Search Employee Computers

I've been around a lot of network administrators who think they are the web police and aren't doing this because of directives from above. If I were in charge of the companies furniture would that give me the right to go through everyone's drawers to search for pictures or letters? Network administrators should worry about keeping the network running and not go on these power trips to feed their egos.

But you can only discover an employee has broke the rules in say sending an offensive email, you can't stop them doing it.

Where do you stop? I find smoking offensive. I think it is a huge waste of company time. Smokers in my company gather around the entrance to the building. I have to walk through this many times a day. Should I sue because I am a non smoker and I am offended and my health is being effected? I find smoking as offensive as others may view a bad joke that is emailed. This is crazy. I think that is what Tony was trying to say. People will sue for just about anything in the States. Are you going to protect yourself for every possible scenario? A business use policy for the internet is one thing but to go ferreting out offenders is crazy.

Your time while at work is "owned" by the company. "Terminated for misuse of time and equipment"? Ever leave work early? Ever take a long lunch? Ever talk to a co-worker about topics un-related to work? Of course you have. Should you be fired for misuse of company "time"? If you are going to go down this path you can't stop with PC usage. It could and will be argued in court.

look. i spend 80% of my valuable time de-porning computers. everyone in IT knows that disreputable sites will infect your pc. this is terribly boring and a completely avoidable waste of man hours. i tell every user on every network that i administrate to only use the internet for business and also the consequences of certain internet activities. these pc's are not personal pc's. they are company property. besides you could very easily compromise your companines private data should your pc get infected with a well written trojan. so i say scan away. it is not only legal but very proactive. one more thing to consider... if an employee is engaged in illegal activity and your network is being used to perform these activities, the company than owns the network is also liable.

What are the criteria for defining something as offensive.
People are offended by other politics, religion, sexual mores, even business practices.
You don't have to cast aspersions on someones intelligence or their parents marital status to offend them.
Perhaps we should just put an explicit material disclaimer on all company emails.

Tsert,

If your people are using laptops as a mobile user. I have found, that if they are doing something against policy, they are usually smart enough to get 'anti-spyware' programs like, FHC (Free History Cleaner), that remove or re-set the caches on their system. If you don't think that the employee in question is smart enough for that.

There are programs that will perform 'forensic' examines, but I have found most are overly expensive for anything other then law enforcement.

If you worried that they are doing this stuff at the office, I would suggest setting up a 'proxy server' to monitor all activity on your network.
I grant you, that I do not know the extent of a 'proxy servers' abilities as I have not set one up myself. My understanding is, they are capable of recording all outbound or internal web request and all information received, so IF the employee downloads a file (picture,text, etc..), a copy would be stored on the proxy server with their computers IP address and date/time of the download. Since this is a machine outside of the employees control, there is no way for them to remove/erase/alter the data coming in.

Hope this helps.

I work for a mental health center. We monitor everything--period. In the administrative policies and procedures we tell employees that we monitor everything. When I give the orientation briefing I tell new employees that we monitor. I also remind them that the computer they are on is NOT their computer and that anything ON that computer--including personal e-mail, website records, etc. is the property of the company they work for an can be used in a court of law AGAINST them. This does two things--it makes sure that they use a good password so someone ELSE doesn't log onto that computer and download trash and it keeps THEM on their toes regarding internet content and e-mail content. When I find something "questionable" on their computer, I bring it to my supervisor--who tells the CEO. They have one hour to be packed and out the door--period. We have an internet and e-mail monitoring service on our main server. It monitors and blocks websites as well. If they hit a "questionable" website, it blocks them and tells them that they need to tell their network administrator (me)--thus they confess their boo-boo's. If the site is a valid site and part of their job, I "un-block" the site. No big deal. Before they leave, I run a check of their e-mailbox. I search through EVERYTHING. If I find anything of questionable nature, their exit from the company has just turned into "ineligible for re-hire." We do not take our network privileges lightly here. Employees do have time to "free surf" before working hours, during lunch, during breaks, and after work. Again--I remind them that they are on a COMPANY network so if they want to play in the "x-rated universe" they had better do it off company site at a personal computer. Enough said.

