Debate Over Monitoring

http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/pri...368480,00.html

I just don't understand the problem here. If a company spends the large amount of money necessary to install and mantain a network, why is it so controversial that they monitor it to ensure it is being used for proper purposes?

Having spent the majority of my adult career on military installations, I am used to the idea of having all of my network activities monitored and faced a "Consent To Monitoring" noticed at every logon. And having been the IS manager for a large corporation, I have monitored incoming and outgoing email as well as the surfing habits of employees (yes they knew, we also used a "Consent To Monitoring" notice at logon) to ensure they complied with company policy and procedure.

I have always told my users that if they won't put it on a postcard and drop it in a mailbox, don't put it in an email.

What is the hoopla about? Doesn't this follow the same general idea of Admins using cracker programs to ensure their users comply w/password policies?

The hoopla is about the fact that there are too many lawyers in this country with way too much freakin' time on their hands. Sue happy, piss ants.

Fortunately we don't monitor activities, the reason being is we'd have to hire someone full time just to go through all the data and that's "not fiscally responsible at this juncture".....(exact words from our beloved VP of finance) Gotta love bean-counter buzzwords. :thumbsup:

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not fiscally responsible at this juncture

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why don't they just say what they mean???

"Spend how much on a what!?!?!?!?!? ***** off!!"

:Dv_Ln:D

My god that article sucks. Why didn't they just suggest encryption? :) Oh yeah, sorry forgot, the article was aimed towards people who don't know much about computers in the first place.

Atleast, one thing DID get out. And that is the message that email isn't secure.

It's the bean counters that had me doing all of the monitoring at my last job -- believe it or not. They were on a witch hunt for those who were wasting time. I'd collect the evidence and they'd have them axed for being "counter-productive to the mission of the corporation" (most of the bean counters fit the description IMHO). Then they'd hire somebody to replace the unfortunate soul who spent too much time on eBay or whatever.

They even had me provide documentation of my own activities... They felt I spent too much time on the M$ site downloading patches. That idea didn't last long...

The problem is that monitoring deny privacy rights of any person.
And it is impossible to consent to enfrein this right... notice at logon or not.

I also tend to find it funny that some bean counters find themselves "qualified" to determine what's a waste of time or "useless activity" on a network... not like they actually know how people do their "technical" jobs - I know many people basically "paid to surf," including myself to an extent (a large portion of my job(s) tend to be surfing the net, finding new things and taking measures to prevent problems... along with finding ways that others have done things and then re-implementing similiar in-house (for example, sites like devshed (and /. (to a point))tend to be places I read somewhat regularly... or, as least, "often enough"))

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Originally posted here by KissCool
The problem is that monitoring deny privacy rights of any person.
And it is impossible to consent to enfrein this right... notice at logon or not.

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I hate to be blunt, but, if you are on your employer's machines and network, your expectation of privacy should be virtually nothing. If you have a notice a login, you are informed as to your lack or privacy and the expectation is set that you have no right to it. If you don't like it, you simply don't login or don't use the network or, for that matter, work for that employer.

There's a corrolary to all of this... if you are listening to a radio station and don't like what's on it, have the intelligence and maturity to change the channel - there is nothing there that is forcing you to like it and/or listen to it.