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Alabama IT Whistleblower Fired For Spyware
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."
Employers spy on employees, not the other way around!
delete solitary from his boss's computer?
They couldn't fix my brakes, so they made my horn louder.
They have computers in Alabama? When did this happen?
Surprising thing was none of the screenshots were of solitaire crashing
Granted, most people here hate boss-types, but its only fair to ask for the boss's side of the story. For example: perhaps his job consists of minimal computer usage. When I was in college, part of my financial aid package involved doing work for the school - I got put to work answering phones and calling alumns to shake them up for money. I had a computer, and there was a solitaire game or something similar on it all the time - it was mindless enough I could do it while talking to somebody, and it kept me sane between calls. The boss could be in a similar situation if he spends most of his time on the phone or otherwise _talking_ to employees. He just wouldn't be constantly playing the game. Most people here equate working with time spent active on the computer doesn't mean that it always is.
I'm not saying this is the case, but its worth considering that the boss could have a radically different story, and the article did present a very one sided view.
Do not make your boss look bad and expect to retain your job.
If you ask me, the more interesting question is: To what extent should an employer have a right to decide what their employees do on company time.
Should it matter if you're spending half your time playing Solitare if you still manage to do the job you're supposed to do?
This boss's managers don't seem to want to get rid of him. One conclusion you could draw from that is that perhaps the boss actually is getting what he's supposed to be doing done. (Maybe most of his work isn't even done on the computer?)
In that case, who cares if he's playing solitare? Perhaps he's thinking things through and making decisions while doing it?
Personally, I've got a job where nobody tells me what to do with my time, as long as I get the job done.
And that's the way it should be, if you ask me.
By my definition, a job is performing a task for money.
Fuck his supervisors. If they were too chummy to act on a legitimate complaint they should be fired as well. We're talking about tax money here; the citizens of Alabama deserve better.
Firing him was most certainly NOT appropriate.
The guy knew his boss fucked around on the computer all day instead of doing his job and this was known to the employee who got fired.
He reported this to higher ups and they ignored it. The first mistake here is they should've listened. Since they didn't, the only other option was to take matters into his own hands.
Even if he wasn't an IT manager of sorts, he did the right thing in proving to higher-ups that his boss is doing nothing but wasting the company's money by playing solitaire and looking at stock market crap instead of working.
I'm sure there are tons of people out there who are looking for a job and would be more than happy to fill his position and actually do some work.
They should've fired the boss and gave the IT manager that position (provided it paid more).
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
10. An analysis of the screenshots yielded the following results:
- 293 (approx. 71%) of the screenshots documented active, on-going
games of solitaire.
- 87 (approx. 21%) of the screenshots documented web site visits, email
subscriptions, and other miscellaneous non-job related activities
consisting mostly of personal financial and stock market research.
- 29 (approx. 7%) of the screenshots indicated some job related activities,
mostly consisting of an "I concur" in an email response. However, solitaire
was minimized (hidden) for quick retrieval on most of these screens.
- 1 % or less of the screenshots were inconclusive as far as the type of activity.
- No screenshots (0%) documented any job-related activities such as word
processing, spreadsheets, databases, job related websites, electronic
document management, right-of-way plans standards, etc.
Additionally,5. A screen capture utility was used to automate this process. The utility behaves like a camera by capturing photographs of the computer screen. The utility did not target any specific activity or application usage by the user.
6. Screenshots were automatically recorded at times randomly selected by the screen capture utility. The installer of said utility had no control over the randomly selected times.
7. Periods of computer inactivity on the part of the user de-activated the utility until such time that user input was detected. This feature prevented generation of redundant screenshots at night, weekends, holidays, days off, etc.
8. Also, A minimum time interval of approximately 30 minutes transpired between screenshots to prevent a large volume of redundant images. The purpose of the utility was to take a representative sample of computer activity. The pattern of computer usage on the part of the user ultimately governed the interval between screenshots. When no activity was detected, screenshots were halted.
I really hope this guy gets vindicated in the end. He did his job, documented his case very well, and got screwed.
hold on a sec.
It was so well known this guy's boss was playing solitaire all the time that people were circulating cartoons about it.
He went to upper management before installing the spyware, and kept bugging them about it.
That to me is not indicative of someone that is simply installing spyware to try and catch his boss surfing porn: it's a sysadmin who's using whatever tools he has to back up a claim no one seems to be taking seriously.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
...but the screen capture utility didn't capture that for some reason.
Any government computers I have ever heard of require you to give consent to be monitored BEFORE you are authorized to use them. It's usually part of the IT policy which must be signed as part of employee indoctrination. Under normal circumstances, I would agree with you, but not for a government position.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
Every government makes it very clear that your computer can and will be monitored (even though the sys-admins are usualy not up to the task of actually figuring out how to effectively monitor it). i.e. the sys-admin had every right to do this and was acting according to what someone way way higher up would say was good practices to the cammeras.
that said, I've been around the block enough time that there are four possible real issue here that got him fired.
Being the sysadmin does not grant you the right to spy on another employee even if that employee is your boss. There is a certain amount of trust that an employer has to grant a sysadmin but when that trust is taken advantage of as in this case it becomes abuse.