sending an offensive email ?
You can lock the work stations for installations etc.
You can ban sites
You can block ports
You can't someone misusing the provided facilities though.

cfrankel,

You make an assertion that our job is not to "act as the moral police". while I agree with this assertion in the secular marketplace there are many Christian/Muslim/Hebrew businesses/non-profits with moral codes of conduct. Adherence to these codes is critical to the ongoing viability of these enterprises. For example, World Vision (A Christian Organization) relies on donations to provide aid locally and across the world. Christian donors would be less likely to give if World Vision's image was tarnished due to lack of vigilance. There are deeper psychological and spiritual arguments than this to support a moral aspect to monitoring. Just my 2 cents

Unethical my big pimply butt.

It is MY computer on MY network in MY building using MY pipelines on MY dime. I have absolute and complete control over what you can or can not do. If you break my rules you will pay for that discretion, verbal warning, written warning, showing you the door.

This is a black and white issue, there is no ethical "gray" area here. You either do your job properly and to the best of your ability and document users who abuse company resources or you go find another job.

Or is is the fourth ?
LOL
I'm a brit so I'll have a fifth instead, a nice Islay malt in preference

But they concentrate on the people who surf too much or take too many smoke breaks, and ignore the employee who is constantly out of sick leave, shows up late nearly every day, or spends most of the day either on personal phone calls, or sitting in other employees offices gossiping.

I couldn't agree more. As long as people are aware that their PC's are subject to search at any time I don't see it as a problem. You have to remember the PC's are the property of the company not the individual.

We approach it more from a legal liability standpoint. We search on a regular basis for illegal downloads including MP3's and videos and stuff. Last thing we want is to get sued by the recording industry or any of the other behemoths. The porn isn't as much of a concern for us as we are using a proxy server that pretty much blocks all of that type of content. but we still search for it any way.

With today's lawsuit climate you have to do this stuff or risk getting sued.

Or how many times does that file attachment of a cute little video of farting dinosaurs get saved to users' private directories. 51, that's how many :)

Any one using a computer should know that ethics go out the window with boot up. Any one expecting privacy on a computer is just plain silly.

as far as wasting company time..... i wrote this post while at work so yes i am wasting company time, however, this is not infecting my machine (i hope) and no company secrets are being given out. how many you guys wrote your posts while at work. be honest.

...but what they'd find would be a lot of work that I do on my laptop in my off hours. Most of it is work for my company. Some of it is for myself. They'd find a lot of emails to my wife and family, some of which is personal, but none of which would I have problems with them seeing.

You're right (and so is ncornett) that my response was logically sloppy. I was incorrect to imply that it would be ethically OK to do a bad job (although there are times when I wish people did their jobs more poorly, this shouldn't be one of them). I was also incorrect to apply ethics here, I think; provided that the expectations are clear this activity is both legal and ethical.

However, I *still* feel it's distasteful and "wrong" in the sense that I wouldn't want to work for a company that did this. My work computer is monitored, but those lgs aren't actively retrieved unless there's some other indication of abuse or issues with performance. That seems in line with acceptable corporate behaviour to me, but actively seeking it out where there's no other indication of problems seems over the top.

So, I stand corrected, but my mind not changed.

too easy to bypass for notebooks outside the office even if you have a vpn that forces login at startup

Thanks for the good point Hardware Guy! While I agree that company resources should not be abused--from telephones to faxes to email to color printers--I don't agree that Big Brother should pore over the minutae of every employees activities.

Where would it stop? Little Quickcams on monitors? Oops! Don't pick your nose! Unfortunately, the world continues to operate while we are at work. We cannot perform every personal activity after 5:00! As far as I know, banks, doctors' offices, etc., operate on the same work schedule as most of the country. Which means that once in a while, an employee must do something personal during his workday!

Abuse is abuse no matter what the form. My experience has been that companies are too lazy to address individual abuse--they prefer the broadbrush approach of either monitoring everyone or limiting access for everyone. There should be a limit to all monitoring.

To address the original question of searching laptops for inappropriate matter, my question is WHY DOES IT MATTER IF THE INDIVIDUAL IS A PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEE! Surely the company's network has installed enough technology to protect their network and their equipment.

