When Big Brother Watches IT

bdking writes "In an effort to protect sensitive data from internal security threats, some organizations are 'using new technology to look at the language of their IT staff's emails to determine whether their behavior or mind-set has changed,' the Wall Street Journal reports. Is secretly spying on and linguistically interpreting employee emails going too far in the name of security? From the article: 'I understand the need to be aware of the attitudes of workers with high-level access to data and networks, but this strikes me as creepy. What if an IT employee suddenly has relationship problems or family issues? Will they then be flagged by HR as potentially troublesome or even a data security risk? And all without them even knowing there's a dossier being created of them and their "suspect" behavior?'"

Comments

Prevention cheaper

[Tablizer]

Wouldn't it just be cheaper to not treat workers like shit?

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it just be cheaper to not treat workers like shit?

This one's going on the list.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

No - you'd have to pay them more which means less $ for those at the top.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[JosephTX]

you're confusing those types of bosses with people who see you as something more than an exchangeable cash cow.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[alexander_686]

It’s one of odd things – how do you monitor employees without draconian controls? I think the trust of these programs is not that they can detect fraud per say, but rather they can identify people and situations which generate extra temptation. It does not matter how well you treat your employees, if somebody develops a gambling addiction (see below) it does not matter how well you pay them.

Here's another article.
http://www.economist.com/node/21547833

In this case they are talking about detecting fraud with people who have level access to the books – think rouge trades and embezzling employers. However, from the article fraud comes from “incentive, rationalisation and opportunity”. You try to hire competent, well paid staff and put in controls. However, eventually you hit limits.

From personal experience, I know of a case in my company where a mid level middle age employee who had been with the company for over 20 years developed a gambling addiction. Over the course of 18 months she embezzled over $200,000 from the company via hundreds of transactions. She had been around long enough to know that the individual small amounts would never trigger a review

I would

Re:Prevention cheaper

[durrr]

If us bosses don't monitor the minions, how then should we know when they're onto our kickback schemes and other fraudulent privileges they are not entitled to know of us having?

Re:Prevention cheaper

[PopeRatzo]

In this case they are talking about detecting fraud with people who have level access to the books â" think rouge trades and embezzling employers. However, from the article fraud comes from âoeincentive, rationalisation and opportunityâ. You try to hire competent, well paid staff and put in controls. However, eventually you hit limits.

One limit you hit is that mechanisms like you describe and like the ones in this article are never applied to top management and the board of directors. So, the ones who are in the greatest position to hurt the company the most are left out of any security regime.

And if you tried to put such mechanisms in place for the top people, they would all simply refuse, and nobody is there to call them on it, because everyone else at their level has the same attitude. This is one of the biggest dangers of income disparity. When it gets beyond a certain point, the elite "break away" from the social mechanisms and requirements.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are not only the people in the greatest position to hurt the company, but also those with the greatest incentive not to do so - why hurt a company that is paying you millions of dollars a year? Top management positions aren't that common that one would risk losing one.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[JosephTX]

Those transactions have nothing to do with emails, though. You aren't going to find signs of account fraud in emails; you're going to find them in accounting records.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Not as cheap as valium though.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[alexander_686]

In my experience, as you move up the chain of command, any formalized controls become more stringent – not less. In my case, every level I move up in the company I have to disclose more, with the CEO having to disclose the most.

On the other hand, I have found misalignment increases. CEO’s don’t (normally) need to commit outright fraud – there is a host of grey areas to exploit.

The corporate jet is a classic example. It helps the CEO meet with clients, survey the business, saves time, etc. All of time & money will be well disclosed in the annual reports. If the CEO uses it for personal reasons, he has to pay it out of pocket. So everything is above board. Yet, who do a disproportionate number of CEO schedule official trips to Aspin during skiing season and during the summer?

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

See, whenever one of our droids malfunctions, we just "fire" them into the trash heap. Problem solved.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[c0lo]

Wouldn't it just be cheaper to not treat workers like shit?

Even if so, based on what the company is doing, it may not be enough.

TFA is based on (and links) another FA in WSJ. Guess which company is the first to be quoted in regards with the tech? Diebolt, which seemed to be more interested on maintaining its face instead of the quality of their products.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[__aaltlg1547]

Those are not only the people in the greatest position to hurt the company, but also those with the greatest incentive not to do so - why hurt a company that is paying you millions of dollars a year? Top management positions aren't that common that one would risk losing one.

This flies in the face of reality. In the real world, some top managers develop such an inflated sense of entitlement that they believe they are worth far more than what they legitimately earn, deserve whatever they can take and that they will never get caught when they break the law.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[turbidostato]

" why hurt a company that is paying you millions of dollars a year?"

Because they can get even more by hurting them *and* getting their golden parachutes after the havoc?

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

Why is any IT employee in their right minds sending our personal communications from their work computer? Come on - that's like common sense 101 stuff there, or at least, take some precautions...VPN, GPG, smartphone...

Re:Prevention cheaper

[tirefire]

Over the course of 18 months she embezzled over $200,000 from the company via hundreds of transactions. She had been around long enough to know that the individual small amounts would never trigger a review

How was she eventually caught?

Re:Prevention cheaper

[RulerOf]

Because they can get even more by hurting them *and* getting their golden parachutes after the havoc?

I wonder if I'm the only person who hears or reads "golden parachute" and gets a mental image of a CEO jumping from a burning plane with his company's stock ticker on the side, holding on to a dozen overstuffed briefcases full of cash like he's a modern-day DB Cooper. :D

Re:Prevention cheaper

[dbIII]

I've seen it applied in theory to those at the top, and the poor sod that took the report on porn downloads by a manager to another didn't return and somebody else came to clean out his desk for him. IT security can get very "political" and in a less than pristine environment you can lose your job if you do everything by the book.
I'm lucky that I'm in a place that doesn't even attempt to enforce external restrictions beyond the letter of the law.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of times, a contract is worked out where the golden parachute is far more valuable to the corporate officer than the money they gain from stock options or a direct salary.

Especially when it comes to taxes. A salary is taxable, but assets transferred offshore like stocks and stuff are 100% tax free.

So, if a company gets run into the ground, the parties responsible will find another multi-million gig.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[alexander_686]

This does not reflect well on my company, but it’s was the bank she was depositing the funds in that figured it out. Normally I have a low regard for anti-money laundering techniques that the banks use, but it worked here.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[PopeRatzo]

In my experience, as you move up the chain of command, any formalized controls become more stringent â" not less. In my case, every level I move up in the company I have to disclose more, with the CEO having to disclose the most.

There's disclosure and then there's disclosure. I'm not sure which company you work for, but the bigger the company, the more likely you are to see a great divide between the regime for the elite that the one for everyone else.

Look at banking. The ethical behavior expected of a teller in a branch is a lot more carefully controlled than that of the CEO. If you doubt it, there have been a number of very good books and documentaries about the financial cataclysm of 2007-2008.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you group embezzling employers with trading cosmetics?

Rouge =/= Rogue :)

Re:Prevention cheaper

[elsurexiste]

Wouldn't it just be cheaper to not treat workers like shit?

Maybe just talking to them would do the trick.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Given a large enough group of people, someone will eventually go off the rails. No matter how decently you treat them.

It may be nothing to do with you: it may be changes in their home life, or family pressures, or some behavior that's normally innocuous but can become problematic in some cases, such as gambling or drinking or just being lazy or greedy or a bit of an asshole. Whatever, the idea of treating all workers as completely trustworthy may sound terribly attractive - especially if you're a young, junior employee - but in any company larger than about 10 people, it's commercially suicidal.

That's why every user has their own login.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[CAIMLAS]

You'd think so, but not treating employees like shit means:

* hiring more of them
* hiring more competent people
* hiring more managers

In my experience, there are two distinct ways in which people respond to being treated like shit (at least in IT, because that's what Iv'e got experience in):

1) They knuckle down and take it, even becoming willfully and blissfully ignorant of what's going on around them. Their work performance and communication don't really change, though they're really not doing all that much anymore so much as going through the motions. These are the people who are probably on antidepressants, if there is anyone on them, and they're the ones which are either unable to jump jobs due to skillset and/or are too myopic to think they can. (Of course, there could be other things keeping them there, as well.)
2) People who gradually become more terse and less communicative with the 'organization as a whole' due to having too much on their plate, and feeling a debt of personal responsibility towards their clients or the the organization. They can tell what's going on around them because it makes what needs to get done (by them, in all likelihood) more difficult, often by making more work for them without any reward of promise of reward. They'll just end up detaching and doing their job how they know it should be done until they're able to walk out. Think: managerial policy change which results in more busy work, more work in general, or less pay to their pockets despite increased revenues.

It is seen as beneficial by IT employers to foster a culture of fear within their organization, it seems. Keep the IT workers down because they're just there to unclog the information toilets, and they really aren't due any pretenses of adequacy, never mind the pay raise they'd be due if they realized how underpaid they are or how fucked the whole situation is.
2)

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

You should ask James Murdoch that.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[alexander_686]

I work in a large financial institution. (Not banking, but close enough. And thankfully we tend to be conservative so the crisis did not hit us semi-hard) As for book recommendations, sure! What books would you recommend?

I would recommend “Reading About the Financial Crisis: A 21-Book Review” at http://www.argentumlux.org/ It’s good. I have read the majority of books on the list and I enjoyed Dr. Lo's review.

And what do you mean by:

Look at banking. The ethical behavior expected of a teller in a branch is a lot more carefully controlled than that of the CEO. If you doubt it, there have been a number of very good books and documentaries about the financial cataclysm of 2007-2008.

