Slashdot Mirror
How To Tame the Social Network At Work
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan provides an in-depth report on how IT can tame social networking at work without shutting the organization off to the kinds of business opportunities today's social networks present. 'They're a productivity sink and a bandwidth suck. They're a vector for malware and a gift for corporate spies. They're a data spill just waiting to happen. And like it or not, they're already inside your enterprise,' Tynan writes. 'Most companies are in denial about how much their employees are using social nets, as well as what they can do to stop it.' Worse, many are still balking at the fact that having a presence on social networks is rapidly becoming a requirement for doing business. Strict commonsense policies, next-generation firewalls, data leak prevention software — all can decrease your company's exposure to the risks inherent in social networking while still enabling your company to solve problems, burnish its public image, recruit top talent, and generate ideas through social networks."
add
127.0.0.2 www.facebook.com
to
c:\windows\System32\drivers\hosts
That Slashdot "social" icon of the two hands shaking has gotta go. Maybe it applied to LinkedIn but not Facebook, etc. How about an image of somebody taking a photo of them self.
Is it time to get a Facebook Account? I've been on Slashdot for years and as far as I was concerned, that's the only web social interaction I need. Sure, I've got a LinkedIn account, but that doesn't really count.
Slashdot has been cutting off journal entries and making it tougher to post stuff. It doesn't prompt the journals or make it easy to search through them. I wish Slashdot would change this, but there doesn't seem to be any impetuous towards this.
Everyone else it seems is on Facebook, but let's face it. Most of them are fairly to exceedingly lame, while the people around here are people who's opinion I want to hear. Still, these fairly to exceedingly lame individuals are my coworkers, friends, and potential employees and employers.
Will it be necessary to have a Facebook account in 2011?
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I browse facebook via an encrypted tunnel to a private server!
So it probably just looks like I'm funnelling in and out company secrets or something...
... as I sit at work reading about how to tame social networks at work ...
Bock early, block often, block aggressively. DO NOT GIVE IN.
I'm usually not for stonewalling but this is an exception.
Once one of your PHBs uses myfacetwit to talk to another PHB the business case is made and your 0day browser exploit nightmare begins.
You might as well write a script that opens your boss's port sentry when you recive a call from your boss.
The article looks like little more than an advertisement for "FaceTime's Socialite or Palo Alto Networks' next-generation firewalls".
"They're a vector for malware and a gift for corporate spies. They're a DATA spill just waiting to happen. And like it or not, they're already inside your enterprise"
Wait, are we talking about social networking here? or the Borg invasion from 'Star Trek: First Contact?'
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The idea that corporate firewalls, IDS and content filters will stop Facebook or other social networking traffic is silly. There are hundreds of mobile devices that use consumer-grade cellular networks already in place; information WILL get out.
It's a long time since I had any involvement in corporate IT networks; and I realise that a lot is easier said than done, but if I were designing one from scratch today; I wouldn't treat any physical internal employee work location (ethernet at the desk or office-wide WiFi) as being any different to the wider Internet.
This would enable an infrastructure to be set-up where protection was focussed around the core services and the communications channel between them and the accessing client rather than having to worry about what is actually going on at the employee's desktop; because even if you do restrict external Internet access your employees are just going use dongles or their mobile phones.
My friend is on facebook all day at work. His corporate firewall is ruthless. It is without ruth. It is a brick wall with no peeping holes.
He doesn't care since he's sitting back in his chair on his droid.
How the heck can IT battle this? (Is it obviously a social issue?)
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
cut down on the supermarket tabloid speak - slashdot isn't for that sort of iduhvidual
SCENE: MOZILLA FIREFOX WINDOW
/facepalm
Firefox title bar: "Access to this site is blocked"
Firefox document body:
Content blocked by your organization
Reason:
This Websense category is filtered: Denied.
URL: http://www.facebook.com/
Options:
Click more_information to learn more about your access policy.
Click Go_Back or use the browser's Back button to return to the previous page.
More_information link leads to this not-so-helpful explanation:
Your Websense policy blocks this page at all times.
Yes, I know it's a cliche. Considering the massive variety of ways that users can satisfy their addictions to social networking, there is no reasonable technical solution to the problem. So use a social one.
Yes, I know I'm being simplistic, but complexity isn't a necessary part of having a good idea. Implementing it, on the other hand...
You should turn signatures off.
When I want to see information about a business, I just go to their website, not FaceBook.
first of all, 90% of companies out there can't really benefit from FB whatsoever. there is no financial benefit whatsoever. so block it, and tell your employees to shut up and quit wasting time. and companies need to quit making FB pages for themselves. you can't promote your own FB page as a company, and then get pissy if people spend time on FB within your organization. not having a FB account is wonderful. it is such a stupid thing.