Excuse me, I have to go back to work--which is the "ethical" thing for all of us to do! RIGHT?
Wake up and smell the java boys.

Really! I mean, if you happen to be Jewish, I suppose you could be offended if someone said "Merry Christmas" to you.

I think most of the "eye (or ear) of the beholder" rules are bad (I would have said a four-lettered word describing human excrement but I don't want to be offensive :)). Especially in the multi-cultured workplaces of today. What's offensive or obscene to one person else might not bother another in the least. Why am I responsible for the thinness of someone else's skin?

My first question would be one that has been asked by others - what is the official company policy regarding this. In my company we have a policy that states that a user has no expectation of privacy and that their computer can be checked at any time. Fair enough - so long as it is the policy.

If there is no policy then I wouldn't spend the time looking for what websites a user had cruised to.

If there is a policy then I would recommend a software program that tracks this for you. We use one called ActMon and it can track web useage, Internet chat, applications used, etc. We set it to only track Internet based uses. it generates a realtively small HTML file and can even zip these up to save space, save them to a network share, or email them automatically on a schedule.

Thanks for the good point Hardware Guy! While I agree that company resources should not be abused--from telephones to faxes to email to color printers--I don't agree that Big Brother should pore over the minutae of every employees activities.

Where would it stop? Little Quickcams on monitors? Oops! Don't pick your nose! Unfortunately, the world continues to operate while we are at work. We cannot perform every personal activity after 5:00! As far as I know, banks, doctors' offices, etc., operate on the same work schedule as most of the country. Which means that once in a while, an employee must do something personal during his workday!

Abuse is abuse no matter what the form. My experience has been that companies are too lazy to address individual abuse--they prefer the broadbrush approach of either monitoring everyone or limiting access for everyone. There should be a limit to all monitoring.

To address the original question of searching laptops for inappropriate matter, my question is WHY DOES IT MATTER IF THE INDIVIDUAL IS A PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEE! Surely the company's network has installed enough technology to protect their network and their equipment.

Excuse me, I have to go back to work--which is the "ethical" thing for all of us to do! RIGHT?
Wake up and smell the java boys.

that since there is no expectation of privacy, "Why do we have user accounts with passwords". Why not just everybody use the same one?

There is (or was) a company (Safe Net Corporation -- www.safenetcorp.com) who we helped architect, develop and flagship their product - SafeNet and SafeNet Pro, an internet monitoring software for just as you described. It provides a slide show of usages, and they used to have an ASP service that did a similar service but only live for businesses, etc. The box version can be, or could be purchased Staples office suply stores. This was back in late 99, early 2000, so I am unaware of their status to date. One thing I can attest to, it DID work!

I don?t want to debate the legality of you doing searches on your own. If your company has no clear Internet Usage Policy (IUP) then your outside of your authority, plain and simple by looking your in the wrong.

That being said? there are very few states that REQUIRE (by law) police notification if illegal content is found. Further, reporting it to police is not wise unless you are qualified in forensic investigation (imagine reporting ?questionable? material to the police and destroying the good name of a foolish user who only real crime was getting infected with spyware). You might actually find yourself on the receiving end of a lawsuit (possibly multiple lawsuits).

How hard would it be for a lawyer to paint to as a rogue IT blackmailer that searched (or planted) porn on his clients machine when you were never authorized to perform the afore mentioned search in the first place. So, if you have no IUP stop looking at people?s history, you have not been authorized to perform such searches (right or wrong? it's not your call).

Now for the fun stuff...

First Read this http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1827

Red Cliff Web Historian (freeware)
http://www.red-cliff.com/index.php?fuseaction=tools.overview

Pasco (freeware)
http://www.foundstone.com/index.htm?subnav=resources/navigation.htm&subcontent=/resources/proddesc/pasco.htm

IE History viewer (commercial software)
http://www.phillipsponder.com/histviewer.htm

.... the next step will be for you to put cameras on all the company cars, check the messages on company cell phones, approve the menu at company meals, monitor library cards, and .....

HEY! I thought that was big brother back in 84, not Mr. Geeko in the computer department.

