Work has locked me down!

[OvRiDe]

work+internet lesiure time=dont mix.. if your willing to take the risk there are some ways to get around these..

http://www.virtual-browser.com/

These may work in some cases.. but I have to point out. Sys Admins LOVE things like this because stick out like a sore thumb! They are also extremely easy to block.. ie... *.virtual-browser.com. The other thing about these sites are they are really easy for HR to process because it shows that the user is deliberately circumventing in place measures and violating policy. URLSnarf reveals these types of urls quickly and easily.

[slytherock]

I've worked from home before as well, not very often though.

I knew someone who had the company pay for her internet access. I thought that was not fair. I feel that it is wrong if you use that company paid internet to spend lots of time with non work related stuff. This person also took advantage of other things that most people usually wouldn't get away with as well.

As far as I'm concern; and my boss think the same way, As long as my work is done, everything is allowed.

[OvRiDe]

I've worked from home before as well, not very often though.

I knew someone who had the company pay for her internet access. I thought that was not fair. I feel that it is wrong if you use that company paid internet to spend lots of time with non work related stuff. This person also took advantage of other things that most people usually wouldn't get away with as well.

A while back I would have agreed with you, but really its one of those things thats better left to management. I was involved in a conversation once that really brought alot of things to light. There are several things that most just don't realize when it comes to office space. If a person is productive at home, the company can save a lot of overhead by having them work from home. Compared to the cost of office space, an internet connection is CHEAP! The other thing is, they really don't have internet plans that are limited to 8 hrs a day. So as long as they are productive and get their work done, most companies don't seem have a problem with it.

[nil8]

*raises hand*

Firefox on a thumb drive was mentioned. True, this can stop someone from seeing where you go locally on the machine, but any half-decent web filtering software logs the account, ip, and destination.

This all reminds me of a little story of why web filtering is a good thing.
I was working at a hospital that I won't mention the name of. We got a report that there was some inappropriate material on a shared doctor's pc. I looked back through the webfilter logs & found out the time & specific user. It was child porn. Needless to say he was fired, the files & logs were handed over as evidence to the sheriff's dept, and I never heard another thing about it.
Good reason to have a web filter. If we didn't, we would have never known.

As long as the filtering is reasonable, you won't have problems.
Now it's my turn to get back to work...

[Airbozo]

I've worked from home before as well, not very often though.

I knew someone who had the company pay for her internet access. I thought that was not fair. I feel that it is wrong if you use that company paid internet to spend lots of time with non work related stuff. This person also took advantage of other things that most people usually wouldn't get away with as well.

When I worked at sgi, back before dsl and cable were available, they paid for my dual line isdn line. It was part of the benefits of being a system administrator and needing to be able to access any system within 1 hour when I was on call. If you cost it out over a long period, it actually saved them money since I was on the clock from the moment my pager went off. A couple years later they bought a laptop with a cell phone modem for the on call sysadmin. I could then hang out at the beach and answer pages and fix/reboot systems while on call instead of being tied to my house. Again, if you cost it out, it was still cheaper for them than paying me to drive to work to press the reset button.

[Airbozo]

As far as I'm concern; and my boss think the same way, As long as my work is done, everything is allowed.

Same here. Just don't be blatant is his motto.

[noopypoop]

wait...http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/99f1/


read the bottom

[Omega]

Yeah, like I use ghostzilla, you can load up websites and the browser automatically hides if you move the mouse too far away from it. Very nifty and it can nest into normal windows so you don't look too suspicious.

[Luke122]

I'd just like to be clear here that we aren't trying to help people find ways to circumvent blocking/filtering, we are discussing reasons for it and both pros and cons of filtering traffic/blocking access.

That being said, it doesnt matter what software you are running on your desktop PC, if it passes out through the company network, it is filtered at the firewall. (At least it is here..) Also, users on my network do not have administrative priveleges locally on their machines, so they cannot install software.

On the illegal content note:

A friend of mine who runs a repair shop in Red Deer once had a customer computer sitting on his workbench connect out to a Chinese server, and start uploading child porn to a server there. Turns out that the owner of the PC had a huge collection, and a program on his PC was calling some chinese server and sending pictures out to them.

Police got called right quick, and that guy is currently in prison. Good thing he had logging enabled on his firewall.. he was notified right away of the unusual activity.

I know that's somewhat off topic from the discussion, but

[billygoat333]

what sort of web filtering (besides hardline firewalls) can you use on a network? @ my job, I am basically the unofficial sysadmin because no one else knows how to run a network there and my bosses hate outsourcing. (which i dont mind cause i get more privileges than anyone else @ work ) Anyways, can you guys recommend a good filtering software?