Your Boss Knows You're Reading This

For quite sometime now, I have been wanting to post something about this since it never ceases to amaze me how lay people are usually shocked to hear about this, so here goes.

Contrary to pop perception, the most powerful person in a company is not the president or CEO but the network administrator or whatever it is they call him/her that controls the network. This person is basically a GOD when it comes to accessing information. When we say God-mode in techie terms, we mean that no amount of average encryption or password protection can protect your files if they wish to see it. To paraphrase: "They giveth protection, and they taketh away."

We always see the usual email footers starting like this...

"The information in this email (and any attachments) is confidential and is the sole property of XYZ Company..."

It will do you well to heed this and understand that nothing you do, while using the corporate PC and internet access is ever private or personal. This includes websites, emails, IM's, and any other information that passes through the corporate network.

The lay person usually does not understand how easy it is for an administrator to track and log literally anything that you do in your PC, nor do they realize that according to Reuters, nearly 86% of all employers monitor these activities and can run audits on any given day. If that was a little hard to swallow.... let me repeat that... they can monitor everything!

A log usually consists of the URL of the site, the IP address of your PC that clearly and uniquely identifies you, and the time stamp... so don’t bother denying. This applies to IMs also like Yahoo or MSN (if they're not banned), and more easily for emails. Lets not forget those pics and videos you have been saving in your PC... no matter how much you hide it.

Companies usually have clauses in their technology policy about this... but we all know you barely read it let alone understood it right? So how exactly do you judge what is ok to view and what is not? Think about it like your boss or the geekie looking data center administrator being always constantly watching over your shoulders... would you be doing these things in front of them? I don’t think so. You have no idea what kind of snooping tools they have at their disposal... and these aren’t illegal tools. Scary? Abso-fucking-lutely!

This comes from the fact that they have completely good reasons for doing so, since also according to Reuters, an average of 8.5 hours per week are spent visiting non-work related sites, and online services like personal emails, instant messaging, chat, shopping, pornography, social services like friendster, etc. and not surprisingly job hunting.

So be warned! It is easy to get lost in the stuff you are doing and "think" that you are alone in the cubicle. Take it from a guy who knows this for a fact... don’t ask why =)

So before you can say.... They can’t do that?! .... believe it coz they already are!