assumptions especially involving a mans career

In reply to Read

First don’t assume the word Teen to mean that people at those sites are not legal, it is huge segment of the Adult entertainment industry to promote legal models under the term “Teen” after all 18 and 19 year olds are still teens. As for whether those sites appropriate or not depends upon the company you are in. I have worked with several companies who could care less about what you did so long as it wasn’t illegal and you met up to their expectations.

You need to make sure that he is actually attempting to access the site and that it is not a popup, graphic from an e-mail, trojan horse, etc so install a key logger of some sort, there are excellent products out there that do key logging and screen shots from http://www.spectorsoft.com, they can be installed without the user aware of it and have rock solid, indisputable logs. eBlaster will e-mail the logs to you so it will work in remote offices but outgoing e-mail connection my trigger a fireall or virus scanner and leaves a log in broadband routers, Spector Pro you have to retrieve the data from the machine which could alarm the user.

Verify he is the one at the machine and not cleaning crew or someone else by:
* set a policy to make sure his machine will automatically lock after short period of inactivity
* Trigger a password change for his next login and reboot his machine.
* Audit his login so you can confirm he is at the computer when the spectorsoft logs events.

If an event is emailed to you by the software perhaps you should visit the office for a visual inspection as well the more evidence and witnesses the better the case.

Once you confirm a crime has been committed, then your first approach should be to contact HR, they may want to involve the police and/or involve legal counsel but give them that courtesy so they can separate themselves from liability as much as possible, this may involve dealing with it internally.

keyloggers, and other spyware

In reply to Never make assumptions especially involving a mans career

One would hope that the company installed anti-spyware suite would hock up a hairball over the addition of a keylogger, even from a so-called legitimate source.

Have you tried the products?

In reply to keyloggers, and other spyware

If you have used the product and it was actually detected by an anti-spyware suite I’m curious to find out which one it was. I’m not saying it can’t be detected just that I’ve actually used their products for more than a year in a large environment along side several programs designed to detect spyware and it has gone unnoticed in my netowrk and successfully gathered the evidence need while adhereing to chain-of-custody concerns. Its quite stealthy, can even be installed remotely without the users knowledge. Each install is in a randomly named subfolder, it also assigns a random keystroke at install to be used to access the terminal.

Never have, and that’s an issue

In reply to Have you tried the products?

I mean, it’s nice and all to bust the occasionaly perv, but I think having a security suite that won’t detect every keylogger running in your environment is a [b]huge[/b] SARBOX, HIPPA, California Personal Privacy Act (et al.) problem.

SOX & HIPPA

In reply to Never have, and that’s an issue

Allowing someone access to sensitive HIPPA or SOX info who is commiting moral turpitude is a greater risk.

In a SOX and HIPPA environment I would recommend that limitations be in place on who has administrive access. Its far too common for companies to simply provide users of a machine Administrative rights at the local machine level, allowing anyone the ability to install whatever including keyloggers.

In a SOX and HIPPA environment, you need tighter security to avoid unauthorized access to data, however they both specs that allow for authorized administration of systems.

Not the ones

In reply to keyloggers, and other spyware

that are physically installed between the keyboard and CPU, to be retrieved later.

I agree with Staticonthewire

In reply to Have You Considered…

While I don’t do it from work I do monitor my space and a couple other popular sites to keep an eye on my goddaughter and some friends kids. My brother and my friends are just casual PC users and would have never even located their kids online let alone been able to figure out how to interact with them without being detected. What if that is all this fellow is doing? I think he should at least be warned and then any further violation of policy would merit termination.

First

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

You may want to check if he’s actually doing it or if some worm is doing it. Some of these helper toolbars, etc. will look for keywords on pages you are legitimately viewing and attempt to bring up pages based on the keyword. I have also noticed some legitimate sites have advertising that points to another site which may be blocked by websense.

If it is actually him, he should be confronted and soon (I think it is unethical to notice something going on, and sit on it until it gets worse), but I don’t know that you can actually charge him with ‘accessing’ if his attempts are being blocked.