There is fraud – which is what we are talking about. That’s one thing and ti’s easy to define. Teller pockets a couple of hundred dollars and that’s theft. In the recent economic crisis I can think of very little fraud that went on – on most of that was secondary to the overall issues.

Then we have CEO’s making large bets with other peoples money. In the case of finance it’s what their paid to do. Kind of sad that the incentives were wrong (Heads we win (CEO and stockholder), tails you loose (stockholder)). And yes, the work they did was sloppy. It is one thing to take high risk, by sloppy, and fail. That poor management, so kick the bums out and all of that. (and I think a lot more people should have been tossed.) It’s another thing to accuse people of felonies.

I know in times of crisis that people like looking for scapegoats and snap judgments, but please – this is Slashdot. Let us have some reasoned discourse here.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[HiThere]

I believe that you are far too charitable, and from where I sit it looks like there was systematic and intentional fraud from almost the lowest level up through the boards of directors. Often I can't offer a even semi-sound proof that it was fraud, other than "Only a moron wouldn't *know* that would result in deceitful transactions!", but if they knew about it, it was fraud. And I doubt that there are that many real morons in the finance business.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[10101001 10101001]

Those are not only the people in the greatest position to hurt the company, but also those with the greatest incentive not to do so - why hurt a company that is paying you millions of dollars a year?

Um, because? Seriously, you make it sound like it's a well considered and rational action of self-destruction to become a gambling addict and to start embezzling money. Sure, there are rationalized steps in the process to reduce the risk of getting caught, but one presumes that all employees are only really there to earn a paycheck, getting caught means criminal charges and/or being blacklisted from most companies, and that while people do tend to expand their spending to meet their paycheck, the less the paycheck overall is, the less savings you have and hence the more you really need that job. When you're talking about a million dollars a year, well that's equivalent to 20 years of $50,000/year*, which leaves a lot of room to not really care about a company.

Top management positions aren't that common that one would risk losing one.

How many CEOs, after having ran one business into the ground, have been hired up again to be CEO at another company? I guess that might be because as much as "top management positions aren't that common", it also holds people with top management position experience aren't that common; and why not hire someone with experience, even if it's mostly bad, rather than risk a person with no experience? Really, unless the CEO is stupid enough to be caught outright embezzling money, they're probably in the clear; and considering how much stuff can seemingly be written often as a "business expense" or "perk", it could take quite a lot. That's not to say, of course, it doesn't happen and people haven't been caught/punished; but, the CEO and other top management positions are in the best position of burying evidence, and vague accusations without proof might be enough to force a resignation but maybe not enough to prevent them being rehired elsewhere. After all, if your CEO was robbing you blind, would you like the world to know? And wouldn't you like it best if after they resigned they were rehired by a competitor who you can secretly hope they'll embezzle from as well?

*Yea, I know, because of progressive taxation it's probably closer to 3/4ths that, but then the discussion was "millions of dollars", so feel free to scale up that round figure of a million dollars to compensate--I'm sure the CEO would.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[mysidia]

Because they can get even more by hurting them *and* getting their golden parachutes after the havoc?

Until they get caught, and have to repay fradulently taken $$$, lose their golden parachute, and become unemployable.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they do that in Superman III?

Re:Prevention cheaper

[dabooda]

I think they monitor any e-mail the employee sends; not just personal e-mails. I.e. e-mails that go from Bob the programmer to Jenny the accounts-receivable lady explaining how to use the new version of the "Just Pay Me" software would be analysed to see if Bob is getting sick of working at AAA Dodads.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

But if you were to hire "watchers" then who watches the watchers?
When this comes to pass then you will need to hire watchers, to watch the watchers to watch the watchers. (and so on)

It becomes an endless loop.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Capsaicin]

I.e. e-mails that go from Bob the programmer to Jenny the accounts-receivable lady explaining how to use the new version of the "Just Pay Me" software would be analysed to see if Bob is getting sick of working at AAA Dodads.

I'm sorry, did you just write "Just Pay Me ?!" Consider yourself flagged!

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Taco Cowboy]

If us bosses don't monitor the minions, how then should we know when they're onto our kickback schemes and other fraudulent privileges they are not entitled to know of us having?

We monitor our minions not because we are afraid of them knowing what we do

We monitor them because we want them to know that we know every-single-thing about them

In other words, they are our minions because we pwned them

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

"...and become unemployable"

Bwahahaha! Oh you!

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

For every example you can name of this we can name a thousand where this didn't happen. So I hope your comment was sarcasm, else you are seriously misguided.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

have to repay fraudulently taken $$$

That's so sweet: You think directors embezzle their employer!
No, directors give generous contracts to their friends and get kick-backs. They do anything, which frequently involves some method of down-sizing, to increase the share price, then sell their part of the company. They leave after costing the company millions and get a payout of millions more.

Every accounting/management textbook talks about the need to align the director's greed with the company's growth. Yet, the golden parachute does the exact opposite.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

detect fraud per say

Detect fraud for each speak? Why do you think that makes any sense at all?

Because you're a fucking moron, that's why.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[ArsenneLupin]

I wonder if I'm the only person who hears or reads "golden parachute" and gets a mental image of a CEO jumping from a burning plane with his company's stock ticker on the side, holding on to a dozen overstuffed briefcases full of cash like he's a modern-day DB Cooper. :D

Why stick with plane imagery? A golden lifeboat would be just as appropriate: you get the mental image of the ship listing so badly that the CEO loses his foothold, starts sliding from the bridge accross the deck, and just happens to fall right into the golden lifeboat, which conveniently already contains several bags of cash which must have slid from the strongroom whose door popped open when the ship hit the rocks.

And the CEO rows into the sunset, while the shareholders vainly shout "vade a bordo, c*zzo!"...

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Alex Belits]

Or you can give that job to people who accept a lifelong restrictions on what they can do with money in exchange for guaranteed employment and protection -- say, those in witness protection program.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[drsmithy]

Those are not only the people in the greatest position to hurt the company, but also those with the greatest incentive not to do so - why hurt a company that is paying you millions of dollars a year?

Because most of those millions are tied up in stock, options and contractual termination payouts.

No-one who has made it seriously far into upper management is enough of a chump to have their salary as their main form of remuneration.

Top management positions aren't that common that one would risk losing one.

They don't need to be. It's the same small group of people rotating between them all.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[swalve]

But you may see signs of problems leading up to fraud. When people start getting into a hole of some kind, they start getting sloppy. You might not catch the dispassionate embezzler, but you might catch the addict looking to feed the addiction.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[swalve]

Yes, this is it exactly. Sometimes people just go haywire for no reason.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

you are way to paranoid, when you work 40 hours in the office, at some point, you use your e-mail to send personal notes.

If you dont, you either have 100% self-control or your just a time bomb

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is any IT employee in their right minds sending our personal communications from their work computer? Come on - that's like common sense 101 stuff there, or at least, take some precautions...VPN, GPG, smartphone...

Hey, this employee deviates from the normal pattern. He's taking breaks from the work computer. He must be using a smartphone for personal communications. Flag him!

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Hatta]

some top managers develop such an inflated sense of entitlement that they believe they are worth far more than what they legitimately earn, deserve whatever they can take and that they will never get caught when they break the law.

And more often than not, they're right.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make it a real loop. If there are enough watchers in the loop, the probability is low that they all collude.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Ihmhi]

Yet, who do a disproportionate number of CEO schedule official trips to Aspin during skiing season and during the summer?

Probably for the same reason that a disproportionate number of medical conferences are set in sunny tropical islands.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Couldn't the same technology be said to either prevent or cause the relationship problems in the first place?

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Joe U]

My Smartphone, my personal account, everything encrypted.

Don't give out the work address to anyone outside work.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[kilfarsnar]

Not from my work address, I don't! Use my personal email through web-mail, sure. But the work account is for work only.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[s73v3r]

You're assuming 1). That they are perfectly rational, or even slightly rational, and 2). You're assuming that they give a shit. If the company fails, they'll lay low for a while, perhaps take a small vacation, and then go down the street and get another job doing exactly the same.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[s73v3r]

Yup. Except this never happens in the real world. And no one at that level is completely "unemployable". Many high profile CEOs have done shitty jobs, and yet they were still able to find shitty jobs after they left.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[JosephTX]

unless an accountant committing fraud is actively emailing co-workers saying "I'M COMMITTING FRAUD," there aren't many clues the company's going to find about it in their emails. They check emails for the same reasons they're starting to ask for their employees' facebook information; so they can make sure they're unreasonably devoted to someone who underpays them (I'm going out on a limb and assuming this is the case for any company who so callously violates their employees' civil rights) and eventually ask them to take up a second (unpaid) job as marketers.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like I've got a "visit" coming up next week from those people I'd rather not see. Stuff it. Let's make someone's life miserable. *pulls out name list*. Alex sounds like a fun name to work with.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Stock options. If you have $30 million in stock options and a golden parachute, you'll do stupid shit to slash costs and drive up quarterly profits, sell your stock at the peak of the market, and leave the rotten shell of the company for other people to deal with.

Re:Prevention cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

And just WHO is going to maintain that monitoring system?

Who manages it?

[GeneralTurgidson]

If an HR department can install and manage software that interfaces with a companies email without IT knowing about, that company has bigger security concerns. If IT manages it, IT can circumvent it.

