How does your employer view your online habits?

[The_Grudge]

I work for a fairly large organization (about 3,000 employees) and I had a couple of questions regarding the software that tracks employee web habits.

When you log onto a network PC, a message pops up saying basically that "this PC is for work purposes only...incidental use is okay...you may be subject to periodic audits to ensure compliance with the corporate web policy". I've worked there for four years now and everytime I see that message I wonder what it means exactly. So that's why I'm here...I'm finally bored enough to ask. And by the way, today is a holiday where I work so I'm not doing this on work time

So, here are my questions...

1) Obviously they know what sites you visit during the day. What I want to know is, how can they tell how long you were on the site for? I mean I know you can track time spent on a site, but what if I go to VBForums.com and then minimize the window only to return to it 30 minutes later. Does that look like I was on the site for 30 minutes?

2) With so many staff members, how do they keep track what everyone is doing?

Basically, how does this software work?

[TheBigB]

1) Obviously they know what sites you visit during the day. What I want to know is, how can they tell how long you were on the site for? I mean I know you can track time spent on a site, but what if I go to VBForums.com and then minimize the window only to return to it 30 minutes later. Does that look like I was on the site for 30 minutes?

Yep.
All they will be monitoring in such a size organization is network traffic.
I really doubt they will be using keyloggers and screencapturers.

But they don't really hold record on how long you spend on a page, because it would be very inaccurate with as reason what you stated.

2) With so many staff members, how do they keep track what everyone is doing?

I can't give you any specific, as I don't know how things exactly work there, but I can give you a general idea.

All connections are scanned and filtered. I think the more you hit the filter, the higher you will rank on their 'list'. If you're in a high rank, you are most probable to be checked for network activities. This goes for HTTP. In this case they might activate some idle keyloggers and screencapture apps.

Also have the idea they don't like it when you open up new ports for special apps.

[si_the_geek]

I have been involved in the monitoring process for a couple of different companies, and using them as a general guideline... you will only get in trouble if you do things you shouldn't (such as visit sites with 'adult' content), or you are visiting far too many pages.

If a non-work website becomes one of the most popular sites within the company (say in the top 20), then there is a chance it will get blocked.

Unless the network speeds are limited, the chances are that size of downloads wont matter (unless of course you are downloading lots of massive files!).


The monitoring systems I have used do not care about time per page etc, they focus on sites/pages visited, and the users, the category (IT, news, gambling, etc), and the date/time - all stored in a database so that checks can be made as is seen fit.

I would expect some sort of regular checks to be made, and if you haven't been asked to discuss your web habits, you probably aren't doing anything seriously wrong - but I'd recommending checking the rules (your web policy) to be safe.

[Hack]

Moved to General Developer

I would think most companies would encourage visiting sites such as this one, especially for their developers.

[TheBigB]

At my school they use Novell.
It's used quite often for the larger facilities.

If anyone has some background info on that?

[Hack]

Background info as in what?

[RobDog888]

I monitor web surfing habits for one of my clients using ISA Server. Its easy to generate a list by user of their top sites visited. It doesnt matter if its work related but if you are going online to your bank, shopping (ebay etc) or general sites that in no way contribute to the benefit of the company then you will get pegged depending on the company's desire and policies.

Pr0n is a definate immediate termination. Sites like this one are ok if your in the industry and are using it to research some problem in yur program/project but posting away to help everyone else would be the employer paying for you to help people outside their company which can get you fired too.

My employer allows and even wants me to post here!

[dilettante]

My employer has over 500 developers, but even with those numbers I think their idea of promoting an in-house forum site for this purpose is crazy.

Just to start with we're using every odd combination of technologies imaginable, so even a VB question stands little chance of getting an answer. Even more so when you consider how few "professional" developers actually use such a resource even out in the wide world.

Of course you have to remember that the majority are mainframe Cobol, Java, or .Net drones - just coding to a detailed spec to create and maintain very repetitive sorts of programs.

[Campion]

I work in a completely different industry, but IT does watch stats, is able to, and has gone to active monitoring at the request of management. They do allow general usage, and do allow industry related sites, but mainly to passively watch that proprietary information does not spread.

The filter is stupid at times. For example, Yahoo games is not blocked, but Yahoo horoscopes IS. Heaven forbid we spend our time looking at fortunes than playing games.

[NEO1986]

hi
can anyone tell me how can this software be programmed in vb.net 2005
If anyone can give me any idea or any of its modules,it would be a gret help

i am doing this "security system" as a part of my college project.
thanx

[TheBigB]

if you want to go into details, please create a thread in the .Net section of the forum.

[chemicalNova]

Most of those programs scan the meta tags in any HTTP transfers you make.

If you visit a website full of porn that doesn't include any meta tags that have "adult", or "xxx", or "sex" in the meta tags.. chances are you won't be caught (unless the URL has something in it too).

chem

[si_the_geek]

Actually some/most of the more professional packages don't do just that - they check the text in the page too, and also have other mechanisms such as some kind of database with classifications for the sites themselves (which is determined by software and/or manually).

[Shaggy Hiker]

My employer views my online habits through a small hole in the wall.

Actually, there is some software that is looking for god only knows what. When you are talking about a bunch of biologists, the range of topics that are entirely valid runs well into those words that would count as pornography. Sex IS the subject of biology, one way or another. I've seen videos of salmon porn. Those things are external fertilizers, so they are downright indecent. I really can't say what our software is screening for, nor can anybody else, so we pretty much surf the web using the braille system.

[chemicalNova]

My employer is an ISP.. being network support I don't get checked for anything.. /me presses F5 on MySpace.

chem

[NEO1986]

@THE BIGB
I already posted the topic in .net networking section a few days ago.

[mendhak]

Si's right about a website getting too popular. At some point, facebook surged to the #1 spot on the most visited sites list. This was obviously not contributing in any way to the productivity of the employees, and so they didn't block it, but asked us to keep it down. And they use WebSense on their firewall to block access to a list of specific categories of websites, such as gambling, pr0n, peer-to-peer and so on. We're a large company (about 50k people) so these things are usually automated.