Legitimate Business Reason

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Mangers ALWAYS know better than us IT techs. At least that is the message we get in here when the discussion turns to dumb manager decisions as they relate to IT.

This is no different.

The manager is your superior, your “better” .. you are there to make the business side happy, so whatever he wants to do, he gets to do.

Get used to it, suck it up, and forget that IT ever was anything except a waste-of-money cost center.

If the manager wants access to teen and/or porn sites (especially the legal teen porm sites in Denmark, The Netherlands or wherever), give it to him. After all, if he is a manger, there must be a legitimate business reason. You just are not privy to it, and as IT person, you really have no need to know what it is.

(Just waiting for some of my favorite managers and CxOs to weigh in on this.)

Get over it

In reply to Legitimate Business Reason

Old and Bitter are we?

I will tell you my perspective as a manager. HR knows the policy, they need to lead the process. Its not up to you to personally interpret it – take their direction and ask them for clairfication if needed.

Personally, depending on how the policy written, any clear evidence of viewing porn(legal or illegal) from work is grounds for dismissal in any of the last 3 companies I have worked for. A clear and consistent pattern helps establish this. You need to track and show its not an “accident” or some worm (I’ve seen that too).

There is no legitimate reason in the vast majority of companies to look at porn. I have met some law enforcement types who legitimately investigated some sites. And given the fact that porn sites are full of malware, this manager is putting the company’s network at risk, for no business purpose. If he is trying to track where his kids are going, dont do it from work.

I have worked with many managers and senior executives who feel exactly the same way, and I have been involved in firings for that cause.

James

ISP’s, Manage Hosting, CoLo’s

In reply to Get over it

There are other legitimate reasons to view legal websites of a questionable nature on the clock, perhaps not so much in the original posting. I?ve worked for several ISP?s where you were asked in the interview if that material offends you, some people respond with what they think interviewer wants to hear and actually eliminate themselves from consideration, after all how can you troubleshoot site as an end user without viewing the questionable material.

Not every company has a formal written policy forbidding it, especially smaller companies.

It has been my experience that high revenue generators for the company or managers aren?t generally disciplined the same as the average Joe working in the trenches. If a guy is responsible for ? of the company?s annual sales they will most definitely approach the matter differently.

If you work for the post office, even if you are committing certain crimes on duty there are things you can say to prevent or delay termination and most Postal workers know the terminology because their coworkers have used it. The post office has to dot so many I?s and cross so many T?s before they show anybody the door, and often times they opt for rehabilitation and get their position back.

One written warning

In reply to ISP’s, Manage Hosting, CoLo’s

Where I have worked, and granted they have been large companies, we had a one warning rule. First offense, we notified the manager, second time HR and the manager. At that point there was to be a written and documented discussion with the manager and the employee and HR, reiterating the consquences. These employees had already signed an acknoledgement of the policy.

If they do it again, they are stupid.

Of course if they were viewing anything illegal like kiddie porn, or downloading hacking tool, it was straight to dismissal and in the case of kiddie porn, a visit with the local law enforcement agency.

ISPs are different from most companies.

Post office – highly unionized environment and a longer process.

My current employer fired someone for unauthorized access to a customers computer – nothing malicious just not authorized by anyone.

James
James

Old? Yes …

In reply to Get over it

Nice to see you out here, James!

Old? Yes … Bitter? Was getting there until this last year with decent, honest management.

I know some law enforcement looks at porn. They set up fake screen names and troll Yahoo chat rooms too. More grist for the press. It’s easier to do that than hit the bricks and look for murderers, rapists, drug dealers, gang members and it shows. We are running at least one unsolved violent crime a day here in Columbus since the big push to rid the world of online pervs. It took public outrage to get the Westerville PD out of the chatrooms and on to the street to pick up a gang of three young urban males who were knocking citizens over the head, and operating right outside of police headquarters.

I’ll be so glad when this generation’s Red Scare has passed, and the police can get back to solving, stopping and preventing violent crime.

Yeah, at the workplace, verboten. It is up to each company to establish policy, however “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The closer to the corner office in the mahogany corridor, the less will happen. (In my limited experience.)