Re:Who manages it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside party? Maybe they have an electrician going in and taping the ether. Now it might not make it possible to intercept all communications although I'm sure at least some email could be intercepted. At least emails exiting that aren't encrypted.

Re:Who manages it?

[__aaltlg1547]

If your IT guys are fully competent, the external guys can't do shit without their knowing about it.

Re:Who manages it?

[fast turtle]

Any employee sending encrypted email from a company computer that the company does not have the key for will be fired immediately. You've just violated various provisions of Sarbanes/Oxley (Sox), HIPPA and many other federal regulations. If you use a VPN to connect outside of the corporate network - unless it's an approved connection, will also result in immediate termination as you've just proven you can not be trusted. If you want to check your personal email, do so during your lunch break on your own equipment or use one of the isolated kiosks in the break room.

Re:Who manages it?

[bitslinger_42]

I don't know about your company, but I doubt if my HR department has ANYONE capable of installing anything, let alone secret sniffing software that's hiding on a server they don't own/control/have access to.

Re:Who manages it?

[jroysdon]

As we tell our staff, get a smart phone and do whatever you want. Just never connect it to our network (including even USB to charge), and never use our network/PCs for personal use. Don't want to spring for a smart phone? Surf at home.

Re:Who manages it?

[mysidia]

If an HR department can install and manage software that interfaces with a companies email without IT knowing about, that company has bigger security concerns. If IT manages it, IT can circumvent it.

Most likely a subset of the IT team responsible for network security manages the software. In other words, there are probably a few senior members of the IT team that are assigned the task of maintaining the software for HR, reporting on it, and showing that it is working.

If one of the other team members circumvents it, one of the IT security officers responsible for the software will notice this, report it to HR, and an investigation will begin.

Re:Who manages it?

[mysidia]

As we tell our staff, get a smart phone and do whatever you want. Just never connect it to our network (including even USB to charge), and never use our network/PCs for personal use. Don't want to spring for a smart phone? Surf at home.

You do realize, this is still a risk right? It's not necessary to ever connect to your network to use a camera phone and snap a picture of a sensitive document.

Re:Who manages it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've just violated various provisions of Sarbanes/Oxley (Sox), HIPPA and many other federal regulations.

Wrong.

Anon, JD.

Re:Who manages it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any employee sending encrypted email from a company computer that the company does not have the key for will be fired immediately. You've just violated various provisions of Sarbanes/Oxley (Sox), HIPPA and many other federal regulations.

[citation needed]

Re:Who manages it?

[nine-times]

You're hitting on the larger problem of "who watches the watchmen?" It's a bit of an inherent problem, and not one that's easy to solve.

I've tried to explain this to people before, that one of the most important things in an IT professional is that you can trust him. He has access to a bunch of stuff, and he might have access into more than you know. You can say, "Well lock them out! Set up security so they can't access it!" But who do you get to set that up? How do you know that they did a good job, and didn't leave themselves a back-door?

And you know, often you *want* to have your IT department leave a back-door into your security systems. For example, when I encrypt people's laptop hard drives, I set a master password that I know or snag the encryption keys so that if the user locks themselves out, I can still get access. I let them know that I'm doing this, and they have no objection because sometimes you want your IT people to be able to rescue you from your own mistakes.

That's not to say you can't have some security surrounding your IT department. It's just that security is never 100%, and even less so when you're securing computers from people who have full access and know more about the computers than you do.

Re:Who manages it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've just violated various provisions of Sarbanes/Oxley (Sox), HIPPA and many other federal regulations.

Not sure I'd trust the legal advice of someone that spells it "HIPPA".

Re:Who manages it?

[scottv67]

>HIPPA

HIPAA

Re:Who manages it?

[jroysdon]

Yes, and we document air-gapped systems this way.

Re:Who manages it?

[mysidia]

That would be a legitimate use.
There's a risk that an employee could use this method to steal data with their smart phone, even having never connected it to the company's infrastructure; simple proximity is sufficient.

so who installs the monitoring software ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess. the same people who can modify the software to have it analyze emails from HR email accounts instead of IT email accounts.

Pretty much proves the point

[Anonymous Coward]

What if an IT employee suddenly has relationship problems or family issues?

There's definitely something suspicious going on when IT employees have relationships, nevermind relationship problems.

Personal emails at work?

[PT_1]

"I understand the need to be aware of the attitudes of workers with high-level access to data and networks, but this strikes me as creepy. What if an IT employee suddenly has relationship problems or family issues?"

Not commenting on whether monitoring employee emails is right or wrong, but why would somebody use their corporate email account to deal with relationship or family issues? In a world where companies can and often will read their employees' emails, that anyone would use their work email for anything personal seems short-sited. Sign up for one of the free web-based mail accounts.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many companies today configure their firewalls to block access to webmail services because they are afraid an employee might use webmail to bypass the filters they use to detect or block attempts to send confidential company data outside the corporation.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue Isn't people using work email for personnal reasons, but that personal problems may change the way you talk about work issues.

Its perfectly possible that a problem at home will change peoples mood while they're at work thus changing the language they use when discussing work and triggering the system.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed the point. Even if you aren't using work email for personal issues if something is affecting your life, it might change your whole attitude. Perhaps you are becoming more and more short with people at work because you're not coping well at home.

They can now see that and flag you... Even though it may not be a true work issue...

Re:Personal emails at work?

[tverbeek]

Who said anything about personal e-mail? Even the summary explains that they're talking about automated analysis of language patterns, not "reading employees' mail". From TFA:

"If you start to feel differently about the company you work for and the people you work with, you'd be surprised how your language changes," .... Common red flags include a dramatic change in the length of a person's emails. For example, someone may start writing emails of half a dozen words when their messages used to read like novels. Other tip-offs: a rise in the number of anger-related phrases, greater use of the word "me," and signs of more-polarized thinking, like the words "never" and "always."

Re:Personal emails at work?

[nurb432]

People do it all the time. both to outsiders and a LOT of internal non business chatter.

People are social creatures, its natural to do it.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

I never have understood why people send personal emails from work anyway. Even with a free web based email account a lot of shops run DLP products that can still read the emails. If you must send personal emails on work time, which I don't agree with, at least be smart and use your phone, tablet, or some other 'off network' device.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all true, but the employee can do their personal mail at home or on their phone. They don't need to be doing it at work, when they should be - you know - working.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

These issues then become the issues of the whole government/company, and not just your own. That's what happens. Think about it this way: It could affect 'worker productivity' or 'worker state of mind', which would lead to sub-par work being done. Why wouldn't they want to monitor something that can have that effect?

Albeit, I disagree with it on moral grounds, but I can definitely see their argument.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans need to do some personal things inside work hours just as they are needed to do work things outside of work hours. Tit for tat.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[__aaltlg1547]

The mere fact that an IT employee sends personal emails from his corporate account indicates that the employee is not sufficiently sensitive to security issues. The employee needs to be brought up to speed on Why That Is A Bad Idea.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[__aaltlg1547]

I think this idea must be based on half-baked pseudoscience. Is there really any science that backs up the claim that you can identify whether an employee is a security risk based on a change in how they use language in work-related emails? Really

Let's say you're a senior manager and somebody pitches software to do this to you. Do you or do you not ask for evidence that it can tell the difference between normal evolution of personal use of language and "security risks?"

Re:Personal emails at work?

[RulerOf]

Humans need to do some personal things inside work hours just as they are needed to do work things outside of work hours. Tit for tat.

Things like reading Slashdot!

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is Sunday. Am I not allowed that now? :)

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all true, but the employee can do their personal mail at home or on their phone.

HaHaHaHa!!!!

That approach went away shortly after companies started requiring employees to take after hours calls on personal phone lines and started requiring employees with formal tele-work arrangements to personally pay for the work Internet connection.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[HiThere]

Past examples indicate that top management is much less likely to ask for evidence and proof than the IT staff. I suspect that this also applies to other specialty staff, such as accounting, technical, drafting, etc., but my only real knowledge is based on examples from IT.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very important to make the people aware of the fact that they are being monitored constantly. Not only at work, but also on the streets and at home (your internet/phone, etc). The fact that the humans feel and know that they are being watched is more important then the watching itself. It controls and corrects human behavior.

they live.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Calydor]

Imagine a world functioning like this:

Everyone works 9-5. No one does anything personal in those hours.

Everything is CLOSED 5-9. No one does anything personal in THOSE hours, either.

Economy collapses after a couple of weeks.

Not to mention that this has nothing to do with personal emails, but the choice of words, sentence structure etc. in ANY email you write, which is likely to be affected by your current general state of mind.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[swalve]

I would imagine another outcome- efficiency would improve. If a company has after hour needs, then they should plan and staff for it. Otherwise, nobody should be working. If you don't have people feeling the need to burn the midnight oil, then you don't need to support them all the time. If a server goes down in the middle of the night, nobody needs to get woke up to fix it, because nobody needs it until the morning.

Where I work, there are two of us who do the same kind of job, with generally the same workload. I am definitely a "work from 9-5, leave me alone the rest of the time" guy. He is more of a chaotic kind of person. He is constantly bitching about his work stacking up and having to work late hours to catch up. I'll get a frantic call from him because he needs help with something, and then as I am working on that, I'll get cc's from my boss approving vacation requests. Jesus, man, if you'd just work instead of planning your vacation, we wouldn't be in this situation! I'll also get passive aggressive digs because I "have nothing to do" because by backlog queue is light or empty, while his is full. First, dude, quit wasting time looking at other people's problems and stick to your own. Secondly, how about looking at completed work instead of uncompleted work.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most employers offer an employee assitance program. Such programs often provide family counseling. Thus, taking advantage of the benefits the company offers does seem like a legitimate use of company resources, and may mandate it to get a list viable providers.