Proper channels should have been followed. If his employer was unwilling to take action he should have left it alone. We all work with people who are lazy and unjustly promoted. But that doesn't give us the right to spy on them.
As a sysadmin I find this guy's behavior pathetic. It's an abuse of his position. I would have fired him, too.
this guy wasn't too bright..admittedly.
but friends and i have dealt with situations like this before (the tech side, not stuffed suit side).
here's what happened: we had a dumbfuck COO making life absolutely miserable for everyone. he did absolutely nothing for the company and his net contribution to the company was ZERO. yet his fellow stuffed suits excused his bad behavior, even though the fucktwit COO was single handedly decimating moral through out the ranks.
well amongst the techies, we already had one guy leaving for a better job, so he volunteered (with help from unknown sources) to gather some dirt. he put it all together in a report of our COOs activities and in the middle of the night, placed hard copies on nearly 300 desks, and emailed over 1000 employees. this shit was gravy...we had evidence(photos/screen caps/receipts) of: an affair w/underling, porn surfing, game playing, almost zero actual work, frivilous purchases on company credit card, 3 hour lunches, sleeping frequently on the job, etc.
shit hit the fan, they accused the entire IT dept in complicity, but the single IT guy leaving, while not admitting it directly, intimated that he acted alone.
needless to say, the uproar amongst rank and file quickly drowned out the investigation.
The COO, CFO and a vice president all left.
Apparently they believed that their similar activities had been documented as well....as an anonymous message (not from us) stated "more was coming". we actually had nothing more, but the threat alone was enough.
karma rolled some fucking heads that month.
little guys: 3
fucktwit suits: 0
To me, it's a sysadmin who's an idiot. The 'higher ups' were informed and chose to ignore it. He should have done the same thing.
And who exactly made the cartoons (one of which is not a cartoon at all, but rather an inadequately pixelated photo). If it was him, he's an idiot. If it was someone else (who would have gotten the information from him), he's still an idiot.
He may have been a sysadmin, but he won't be in the future. No potential boss would hire him knowing that they may be spied upon and end up seeing their names in the local paper in an unfavorable light. He abused his position and is now seeing the consequences.
1.) He notified the management, they chose not to act on it. He should have just left it there. It's important to let the big wigs make the decision, as opposed to becoming a virtual vigilante.
His notifications to upper management was nothing more than standard, vapid comments about ineffective management (such that virtually every drone makes regularly). There was virtually nothing actionable, and his attempts to fall back on that as a defense are weak and transparent.
When you're a sysadmin, you have access to all sorts of sensitive data. To actively capture it and use it zealously nail your boss, well I tell you what, that'd scare the hell out of me.
Indeed. His boss could very well have been evaluating division salaries, writing a bonus recommendation letter for Vernon (the overzealous sysadmin), or a wide range of other private matters. Sysadmins have a sad case of god complex (I have been in several positions where I consulted on infrastructure to contain the power of the sysadmin -- one they knew the sysadmin was going through the payroll files, for instance, based upon "in the know" comments he made to other employees).
The whole reason Slashdot isn't a big fan of things like video cameras at every street corner is that anything can be captured to make somebody look like they're doing something illegal. It's discomforting.
Humorously many of the visitors to Slashdot are doing so on paid hours, and some of them probably have an overzealous sysadmin on a crusade, carefully logging all of the details in hopes to prove that regardless of output, clearly the employee is ineffective because they read that story on Star Wars III. The problem with this is that just because we're not doing something visually productive, it doesn't mean that we're not mentally preparing or ruminating over some piece of mental data -- ultimately our productivity can be measure in the solutions and projects we provide in a given period of time, not whether we have vi or solitaire on our screens. Indeed, given that the person being monitored was a manager, it is entirely conceivable that he was doing the best thing that he could do at times - assessing the situation and deciding that his intervention wasn't currently needed, and retiring to a game of solitaire. Big fucking deal. Ultimately his higher ups rank him based upon the results of his division, not whether he was a busybody filling his day with make work, carefully micromanaging his charges.
This sysadmin, Vernon, sounds like a sad, pathetic, jealous prick that has no comprehension of boundaries, and feels that he's on some sort of personal crusade to save us all. I find it unbelievable that he releases the information that he has (illegally released information - the guy is basically spreading proprietary internal state information publicly. I'll be surprized if he doesn't end up going to jail for this) and truly believes that he's in the right - this wanker won't get a job administering anything more advanced than a toilet plunger in the future.
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Playing Solitaire is not misuse. It's not the best use of time, but it is not misuse. He sent the emails to the higher-ups, they obviously weren't that interested. In other words, he must still have been getting his work done. (Or his job wasn't so consequential, but it's not a syadmin's job to trim the fat.)
Actually if you look at the excerts from ALDOT's computer usage policy he has up any non-work related usage of the computer is defined as misuse/abuse. So in this case it was in fact misuse.If he thought somebody was running a web server or downloading pornography, or gambling online, that is one thing. But to take it upon himself to perform his own performance evaluation of his superior, was a bit bold and he was rightfully fired.