We aren’t going to solve this problem here. There is more road to travel, and at least one good Sociology text in all of this. Maybe we need to revive the House Un-American Activities Committee? (Nah, I didn’t just say that …)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee

I Cannot Believe the Advice You Are Getting

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

You are in a situation that is outside of your domain. I suggest you go to the HR Director and have him/her lay out for you their action plan and what they specifically require of you/your department to help execute THEIR action plan. Simply asking you to keep monitoring is insufficient. Then what? If they want IT to block such sites from access, then you need to understand from them who will fund the identification and implementation of such a solution (if you don’t already have one). You are getting in the middle of HR responsibilities which is putting you in a precarious position. I would go so far as requiring a written request from HR as to the specific actions they want you to take, for how long, and why.

unbelievable

In reply to I Cannot Believe the Advice You Are Getting

I find it hard to understand 1. Why are you going on line for advice about “how to deal”,with a problem that is (or should be) by company policy.
2; Why is an IT Tech concerned about what a MANAGER is doing. Is it not your job to collect information and send it to your manager for resolution. put your bible away.

I get your point but

In reply to unbelievable

some companies have never been in this situation. You can have a basic code of contact on how and what to do, but laws change and are vague. You are talking about someone’s reputation here. There is high liability at stake. Some people cause issues for baiting companies into litigation for harrassment. I think he questions on how to proceed is quite valid wanting to cover all bases.

Second it is his job to determine what is going on in his network. It’s not a moral standpoint it is company liability and protection. What if a woman walked past his cube and saw that image of racy content or a customer? Can you imagine the sexual harrassment lawsuit? Should he be fired? Probably but it doesnt seem that there was in place an internet content policy that he or any other employee signed when they got access to the internet or in their orientation paperwork. They are forced to implement that now, then fire or they could get in trouble for no known policy.

If they want IT to block such sites from access

In reply to I Cannot Believe the Advice You Are Getting

I gathered that the sites [b]were[/b] being blocked, but that his software (websweeper) was logging the attempts.

I cannot believe

In reply to I Cannot Believe the Advice You Are Getting

Finally a sensible answer.

Content Filters and This Entire Discussion

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Wonder how many content filters are going crazy with this topic, its got all the keywords to trigger responses.

I’d hate to report to someone who jumped to conclusions.

To set the record straight….

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Our web filter software alerted me to a very large number of atempts to access a range of dubious sites after an upgrade. I contacted the HR director due to the nature of these sites, he instructed me to monitor the situation for 1 week and collect everything I could to ensure the company covers itself and also be certain before embarking on a potentially life damaging process.

The reason that I posted the original question was to ask my fellow professionals how to deal with this situation as I (fortunately) have not been in this position before – it is all well and good having a bit of paper warning users about internet abuse and something else when dealing with a (potential) kiddy fiddler.
I have extracted his IE history and discovered some strong indications of ‘online grooming’ and misrepresentation of true identity. My director and the HR director have been alerted and we are meeting tomorrow to go over the new information.

There are 2 issues that the company has to decide how to deal with:

– The company position relating to the web policy and it’s course of action.
– The moral responsibility for the protection of minors.

Thank you to all people that have been supportive and constructive.

old pervs and the good ole boy network

In reply to To set the record straight….

My best advice to you is stick to your convictions. You may hit a wall with your company, and if you feel that strong about it (and this is stopped in it’s tracks) you will have to make a decision. It appears you are a person of high morals, so you will have to decide the best course of action. In this day and age, that kind of behavior is not acceptable and company’s are scared “s&%tliss about the prospect of a lawsuit especially under the grounds of unacceptable permiscuity.” Depending on the tenure and networking this individual has achieved in your company, you might have to go outside to do something. If you choose that route (hopefully it won’t go there) have your documentation in proper order. I have seen this before, but on a positive note it looks like management now has concerns, and a meeting is the proper place to address this issue. If you meet resistance, repost and I’ll be happy to give more insight. Good luck.

Grooming

In reply to To set the record straight….

comes under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 – you need to get legal advice and an overview of the Act itself.

CYA!!