I am not saying that the corporate account should be used for actual conselling sessions, but it may be needed to set up a session.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[Fear the Clam]

I never have understood why people send personal emails from work anyway. Even with a free web based email account a lot of shops run DLP products that can still read the emails. If you must send personal emails on work time, which I don't agree with, at least be smart and use your phone, tablet, or some other 'off network' device.

I don't carry a cell phone because I don't like to talk on the phone. (And I have a land line at home and one at work.)

I work at a university and I don't think they care if my wife sends me email asking me to pick up milk on my way home from work and I return a message saying that I will. In a similar way, I don't care if the work system snoops and discovers patterns in my family's milk-buying habits.

More important personal stuff is either transmitted over the phone or waits until I get home.

Re:Personal emails at work?

[s73v3r]

Otherwise, nobody should be working.

Ok. Then when do the people who work 9-5 go grocery shopping? When do they get their hair cut? When do they go drive go-karts?

Re:Personal emails at work?

[s73v3r]

Just because I'm at work doesn't mean I don't need to communicate.

what's next

[ozduo]

24 hr video in home surveillance with special emphasis on the bedroom

Who installs and maintains this?

[jesseck]

HR isn't going to install and maintain this, and many of the people this is supposed to watch will be involved. If you hire a 3rd party to install, maintain, and monitor, will you trust them more than your employees with such information? Even then, is IT going to expend infrastructure setup and maintain network services for a black box with no "critical" (since IT doesn't know about it, it can't be classified as critical- HR doesn't make that call) function?

This is not a new problem

[jd]

Nor is this a new complaint. Waaaay back, before many Slashdotters were born, a little-known two-tone group penned the following lines regarding abuses of this kind by governments and corporations alike:

Why must you record my phone calls?
Are you planning a bootleg L.P?
Said you've been threatened by gangsters
Now it's you that’s threatening me.

Can't fight corruption with con tricks
They use the law to commit crime?
I dread, dread to think what the future will bring
When we’re living in gangster times.

Seems to me that nothing has changed in the intervening years. Things haven't gotten worse, the younger generation is merely seeing the problems that the previous generation did.

Re:This is not a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You work for Bernard Rhodes?

Re:This is not a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure class

Coincidentally, I'm typing this now not far from where The Specials were formed.

Re:This is not a new problem

[Alex Zepeda]

That's really special.

Creepy but...

[PastBlast]

That's why I never send personal email on the company's system. I also don't keep any personal files on the company supplied computer nor do web browsing on it. It's a hassle sometimes, especially when I need to carry around my personal laptop. And, in reverse, I never do "work" on my personal computers. While I don't think my company is spying on me, I go by that assumption because they can start at any time without my knowledge. It's my way of mitigating that risk. In general, I think it's also a good way to keep my personal life separate from work. I learned that years ago during some stress reduction workshops I participated in.

Re:Creepy but...

[Anonymous Coward]

ssh -D3000 your.home.computer

Specific setup is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Creepy but...

[Thing I am]

Similar to you, I operate at work knowing that I am being monitored. Video is being recorded in my office, in the building my office is in, on the roads I travel to and from the data center and in the data center. Phone calls are logged, email is being archived and company computers are routinely checked for unauthorized use. I never ever conduct personal business on company computers or time. I know this because I'm the one responsible for maintaining the systems. Sure it would be easy to circumvent for myself but it's not worth the hassle. It's easier just to do anything personal on my laptop.

Re:Creepy but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be nice if public schools educated students about the nature of network communications, the implications of ownership and the long term benefits of caring for one's self as a future member of the adult world? Your personal behaviour must have been informed by exposure to something more than just the stress reduction workshops you particitpated in.

Re:Creepy but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on how far the corporate goons are going. If we're talking about a Windows desktop in a domain, it's very trivial to use AD group policy to push out spyware to the desktop.

They don't just snoop on network traffic anymore. It doesn't even have to be automated - it could just be a program that takes a screencap of your screen every 10 minutes and archives several months worth of those screencaps somewhere on the network.

The minute they think you're up to something or otherwise want an excuse to get rid of you, boom, open up your folder and find a screencap of you browsing something inappropriate.

Re:Creepy but...

[jroysdon]

While I agree with this 100% (and follow it the same), why is it that upper management never have to follow the same rules? "You want me to bring a work laptop back and forth, and where would I put it?"

Re:Creepy but...

[jroysdon]

Won't work at my office. Nothing goes out/in that isn't decrypted and verified first. Mostly this is to prevent backdoors and data breaches.

Anyway, smart phones are dirt cheap and if you really need to be that connected pay $20/mo. more and get a data plan. Surf all you want on your own equipment and network connection.

Re:Creepy but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly the right solution to this problem!

Re:Creepy but...

[s73v3r]

I don't get any data signal in my cube.

Re:Creepy but...

[jroysdon]

Go outside.

The Potential for Abuse is enormous...

[dryriver]

IT Guy: Sir, it would be wise to install abc software on our system, for increased security. Boss: We can't do that right now. It doesn't fit the budget. IT Guy: What about installing xyz software then? Its cheaper and could be useful... Boss: Nope. We can't do that either. Maybe next year. Boss simply walks away. Disappointed IT Guy's email language/wording/length changes a bit as a result... HR Person: Sir, our software is reporting that XX from the IT staff is having a mind-change. Boss: Really? XX? Well, we'd better look into that. Maybe I should fire the guy outright. You never know with these mind-changes...

Re:The Potential for Abuse is enormous...

[HornWumpus]

Anything that encourages those idiots to shoot their own peckers off is a good thing.

Re:The Potential for Abuse is enormous...

[wmbetts]

Never stop clapping until the bells ring.

An old enough industry to require unions

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly IT is now an old enough industry to require proper union representation to protect workers, who may be very intelligent and capable in their line of work, to have reasonable terms and conditions in their contracts of employments (legal faff that they aren't knowledgeable in) so that they aren't screwed over by such systems and mechanisms.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[nurb432]

All that will do is raise the entry bar for people coming in the industry ( and keeping many out ) and raise the overall cost of IT.

Unions do have their place. An IT shop is not one of them.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[Zontar The Mindless]

Unions do have their place. An IT shop is not one of them.

You should really try to be more open-minded about such things. Maybe even consider moving to Sweden, where nearly everyone is entitled to union representation whether they bother to join one or not.

When we got bought, and the new owners tried to take away nearly all my benefits, my IT workers' union did a pretty good job of nipping that nonsense in the bud. Maybe I should show my appreciation by signing up and paying them the ~$25 per month they want as dues for actual membership. That's only about 2% of what I would have lost if they'd not gone to bat for me.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want unions per se, but I do want things that most other workers get, like overtime.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[Anonymous Coward]

Well here's a news flash: businesses are not entitled to cheap IT by anything other than the active imagination of right wing propagandists. The purpose of a business is to make as much money as possible. That should be the purpose of workers too. Why it is that people have been brainwashed into believing that things which accomplish that are a bad thing is seriously mind blowing.

Here's some news: your negotiating position sucks. Not always, and not everywhere, but mostly it sucks. You've got corporate management believing you can easily be replaced. Maybe you can't. Maybe you're one of the very few of us whose skills are as special as you think they are. The problem is that management doesn't value that most of the time, and since negotiating power is based in large part on now the other party perceives your value, there's a problem for you. You're just not the special snowflake your libertarian brain thinks you are.

"But, but Fox News says unions are just about keeping under performers employed". What, you think that magically doesn't happen without them? Management is mostly clueless and ineffective at judging performance after all. Remember your objective: profit as much as possible, just like your employer. A job is an exchange of money for services. Period. You owe it to yourself and your profession to do the best job possible, but you do NOT owe your employer more than that.

All that said, you may be right about unions not being needed in IT shops. What we need is a guild. Unfortunately, other than those involving doctors and lawyers, guilds aren't as well written into law and regulation as unions are. Maybe we need to change that.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[Anonymous Coward]

Unions might have a place in IT. I can think of multiple douchebaggeries that would not have happened had my coworkers had a union to go to. I used to think like you do. Now I'm not so sure.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[bigstrat2003]

I don't even necessarily want that. I expect fair treatment. Someone being salaried isn't an excuse to have your people working 80 hour weeks all the time, and to refuse to hire more staff to get the work done. I have no problem being salaried and not getting paid for my overtime if that time is the exception, rather than the rule.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[swalve]

Simple solution: your policy is that you don't work when you aren't getting paid. You want me to work overtime? Compensate me. Either with money or some other thing that's valuable to both of us.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[BVis]

"You're fired." "Because I wouldn't work uncompensated overtime?" "No, we don't have to give a reason, clean out your desk."

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are in California, USA and you work in non-managerial IT, you cannot be salaried.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I should show my appreciation by signing up and paying them the ~$25 per month they want as dues for actual membership. That's only about 2% of what I would have lost if they'd not gone to bat for me.

Maybe? Maybe?!?

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[swalve]

So? If standing up for your principles isn't worth anything to you, then don't bother. But if it is, then make the stand. If they fire you, good for you. Unemployment insurance and probably a better job further down the road.

Re:An old enough industry to require unions

[BVis]

If they fire you, good for you.

