Conference 7.286::digital

    Several Sandia National Laboratories' employees were fired late last
    year for browsing porno on the web. They too track useage by site
    visited and can tie it back to individuals. In that case it was misuse
    of Govt. (DOE) computers, but I would submit that Digital systems
    exsist for Digital's work to be accomplished, not for employee
    exploration.
    
    IMHO...
    If you want to Web serve for pleasure, buy yourself a home PC and find
    a internet provider.

    Or put AOL on your work PC wiht a Modem...  Oops... They can still tap
    your phone line by law.. (Since it's not YOUR office phone, it's
    thiers)..
    
    *** I was searching for one of the famous Jack Smith memos where he
        sat in the MLO5-4 lobby seeing who came in late.  He said they all
        had excuses like the car broke, etc.  After a week of him sitting 
        there no one had any car problems (everyone was on time!).
    
        This was while he was a Sr. VP..... 
    

    Hmmm....
    
    Obviously anything www.*.alt.sex and that ilk are inappropriate uses
    of Company resources.  And in case you are wondering Steve, this is
    purely hypothetical. :-)
    
    But, there are lots of non-work-related notesfiles that are "blessed"
    by the Company as long as you access them during "off" hours.
    
    So does that mean I can access www.disney.com, via Digital's proxy
    server, as long as I do it at 9:00 p.m. from my house?  There seems
    to be a gray line here regarding personal use of internet resources.
    
    At Sandia National Labs the line is a bit more black and white, since
    ANY non work related use of their computers and networks is strictly
    verboten!
    
    What I would like to see is that any PC (Politically Correct, in this
    context) use of the internet after normal working hours is deemed
    OK.

    Are we ripping off the scab on this again?  Last time it was non-work
    notesfiles, then non-work newsgroups, and now non-work Web pages?
    
    Heck, participating in this conference might be viewed as grounds for
    dismissal!  Digital sure isn't paying me to pontificate in this
    notesfile.
    
    On the topic...  Of course, serious abuses of Digital's property
    should be dealt with appropriately.  If you make 10,000 copies
    of a personal document on a printer, for instance.  But the
    casual, make a phone call, send an email, make 1 photocopy,
    visit a web page, should be overlooked by any reasonable
    person.
    
    We can't really comment about the person in .0 since we don't
    know the details about the amount of abuse or if they were
    ignoring their actual job.
    
    As a question, if somebody tracks Web usage, etc., how easy is
    it to spoof? 
    
    				-John
    

    re:.0
    >Frankly, I am worried sick about this "Big Brother is watching"
    >situation  -- I am worried for my job, and those of others.  Recently,
    >I (and three others that I know of) was called to the floor by
    >management asking why I had been accessing a particular sex site on the
    >"Internet" (strange that we would all be accessing the *same* site). 
    >Of course, I denied it but I  was told  a) they had reports indicating
    >otherwise, and  b) it would be  grounds for dismissal if it happens
    >again.  
    
    The issue in the above, as I see it, is that they were accused, but
    when it was denied, the evidence wasn't produced.  I would be furious
    and push the issue if it were me.  Its very suspect to make the 
    accusations without being willing to show the "proof".  Then again,
    this IS Digital.

Oh dear, as already pointed out, this just seems to be just *yet another* 
reiteration of the tired old `ban non work related notes conference' style 
proposals, which've been going on for years and years and... etc.  Do some 
people have nothing better to do than drag this issue up over and over again?  
Either just ban the bloody things or stop hassling people about it.

I wonder that impact this will have on Internet News distribution, I mean, 
this must be one of the heaviest users of the network, and is only slightly 
work related.  At my site, when the network became congested, our telecomms 
guy just used his discretion and upped the bandwidth, and the problem went 
away.  Sounds like quite a contrast to what .0 outlines, which may, 
unfortunately, become the norm if some badly thought out policy is pushed 
through.

Sounds like the people with too much time on their hands and not enough work 
to do are those doing the monitoring, rather than those alleged to be doing 
the browsing...

Chris.

