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Hidden cost of snooping
Every now and again we get news of a product that sends shivers down the spine.
The latest is Hidden Camera version 2.16, which is a slightly misleading name for a product that allows a manager to snoop the screens of any of up to 250 machines in a network in real-time.
If, horror of horrors, you have the temerity to email the wife during work time you can be spotted immediately and sacked, or shot, depending on your company's policy.
Monitoring will 'drastically increase the productivity of your employees' according to a statement on the Oleansoft site.
It says an estimated 75 minutes is lost per employer per day to 'non-business related activity' on company computers.
The product, which also supports remote control, can obviously have legitimate applications such as preventing porn downloads and data theft.
But don't these people ever learn that study after study has shown that flat-out, nose down work actually reduces productivity? Or that if people can't hold their lives together while they are in the office, they might not be able to work at all?
Anyway you can download a trial version. If you have the stomach for it.
will big brother ever be happy where does it all stop?
Posted by snakeeyes | February 2, 2006 6:43 PM
I don't see what is so bad about discovering who is abusing the network. Are you happy for users to download MP3s, pr0n, pirated software and all the other things they tend to do? What about the data loss when some clueless idiot infects the network? Users will not only waste time but also network resources that they don't pay for.
Talking of time wasting, imagine if you employed a local builder to do some work on your house only to find that he'd fired up his laptop, plugged it into your phone line and wasted 75 minutes on personal stuff? I'd hazard a guess that you'd be less than pleased about paying for that 75 minutes.
The best compromise is to block any and all dodgy sites and materials with a proxy server so that users can't run the risk of infecting the network or placing the company in a position of legal liability because of that user's activities. If users need to access the Internet for personal use during break times simply supplying machines that are not connected to the main network in the staff rest area.
Lastly, massive ammounts of our bandwidth was being chewed up by users downloading MP3s and pirate software from web sites. Since we installed a proxy they now get a message indicating that they are trying to download material of a type not approved by the company and to contact IT for assistance. From that day to this not one has come to us and asked for help and our bandwdith is now being used for what it was intended for - the business.
Posted by Sysadmin | February 3, 2006 1:46 AM
Monitoring traffic and sites accessed is one thing; having someone watch everything you do on screen is enough to give anyone the willies and is surely counterproductive.
Posted by clive akass | February 3, 2006 12:06 PM
What's with you guys that say it's wrong? Is it your PC? Are you being paid to email your wife/ girl friend. I worked before the internet so I didn't have this problem. If I wanted to talk to my girl friend/now wife I just phoned her. That was pre itemised phone bills as well.:-)
Ok so I got paid pittence in comparison to todays average wage but if they're paying your wage they're calling the tune so accept it or resign/pi*s off
Peter
Posted by Peter | February 4, 2006 2:04 AM