What color is the sky on your planet? They'll fight you on the unemployment claim, and win (not because they're right, but because they're the employer and you're not), and then you have no job, no income, and drastically reduced job options (as nobody wants to hire someone who isn't working already).

How is any of that 'good'?

kick 'em when they're down

[tverbeek]

What if an IT employee suddenly has relationship problems or family issues? Will they then be flagged by HR as potentially troublesome or even a data security risk?

I got suddenly canned from a sysadmin job when I showed signs of irritability and started requesting half-days off here and there. Except in this case it was because my boyfriend was critically ill, and they knew that. They just didn't give a fuck.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[nurb432]

You became a liability. There were others inline for your job that weren't a liability. It wasn't that they didn't care about you personally, its just the reality of business. "Caring" doesn't pay the bills.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[Anonymous Coward]

And you are a dick who makes excuses for and thus empowers even bigger ones. Get a clue already.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[Rakishi]

And those other people are also a liability because they may not be able to do the job. Even if they can do the job it'd take them 2-3 months to get up to full efficiency at doing their job.

Furthermore, every other employee, including the replacement, now knows that the company will fire them at the drop of a hat. In other words, they now have a signal that they may want to start sending out resumes before it happens to them. The fired person's social network will now also know that the employer is an asshole and to steer clear if possible.

So yes, caring does pay the bills if a company cares about anything but the short term balance sheet (not even short term productivity).

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[Kjella]

And the other way around too, people that have gone through a bad time and come out on the other side develop a high loyalty and everyone around them knows that if shit happens you're cared for. It's the kind of intangible benefit that tend to keep people in one place, salary is measurable but work environment for the most part isn't. If you've got a good one, people are reluctant to leave. At least a little up in the system high turnover is generally one of the warning lights.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[epyT-R]

well, if we can't expect employers to care, how can we expect employees to care...ie to not use 'short language' in emails and not show signs of 'irritability'.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope some disgruntled employee dumps gasoline on you and sets you on fire. It would be very cathartic for them and good karma for you.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[laughingcoyote]

Aside from the fact that what you're saying shows a total lack of humanity, it's also wrong.

If I saw another employee I worked with being treated that way, believe me, I'm looking for a new job the moment I get off work that day. And then all of the training, experience, etc., that they've paid me well to develop, walks right out the door.

That aside, loyalty is meant to be reciprocal. As long as a company is "paying the bills" adequately, a little decency for those undergoing tough times and have spent years of their lives helping to build the company is not exactly uncalled for. I have worked several places that coworkers were more than happy to pick up some slack for someone in a tough situation, especially since it was well understood they could accept the same in return. That type of environment is far more productive than one where everyone spends half the day looking over their shoulder.

"It's just business" is not an excuse for unconscionable behavior, and it's been used that way for far too long.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[nurb432]

Then they would all be out of a job, wouldn't they?

It has nothing to do with karma or feelings. Remain an asset, remain employed. Its pretty simple. Even management has to deal with those rules.

If you are not an asset, you risk bringing the entire company down with you if you are retained due to 'caring'. See example above, where no one has job.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[nurb432]

Well, then id help show you the door as you aren't a reliable employee either. No great loss. "Decency" has no place in the business world. If you want decency, go hug a tree. Otherwise, get back to work and do what you are being paid to do, and be happy its happening.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope someday a replaceable person gets fed up with your inhumane view of work and decides that *you* are replaceable and demonstrates it to you with an AK-47.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[Anonymous Coward]

in the US, it doesn't. it just will work until you're stuck with a bunch of idiots and the skilled ones who are not going to put up with your "reality" shit.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[Rakishi]

And then the only people you'd end up with are unproductive desperate idiots and then your company will go bankrupt from a competitor who isn't as utterly stupid at dealing with people.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[PPH]

And once your co-workers see you treated this way, they'll think twice about their own loyalty to the company. And when the company needs its people to put in a little extra effort to pull them through a tough spot, screw it, they're nowhere to be found.

This whole loyalty thing is sort of questionable. You should be paid for your efforts. period. But then that works both ways. When employees don't have any loyalty to the company, they'll jump ship at the first chance. And some of the less ethical ones will fill their pockets on their way out. Normally, the honest employees will blow the whistle on this sort of activity. But they are all gone by now.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[10101001 10101001]

Probably a stupid hypothetical situation/question, but say you were desperately ill, to the point that you literally slept 20 hours straight, on an important day with important clients losing an important deal yet your company didn't fire you; would you really quit because that decency/consideration really risks "bringing the entire company down with you"?

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[bigstrat2003]

"Decency" has no place in the business world.

This is patently false. A business can get by just fine while not treating people like dirt (and many do). Contrary to what you seem to believe, "business" does not mean "do whatever it takes to make an extra buck". If that were true, we'd have a clause built into every law: "unless you can make more money by doing this".

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[Anonymous Coward]

That sucks.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[laughingcoyote]

The really sad part is, I don't even think you're a troll-I know people who really do think like you do.

Interestingly, those people wonder why their departments steadily decline in productivity and increase greatly in turnover. Treating people like dirt is not just bad ethics, it's ultimately bad business. There's no substitute for having employees who genuinely like and respect you, and look forward to waking up for work in the morning. Your style will get you a bunch of drones who will do what they absolutely have to, never innovate or try to think of how they can help more, leave the moment they can get away with it, and play cover-my-ass for half the workday in the meantime. That's not conducive to productivity.

So even in a business sense, yes, decency has a place in the workplace. Those you have "helped to the door" probably have looked back on that as the one good thing that happened at that job. As that reputation spreads, it will turn away well-qualified candidates who have heard nothing but bad things about working for your company. You are not doing your company a favor by treating workers as disposable.

Re:kick 'em when they're down

[nurb432]

It has worked well for us so far. And its not that i don't care about people, just don't feel that 'caring' is all that compatible with the average business. Caring too much is a good way to bankrupt you, and then no one has a job.

And sure, word gets out that we are rough, but conversely word also gets out that if you come here, do a good job you will be well compensated and get nice benefits. It works both ways.

Oh, but thanks for taking me serous.

Security

[nurb432]

The it security team trumps the it sysadmin team.

Re:Security

[JDG1980]

The it security team trumps the it sysadmin team.

This assumes a rather large company. Many organizations have one sysadmin who handles security issues as part of their job duties, or just a handful of "IT guys" who more or less handle everything. The library I work for has about 100-150 employees total; the notion of a separate "IT security team" and "IT sysadmin team" is ridiculous for an organization of this size. Our IT department is 6 people total.

Re:Security

[Anonymous Coward]

The it security team trumps the it sysadmin team.

Ha! Where do you work?

Re:Security

[amRadioHed]

I think if we are talking about a company that is using this sort of monitoring software it is safe to assume it is a rather large company.

Re:Security

[DigiShaman]

Six people in an IT? Hopefully that only includes one admin, one lvl2 helpdesk guy, and the remaining four devs and data entry types. If those six are purely admins and heldesk, something ain't right. Too much bloat and inefficiencies going on.

Re:Security

[RulerOf]

If those six are purely admins and heldesk, something ain't right. Too much bloat and inefficiencies going on.

Quite the opposite with my last job. Granted, there were four of us, but we all shared those duties to some degree depending on what we were best at handling. And it wasn't because there were too many of us to establish a proper set of tiers; rather, there were too few of us to do so.

The company did telemarketing. As a result, EVERYONE who was employed there, with the notable exception of the janitors, used a computer. So when including the programmers and CIO/CTO, we had an IT staff of about 9 people responsible for 100-500 users (depending on time of day), three locations (in two states), and as many desktops/laptops, and four or five dozen servers (though virtualization made that more manageable as time went on).

Working there gave me shingles, once.

Re:Security

[dbIII]

It is a large company problem. Smaller companies can't afford to expend such resources or don't have much to secure and larger ones have people looking for various bullshit to fill in time so they can justify headcount. Thus IT security, which tends to work in bursts with their core tasks (IMHO), can fall into the trap of bringing in unneeded features/tasks to fill in the downtime.

Re:Security

[Xugumad]

Wait, where's your level 1 helpdesk!?

Seriously though, it depends on what you're doing with your IT infrastructure. If you're doing nice simple predictable things, yes you're going to be happy with a small team. On the other hand I work in CS research and with 4 sysadmins the infrastructure is still the wobbliest thing going because there's so much damn weird/esoteric stuff going on.

Re:Security

[DigiShaman]

The larger the organization, the more diversified of a skillset you need. So while a fortune 500 will require teams of lvl1 help desk folk, a small business of 50 employees only needs one admin that also fulfills the help desk role in every way possible. For an organization of 100, the need for a lvl1 help desk isn't needed unless you have complexity issues and no security standards in place. A good sysadmin can make a lvl1 help desk position obsolete in that case. In some cases, a lvl2 help desk jocky can also double as a jr sysadmin.

Re:Security

[Anonymous Coward]

The it security team trumps the it sysadmin team.

The "IT Security Team" is often just a group of auditors whom look at high-level stuff.

If they need a new system maintained, IT will know about it.

This AC works in HR IT. HR doesn't do shit without IT advising.

Re:Security

[Anonymous Coward]

The it security team trumps the it sysadmin team.

Dream on.

Re:Security

[Some Bitch]

The it security team trumps the it sysadmin team.

The "IT Security Team" is often just a group of auditors whom look at high-level stuff.

If they need a new system maintained, IT will know about it.

This AC works in HR IT. HR doesn't do shit without IT advising.