    .3> Obviously anything www.*.alt.sex and that ilk are inappropriate uses
    .3> of Company resources.  And in case you are wondering Steve, this is
    .3> purely hypothetical. :-)
    .3>
    .3> But, there are lots of non-work-related notesfiles that are "blessed"
    .3> by the Company as long as you access them during "off" hours.
    .3> 
    .3> So does that mean I can access www.disney.com, via Digital's proxy
    .3> server, as long as I do it at 9:00 p.m. from my house?  There seems
    
    I beg to differ. It is not at all obvious to me why some alt.sex.something
    would be more or less inappropriate then say an rec.sports.otherthing, or 
    www.disney or what.have.you.not. It is all non-work, all entertainment no?
    
    fwiw,
    	Hein.
    
    

    
    
    	The tighter the reins that you place on employees, the less creative
    and generally less content those employees are. I believe the freedoms
    that Digital allows its workers are unique and one of its great
    strengths. Without them, Digital is just another lumbering sweatshop.
    Stifle peoples freedoms and you stifle their drive and ambition. 
    
    	IMHO, YMMV, etc....
    
    
    jim  

      
     >    The tighter the reins that you place on employees, the less
     >    creative and generally less content those employees are. I believe
     >    the freedoms that Digital allows its workers are unique and one of
     >    its great strengths. Without them, Digital is just another lumbering
     >    sweatshop.
    
       Totally agree with above, 
    
      I fail to see what harm there is in browsing non-work related sites
      as long as there is no abuse. You can actually learn how to use
      tools on the net a lot better if you explore. 
    
      Some people rarely have time to take lunch breaks so they eat
      at their desk and browse CNN or whatever to relax a bit and open new
      horizons. It helps rejuvinate for a busy afternoon and can actually
      help productivity.  
    
      What's next? Should we ban 5 minute, non-work related conversations
      as well? 
       
    
        

    Is Big Brother looking, now?  
    Which sites/clusters?
    Is there a way to ask if you're being monitored? 
    Or would that be like exposing a trap?
    
    

The argument boils down to two issues. What may an employee do
while taking a break (are smoking rooms monitored?) and how does 
non-work activity (using company resources) affect work activity
using those same resources. liesl

>> The argument boils down to two issues. What may an employee do
>> while taking a break (are smoking rooms monitored?) and how does 
>> non-work activity (using company resources) affect work activity
>> using those same resources. liesl

Actually, there are at least a few other issues: what may the employer do to
determine compliance with the rules, how do these activities on the part of the
employer affect the employees, and are the resources expended on such
activities worthwhile.

						Brian

It's impossible to tell from a set of network addresses whether or not the 
pages accessed are work-related. Think about it.

Dave.

    > Without them, Digital is just another lumbering sweatshop.
    > Stifle peoples freedoms and you stifle their drive and ambition.
     
    and of course,when we have drive and ambition BECAUSE we have free 
    internet access,this is reflected in the company results.
    Sorry,access to the Internet is a privilege but the company would be
    right to restrict it IF it got out of hand.Like all privileges,it
    should be used with care.I tell customers to expect information 
    overload for the first month and then a return to real use.
    It would be right to object to non-work use but it would not be right
    to impose any kind of moral censorship.Is the weather picture more of
    a misuse than a picture of your favorite model?
    Damn right it is-it uses more bandwidth to download the weather map
    than the latest Playboy pic.The argument should stop there.If the 
    bandwidth used was consistently high from a particular address,then
    the company would be right to investigate.Given the sheer impossibility
    of this task,then Bob should put out the following message:-
    
    Dear employees,
          Internet access is a privilege we can't afford to misuse-we
    already spend x million dollars etc etc.
          What you obtain from the Internet should be in-line with the core
    values of Digital and your own personal integrity.Period
    
    Bob

	I would expect the internet traffic to be HUGE, and monitoring
	and controlling all the messages that pass should create an
	enormous overhead on the machines as well.  Could the cure
	not be worse than the disease, with respect to use of resources ?
	