Also, more UK bits here…..

http://www.iwf.org.uk/

Let us know how you get on – it’s nice to hear another UK point of view!!

GG

Have you cut off his

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

testicles yet?

Reply To: Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Hi kcross,

A couple of things to think about & suggestions;

– Does your role actively implies that you
should monitor such behauvior ? Or are you
allowed to ‘stumble upon’ by coinsidence ?

– Your role is then indeed ‘limited’ IMHO to just
signalling it, and getting ‘orders’ from your
line management. If you want to inform HR about
this, I think you should have done this trough
your direct manager (especially as he does not
seem to be involved). It’s then up to his/her
discretion to involve HR or not.

– Cover your …. I seen things like this really
backfire nasty to the person reporting it, be
sure to have an e-mail trace of the messages
you exchange with your management and HR. If
you have the legal (policy) posabilies to make
hardcopies of these exchanges, do so and take
them off-site. (I think I even would do so if
my policy did no

– Be discrete… You saw this happening, a po-
tential reason to have someone disciplined or
even fired, don’t talk to co-workers about it,
if things turn out to be ‘begnine’ (which seems
to be hard looking at all your evidence) you
might have helped drain the carreer of someone
trough the john.

– Have HR describe in an e-mail what you want to
do, and have you direct manager copied on it.
I would suggest not to take _any_ action your-
selve. You noticed it, you forwarded it to your
management, until further order, it’s now their
decision to take.

Good luck !

what does age have to do with it?

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

When you put the word “ageing” up front in your post, and in parentheses to boot, which seems to indicate that this is specially relevant to the issue, it hurts all of us who are older and trying to keep our careers in IT alive. I was a career-changer into IT past 40 years old, and I believe I have suffered from age discrimination in hiring and retention as it is. I wish people would judge an individual on their merits rather than cast aspersions on something which is only a normal part of life. So it is painful to see my age group singled out as if only we are susceptible to inappropriate behavior.

I don’t think it was meant nastily

In reply to what does age have to do with it?

I think the OP was just trying to identify the fact that the manager was a) of an age where he COULD have teenagers at home, and b) should know when to apply company policy because he has been in management for a considerable time.

I, too, changed to IT at 40 years old, and haven’t been singled out for INappropriate behaviour, but for APPROPRIATE behaviour! This is how I got my present position!

Age can work both ways…..!!

GG

Gender & age biases.

In reply to I don’t think it was meant nastily

My interpretation of the original message was more of ‘he has the age to be a dirty old pig’, and not as a usefull piece of information to define if he has kids at home or not…

Second, I think there is some gender based bias also, a 40+ year old male is more easily seen as a dirty old pig then a 40+ year old female.

I think that it is important to treat the issue the TS faces in a professional and clean manner, and not to play judge, even if you find the behauviour repulsive…

Reply To: Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

In reply to Gender & age biases.

I took the term “ageing” as to say he is older rather than some 18 year old understudy talking to his 16 year old girlfriend.

As for gender bias, no matter how just or unjust it is..
Case 1: woman sues man for sexual harrassment
Case 2: man sues woman for sexual harrassment

Which one do you think has a better chance of winning in court? (given an equal ground of evidence and placement)

Quite right

In reply to Reply To: Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

I used the term ‘aging’ to indicate that he is much older than the 14 – 16 year olds that were also on the forums.

Vietnam online?

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Thought Mr Gary Glitter was locked up.
Didn’t realise he was in a managerial position with net access!

Make darn sure you have the right guy.

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

A company I worked for accused a guy of visiting porn sites – which was grounds for immediate dismissal. The guy is a devout Muslim and emphatically denied accessing any porn sites.

When they checked his monument (where the network cable comes into his cubicle) they found out the guy next door was hooked up to his monument and vice-versa.

TA DA. They had accused the Wrong Guy!

Not sure if the guy sued but he probably had a case.

I think you are doing the right thing….

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

you have policies in place, he (or someone using his computer) is obviously violating those policies. Let the HR department handle anything from here on as they probably have lawyers that they can refer to when this type of thing happens.

I know that some states (I believe that South Carolina is one) require IT employees by law to report this type of violation (child porn if it has actually gone that far) and if they don’t they can be held legally responsible and go to jail along with the offender.