I work for a major financial institution, I don't know about the AC but I can tell you categorically that IT security trumps sysadmin and are most definitely not just a bunch of auditors. We have auditors as well, but IT security also installs and maintains the security infrastructure.

Common Occurance.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is really nothing new when it comes to IT in large corporations. In the past there has been similar stories of companies hiring other IT people to spy on their IT department, the only difference is that now its cheaper for them to buy a program to do it for them.

Speaking as a state employee

[93 Escort Wagon]

In Washington state, anyway, the email of all us state employees is considered to be part of the public record... so in theory this sort of monitoring would be relatively easy to implement. Funny thing is - as a Washington state employee, I feel less vulnerable to this sort of snooping than if I were employed by a private company.

A more important question.

[khasim]

A more important question is why would anyone take anything said at "ITWorld" as factual?

Has anyone here run into this before? What vendor?

All of their examples seem wrong. The length of an email will change based upon the circumstances of that email. Is it advisory? Is it for documentation? Is it CYA?

Re:A more important question.

[Zontar The Mindless]

A more important question is why would anyone take anything said at "ITWorld" as factual?

It's not just ITWorld's say-so. They cite this WSJ article, which also says so.

Re:A more important question.

[ColdWetDog]

A more important question is why would anyone take anything said at "ITWorld" as factual?

It's not just ITWorld's say-so. They cite this WSJ article, which also says so.

Oh, now you're really bumping up the truthiness.

Re:A more important question.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Huh? All I'm saying is that ITWorld apparently didn't make this stuff up out of thin air. They cite WSJ, and WSJ provides quotes and attributions for same. ITWorld may or may not be a paragon of virtue. I tend to be sceptical of ITWorld's reporting generally, myself, but can't find fault with them in this particular instance.

Let me tell you about something called "journalism", just in case you've never heard of it or worked in the field yourself. (It so happens that I worked in broadcast journalism for some years.) Yes, the ITWorld story constitutes an example of correctly and responsibly done journalism: ITWorld provides a cite, and their source is a very well-known publication which has been around for quite a long time, and which in turn provides a number of cites of its own, including names, firms they work for, and positions held at those firms. This is how journalism is done. In journalism, "I've {never|always} heard of..." does not cut the mustard; having quotes from people who are willing to identify themselves while going on record does.

You are free to verify with Chip Whatshisname at DoucheBagCo whether or not he (a) actually said what the WSJ claims he did and, if so, (b) was telling the truth when he said it and was not taken out of context. But don't blame me or even ITWorld if it turns out to be a fabrication, distortion, or even some truth that happens not to be to your liking.

As for me, I think the story's a plausible one, although I reserve the right to change my mind if and when I encounter convincing evidence to the contrary. A veiled accusation of having some sort of hidden rightwing political agenda by some J. Random Internet Fuckwad does not supply it.

It's actually pretty funny, given that my politics are just slightly to the right of Leon Trotsky and that I don't especially try to keep that a secret around here, or in real life, for that matter.

Paranoid people

[david999]

Some companies take screenshots of what is on your computer all day long. Now they want to peer into your email as if it were an inkblot and predict your behavior. It is best to work elsewhere as that company employs paranoid people who somehow got into the position to spy on people and convince management that is a good thing instead of just seeing if the assignments are completed each day. These are the same companies that put 4 levels between you and getting a quick answer. Procedures are to be followed! Tell the customer you will get back to them in a day or two instead of a minute or two. You will go farther elsewhere. If you stay you risk being slandered by these paranoid people.

Company network

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I log into my employer's network I get a popup window that states: "You should have no expectation of privacy". I take it seriously.

Re:Company network

[Neil Boekend]

That's more usefull than the message we get. Our message says "The system is up and running" while it isn't even booted completely yet.

Only if you are replaceable.

[khasim]

Only if you are replaceable.

Lots of people can do the same job as you do. Some do it better. Hopefully you're good enough at it that more than 50% will do it worse.

And at the same salary (or lower).

AND has your knowledge of the systems and the "why were they set up that way" tricks and traps so that they don't cause any unexpected down-time trying to "fix" something that is not really broken.

Re:Only if you are replaceable.

[nurb432]

Ultimately, there are very very few people that are not replaceable. Unless you own the place or have some required skill that is unique in the world, don't kid yourself into thinking you are indispensable, and always have a backup plan.

Sure, it might cost a little more, or take some time to get back and running, but it doesn't mean you cant be shown the door anyway.

Re:Only if you are replaceable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultimately, there are very very few people that are not replaceable. Unless you own the place or have some required skill that is unique in the world, don't kid yourself into thinking you are indispensable, and always have a backup plan.

Sure, it might cost a little more, or take some time to get back and running, but it doesn't mean you cant be shown the door anyway.

Not meaning this personally antagonistically by any means, but you are giving too much credit that upper management cares or even thinks about how hard it would be to replace someone. Maybe at one time we had managers that would worry about this, but nowadays they know (or have come to expect) that everyone impacted by getting rid of that most valuable employee will just work harder to save their own skins. Doesn't matter if customer service declines, if the data coming out suffers or anything else. If things are not to their liking they will take it out on underlings. As long as they don't hear about it from those to whom they report...

Re:Only if you are replaceable.

[mysidia]

Ultimately, there are very very few people that are not replaceable. Unless you own the place or have some required skill that is unique in the world, don't kid yourself into thinking you are indispensable, and always have a backup plan.

You are indispensable if and only if it would be fiscally irresponsible to replace you. Management has the power attempt to replace any employee, but there are cases that doing so would simply be an act of incompetence.

For example, you do your job extremely well, you do much more work force the price you are paid than almost any applicant is willing and able to do (e.g. the cost of employing you is much smaller than any replacement, after considering the recruiting costs of placing a new employee in your position, additional training costs, etc.).

I respond differently

[__aaqvdr516]

I respond differently depending on who it is I'm responding to. There's the usual site wide formal email. Then there's the technical email to the bossman. There are also the jovial type that go to the close co-workers. I think you're just better off using keywords to look for "problems". If they start to use the work "fuck" or "kill", maybe have a closer look.

Re:I respond differently

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

So when I turned off Server RAHRAH125 and sent out the email "Just Killed 125." that would be bad? and speak of sociopathy?

Re:I respond differently

[wmbetts]

have a little fun with it.

w00t I just killed that fucking bug time to commit!

I wonder how many alarms that would ring.

If you don't trust your sys/network admin...

[gstrickler]

...do yourself and your admin a favor and get rid of him/her. He/she won't like working for someone who doesn't trust him/her, and you won't like constantly being suspicious.

I've given that advice to all my clients over the years. You can extend the concept to the rest of your IT and/or security team. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take precautions, have checks and balances in place, etc, but fundamentally, if there isn't a high level of trust, deal with the lack of trust, either by discussing it until there is an understanding and trust, or by ending the relationship.

Secretive monitoring is not the way to handle a lack of trust. The only exception is when there is already probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, then, in some cases, monitoring to gather proof may or may not be necessary or appropriate.

Re:If you don't trust your sys/network admin...

[magamiako1]

How, exactly, do you implement a "checks and balances" system when the security of the IT system is ultimately a pyramid? There is always a *god* or *root* user, and it's always going to be a technical person that isn't necessarily the business front of the IT team.

Re:If you don't trust your sys/network admin...

[gstrickler]

Multiple "gods", sort of polytheistic IT. If they're good, they'll notice If one of the others isn't doing his/her job, and they'll notice artifacts if one of them is trying to cover his/her tracks.

Re:If you don't trust your sys/network admin...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with two admins that I have reported as being rogue admins. Their actions have been logged and documented. The risk they expose us to is substantial.
Was anything done? No. Even when one went off the rails nothing was done. Here is a system admin shouting threats at co workers in public and nothing is done.

Yes, I know. Nothing can be done until damage occurs. Problem is that it takes an admin or an auditor to tell. By the time anyone notices these clowns will probably have done their damage and moved on.

Worst of all, or best of all, we are paying 100k to one admin to do nothing.

Re:If you don't trust your sys/network admin...

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple "gods", sort of polytheistic IT. If they're good, they'll notice If one of the others isn't doing his/her job, and they'll notice artifacts if one of them is trying to cover his/her tracks.

"Hey Torm, get over here. It looks like Vecna left his eye at work again."

Yeah.

[khasim]

I'll ask the question again:
Has anyone here run into this before? What vendor?

That Wall Street Journal article reads more like an advertisement.

"If someone works 9 to 5 and all of a sudden their privileges are used at 3 in the morning, it needs to set off an alarm within the company," says Chip Tsantes, a Washington, D.C.-based principal at Ernst & Young who advises financial-services firms about security and other issues.

I don't know about you but I've often worked on systems at 3am. And on weekends. And holidays.

The company looks for triggers such as vulgar words, messages marked as high priority and privileged information such as credit-card numbers. While an employee may be sending a credit-card number to a family member, they just as easily could be trying to email the personal data of a customer.

Anyone in IT who sends a credit card number via email needs to be fired any way. They're just too stupid to have on staff.

Anyone sending anything at all like that through COMPANY email needs to be fired any way. They're too likely to cause a problem with legal discovery should a different lawsuit pop up.

And so on. So I'll ask again, has anyone here run into this before? What vendor?

Is this real?

[tomthepom]

'That the "enemy within" is the biggest threat to an enterprise is nothing new...'
dossier's of 'suspect behaviour'
"It has gotten to the point where we have to monitor everything everybody does, especially those working with sensitive data like the IT staff,"

WTF? In my years in IT I've never experienced this sort of paranoid 'treat your employees like potential threats' attitude. But then I've never worked in the US. Is treating your people like humans, keeping them invested and paying them fairly just an outdated, naive notion over there?