Short answer: get a life.

I have to ask... are you a VAR for them. Seems like a full blown sales pitch to me, how about the price where is that stat??

The question of ethics is fundamental.
1. What is the comapny policy regarding bringing personal items to the job?
2. Large stores do not let employees bring personal belongings on the selling floor. Nor do they allow cell phones.
3. Are these laptops owned by the company or by the individual?
4. If they are owned by the company, the policy should be for "Company Use Only" and be subjected to hard drive checks and clean-ups. Windows 2000 and above readily allow for this.
5. If the computer is owned by the individual, why is your company allowing access to their files? This is a fundamental breach of security!

Have you read the Patiots Act?

I work for the public school system. This district has over 3000 computers. We only search a computer when we are called in to do a search. We use a program called STG Cache Audit. Sometimes we find unthinkable things on these computers. We are supposed to be teaching students here, not looking for pornographic junk on the Internet. We have found enough evidence on computers from time-to-time to have students suspended and teachers terminated.

User profiles play an important part in any search like this. If it ever goes to court, chain of evidence will play an important part as well.

Good luck in your searching!

Use a linux firewall running squid proxy server. Configure NAT in iptables to do a transparent proxy of outbound port 80 requests through the squid port. Then analyze squid's logs with SARG. Then, at least while your people are in-house, you can track where they've been. Make sure that you have a clear policy of use of company assets, and use the stats from SARG. It won't track their usage outside the office, but can give some info to narrow your focus for problems and where you might run a local cache scan.

We have received a similar Email recently but it was because of successful litigation against a company for allowing jokes of a sexual nature to be passed between employees! So they are not being stupid.

At least my company explained the reasons why.

Keep work professional.

I agree with TomSal we are hired to protect a network not the people on it. If we allow this type of unethical behavior on the network to continue we are just asking for something to happen to it. Since our employers expect a certain level of security we need to do everything in our powers including searching systems for inappropriate material.

Now with SOX, security industry regulations, HIPPA and others - you may HAVE to snoop soon.

Liability, compliance, productivity - I don't think its a question of ethics - Its good business. We are VERY happy with: http://www.spectorcne.com/ it does all the heavy lifting. Make sure your employees know you have it and you may never need it.

Here are the facts according to Gartner and others (from Spectorsoft's site mind you).

> The ease with which sensitive documents can be attached to email communications (intentionally and accidentally) and sent with the press of a button creates potential for loss of proprietary information.

> Non-work related Internet surfing results in up to a 40% loss in productivity each year at American businesses.2

> 58% of industrial espionage is perpetrated by current or former employees.3

> 70% of all web traffic to Internet pornography sites occurs during the work hours of 9am-5pm.4

> Out of 800 workers surveyed, 21% - 31% admitted to sending company confidential information, like financial or product data, to recipients outside the company by email.5

> 48% of large companies blame their worst security breaches on employees.6

> 46% of the one thousand largest companies globally will be utilizing IM as a daily communications tool.7

The reason I disagree with this is quite simple. I travel for my job. I carry a company computer. I do my banking on-line when I'm on the road. Does the company now own my user ID and password to my bank account?

They may have a right to monitor what I do during business hours, but after hours?

Use explorer to look for gifs and jpg (jpeg) files or other relevant filetypes. Not many people know that just visiting a porn site fills your PC with images!

The file locations/filenames usually give the content away and it is then easy to locate the files for deletion.

Also, this is a good way to look at the time and date that these files were downloaded. The ones I found on a "cleaned" laptop, I was taking to a new employee, were created between 11pm and 3am over a weekend. Turned out an employee's flatmate was to blame! His "live-in" girlfriend was none too pleased - neither was he when we traced his actions via his credit card transactions and presented him with a report of 6 hours worth of surfing. He actually asked us how he could clean up his office PC!