Other then that I say don’t forget to document everything! Good luck and please let us know how it goes….

Let Policy Handle This Issue

In reply to I think you are doing the right thing….

I agree with geekchic – you most likely have policy in effect at your Company. And most likely, like my company, the exe has signed an agreement to abide by company policy.

However, if I (as CIO) find evidence of Child Porn, my first call will be to the CEO and my second call will be to the police.

Let HR and the CEO handle it from here.

A hypothetical situation…

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Just so that everyone is answering the same question, what would you do to cover yourself / the company / legal responsibility / moral responsibility if for example:

UK company

A middle aged (oops refered to age again) manager set up an account on a teen forum (one that clearly states it is for 13 – 19 year olds) that indicated he was 16 and posts a picture of a boy and claims it is him. In his post asks for girls to ‘rate him’ and offers free paltalk green accounts to the ‘right girls’. After some positive replies from teenage girls he asks for pics, asl and cam after browsing their profiles. And just suppose that he browses threads such as 14 year old girls that want to be ‘rated’. Maybe there is even evidence of similar activity on other teen sites.

In this case the manager has signed a policy that states access to porn / inappropriate sites is forbidden.

To add more, let’s say…

The site was accessed from the managers machine on his own windows login. The account on the forum is his name and a reply to a thread refers to a hotmail account, also with his name. It done at a time that he would have been on shift, and he is the last person there as he locks up. Access is normally some time after the shift should have ended.

For this scenario the IT dept picked up on it after an upgrade to the web filter and reported it to HR. HR wanted to monitor it for 1 week to gain evidence / seek clear picture. A company solicitor has been contacted, who advised to suspend pending an investigation.

Obviously this is all hypothetical…

My PM is now enabled

Please no rants about not being the police, being old, burning the witch etc

KCross

In reply to A hypothetical situation…

your pm hasn’t replicated as enabled yet – pm me directly, you’re on dodgy ground, and your company solicitor is advising wrongly.

GG

have an elderly wiccan police officer jiggle a chickens foot

In reply to A hypothetical situation…

I would contact a crimes against children investigator and inform them you have the username and the url of a forum where an employee is posing as a teenage girl and collecting pictures. Put together a synopsis of your internal investigation in a sworn affidavit which includes any log files and the steps you took to ensure the person mentioned was in fact the one doing it. They will use it to secure whatever warrants they need to gather logs from the forum, monitor his home network and do whatever else is necessary.

I would give the authorities a chance to gather evidence or set up a sting on the forum before alerting the pervert by terminating or suspending him.

Yes it’s true

In reply to have an elderly wiccan police officer jiggle a chickens foot

It’s my moral obligation to finger him if know he is really a pervert in the child abuse matter. No problem for that if I know it for sure.
The problem is what I have to make in order to have enough evidences of that.
I have to investigate what kind of sites he is visiting and for how long. Is this my work? Is my company paying me for that? Do I have time to check my suspicions?
I think this kind of process is thin ice and we could close it with a little of investigation on his hard disk to look for some dangerous material (real crime evidences), and a good filtering policy.

NO!

In reply to Yes it’s true

You aren’t a forensics specialist. You are a network admin (or so your profile states). The OP is not a forensics specialist either. (As *his* profile states.) In the event that the company needs to call in a REAL specialist, you don’t want to be caught in the crossfire.

2 things could happen:
1) “Nu-uh! He was poking around in my computer! He must have put it there and falsified logs to implicate me! What a sicko!”

2) you trash whatever evidence or change metadata of files that would have made the entire basis of your case.

Let someone that knows what computer crime is about do their job unhindered. They can even go in after hours and image the drive after he’s gone home and work on it elsewhere. But what they can’t do, is re-create evidance meta-data because someone wanted to “help”.

cooperation with authorities

In reply to NO!