Re:Is this real?

[mbkennel]

"Is treating your people like humans, keeping them invested and paying them fairly just an outdated, naive notion over there?"

No, it's considered to be a fellow traveler with Communism.

Re:Is this real?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes it is. Most of American society really is as bat-crap crazy as they say.

Re:Is this real?

[Hatta]

As an American, yes. We are nothing more than livestock.

I do think my company is spying on me.

[Anonymous Coward]

"While I don't think my company is spying on me, I go by that assumption because they can start at any time without my knowledge. It's my way of mitigating that risk".

iSPY on YOU

I do think my company is spying on me, lucky I only ever use the CEOs account and there's an easy way of bypassing the webproxy. Seriously though, if the company is spying on email usage and lets say someone starts to browse AIDs sites, dontcha think they are gonna fire him before he starts dipping into the medical insurance fund?

They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[Karmashock]

I believe this was more of an analysis. They fed thousands of time stamped memos into an algorithlim. The idea was to look for differences in speech pattern or word choice in reference to the conspiracy.

What they found in Enron at least was that as people behaved increasingly corrupt they became increasingly formal with each other. Casual comments tended to be innocent ones where as memos concerning the corruption tended to unusually professional.

Personally, I don't care what the company does with my corporate email. Scan away. It's so boring that I understand why they want to have a computer read it instead. And who knows, they might actually uncover a problem.

Obviously people will be worried about false positives. But I doubt anyone is going to take the computer's opinion as gospel. Likely, the computer will just point to a given collection of emails and suggest management read those specifically. Where upon management can decide if they have a problem or not.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[Jiro]

But I doubt anyone is going to take the computer's opinion as gospel.

I am less doubtful than you. Anything that can be measured, and that especially includes numbers spat out by a computer algorithm, is something that managers love to use regardless of whether it actually measures anything significant or, if it does, regardless of any caveats the user is supposed to consider before using it.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be a disaster. What about the real tried and true security guys. People like me that refuse to even have a slashdot or facebook account lest it be a later concern. Everything I do on someone else's dime is of the utmost quality, efficiency, and accountability that I can muster. I am never not formal 'on the clock'. An algorithm such as this would have me flying out the door merely for my applied perfectionism. Seems that it is just another way of pushing the status quo deeper into mediocrity.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[Karmashock]

I don't see how this could be used against you.

What are you thinking? That the boss will call you in and say "Tim, the computer is saying your sentence patterns might indicate deceptive behavior. Do you have something to tell me?"...

Might a stupid boss make this an issue/ Sure. But then a stupid boss is going to make something an issue no matter what. So what exactly are you losing here. Idiots will be idiots. They don't need help.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[Kittenman]

I believe this was more of an analysis. They fed thousands of time stamped memos into an algorithm. The idea was to look for differences in speech pattern or word choice in reference to the conspiracy.

Yeah, but they knew that if there was something to find, it would be there. This tends to make people look harder at innocent phrases - example "Gee, I just can't wait for the weekend". For you and me (well, me) I have things to do. For Mr Enron he has things to do. And we all know what they are ...

Feed the algorithm a hundred different strings of emails, and tell it to pick out something fishy. Betcha it doesn't find anyone who's suspect. Or it finds everyone. Or too many false positives.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[Karmashock]

Sure, the real test would be reversing the system by using the model built from this test to examine other corporate memos in companies that may or may not have corruption. If it can detect it with any degree of accuracy then it's valid. At this point, it's still very young.

They're adding this to Watson already. One of the more expensive things you can do in law is a corporate discovery procedure. It requires in some cases THOUSANDS of lawyers all sitting in a giant room reading hundreds of thousands of documents. IBM used this tactic to shut down a Federal Anti Trust suit. Basically IBM buried the US government in so much paperwork that it wasn't practical to sue them. It would take ten years of just reading these stupid documents just to have a case.

So the idea is that rather then having the lawyers read it, you feed all the documents into a super computer like Watson and all the documents are crunched. The system will have some command of the law. Some idea of what it is looking for. And it will have various algorithms designed to look for anything in the memos that is atypical... and it will cross reference everything.

This is going to be applied to everything. And it's generally a good thing. It will eliminate a great deal of the mind numbing work in many professions and make much of the information overload we're all dealing with more manageable.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is that businesses like things to be done by the book. Many people less intelligent than you are working diligently to design said book. They'll likely come to the conclusion that anything the computer flags is automatically a problem that needs to be dealt with. You know how businesses deal with problems. It's like the old saying that no one ever got fired for going with IBM products. It comes down to if the flag is there and they don't act on it, their ass is on the line whenever you go rogue and do Something Bad.

Typical HR. This has already been going on for a long time with sexual harassment complaints.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[swalve]

The point isn't the formal language, but the change in language over time.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[Jiro]

The stupid boss is likely to interpret anything the employee does through of the lens of "he's probably up to something because the computer says so" without directly confronting him over the issue.

Re:They did something like this to the Enron Execs

[nine-times]

Personally, I don't care what the company does with my corporate email. Scan away.

I agree to an extent. When I'm writing an email at work, I consider it an official communication, and I try to write it as though it might become public information. If I'm writing an email to a coworker, I might review it and ask myself, "Would it be bad if my boss and my client read this?" If then answer is yes, then I usually won't send it. Of course, I can't stick to this 100% all the time. Sometimes I end up writing some things that I wouldn't really want my clients to see, for example, but I still would hope that if they saw it, they would understand and it wouldn't be the end of the world.

I agree that one of the big problems will be false-positives. I don't doubt that someone might take the computer's opinion as gospel. People can exercise very bad judgement sometimes, especially when there's a system in place telling them what to do, and especially when you have a PHB who doesn't really know what he's doing. However, I think the bigger problem happens even before you get to your first false-positive: the psychological effects on the people who know this system is in place. I could easily see managers becoming paranoid and using this system to go over every email that with any deviation from the normal tone, and having that lead them down the rabbit hole of suspecting conspiracies everywhere. I could imagine other bosses having this system provide them with a false sense of security, where they start letting obvious security risks go intended because "hey, I have this super high-tech email scanner that will tell me if anyone is dishonest."

But even worse than that, you have to worry about the general culture of the company. If employees know they're being spied on and that they're not trusted, you could see an impact on how your employees interact with you, their coworkers, and even their clients. Company culture is a complex and subtle thing, and yet it can make an enormous difference on how a company runs. Even if your employees don't know they're being spied on, if you know you're spying on them and it changes the way you think about your employees, that could have a terrible impact on the culture.

I'm sure this kind of monitoring has its place, but I think for an awful lot of companies, it'd be more trouble than it's worth. I'd sooner advise that employers focus on their hiring habits and their company culture to make sure you're hiring good people and encouraging them to do good work.

Tit for Tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Research and simulations have shown that the optimal strategy for group behavior is Tit for Tat.

Wikileaks for the win!

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

One should always assume that emsil sent via an employer-owned device is monitored. Eemployees should not be sending non-work related emails via such devices. An employer should not expect to be able to monitor emails sent from employee-owned devices. Employee owned devices should not br brought to work, or if they are, they should only be turned on/used during breaks.

Employers should never expect employee-owed devices to be used for work-relted tasks, and employees should never use employer-owned devices for non-work related tasks

For example: I might bring my cell phone to work, but it will be turned off or left in a locker except for break times. If I need a cell phone for work, my employer will have to provide one, which they have the right to monitor the use of.

If I buy a tablet or a laptop, It will not be taken to work nor be used for work-related stuff. If I need a tablet or laptop for work, my employer will hsave to provide it. Most people do not need a laptop, tablet, or cell phone for work. A desktop computer and the company wired phone are sufficient. I will keep 100000% control of my own devices, no employer will ever have access to them nor will they ever be used for work-related tasks.

Suspicion is a dangerous thing

[anegg]

Isn't the real problem that yet another non-scientific unproven analytic tool is going to be deployed in an attempt to discern what people are really thinking? There may be lots of reasons why someone's language changes, including events in their personal lives that have no relationship to work as long as they continue to carry out their duties competently. Imagine being called to the bosses office or HR to "explain" why your behavior has changed when you may not have realized the change yourself, and it has nothing to do with work. Failure to provide a satisfactory explanation will result in greater suspicion of your intentions, especially if the system that detected your behavioral "abnormalities" was sold with the understanding that it really could spot bad eggs before they cracked.

Re:Suspicion is a dangerous thing

[joebagodonuts]

It's worse than "non scientific".

"If you start to feel differently about the company you work for and the people you work with, you'd be surprised how your language changes," says Ed Stroz, co-president at digital-risk-management firm Stroz Friedberg LLC, New York. The company, like other consulting firms such as Ernst & Young, makes technology to examine linguistics .

It's usefulness is being touted by those selling the software:

Parse error.

[SuricouRaven]

"Server three choked on the db backup again, looks like D filled, bodged a script to tidy crap from temp folder on nightly before AV, it'll buy a couple days before the new HDDs arrive. Throw the whole DB there during weekend DT. Also, don't forget it's LP on Sun - make sure to get the steam DLs first this time."

Why a mod-down? Don't u like music??

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially music that fits the topic to a tee???