While this has sparked a very interesting and sometimes heated discussion, the bottom line still remains the same. If the equipment belongs to the company, then that equipment is subject to management and monitoring by the company or those paid to do so.
Not every company can see the need for or even afford the automated software that will remove this sometimes menial task from our shoulders. This is just one of the many things that we are paid to do, for crying out loud.
I have yet to see a company policy that says that it is ok to use the company PC's for the downloading of pirated material or inappropriate and offensive content. Granted, there will be some personal use on company machines, even by those in positions of authority. However, that does not mean that monitoring the sites and content of the machines is "unethical".
In order for the company to survive, it must be able to enforce the policies that it has implemented for its operation. In order to enforce those policies, certain people are paid, IT Executives namely, to make sure that those policies are being adhered to.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we have the authority to fire someone who isn't following the policy the way that we, as IT Executives, feel it should be followed. But it is our duty to our employers to report such suspicious behavior to those who have to make those unpleasant decisions.

I think it is agreed that if there is something that alerts IT to a specific individual, then a search should be more than warranted. However, going on a witchhunt just to find people without any cause whatsoever is just not right. It creates and environment of fear and animosity. A definite level of Us vs. Them will be created and Trust will be thrown out the window!. Without trust, productivity will suffer in the long run.

Just make it known to all what the overall mentality is as far as Computer use and the impact of improper use and you will have a user base that will work a bit more cooperatively with you. When they do the wrong thing after that, you come down REAL HARD. That will set the example.
As any of you probably know, almost any machine out there could be considered as off Color or inappropriate or against Company Policy if you look hard enough. Stop with the Games and do what it is your are supposed to do. Make money for the Company so that they can pay you at the end of each week! Remember, if you have that kind of environment where you feel empowered to watch everyone else, there will come a day where you should wonder, Who is Watching You?

If you are going to judge based on what a.n. other might find offensive, you may as well unplug all the cables, put all your employees in strait jackets and seal their mouths with gaffer tape.
Just not possible.
If you are going to judge on what you personally or your boss, the pope or GWB find offensive, you are going offend someone and definitely be liable for it.

I have been reading all of these comments, and yours got my attention. You travel for your job, and they provide you with a computer to do that job. They do NOT provide you with a computer to do your online banking. They have a legal right to block access to certain websites, certain programs, and certain parts of the computer itself if they so feel it is in the company's best interest. Odds are, depending on your systems admin, you had to sign a piece of paper that says something along the lines of "The computer equipment belongs to XYZ corp. Anything put on the computers is property of XYZ corp. Do not install anything on the computer. The computer is provided for company use only..." and so on. I have found that most people don't read the IT policy, and just assume they can do anything they want anyway. I know that our policy here states explicitly that we can access their machine and their email at any time in an effort to clean something up, or to protect the interests of the comapny.

As for your question, No, they do not own your user ID and password, but they do have the right to block you from using the equipment to do it, whether before or after hours.

To actually answer the question, and not question your motives...

If the machines in question are running Windows, you can browse to the folder in question and change the view setting to "Thumbnails". This will give you a quick (and free) glimpse at what kinds of pictures are saved on the computer.

I know that being watched is something that happens. I know that what I do is subject to being watched. I know this because I read the IT policies that came with my employee handbook stating that anything I do on a computer here is subject to auditing and I am responsible for anything found on the computer at any time. I signed it before they gave me the ability to make sure that other machines weren't being used to surf porn, check personal email 100 times a day, and so on. I fully expect that my supervisor is watching what I do on my computer. It is not only expected, but I accept it, and welcome it. I would rather have someone making sure that I am not turning my computer into a zombie for some virus because I didn't recognize the email that I received, or that I am sexually harassing someone because I was looking at a website that I probably shouldn't have been. They might have just saved me from getting sued by someone who saw me saying something on a message board that I shouldn't have said and that someone else found offensive.

In all fairness, we monitor. Our employees know we monitor. They accept that we monitor what they do. They EXPECT that we are monitoring them all the time. Recently, when someone found out that we didn't have a "remote control" program on the machines, they were surprised, but when we went to install one in an effort to fix errors that pop up without trying to walk someone who has very little tech knowledge, 99% of our employees loved it, and some asked why we didn't have it before now. The way of business is now, and always has been to watch out for the business. Whatever you do on your computer is a reflection on the business. As IT people, it is part of our job to make sure that what you do on the computer doesn't reflect poorly on the business.