Bottom line is this if you determined through some non-repudiation method(a properly secured workstation and secure password) that a person in your network has committed a crime or you have reason to believe they may commit one, then contact the police. Your cooperation with their efforts will go further than simply terminating the guy on the spot or simply throwing your hands up and saying ?NO! I?m out of my league here?. As a Network Administrator of your network and the one most familiar with this issue, you are the best qualified person to brief the criminal investigators in the situation. The greater lenghths you take to ensure the integrity of any facts collected the better, however don’t underestimate the weight of simply peeking in his office and documenting the time.

So what if your data alone doesn’t provide the slam dunk evidence to put the fool away, hell from the description it doesn’t even sound like he’s commited a crime(yet), but if it gives the police a lead or probable cause to pursue than who can argue with that?

cooperation

In reply to cooperation with authorities

You will be better able to assist them by not kludging with things you don’t understand. Every little thing done leaves a footprint. You don’t want your own footprints to cover up his, that’s hardly helpful!

You aren’t doing nothing. I was simply saying that fooling with the workstation itself is a bad idea and why. The police have their own investigators that are trained in the area of computer forensics. And I can garantee they want the “crime-scene” as untouched as possible. It is very easy to unintentionally change something important. Delving into the server logs, visual inspections of when he is at his desk and office politics are another story entirely. The more information gathered here, the better. But the workstation should be treated as a true crime scene. As in, hands off until the professionals get a chance to look.

I agree with that last

In reply to cooperation

Having been put in that position myself several times (I work for a school district, so we have to take any evidence of possible child endangerment quite seriously), my advice is to have the HR department call in a computer forensics specialist ASAP. I turn these cases immediately over to our Security department; I try not to get in the middle of this stuff EVER, not since the first case they asked me to investigate, where I did muck up the evidence trail by going into his account to view cookies and such. The forensics experts immediately mirror drives in cases like this, and work on the mirror drive, NOT the original.

Surveillance

In reply to cooperation

With my experience, expertise and credentials it’s going to be rather difficult for a defense attorney to dispute my ability to properly verify the person generating the inappropriate traffic is the same person that is logged in at that computer with the assigned username. There are no magical footprints(maybe in Hollywood) unless you’ve configured the computer to trace them, and if you configured the computer to trace actions, keystrokes, etc they would see every step you made while establishing non-repudiation. If you see a gun laying in a school yard and you pick it up and go straight to a payphone to call the police, later it is determine the handgun was used in a homicide and has your prints and the murderers, they are not going to throw out the gun as evidence simply because a citizen picked it up in the interest of public safety.

We’re not collecting DNA evidence, it’s more along the lines of Video Surveillance, just as video surveillance gathered by department store loss prevention or building security, holds up in court(even though the installer may not be law enforcement, or forensic experts) or as a person who is not an expert in physics can give eye witness testimony of a car crash, evidence gathered by private citizens is valid and admissible.

Not a question of dismissal

In reply to cooperation

It’s not a matter of the defense discrediting something as much as evidence being distroyed.

Sure, if a citizen picks up a gun and reports it, they may not be fingered in the crime, however their prints may cover the real bad guy’s prints and then you’ve no evidence either for OR against him. The smarter course of action, however, would have been to ask another teacher to call the police while the first made sure it was not disturbed.

You can tell alot about a scene from the position of the gun relative to the body. Or the login information relative to the user, untampered with.

Check law in your area – Retain Solicitor/Barrister

In reply to A hypothetical situation…

You are in U.K. if I remember correctly? Protect yourself as I may have mentioned before predators are dangerous and vindictive. To keep others from reporting – you may be made an example of (and you seem kind of innocent to me). Prepare for the worst but hope for the best. Whoever mentioned hardcopies of everything – kudos – you definately need copies. Watch your back, predators are not all loners, others may back him by sticking it to yours.

Reply To: Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

unsubscribe

Company Policies and User Agreements

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Hopefully, the organization you work for has documented policies and procedures for users to get accounts. Among them should be an Ethical Use agreement which the user has to sign.It’s not iron clad, admittedly, but does give the organization some leg to stand on.

Also, your organization should have an IA department that should handle these policies and be the ones that request investigations into misuse once the “tech” stumlbles across it. I don’t know about you, but my job is not investigation; only to provide documentation upon request from the IA department.