Evaluate employees based on whether or not they perform their duties, not whether or not they look busy.
Hold the managers to the same standard.
If you need to squeeze more blood from the rock that is your personnel, realize that blocking sites, banning cell phone use, etc. will only drive them to do the minimum to avoid being fired. If that's what you want, go for it.
If you want good workers, treat them like decent people. Work isn't play, but it doesn't have to be a prison, either. In the 70s we realized we should allow personal calls at work so long as they didn't take up all of your time and impact your work performance. In the 2000s, we realized that people also have personal email accounts.
Maybe by 2030 we'll realize that people also have social lives. Hiring and firing won't be contingent on a clean slate social network profile. Socializing while at work will be tolerated as long as it doesn't impact your performance.
"We understand that you want to surf on Facebook, et al. But this is a business, and you are an employee. Surfing such sites is not allowed. We aren't going to use a jillion dollars worth of technology to enforce you not doing what you shouldn't be doing in the first place. You are an adult. This is the policy. Follow it."
Are we talking about users in a high school, or a business?
Hahaha! I believe those things are called "people" ;-)
Seriously though, if work gets done and private info stays private then who cares?
I mean, go hang with the people that smoke outside the building, they talk shop nearly constantly. I've been able to inadvertently overhear some pretty interesting details about the infrastructure of several IT shops that way just by passing by and saying "hello" to co-workers enjoying a smoke break.
crazy dynamite monkey
Keep people busy and make them accountable for getting their work done. Otherwise, what's the problem?
The solution to this problem lies with management, not technology. Replace Facebook with "Playing cards" and the solution is the same. If you have somebody who wastes time at work it should be up to that person's boss to stop that behavior and get the person back to work.
Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
But really, if you've got someone playing Farmville 6+ hours a day at work, then it is an employee problem, not a security problem...
Where I'm currently working, there is nothing other than email. Everything starts with, includes, and ends with an email. It's more of a CYA audit trail than a communications medium. Most emails include several dozen people on the "TO:" recipient list, including people only vaguely interested in the message topic. The obvious side-effect is that many people get hundreds of emails per day, and spend much of their time pruning their inbox and, in the process, deleting or over-seeing the one percent of important messages. The only way to really get anything done is to send an email cc:ing your manager (CYA), print that email and deliver it in person. If they aren't there, put it on their desk, then call them to make sure they've read what you put on their desk. Mention SMS or twitter and people look at you like "say whuuuh?".
Every hear the saying that to a five year old with a hammer, all the world's problems look like a nail?
It's "policy". And with all such policies, discussion is prohibited. Otherwise, the policy would be ineffective. What you seek is not helpfulness, but a way to skirt this policy and thwart the dictates of your managers. Sounds like insubordination to me.
Block everything and then only allow those sites that are really needed.
You could even make it pretty user friendly in that people can add a site and that will be automatically added and checked afterwords on validity. Sure a user could add some pr0n site, but that will be noticed later, so people will be unlikely to do that, unless they want to be fired.
And then not all people need access to everything, so different filters per department or even per user should be possible.
For those that can't go without any access to their personal email for 8 hours, you can place dedicated PC's near coffee machines or wherever you think is good for staff. As these are dedicated, they can be placed in DMZ and would have no link to the Intranet.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Palo Alto Networks (www.paloaltonetworks.com) happens to have the the technology to do exactly this - plus lower the bitrate based on the user (integrated LDAP). They can even proxy SSL sessions, decode content, detect applications (or data loss) and act accordingly. Kinda scary really, but awesome power...
The IT icon is a stapler...
I am convinced that my company decided to allow Facebook because they wanted direct access to people's personal lives and if you use Facebook over the network you give that to them. They can monitor and store every interaction with FB, and nosy managers can get access to this whenever they want. If they didn't let people access FB over their network, then they couldn't legally invade their privacy.
Obviously, these people are not getting enough time to spend with friends and family. I suggest that you give them another 8 hours a day to spend with their friends and family.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
"like it or not, they're already inside your enterprise" ? Not if you (a) care (some places ask themselves the question and decide, no, for they're quite happy for users to goof off on non-work sites) and (b) either have no clue, or no money. Otherwise, you're using your own firewall rules or you're using one of the many commercial web filtering products, in-the-cloud proxies, appliances etc, in which case... they're NOT already inside your enterprise.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Hire people with no friends. Like me.