APK

P.S.=> Ah yes, there's NOTHING QUITE LIKE having a "stalking/harassing/trolling" fanclub that mods down your posts, trolls you later by ac, & thinks they're "fooling everyone" on how it's done (ala moddown, logout of your "registered 'luser'" account, & troll after by AC): "Huge Trick" that, lol!

Please... oh, it even gets better!

Multiple sock-puppet account users galore are in use here too, ask tomhudson = Barbara, not Barbie, or clone52431 = clone53421 & of course, the irreplaceable (lol, cuz he has so many of these) MichaelKristopeit (with his 500++ user accounts) & more...

If anyone questions that? Look up each user name posted here. I can show quoted evidences of them doing it (especially tomhudson):

tomhudson = stalks /. posters via ac troll replies

"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal

QUOTED VERBATIM DIRECTLY FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646272&cid=32150544

"BTW - if you're going to tell this guy to stop spamming his hosts file crap, make sure you do it anonymously" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16 2011, @11:45AM (#35840680) Journal

QUOTED VERBATIM DIRECTLY FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086920&cid=35840680

---

tomhudson & crew from trolltalk.com also CHEAT THE MODERATION SYSTEM HERE, & others noted it also -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2236608&cid=36442386

"I do whatever amuses me at the moment. Sometimes that is trolling. As far as AC? I only do that to avoid undoing moderations." - by gmhowell (26755) on Wednesday April 20, @12:49AM (#35877174) Homepage

---

So - HOW do they do it?

---

Well, they mod one another up (even IF it's TOTAL bullshit they said, or for trolling). That's the easy part & HERE THE PROOF OF IT:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2212152&cid=36361542

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT from "mcgrew" (another "trolltalk.com" alternate registered 'luser' account guise these idiots keep & in this case, to upmod "webmistressrachel" when she was being destroyed by downmods):

"I just get a boatload of mod points sometimes (excellent karma) when I don't comment too prolifically. I used five or so on you, but they were comments worthy of being modded up, anyway. - by mcgrew (92797) * on Tuesday June 07 2011, @08:27AM (#36361542) Journal

QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2212152&cid=36361542

---

NOW, & I'll let one of their OWN, in "countertrolling" (obviously just another fake username they have here/another account) even say how they do the reverse (downmod others & troll them):

"...posting AC undoes mods... Not if you're logged out... " - by countertrolling (1585477) on Sunday June 19 2011, @11:56AM (#36491652) Journal

QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2245866&cid=36491652

So, in essence folks (just like the guy above noted that the "trolltalk.com" bunch's posts get upmodded wrongly?) They do the following to cheat the mod system AND to harass others:

1.) Downmod someone
2.) Logout

So who tells the Emperor...

[joebagodonuts]

he's wearing no clothes? This comes across more "covering my ass" than addressing a real need/vulnerability.

Re:So who tells the Emperor...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since child labour is forbidden, no one will tell him. :-)

Most ethics violations are by upper managment.

[Ryanrule]

So we better make sure to monitor the drones better. Why is Dilbert so correct http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WTkltRfphM

So, who runs this tech??

[Ryanrule]

'using new technology to look at the language of their IT staff's emails to determine whether their behavior or mind-set has changed,' Are you going to ask IT to run the the software that monitors IT? Sounds like a position I want.

We're Better At This

[Bob9113]

We're better at this sort of thing than management. By a lot. We're also a damned site more noble. We don't have much to fear, really. They do. Perhaps we should be using semantic analysis to discover cases of consumer fraud, tax fraud, influence trading, and misappropriation of funds.

Oh and i'm sure

[Anonymous Coward]

...they're convincing themselves that their social media inferential trackers work as advertised too.

Sometimes people make the craziest underlying assumptions.

There was a Heinlein story about this

[Anonymous Coward]

It was about engineers tasked with operating atomic piles. There was so much surveillance that they wondered if starting to shave from a different side of your face would be enough to trigger an intelligence alert.

it's not spying

[Anonymous Coward]

when i pay your salary, so STFU

That's nothing...

[Zapotek]

...my first job was as a sys-admin for a small office, the boss had me install VNC to all company machines, mainly laptops for the sales folk, office manager etc. He would actually monitor them himself from time to time (while his office was 4m away).

I protested but my warnings went unheeded, of course for some weird reason VNC "didn't work" on my machine. ;)
It goes without saying that I got the hell out of there first chance I got and everyone else slowly followed.

My boss is a big f*cking asshole!

[PPH]

My boss is a huge f*cking asshole!

Alert: Subject has altered adjective. Suggest further surveillance.

The Counter-ware

[Anonymous Coward]

The Countermeasures wear against this could really up the ante. If the Idiots Accidentally Placed In Charge are stupid enough to think they can outsmart their IT staff doing this, then Whoohooo!! Game Onnnnnn!! You could pump so much FUD up the pipe into their tiny craven little plastic minds that... man, this opens a vector for possibly hacking a corporation from the INSIDE.

I remember when my big brother watched IT

[Anonymous Coward]

He gained a strange obsession with that clown.

Change in Pattern is Suspicious?

[The Wild Norseman]

Thank god that I always begin my emails with, "dear fucksack".

Why don't they just hire teams of psychics, then?

[Gimbal]

...or, alternately, they could try to hire some managers who could actually connect with their staff, earn their respect and trust, and garner honest points of view from the staff. If their staff are really communicating, they shouldn't need to use third party systems for analyzing the language in their communication.

I simply hope that the executives at those companies may consider whether the novelty of such systems makes it worth their cost, in comparison to more traditional means for getting to know the staff's actual point of view.

Re:JUDAS PRIEST (4 my fellow IT/IS/MIS folks)

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you're quite mad actually. Unfortunately, it's in a *really* boring way.

Very easy work around

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't use your work computer for personal reasons. Ever.

Uh oh....

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh oh.....

this works until everyone adapts to it

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the well runs dry. All this does is habituate people to the idea that they must present a facade when online, which it turn only causes these approaches to be worse than useless, with false negatives everywhere.....

Re:Why don't they just hire teams of psychics, the

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, some US federal agencies have... the GSA for one. ;-)

Why I don't give out my work email to family and..

[Anonymous Coward]

friends. As someone who has 10 years of IT Operations experience with 5 years being IT Security experience. I can tell you one rule I live hard and fast by, I do not use my work email for anything related to family matters. After the things I have seen with divorces, relationship arguments, bankruptcies, etc. I do not put anything that deals with my personal life on my work system. If I want to communicate with friends and family I use my smartphone.

The only "personal" things I do from my work system is the occasional shopping at Amazon or reading favorite sites.

Simple, keep home and personal issues off of company assets, not that hard.

P.S. On more than one occasion I have had to restore an employee's email due to court order because of nasty divorces, criminal investigations, etc.

my emails tend to be long

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not very good at being brief and concise so my emails tend to be really long .Managers have said they would like me to be more brief. So I wonder if I improve my emails and make them more concise, whether I will be flagged as being crazy and fired as a security threat. The WSJ article mentioned by Ernst and Young and HHS. I recently did IT work for HHS and Ernst and Young were hired to come in and do security audits. It was a bout of 23-24 years olds fresh out of college who read from a script. The HHS federal employees tried to do what they said just because they said it. When I tried to say we should think about a security policy that actually protects data, no one was the least bit interested. They just didn't want to give the 24 year olds reading from a script something they can use to point fingers at them. It was a total waste of my tax money. I am glad I did not send an email saying that because then I might be flagged as being disgruntled and fired as a security threat. Ernst and Young is selling garbage. If you want a security audit, do not hire them.

I work with data, so I have alot of security rules on me. Some of them are good ideas, many are just there because well its written somewhere. I have asked how does this protect security and I get a blank stare. This has happened on several jobs sites in the public and private sector. The idea is to follow the rules so you can go 'not my fault' instead of what is a good idea.

I guess turnabout is fair play...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess turnabout is fair play.

Keywords for high-level positions

[phorm]

Maybe for an "upper level" filter, it should scan for the use of the word "muppets" in emails...

Just one question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whose going to implement this solution for them?

What confuses me

[doston]

Here are some simple, but often overlooked facts: 1) The tyrannical corporation you work for is completely fascist. There's not even the pretense of bothering to hide that from you and there never has been. 2) Your company tells you they'll monitor your communications on their network, in no uncertain terms. 3) You allow "right to work" (aka right to get fired for no reason) laws to pass in your state. 4) You bitch about the SIZE of government constantly (you know, the only thing that can regulate your fascist, tyrannical company) 5) You hate unions and think they have no place in the modern world (they're only responsible for every benefit you've ever had from working) 6) Without protest you allowed corporations to achieve "personhood", without so much as a pitchfork or torch showing up at the supreme court. And NOW you take issue with how they'll collate some data?

secret monitoring legal in US?

[pantaril]

Is secretly spying on and linguistically interpreting employee emails going too far in the name of security?

Secret monitoring of employee's comunication isn't illegal in the US?
Here in Czech rep., company can monitor it's employees but it has to publicly declare what exactly is going to be monitored and some things like personal emails (yes personal emails on work computer) cannot be monitored at all.

Breach of Privacy

[samuel-seo]

This is like Breach of Privacy being made legal.

Security guards

[minstrelmike]

The security guards at our building look folks in the face each day to see if they're having a bad day or not.
One of the things that would tremendously improve security but is totally against privacy is to have each worker inform the building when they are breaking up with a girlfriend/boyfriend or filing for divorce. Most of the workplace shootings are over mundane crap like that. Of course, Big Brother isn't actually interested in _workplace_ security, just profit security.