Had one instance where I noticed some odd web traffic and notified our IA. We tracked down where the user was located in our plant and our network lead followed the IA rep to the location. The man was in a meeting with all his division heads! He was seated in a corner of his office and only he could see his monitor. As the meeting was progressing, this idiot was surfing the web. I only wish I could have seen the look on his face when the IA rep barged into his office, and told him to back away from the computer, right now! *chuckle*

Unfortunately, we did not have the Ethical Use agreements in place at that time. The user was fairly high in our organization and had some political pull. Even then it was explained to him that he had the option to retire and should really take it before things got messy. He took that option.

Now that we have the Ethical Use agreements, it is our organization’s policy for zero tolerance to this type of thing. And now our organization enforces that.

One other thing: If we do find a user that is visiting child porn sites, he is reported to the local authorities and Naval Investigative Services (NIS). Anybody that is stupid and sick enough to do that sort of thing at work deserves what he/she gets, imo.

Make SURE that it IS THE USER and not a bot/spyware/trojan

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

accessing those sites.

First.

Then once confirmed either way, proceed to
then REITERATE the policy to ALL employees in writing, an email with attachment of existing policy with a READ RECEIPT should show when everyone reads it.

Have everyone sign it(unless they already have)

Then speak to the user and get them to cease and desist.

Then proceed with disciplinary measures as policy dictates.

This is the best method.

If the user is a disciplanary problem, take appropriate security measures.

One other option is to MAC Filter this computer such that it can no longer access the internet.

Are you stupid or just want him warned?

In reply to Make SURE that it IS THE USER and not a bot/spyware/trojan

Check the law for your area.

What’s wrong with this picture

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Rate my body comes up on the front page of AOL when a user signs in (or at least it used to). This may be a forum for teen expression that’s a little risque, but it is hardly porn (and definitely not illegal). I think this is being blown way out of proportion and I would question whether there are any ulterior motives to get the “aging manager” in trouble.

Concur

In reply to What’s wrong with this picture

I totally agree with Mr. Bobinator and said much the same thing in my own missive of a few days ago, particularly when I sternly took to task those who wished to make it a police matter.

Forensic Professionals

In reply to Concur

Many of you have recommended taking a big step back and letting professional investigators handle the situation if that proves to be the companies choice of action. I think this is resonable advice but for idiots like me how do you find the names of organisations that are good at investigating this sort of thing?

If you are in the UK

In reply to Forensic Professionals

pm me, I know a few…..

for my sins!

😀

GG

It can be tricky

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

It can be tricky, special if your company rule is not totally compliant to legal rules. ([i]often they are setup to warn employees what could happen if they don?t obey the company rules, to avoid unwanted behaviour[/i])
So depending from where you are located I can or can’t say if you have to consider some other rules.
For example in the Netherlands email has the same privilege as conventional-mail and telephone calls?, meaning that it is allowed to monitor where the email is being sent to but NOT the contents within the email. This due to the rights on personal rights given within the constitution, the privacy laws.

However you have to be sure that there is no one that can use somebody else?s user account, even not your administrators nor somebody else.
If you have setup your security the right way this will be no problem.

Rob

ps As I read you are in the UK (sorry didn’t read all of the thread) so as GadgetGirl say’s the EU-rules are to be applied. And be careful; be sure you have permission, from HR-manager or your own manager(if he/she is entitled), to monitor. I’m not sure but the UK has the same privacy laws as the NL.

Reply To: Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Do your job. Is it your job to confront the guy? If so, email along the lines of “our logs show that you have access which may be against . Per the policy, I’m obliged to report this to .”

If you’re ever not clear what your job responsiblity is, ask your manager, HR, or someone else appropriate for clarifiication. Don’t guess.

Any monitoring of user activity gets into a privacy area. You should only report this to whoever you are required to report it to, nobody else.

Bust his Arse

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

In my state, this guy can go to jail. You need to document what you have found, when you found it and document the direction HR told you to take. If nothing seems to be happening, call your prosecutors office for direction. You may want to keep dual backups of the websweeper system so you can easily supply the info to the police when needed. If you can backup his computer, do so.