If you think for a second that where you work is your business, then you have an ego problem, and are ignorant of the law. Working for a company is a privelege, not a right. You are a trusted "guest", not a squatting homesteader. Employees are equipped with company property, they are not given computers to play on, or to own, unless they make special arrangements. Get it? I doubt it.

If I lend you my car, and you run it into a telephone pole, who pays?

It is the IT department's job to make sure their computers and networks are safe and secure, and I don't think anyone here is arguing otherwise. However, to snoop around individual workstations looking for...who knows what? just boggles my mind. I too would never want to work for or with a company, or co-worker, who wants to snoop around on users computers just to see if they *might* be doing something wrong. Unless you have reason to suspect that a user is doing something illegal or against company policy, or is putting your network or company at risk, I say back off.

my employer logs internet usage with software on our proxy server (I'm not responsible for it and thus can't tell you what software we're using), but our manager only runs reports on user's activity when requested by that person's manager...in other words, when there is reason to suspect inappropriate activity. Our internet usage policy allows our users personal use of the computer (and the internet) during their lunch and breaks, with certain restrictions (no porn etc.) and a user was recently disciplined for on-line gambling during lunch, even though it's not specifically prohibited in our policy. But we didn't initiate that query...the department did.

A simple policy statement, which most companies now have, states that company property shall not be used for personal purposes, and that there is no implication of privacy for employees, whether on computers, or in the parking lot.

Even if its not stated in writing, the courts uphold the premise that employees can be fired at will, and that they do not own or have the presumption of privacy AT WORK!

disclaimer
--------------
Look, I've been in the industry for 12-13 years. I currently contract with various companies to setup servers, firewalls, filters, etc. I work with companies who have anywhere from 10000 workstations to 50 workstations. I will not be questioning your motives here. I know there are reasons to do it sometimes, I've been there, done that, and I've worked with the police and forensics people with seizing a computer before.

Solution 1 (current situation)
-------------------------------
If your users are all using Internet Exploder, then you can do this. You can view the index.dat file (hidden) for each profile on the machine. This cannot be done without a utility that can interpret what's in there (its not just plain text). There are a whole bunch of these on the web. There are some free ones that I would recommend simply because they have no limitations and they're free. Do a search on your favorite search engine for "index.dat viewer" and you should be able to find one.

Solution 2 (better solution)
-----------------------------
The best thing to do is to implement some kind of centralized filtering/caching system. There are plenty of these systems around. A previous writer mentioned Microsoft ISA server. This is a good solution if you do it right. But there are some really good "appliance" type hardware out there, that you just plug into the edge of your network and they take care of it all. The best ones employ a database, SQL-based, to track everything. I've worked with some very good stuff that you setup in the beginning with all the rules you want, then let it go. You can logon and check multitudes of reports of user activity and print them at the click of a mouse. You can also have it alert you via email when a specific rule has been broken.

So, if your people were filtered in the first place, they would never be able to go where you don't want them to go.

As for laptops, when they take them home or on the road, I'm not sure of the legality of checking the machines. I think that you can because they're
company property.

I think there is an important piece that people seem to be missing in the original post. He is not saying that he is going to "snoop" around on the person's computer. The admin is doing some work on the machine already, whether it be preventative maintenance, updating Windows, or the like, and while he is on, he is making sure that there isn't anything on the machine that shouldn't be there, such as pictures and whatever. He is not asking for anything that would violate the user's privacy as much as he is asking for a tool that will go out, look for questionable material, and show him a list so that he can clean it up so that he doesn't have to go looking through personal Word documents, or pictures of someone's kids or whatever. He is trying to protect the company, and at the same time, get off the employee's machine as quickly as possible.

I'm not saying don't scan, I do at my job. But that scanning is AUTHERIZED. All employees sign an Internet Usage document, and they are told multiple times a year that they are monitored. Our remote control software is designed so the user has to accept the connection before we can remotely work on their machine (thank you German legal system).

BUT, if you?re scanning without a written authorization to perform such actions, you personally can, in fact, be sued. When you operate outside of corporate legal authorization you lose the umbrella of corporate protection. Trust me on this, we fired one of our sysadmins for "taking a look" at salary information. He had the rights but not the authority.

