Slashdot Mirror
Unlock Internet or Risk Losing Staff?
Dan Warne writes "People don't want to work for employers who heavily restrict internet access, a senior Microsoft executive said in a keynote speech at the opening of Tech.Ed 2006 Sydney today. From the article: 'These kids are saying: forget it! I don't want to work with you. I don't want to work at a place where I can't be freely online during the day," said Microsoft Senior Design Anthropologist Ann Kiera. She dubbed internet-wary employers "digital immigrants" and said the new wave of younger workers were "digital natives".'"
As a sysadmin myself, I was put in charge of our Internet security and web site filtering strategy.
Initially, they implemented a Squid proxy that was set up so either you were granted "completely unrestricted" access, or "restricted" - which meant you could *only* visit web sites in an "allowed" list. The "unrestricted" access was, of course, originally only intended to be used for the sysadmin himself, and perhaps the owners of the company.
What ended up happening over the years (before I ever worked for them) was "key" people in many different departments received "unrestricted" access, because they threw huge fits or became too big a drain on the admin's time - asking for access to slews of sites needed for puchasing, getting price quotes, etc.
After looking at a number of options, I ended up using Dansguardian site filtering combined with Squid. The cost of software licensing or subscriptions was zero - making it MUCH easier to get approval for. (And if it didn't work out, nobody was going to "force" me to keep trying to use a broken solution, just because we spent $$$'s on it already.)
Our goal was always to put the brakes on productivity losses (and even to prevent potential lawsuits stemming from someone viewing porn and another employee being offended at seeing said porn, or what-not). As has been proven time and time again, unless you completely deny someone Internet access, he/she can eventually find ways to get to sites you'd rather not have them using while at work. The idea is to implement a solution that stops as many "grave offenses" as possible, while appearing pretty much invisible to regular Inet users.
I've found that a nice "side benefit" of doing this is the fact that you also tend to screen out some of the biggest contributors to loading spyware and other nasties on people's PCs. (Porn sites are a big offender in this area, for example.) But no, we didn't get into the site filtering as primarily a "computer security" issue at all.
I am a little surprised. I don't think I saw anyone admit that they recognize their own surfing habits cost them. It seems many recognize "other" people can have issues with it.
Full unfettered access destroys my productivity at times. I follow a thought and boom an hour has gone by. I would definitely prefer to be subject to whitelisting/blacklisting. First things to block: Slashdot and digg of course.
I know I would be doing a much better job if aimless surfing could be eliminated. But it is just so easy to click a link and read stuff, or comment on stories on slashdot. Our buisness communication depends heavily on our internal web so we all have contstant connectivity and at times external access can be handy, but I would be 100% in favor of restrictions.
I really think productivity would go up quite a bit. Most of my friends all admit to surfing too much on the job (we are all techies).
I am an info junky and always have been, even before getting Fidonet, I used to read tons of magazines about technology/science etc. In an environment with unfettered access is like a kid in a Candy store. Look: Shiny new Mazda roadster with retractable hardtop, planets 8, 9, 12 or 50?, New rumored Canon 400D DSLR, New ATI Radeons (damn I got sidetracked while writing this to read about new Radeon). You get the idea.
So Yes please, bring on the filtering. Some of us just can't handle unlimited access to information.
I currently have all non-work related internet access shut off in my company. This is not because I wish to, or because management is paranoid or whatnot. It's becuase of the Payment Card Industry Cardholder Information Security Program. It states that if any company that accepts/processes/stores/handles credit card information HAS to lock down interent access. Failure to comply with this program could lead to losing your merchant account or fines of up to %$500,000 per instance of fraudulent credit card use. I would love to let my employee's check the news/e-mail/slashdot, but unless this regulation is modified or done away with completely, I can't afford to take the chance. For more info on this see www.visa.com/cisp. BTW, my company actually does enough credit card volume that we have to have security audits, even though we've never had an instance of fraud. Open internet access would fail me on the audits.