As the father of 2 daughters, let me know if nothing happens. I would be very happy to pay this guy a visit!!!!!

TechRepublic–please reviewI

In reply to Bust his Arse

I rather wish techrepub would review some of these replies. Total jerks like Jcritch who have not read the facts (nothing illegal was committed)should not clutter up this forum for dignified tech professionals, with their ill-considered and neanderthalish comments. Vulgarity should not be the only criterion for deletion.

Sorry you feel that way

In reply to TechRepublic–please reviewI

Never been to any site that allows you view teen bodies and vote on them.

I still stand on what I said, bust this guy and do it now before he hurts someone.

How do you know…

In reply to Sorry you feel that way

he’s even guilty? I can say my boss hit on me. Would you beat him up too? (or worse) Oh wait, I misunderstood. Now that you’ve shot him, I guess it’s a bit late to apologize.

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? This may have happened in the UK. But you live in the US. Does this not extend to them?

Grow up. Nothing was proven. And if it WAS a bot, or someone else, you’ve just ruined an innocent man. I don’t propose to “let him get away with it”, but see my post on comp. forensics. THAT is what needs to be done. Not a firing squad drawn up.

JacksDaddy’s right

In reply to Sorry you feel that way

To my knowledge, the site in question isn’t a porn oriented site, it is just a little risque. As I mentioned in a previous post, it was featured on AOL’s home page for the longest time for anyone to access. “Busting his Arse” would be the equivalent to punishing a guy for looking at a Kohl’s sale paper where teens are advertising undergarments. It’s ridiculous. Maybe doesn’t belong in the workplace, but it’s definitely not a pornography issue.

It my MSW telling me different

In reply to JacksDaddy’s right

Let’s just say my MSW is leading me towards pedophile. As someone who has counseled victims, I will stand by my instincts. If you are inclined to vote on teenage girl bodies, at his age, sorry warning flags fly at full tilt.

Okay, innocent until proven guilty, I will grant you that. So scan his system and see what else you find. My hunch is that over time he will push the envelope further.

Wonder if he has the girls gone wild video series also. Oh wait they are 18 maybe too old for him.

Manager

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

From Experience you need to do two things: 1) Confront the situation NOW. Don’t “monitor” it for a “little” longer. 2) Make sure you have all of your documentation in order; Acceptable Use Polocies; Log Files of times and dates he accessed the site.
I don’t know your HR Director from “Adam” but does he or she have a law degree? If not I would engage a lawyer. We did and it saved our butts. This is serious stuff. Get the guy out of your company and set a standard.
My two cents.

What is the real question?

In reply to Manager

As I read all of this I see a debate on the content of the site, the fact that the person is older and worry about company integrity and law suits.

The only valid question that can be used in the termination process is – did the person violate campany policy and, if so, what is the appropriate response from the company? That decision is made by the HR department. Keep them up to date and let them do their job(s). Judgementalism is the thing that will get you into court with a lawsuit, so leave it out of the picture and let the HR people do it right.

yeah..confront him with what?

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

wasting time on the job??
ratemybody.com is a verry low level community dating site. with not much dating going on…exists mostly to generate adsense rev.
i check it about once a week for development of the concept and brand. depending on what he’s sposed to be managing, such cruising may be as within his job description as u checking for info here.
why is it :”we confront him”?
is his activity endangering i/t security etc?
the manager’s manager and h/r have a duty to the company. u have a duty to the company. he has a duty to the company. an orderly flowchart of those relationships might be part of the solution.

Heh… pretty simple if you have control of your own DNS

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

Log all accesses to inappropriate sites and set up a redirect to something like Pat Robertson’s 700 club website. Make your DNS server resolve ’em wrong for your own advantage.

Confront what?

In reply to Manager trying to access inappropriate sites – teen forums / porn

I am a little confused here. You are going to confront him (and others are talking about calling the police) for WHAT? TRYING to go to a website? It’s not like he is ACCESSING it- the access was denied. You have done YOUR job, the site is unaccessible. Move on. You can not (rather SHOULD NOT) be policing his personal life outside of work- no matter what you or I may feel morally.

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