	A comment on the office-hours /after-hours issue mentioned earlier.
	Since the US is asleep when I come in the office in the morning, 
	it would be much more efficient if I accessed the internet during 
	the early office hours than after hours, when the US is fully in 
	action.

	(Wondering what Bill Gates would think of the fact that someone
	 is monitoring all his E-mail from and to Bob Palmer as they pass
	 our gateways.)

	Leo.

I have to agree with the last line of response .1.

If you have non-work-related surfing to do, do it on you own equipment,
at your own expense, on your own time, or be prepared to deal with the
potential consequences. There's enough crap going on in this company
that puts people's jobs at risk that makes personal web browsing at
the compnay's expense rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

    .7> I beg to differ. It is not at all obvious to me why some
    .7> alt.sex.something would be more or less inappropriate then say an
    .7> rec.sports.otherthing, or www.disney or what.have.you.not. It is all
    .7> non-work, all entertainment no?
    
    If the Corporate policy regarding internet use stated "...for business
    use only..." and was a well communicated policy, I would agree with you
    (at least from a logical standpoint).  But the implicit policy to date
    seems to allow at least after hours discretionary use, within limits.
    
    And logically speaking it matters not what type of unofficial use you
    are making of the internet.
    
    But realistically the content of your browsing makes a big difference
    to Digital.  I suggest we apply the "acid test."  Picture the following
    two newspaper headlines:
    
    	Workers at Digital Equipment Corporation reveal appetite for
    	Disney home page. 
    
        Workers at Digital Equipment Corporation distributing Internet
        porn.
    
    You would never see the first headline because it is neither newsworthy
    nor would the public care.
    
    The second headline would be newsworthy and a public relations
    nightmare for the Company.
    
    Just as bringing your copy of Sailing magazine to work to show your
    coworkers the boat you plan to buy is benign, bringing Playboy to the
    office is verboten.  In short, whenever any Corporate facilities or
    assets are involved we are responsible for being politically correct.
    
    If you are still not convinced that the two uses are markedly
    different, I suggest the following test:
    
    	1) For the next month, during off hours, YOU visit the
    	   alt.sex.something site.
    	2) For the next month, during off hours, I will visit the
    	   www.disney.com site.
    
    Then we will see who gets screamed at first. :-)
    
    But I do see your point.  If Digital were to communicate clearly the
    "...official use only..." policy that would remove any ambiguity.  Not
    the best solution, IMHO, but an equitable one.
    
    
    The point that I missed in the original note is the one that is more
    scary.  Let's say that you have a PC running Windows 3.1 in your office
    with Trumpet and Netscape loaded.  Whenever you are away from your
    office, anyone could browse whatever they wanted on the internet and
    the "Internet Police" would view you as the culprit.  For that matter
    even if you made some effort to control access to your PC, anyone with
    a floppy in hand could achieve the same result.  Perhaps this is what
    happened in .0.  Any thoughts on this aspect?
    
    FWIW,
    
    Paul

    Who says the alt groups are non-work?  One engineer found a great use
    (not implemented by Digital, unfortunately) for a program posted in
    some of the alt.binaries.pictures.* groups.  This program connected to
    a Usenet server, scanned selected groups, searched for articles,
    downloaded multi-part articles, sorted the articles, combined the
    bodies, and decoded them to binary.  It would also keep incomplete sets
    of parts, to receive the remaining parts in the future.
             
    What a terrific way for Digital to deliver patches and other software!
    We should add an authentication step, and maybe a license-check, and
    then customers would have an easy automatic scan for new patches and
    upgrades.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    RE .17
    
    What about this:  The issue of Playboy magazine comes and in it is an
    article about the use of the internet and a listing of all the sites
    out there that are of interest in the opinion of the author of the
    article.  Let's say they even talk about Altavista (a common thing
    these days) as the best, fastest Web crawler out there.  Now, let's say 
    I find this article interesting and want to place it on the copy
    machine and send it to a colleague or perhaps even a customer who is
    very interested in hearing and reading about the Internet.  Are you
    telling me that the Digital police (whoever they are) are going to come
    down on me for this?  
    