His focus should have been on the machines and the network, not carrying out retribution for a personal grudge.
AZspot
You know, there are dumb-fuck executives at most companies. As most people are more than aware, trying a direct confrontation to this (however "legitimate" the confrontation may be) usually ends up in more trouble that it's worth.
At my last job, we had a few dumb-fuck executives that eventually drove our company out of business, hence it's my previous job. Anyhow, there was one such guy that was spending company money for himself, sexually harassing the ladies (one quit after her superior wouldn't take serious action against this guy), and basically did everything to screw the company and nothing to help it.
We had plenty of mud to dig up, actually, we didn't need to dig any up because it was well known throughout the entire company. The CEO etc. wouldn't do jack, because (although not as bad) he had done similar things to a certain extent.
It was obvious that making a stink would only get the person making the stink have a miserable life, or get fired for some technicality. So, instead of a legitimate confrontation, we used a more shaddy approach. Most of it was illegal, but hard to prove, but wouldn't get anyone fired. So long as we weren't caught in the process of doing it.
We basically harassed the fucking hell out of the executive in question. Some very childish pranks like using a high strength epoxy putty to seal all the key holes on his Mercedes (keyless entry still worked, but he did notice this), took the air out of his car tires, and ripped off the emblem. Next came the dog shit on his door steps, uprooted flowers in his garden, and other general vandalism. To make sure he understood it was an internal effort, we glued his books closed, and chopped a few cables on his office computer. (I still can't believe that this was done by the sysadmin himself... BOFH or what!?) There was loads more, but we finally drove the thought home by sending a piece of mail from a spoofed acount that generally said "Either your life could continue being hell, or you can leave the company. You choose." He was gone in 2 weeks.
Was this legal? No! Was it ethical? Probably not. But it was the lesser of 2 evils, where the other evil was making a stink and getting fired in return. Sometimes doing it the "right way" isn't really the right way at all if you end up losing. It's not worth it. I suppose we could have hired someone to break his legs (there were more than a few ladies in the office that would have been very happy to contribute to the "hit tip" if we had collected!) but we certainly got more entertainment and satisfaction out of doing it ourselves. Best of all, it wasn't even a coordinated plan, it was completely autonomous. As soon as people caught on that someone was raising hell, everyone else followed.
So Patrick, if you're reading this, now you know. By the way, I have your Mercede's emblem.
This guy had complained to his superior's superiors. They apparently didn't care. So this guy's crusade basically ends right there. He did what he should have done, and when those higher ups don't care, you can get pissed all you want, but you don't take matters into your own hands.
Actually, in a corporate organsation you could easily find that your required to take additional action such as informing someone more senior who represents the investors (e.g. a non executive director) and you tell them that company policy is not being followed. You may find you are legally required to ensure that company policy is followed through or you can lose your job. In this case there are no 'non executive directors', but there are investors - the taxpayers of the state of Alabama.
This was his BOSS.
So? Are you suggesting that cover ups and failure to follow offical policy (as far as following the offical complaints proceedure and enforcing the existing policy prohibiting such use of equipment) simply were not criminal enough to be worth him drawing attention to or that 'your boss' can engage in whatever criminal acts he likes, including misuse of public property and/or funds, and that you should be complicit out of some kind of automatic respect for someone in your organisation who happens to be in a higher pay band than you are?
It's taxpayers money. If it was a private enterprise it would be investors money. I shouldn't need to remind you that employees have a fiduciary (and, in the case of corporate enterprises, frequently legal) responsiblity to that organisations investors. Senior employees can be personally liable and can face not only fines but jail time for acting against the interests of an organisation they are explicitly employed to represent the interests of.
If someone is jerking around like this guys boss in a company I've invested in, or if my local government representatives where up to this (which I'm quite sure they are) as an investor/taxpayer I'm damn sure I want to know and I'm sure I want the senior executives who've tried to sweep this under the carpet and who have failed to act in the manner in which there were hired to exposed and fired (it's their job to ensure this sort of thing doesn't go on, it's not a charity, if they can't do the job for which they are very well paid they should be slung out on their ear).
You stay in official channels when dealing with any personel problem, and you ESPECIALLY do this when a superior is involved
I say you obay your fiduciary and legal obligations to taxpayers/investors FIRST and if that's contrary to 'staying within the little white lines of company policy' SCREW THEM (after all they [both this guys boss, and his seniors] have already thrown the rule book out the window and are using it to shaft this guy, and all the state taxpayers and more fool you if you let them continue).
What your suggesting is that he be complicit in a system which is supressing evidence of corruption in a government organisation (the act of corruption being not the act of the origional employee, but complete failure to take any action to enforce the organisations existing policy when complaints were made). What you are suggesting is that he 'stays within the box' and acts in the best interests of his management, even if thats not in the best intrests of taxpayers/investors.
In short, what you are suggesting is completely immoral.
I say screw that, rat on the bastards and tell everyone who'll listen.
It's you - the taxpayer and investor in this service - that's getting screwed by these incompotent lazy slobs, and it's only the very people being ratted on for being incompotent lazy slobs that are trying to cover it up to save their own fat underworked and overpaid behinds.