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by ittech2

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I have a question. As an I.S. Manager, I have recently been told by my superior (the General manager) that monitoring and blocking of abusive web sites is not my job nor is it my priority.

One question that comes to mind, is if someone claims a sexual har. suite saying that someone within the business has porn, etc.. against the company, can that company then turn around and hold me reliable even tho they informed me that it was not my job.

I have read many horror stories where the company will not carry the ball when it comes to this. If a suite is filed, they will find the next person in line, usually the I.S. Manager, and claim that they were not doing their job.

My superior does not understand my concerns, and will not sign awaiver relieving me of any responsibilities. Also, does anyone know where I could find such a waiver for an employer to sign for such cases?

Your thoughts on this.

5 replies

by pxttocyob

Get him to tell you that in a reply to an email you send him. Then print it out and send a copy to a safe place. Put a copy of the email on the net so you will have a record. Then he can not hold you reliable.

by richfergus

Good questions to a very touchy subject;

As network and telecom manager for a very large government agency, I have had to ?discus? the finer nuances of monitoring usage and justify the need. There is a gamut of reasons why you need to monitor andin my opinion, not block users inappropriate use of your company?s automation resources. A few reasons are the waist of time not to mention bandwidth. I have found that users spend approximately 40% of their time on the Internet for personal use. Inthe relationship of cost versus quality of service, this is a big problem. If one user is using the Internet to do bonafide work, that lets say would take one hour to complete. Then you have another user surfing porn during that same time. It hinders the user that is trying to his or her work. That equates to man-hours, which costs money. Granted, if you have few users, it won?t facilitate itself. For me it?s an amazing problem.

Why not block? Well no software can keep up with the many siteswe would rather not have our users go to. So we monitor. I would rather not have the users ?know? which sites the software knows about. I would rather have them guess.

We use logon banners, stipulating the inappropriate use and it?s penalties, we have users sign for a logon account with the same jargon, and we have a posted memorandum stating what is considered inappropriate or not.

Finally, any time your users go to any site on the Internet, your network is at a certain degree of exposure. This of course depends on the protective measures you have in place. But the point is, that there are many sites (i.e. porn, gambling, etc) that propagate hacking or selling e-mail lists. It is just the best practice for you users not to use your network for their personal habits. By the way, why wouldn?t your boss want you to know what information is on you system? If it were me, I would check him / her first.

by tazroth

I have done quite of research on this subject recently. Legal liability is just one reason policy & monitoring are needed. I would suggest looking at a survey by the American Management Association found at http://www.amanet.org/research. This may give your manager the quick kick needed.

I also would suggest running a monitoring "test". This would give you some specific numbers to forward to senior mgmt. You could figure out the percentage of total traffic spent on inappropriate sites, hit counts on those sites and time frames they are visited. Even just running this over a 1-2 week period could provide exceptional value.

There should be several vendors out there that would allow you to run a trial of their system.

You might alsowant to involve the HR department. As you noted, this does involve sexual harassment & civil rights laws. I would recommend talking with your employee relations rep about the whole situation. CYA you know.

Good Luck

by khariskh2

I have successfully use eSniff. It's not a blocker but a listener and categorizes the traffic based on some predefined keywords and it also has the capability of allowing you to define your own (eg. mp3).

Their website has some predefined usage policies which you can use.

All you need to do is to announce the existense of the box. Make sure they understand it's not going to log their personal stuff unless they over step the bounderies. You'll be amazed how fast the traffic drops.eSniff at the time had a pilot program allowing you to test for two weeks. Maybe that'll give your manager how much abuse is going on and when converted to $ how much it's costing him - not to mention the potential law suit expenses.

by trackhappy

I would definitely keep an email from your GM stating his "instructions" and your "recomendations". Not much of a GM, in my opinion.
We actively monitor and block where necessary. Our policies spell out "appropriate use" and our right to monitor using software "triggered by exception". Our Firewall automatically consults an external database which categorises sites and blocks categories selected by us. The other big reason for monitoring is staff sending out company confidential information. Maybe enlighten your GM on this one as well. See how he would react if somebody sent out information of a competitive nature to a competitor, causing them to win a tender over your comapny. (Of course this may not be appropriate for your business).
The main thing is for you to get evidence of your recomendation and his response. If necessary, send a letter with a duplicate to your lawyer. Then it is on his shoulders. If he is cagey about that, then I would be re-evaluating the wisdom of working for him.

Good luck.

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