    C'mon, give me a break, there's enough mass paranoia out there to
    really be concerned about this little event.  On second thought, maybe
    I'm off to Kinkos.  And by the way, I want my Corporate Copy discount
    that we negotiated with them please!
    
    Mav

    Well, there are two sides to every story,
    
    I would not pretend that the time I have spend reading this note is work
    related, or that 100% of the time I get paid for is spent doing work
    related tasks. Some of the time I get paid for is spend on non-work
    related entertainment of various sorts, to put it frankly. 
    
    But then for the last two hours I have been sitting at my desk waiting
    for my manager to give me something he wants done when I should be on
    the way home. I shan't be charging the co for it, it is not the first
    or the last time, and I won't get paid for it. I hope the bit extra I
    give the co now and again is balanced by what I take. In my experience
    the great majority of the people at Digital think and act that way. The
    bottom line for me is whether my manager is satisfied at the end of the
    month/year. I think that most of us give a fair day's work and the few
    time wasters are more than made up for by the rest. 
    
    So let's keep a sense of proportion. If big brother is watching he may
    as well knock it off as the results will be counter productive. 
    
    And BTW, I wish I had taken another day off to shake off the damn 'flu
    that is bugging me.
    
    Kevin  

re .19  

I find it hard to believe that playboy is the only sources for this
information.  I think even a easy search of the information would
find another source.

jb

    
    	I don't think he said it was the only source ... I think he said
    	it was A source of which he happened to be recently aware.
    

RE: Basenote:

        In general, it would be great if "work will be dealt with
    appropriately in accordance with Digital's Policies and Procedures."
    It could improve the overall moral and motivation... my motivation,
    included...

        Flame off;
On the technical side of this:
Web browsing has no *authentication*, and nothing prevents me for using another
IP# and account, which would not be tracked down to me (but may be to someone
else). This could be a fake, or it could be a coincidence...
The Web Server (or proxy) log shows as much as a telephone bill;
some IP# has accessed the server, requesting this or that IP-destination...

If you are certain that you have *not* done, what you have been told - and it is
important to you, you should check it up:
What proxy are you using (look in your browser's setup).
Contact the owner of that proxy - ask if the proxy does log activities, and ask
a copy of that log file, for the period in question.
This is my recommended starting point for tracking down this.

Now, on the non-technical part, I do not want to comment. I have no opinions
whether it should be allowed or not, to access anything related to "sex".
If a statistical summary for Web-usage (by area) shows (for example) 90% of the
browsing being that kind of things - it only tells me that the company most
likely has too few women employed...
  
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]

    recently an employee of one of our customers was arrested for
    pedophilia.  Evidently the FBI tracked him down thru his internet usage
    from his employers site.  He has been arrested, fired and his PC was
    confiscated by the FBI.  I wonder what the courts will say regarding
    proof of who was using the PC at any given time...
    

    I didn't know that women were not interested in reading about "SEX".
    You learn something everyday! And at my age??? :-)
    

    Interesting discussion, but it appears that the anonymous employee has
    received a "warning".  That's a serious event.  What would you do if it
    happened to you?
    
    Mark

RE: -1

	A "warning" for posting the basenote?
	




[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]

>	A "warning" for posting the basenote?

I believe the reference in .26 was to the warning that was disclosed
in the basenote.

	Gee folks, this email that I just got from the Corporate Propaganda
	Office seems to be encouraging employees to surf the Boston Marathon
	site that Digital sponsors.  So if I get this right, it's OK to use
	corporate resourses for non-work related web browsing so long as it's
	to access Digital sponsored or sanctioned pages?  I'm sorry but 
	information on the Boston Marathon - no matter how glitzy and full
	of "cutting edge" stuff like Java -  is no more relevant to me 
	performing my job than say alt.sex.fetish.hamster.duct_tape.


