Does your company montitor Internet Usage? 4

[bradpa77]

Ok, I'll admit it. I use the internet at work for personal reasons. I can't help it. It's just so easy to do and when I'm stuck on a boring project, it's really tempting to surf for a bit. I'm pretty sure that my company has a way to monitor our internet usage here at work but I don't have any solid proof to back it up. I'd never ask my manager if they are watching. I might as well just tell him that I spend time on the internet when I should be working.

So how about you managers from other companies? Do any of you care to share the secrets of your own companies internet monitoring? I'm dying to know what other places do.

I've never once been warned for using the internet. So that either tells me that (a) my manager knows and doesn't think that I surf enough for it to be a problem, (b) my manager has no idea what I'm doing on the internet (c) my manager knows, it bothers him, but he just doesn't feel like bringing it up for some reason. It makes it much easier to do when you're never yelled at for doing it. I remember when I first started here, I was terrified to even touch the internet explorer button because I was afraid I'd get fired for messing around. But just as us humans do, we test the waters and the boundaries slowly until someone in charge says "that's too far". Well, no ones said anything yet, so are they even watching? Or am I unknowingly racking up points against me everytime I surf?

Any thoughts or advice?

 

[ornerynorsk]

I'd answer this post, but I think they're watching me right now. Gotta go........

 

[fglass]

TheTick, the fonts do no matter. The problem is that maybe I am your boss and am in Eng-tips as well and am looking at your posts.

 

[johnwiss]

most "large" (>1000 employees) do attempt to log websites visited by employees and can search for keywords in emails.

There are ways to make the logging harder---for example if you can "turn off the "automatically detect proxy settings" tab in in you tools internet options, Lan setting tab in IE the ability to block the content goes away--not sure about the logging or email monitoring though.

use common sense--an occasional visit to CNN.com or whatever won't be noticed unless you are doing stuff like that for hours a day. Also do not look for Porn at work. stay away from keywords in your email like: "resume" gun" "drugs" "layoff" derogatory terms for co-workers or classes of them like females or racial groups and you should be safe. IF you email a ton a stuff to a personal email address just mention that it allows you to work outside of normal business hours and be more productivee. one dumb friend sending you a porn website if you click amd then notice the mistake and are off in a minute won't raise any red flags either. Patterns of misconduct is how then nail employees and they go after trouble empolyees first--so stay valuable you your company/division and you run a very low risk of being canned for internet usage if you are reasonable.

JW

 

[johnsmith2]

I check my yahoo e-mail all the time. Do you think they can read my e-mail by software?

 

[bradpa77]

I'm pretty sure that they only keep track of bytes downloaded here. If I have a slow day and do a lot of surfin' I sometimes get an e-mail the next day saying that I was in the top 10 for total bytes downloaded, then it lists all the sites I've been to that day, lists how many bytes for each website, and then tells me to make sure that I am using the company's internet privledges wisely. It's an automated e-mail. I just hope that it doesn't get sent to my boss!!!

But anyways, I just find it funny because if you're careful and stay away from sites with lots of pictures and videos (i.e. lots of bytes), you can pretty much surf all day and not get that warning e-mail. So it seem like they are focusing on the wrong thing. I once downloaded a program I needed for my job and that was ALL I did with the internet that day and I got the warning e-mail. So I basically spent 0 time on the internet but raised some red flags because it was a lot of bytes.

At least that's my assumption of how it works based on the warning e-mail.

 

[ScottyUK]

I would be top of our company's data download league for this year, and possibly forever more. The entire Solaris 10 installation for i586 processors is staggeringly large - five CD's gets the basic package. There were a lot of puzzled people remarking on how slow the 'net was on the day I downloaded that lot, and how long file transfers between sites seemed to be taking.

I hope my IT Dept aren't reading this!


----------------------------------

Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...

 

[powerjunx]

Scott, congratulation! for being the years' top data download league award.. hahaha


I'm pretty sure, IT's were under your feet. Maybe, perhaps you're top ranking office holder in your company..

 

[COEngineeer]

I wanted to go to

http://www.craigslist.org

and mistakenly put com instead. I think .com is a porn site. White window warning popped up. Scared the crap out of me. But i dont work for a big corporation anymore. Now I can do whatever i want . As long as I have good amount of hrs to bill, they are happy.

 

[HgTX]

I've misspelled dictionary.com and wound up on a porn site. No one said anything. But I suppose "dictionaryl.com" (or whatever it was) doesn't trigger any alarms in my employer's monitoring system, plus I got out of there in a BIG hurry!

Hg

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