Morality question, what would you do?

[thread_killer]

Ok, here's the situation....
I'm the WAN engineer for an organization with thirty sites. In order to reduce recurring costs of lease lines, we are doing a huge wireless WAN installation. I'm thinking of buying a house about a mile and a half away from one of the cell towers we are hanging equipment on. I made a joke to my boss that I could just get my own antenna and use the wireless shot to get to our DS3 from home and use our bandwidth instead of getting DSL or cable at the house. She said "Sure". So I get all excited, and say
"Really??!!"
"Yeah, why not, I don't have a problem with that."
"Oh wow, how cool..." Says I
"Yeah, just don't tell anyone else." She tells me.
"Why?"
"Well, I don't think anyone above us would go for it, so just keep it to yourself."

This sets the 'not such a good idea' light off in my mind. If it's really not a big deal, why couldn't I get the blessing of my department head to do it? Truth of the matter is, I do tons of work from home and have to open up holes in our security scheme in order for me to do it. If I was behind the firewall on a network we control, it would be much easier and much more secure for me to do this. I mention that to her, and say I think it would be a good selling point to the big boss. She tells me "Absolutely not. You do it if you want, but don't tell anyone."

So I decided not to do it, but I have to admit the thought of all that bandwidth free is mighty tempting. What would you do?


Oh yeah, before you decide what you would do, I forgot to mention I don't think I could be caught. I have absolute control over all the routers, firewalls, all of our IP addresses, etc. No one would ever know.

[dAggressor]

Well I would bring it up to higher management just to see if they would go for it. If your company is paying for all this access there is no reason you couldn't use it with their permission. But as far as doing it without their permission, I wouldn't. I know you said that you wouldn't get caught, but you are thinking about getting caught on the network, but what about word of mouth. Let's say you tell your friend who tells his friend who knows someone in your company and asks about it. that is something you can't control.

But anyway, to sum up. I would at least ask, that never hurts, but if the answer is no, I would accept that and pay my 40 bucks a month for dsl.

[mathgirl32]

Firstly, I wouldn't trust anyone who gave me the "sure, *wink-wink*" go ahead but said not to let anyone higher up know.....especially if I valued my job, yes, even if there is no way anyone could find out. However, you do always have the option to get permission from the powers who be. This is just an opinion.

[neta1o]

I'm not quite sure how computer literate you current boss is, but if she is like most line/department managers then she really doesn't know much about computers, routers, firewalls, etc... In a situation like this you should definitely take it to the higher-ups because they will here the words "more security/efficiency with no cost to us" and probably give you permission unconditionally. If your line/department manager is the computer savvy type then you should probably try to convince her to ask the department head for you. Line/department manager don't like to be cut out of any good ideas. Give her the idea and let her run with it.

Hopefully this helps and gives you access to some free speed. If not, its definitely not worth loosing your job to save the $40 bucks per month on a DSL/Cable line.

[gribble_gen]

Also something to consider is what kind of security risk are you interjecting into the network. Great, you have strong networking kung foo, but do you have a family that would be using this access point? How embarassing would it be if some backdoor was found and it turned out it was because your 13 year old kid was downloading porn with malicious code? Do you want to make the financial investment to lock down your home access point properly? And how would you explain it when someone at your office does some port scanning of the network and sees an ip that shouldn't be there? The ethical questions seems somewhat moot when you consider the pragmatic issues associated.

[auntie]

I think your boss is telling you that she herself would keep it a secret for you and not tell anyone else what your ideas were.But at the same time she is telling you not to tell others if you do decide to go ahead
She also doesn't think the higher-ups would go for it. She is evidently friendly with you. If you do decide to go above her head she is saying you may bomb out and get a reputation for pulling fast tricks on the company. I wouldn't take the chance a good reputation is hard to build and quickly torn down by one or two devious acts. I think I would rather not take a chance with being fired or being monitored by the company after that. Once two people know a secret it is in my opinion , no longer a secret Auntie

[MrLinus]

You know, as tempting as it is, I wouldn't do it. If it's a question of you doing an enormous amount of work with them anyways, get them to officially pay for the antenna. Nothing would be worse if your boss left (fired or otherwise) and someone else comes in.

In addition, it does call into question -- from the company's point of view -- your ethics (it is a form of stealing). If someone finds out -- and it is bound to happen -- and they want to make your life difficult they could.

Anyways, just some food for thought.

[thread_killer]

I guess more what I was curious about was not so much what would you do? as much as who here would do it anyway?

There is no way I would endanger my job for a little (ok, quite a bit) of bandwidth. I'd never do it without buy in from at least my IT director.

[firestarter5]

If you take that, this company you work for will always be able to hold that over your head when disagreements arise.

[moby_duck]

you sound like a responsible person and i think you have already made the right decision not to use your company's bandwidth. ethically it's very nearly the same as stealing. your instincts are correct, i believe.