So I guess you also rummage through their desks everyday...!!!

We would like to fire the user that performed "DEL *.*" on the mail directory of the Notes/Exchange server, and if we all used the same ID (yes I'm assuming it has admin rights) who would we fire.

Careful, don?t confuse privacy with accountability.

I've been through what you're dealing with. I would suggest that prevention is easier than trying to go back after the fact. I don't know the details of your organization but would assume that you have some sort of firewall application/suite on the local laptop to protect it while out in the field. I know that Norton Internet Security and Zone Alarm offer parental control filters as do other vendors like Surf Patrol.

Perhaps you could sit down with your boss and propose that one of these applications be purchased and rolled out to all of the laptop users to assist with enforcing the policy. They also offer reporting features so that you can review surfing habits should an issue arise or you need to audit a laptop.

I'm surprised at some of the attitudes and responses to your request. A company is legally responsible for the actions of it's employees using it's equipment and has the right to protect itself. Keep up the good fight.

I agree with you that everything should be monitored to keep the person from wasting time and protecting the interests of the company, but that kind of monitoring is not the responsibility of the IT department. I work for a company that has 12 branch offices spread throughout the country. It would not be possible for a single person to monitor everyone. I would assume that the person who is in charge of the individual departments, or of the individual people would be monitoring the employee's non-computer related habits. Just an assumption, but it is better than thinking IT can go out and monitor those activities like we monitor computer usage.

or just surf your porn at home!

oh... what if I like black and white porn (no fleshtones for Snitch to oogle), and I wonder if it can get inside password protected zip files. Where I might store movies in Vivid(pun intended) color.

If that's the additude the last 2 replies have, I don't ever want them working for me. And 1 of them is a consultant...WOW.

It is the job of IT to monitor this if it is the companies policy, and most companies have such a policy. The computer and everything that goes with it is company property and should only be used for business.

Hi,

I have the same difficulty. I do not look at it as ethics though. We have made a policy and a form and all employees read it and sign it. It is a basic policy that is attempting to protect our information and network.

It has nothing to do with ethics. When an employee is out surfing the net and allowing hackers in my system, then I have extra work to do to fix what this employee did to my network.

I do not have enough time to do the work I have to do now. I do not need the added work from someone allowing a possible hacker in and destroy my network, steal my information and making more work for me in the end.

That is the purpose of the policy. When you are at work working on an employer owned machine there is no personal privacy. It is the companies equipment. The company is responsible for content on that machine no matter how it gets there. There is no personal privacy on an employer owned machine. Ask the courts if you think I am wrong. The courts have fallen in, in favor of the other party than the company.

If you want privacy go home and use your own machine. Don't use company time that the company is paying you for to do your personal business, take it home!!

Please tell me your kidding, or do you enjoy playing with fire. A fired employee with a decent lawyer would have claimed you used that very same spyware to delete the files under his username.

Hopefully you also disciplined the supervisor, for failing to secure his password. Strong password policies, frequent audits, prevention of multiple login, 30 password expiration, etc. is hopefully what you will use in the future.

God help you if you go to court wanting to use logs from NetBUS, SubSeven, any keylogger, or BackOrifice as evidence.

I agree 100% I were hired to "work" not play or check ebay, yahoo or my E*trade account. Besides no one where I work had to buy their workstation, they were given a company desktop computer or laptop and connected to the company network and highspeed access. The laptop and desktop computer that I use is for company business and the company has the right to control, monitor or terminate it's use and or user.

and did they define what jokes of a sexual nature were ?
Guess not eh, so it's open to interpretation, so baically just don't send jokes full stop.
Course sex isn't the only way you can be offensive.
It just looks like they've done something, in real terms a lawyer could get you off and hang you out to dry, policy or not. It's just a line of reasoning when you get to court, not a get out of jail free card.
So you've had your right to free speech taken away from you for absolutely nothing.

Unless you live in a state that requires you to notify local law enforcement, you turn the evidence over to the head of human resources. What they do with it is not your concern.

There is a reason policemen aren't also judges.

