Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Alabama IT Whistleblower Fired For Spyware

Posted by timothy on from the insult-injury-and-all-that-jazz dept.

chalker writes "Vernon Blake, an IT sysadmin for the Alabama Department Of Transportation, wanted to get evidence that his boss spent the majority of his time playing solitaire on his computer. Since emails to higher up supervisors were ignored, he installed Win-Spy, which grabbed screenshots several times per day over a period of 7 months. 70% of the resulting screenshots showed an active game of solitaire, and another 20% showed his boss checking the stock market. When he reported this to superiors, he was fired, even though he had 21 years of service in the position. His boss got a reprimand to 'stop playing games'. He is appealing his termination in court since he claims it was part of his job description to 'confirm and document' computer misuse for ALDOT. His complete story is here."

3 of 751 comments (clear)

  1. I only looked at a couple of the admin's links... by IANAAC · · Score: 1, Redundant
    in addition to Win-Spy's homepage. What exactly does Win-Spy capture? What happens when the PC goes into screensaver mode? Do screencaptures still take place behind the scenes?

    I worked in a government office for a few years, and it's quite conceiveable that you could fire up an app (Solitaire in this case), then walk away to a meeting for hours-on-end (taxpayer waste, if I ever saw any).

    I wonder if there isn't a whole lot more to the story that we're not getting. Any boss (or sysadmin, for that matter) worth their salt will admit to office "downtime" occasionally. I keep a browser window open all day long, usually with slashdot loaded, but that doesn't mean that's what fills my day.

  2. Re:couldn't he just.... by ucblockhead · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Why go to that much trouble? Just delete the executable.

    --
    The cake is a pie
  3. Re:That was appropriate by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 0, Redundant
    Yes, govenment employees should be held responsible as we are paying the tab. But, that thing that produces nothing? It may seem that the government produces nothing, until you start thinking about roads and police and fire fighters and the court system, not to mention the military and missiles and covert operations and other really expensive things.

    And remember, something as good as market forces are in action here, through a mechanism called voting. You do vote, don't you?

    --
    http://www.rootstrikers.org/