From:   NAME: Corporate Communications      
        FUNC: Corporate Communications         <CORP_COMM@A1@SLSPUB>
To:     See Below

From:  Don Bradley @AKO, Public Relations Manager, DTN 244-6678


               A L L  R I G H T ! !  250,000 "hits" on our
                marathon web site and counting...how's
                this for "before" race excitement.

                 http://www.bostonmarathon.org            


        BOSTON MARATHON OFFICIAL WEB SITE
        Digital -- Official Information Technology Sponsor
                   
        Digital outruns competition with award-winning Web site,
        and becomes the Official Technology sponsor of the
        Boston Marathon Web Site for the Boston Athletic
        Association.             

        The 100th Anniversary of the Boston Marathon is scheduled to take 
        place on April 15th in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Marathon 
        runners from around the world will be participating in this 
        Grandfather of all marathons.  

        Digital, the official information technology sponsor, has a "live"
        web site full of good stuff for you to browse.  For example,
        there is runner information by name, location, or bib number. 
        There is local information about Boston, interesting restaurants, 
        etc., and, on race day, live coverage of the race. Magellan 
        has recognized this as one of the "Magellan Featured 
        Site." 

        LOCAL NEWS

        Events leading up to race day include local coverage on
        TV, radio, and in the press. More information is scheduled
        on local TV stations, such as Channel 7, Channel 5, and
        ads on local radio stations, such as WBZ and WEEI (during 
        commuting hours).

        Check out the local newspapers, such as the Boston Herald 
        and Middlesex News, among others, for articles featuring 
        Digital as the official technology leader! Nationally, 
        our Marathon Web site has been featured on ABC TV. And 
        there's more on the way: Washington Post, New England Cable 
        News, local channel 38 TV, with more opportunities 
        popping up literally by the hour.

        AROUND THE WORLD

        The benefits are not limited to the U.S.A. Internet users all
        over the world can log on to see entrants from their
        respective countries BEFORE the race, see how they are doing
        DURING the race, and how they finished AFTER the race.

              Visit the Official Boston Marathon Web site at

                      http://www.bostonmarathon.org

              Send us feedback and tell us what you think.

                  WE'LL SEE YOU ON THE WEB ON RACE DAY

        Special thanks:  Hats off to the following groups within 
        Digital who are making this event a grand affair:  Corporate 
        Communications Brand Services, Internet Program Office, 
        Applications Systems Engineering, Internet Management Center, 
        Advertising, Public Relations, various business units, and
        strategic partners, such as Oracle and Netscape.

Distribution:  This message was delivered to you utilizing the Reader's Choice 
delivery services.  You received this message because you are a Digital 
employee.  If you have questions regarding this message, please contact the 
author.

    re: -1
    
    Now you've gone and done it........
    
    
    the 'DONT DO AS I DO, DO AS I SAY" police are going to come down on
    you now!
    
    
    Those folk could be a round of TFSO all by themselves!
    
    chet

    Just out of interest I used AltaVista to find which Newsgroups I'm
    recorded as having participated in. There were some (work-related) that
    were no surprise to me, but there was one that was news to me. My
    newsreading client had no record of this alleged participation, but I
    wanted to see who this guy was, masquerading as me. So I tried looking
    in the alleged newsgroup and found it didn't exist. So if my manager
    ever accuses me of swinging the lead I won't even have confidence in
    the search tools.
    
    This is, of course, worrying. But I don't see what I can do to make it
    less so.
    
    b
    
    ps 
    This was 3 or 4 months ago. I wrote to the AltaVista people (and
    copied my manager) at the time, but nothing came of it. Anyway, the
    details are now so historical that it's not worth further investigation

    If you replied to a posting that was cross-posted to another group, it
    would appear as if you had written in the other group as well.
    
    				Steve

> Just out of interest I used AltaVista to find which Newsgroups I'm
> recorded as having participated in.....

	You should try DeJa News instead, they archive forever all the
	newsgroups (and are even attempting to get archives from co's
	old backup tapes to build their archive up to all articles
	ever posted to a USENET group since way way back when).

	Of course they won't have any Digital internal only newgroups though.

> This was 3 or 4 months ago....

	in USENET terms, that's a long time.  Alot of servers purge articles
	older than a month or two (if even that long).  And new newsgroups
	pop up just as fast and deleted just as fast ....