You're right. It is stupid, but that is the way things are in today's world, or at least in the US. Everyone here seems to be looking for the fastest way to make a buck, and the fastest way is to sue someone who has more under the guise that something they did or said was offensive. That person who was offended would probably know that the person who sent the email doesn't have nearly as much money as the company, so why sue someone for $500 when you can sue a bigger fish for $5 million. Because of this massively letigious society we live in today, companies have to protect themselves, and the policies that state what can and can't be done are in place because of this. We might not like it, but if we were offended, odds are that we wouldn't let our distaste for the policies prevent us from suing the pants off anyone we could get money from.

The dude is looking for a program that will help him do the monitoring (or snooping, if you prefer).

He is not asking you for your opinion of the ethics involved. That's another forum. A software name, please. A URL - even better.

SOMEONE, PLEASE, let's hear about a program that will sniff, snoop and monitor what is going on, on the network. So we can end this thread.

And by the way, the company DOES own everything on THEIR computer, and online banking, ESPN Sports, personal emails and dirty pictures ARE NOT ALLOWED.

GET OVER IT.

Sorry, for shouting

trying to prove that the user actively download the content and that is wasn't downloaded in the background by some spyware app is another story.

Any spyware hunter want to chime in on this one? I personally have seen homepages changed to porn sites and tons of "questionable" stuff in the Internet temp folder but you can't assume that it was the user, not when you consider Adware/Spyware/Trojan infections. The user might only be guilt of clicking Yes/No in a single popup that they got when they mistyped a domain name.

Yet another reason that we should hand off to HR and not have any role in "the penalty phase".

What happened to ethics and privacy rights?? You have no rights to do what you are trying to do. Better not give out your name or company name, both would be slapped with a lawsuit, I guaranty you.

Hello all. I have been a consultant & technical trainer for 15 years. Theres no one tool that can do it all or well.

Having taught many security classes, I've run into many powerful apps. (Ethics aside for the moment. Ethics are always the big debate in the classroom. That and software licensing and activation.)

The perfect tool for Internet history is NetAnalysis from http://www.digital-detective.co.uk/intro.asp

It collects the entire history, cookies, etc. Lets you export, search and sort.

If there is a way to centralize a web proxy, that would be the easiest solution for the future. (As some members have already stated.)

I have no problem with "monitoring" in the least. What I DO have a problem with is a "no tolerance policy" as regards time spent on personal obligations. In a perfect world, everyone would make up time they spend on personal BS. But we don't live in a perfect world. I just believe Big Brother should (a) definitely be flagged for obvious abuse (e.g., 6 hours at a gambling site, etc.) and (b) understand that some of their resources are going to be used for personal gains by employees (e.g., making a phone call, looking up your son's medication, etc.). AND I agree that there is potential exposure for a company.

Having said all of this, however, I suppose you NEVER use the telephone for personal calls (hey, it's a company resource and you COULD be making a date with a 12 year old in your daughter's Girl Scout troup!) Get my drift! Why is the net any different from a telephone?

... the facts remain that you have a company computer, not a personal one. The company has a right to put a key logger on their computer, regardless of your feelings (not that they would, but kust to point out that it's their property to use as THEY see fit). If your comapny has a written policy that lets you do your personal banking on their computer, then all is well. If they don't have a policy, or if the policy says you can't, then you might have a problem. The thing to do is to discuss the issue with management and get them to OK such use, and you will then be ethically using the computer for personal business. If not, personal use is unethical rather than determining that such use has occurred.

I won't point out that any software maker with the help of US Marshals can enter your business right now and audit license compliance.

It's a little late to get up in arms about the governments ability to raid you. And what ever you do don't call your senator and representative in Congress and tell them to let certain provisions of the USA Patriot Act expire, because they might want to sneak and peak your business, without the courtesy of letting you know or presenting a warrant, until weeks afterwards.

Couldn't have said it better myself! Thanks.

We use an application called Spector Pro. It has all the bells and whistles you asked about and can be made totally transparent to the user. It can record quite a bit, just depends on how much surfing they do. It will record key strokes, web sites, email, IM, etc. Here's a link to their web site: http://www.spectorsoft.com/