benjaminwright
Facebook Records
Update: I have published fresh ideas on how to record Facebook messages when employees use them for official company or government business. Social networks are becoming a more commonly-accepted tool of commerce.
They are also the source of many records needed for lawsuits, investigations and conflict resolution. http://www.google.com/sidewiki/entry/benwright214/id/lr8I0ChURBgd6x6HWKssukeRgWo
–Ben
Selective Internet Blocking as Employment Policy and Warning
Twitter can be a distraction in the workplace. Oprah, who boasts almost a million followers on Twitter, caused mob scenes at KFC stores by tweeting about a free chicken coupon download-able from her web site. News spread as other Twitter authors repeated the message.
To be sure: much of the Twitter traffic and downloading attending to this stampede happened in the workplace, on office computers. What a waste of employee time. What a tax on business computers. What a threat to security.
As Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and other social media swarm the workplace, they’re almost impossible to block entirely. The channels of communication (web pages, widgets, instant message and more) are too numerous.
Update: A large percentage (24%!) of all Twitter Tweets are generated by robots (“bots”), not individual people, which suggests Twitter contains a lot of junk and spam.
So should management surrender control of company networks? No.
Selective blocking is a strategy. Selective blocking can remind employees that they are expected to be responsible adults. For example, here is a screen that Cyberpatrol could produce when employees visit web sites like Twitter or Facebook:
(Note: I created the custom message to employees by editing the html in one of the blocking screens available in Cyberpatrol. )
A screen like this cautions employees that social networking at work is a bad idea. Will it stamp out wasteful e-chat in all of its forms? No. But it does respectfully display management’s concern and authority. It reinforces an employee acceptable use policy. And it hints that management may be able to monitor what an employee is doing on company computers.
–Ben Wright
At the SANS Institute Mr. Wright teaches IT administrators how to avoid going to jail.
Internet Files Can Corroborate Sexual Harassment Claims
A new privacy feature in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 may foster more viewing of pornography in the workplace. It should heighten the incentive for employers to actively block Web porn sites.
Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser. Forthcoming version 8 includes a so-called InPrivate mode, where browsing history is not retained and temporary Internet files are deleted upon completion of the browser session. With the advent of InPrivate mode, some employees may be lulled into a false sense of seclusion at their desks and may succumb to temptation to peek at porn.
Legally speaking, pornography is very dangerous in the workplace, as it can be evidence of a hostile work environment. Although InPrivate mode may make access to that evidence – in the form of retained files on a PC hard drive — more difficult, the digital evidence may still be recoverable. Forensics experts have demonstrated that they can (with effort) still reconstruct browsing history when InPrivate mode is engaged.
Further, evidence of World Wide Web pornography on the job need not come just from digital records. It can come from, say, Employee #1 testifying that he/she witnessed pornography on the monitor of Employee #2.
Some observers are recommending that employers to disable InPrivate mode. But disabling is difficult, and it addresses the problem only indirectly. The more direct and complete approach is to use software to block access to adult sites.
–Ben Wright
At the SANS Institute, Mr. Wright teaches IT administrators how to stay out of jail.
Abuse by Patrons of Library, Church or Internet Café?
E-pornography is dangerous for any organization that provides others with openly-visible access to the Internet. The organization’s employees might claim hostile work environment. Just as employees can complain about the viewing habits of co-workers, they might complain about the habits of guests and patrons.
Guests and students at libraries, schools and churches (places with shared computers) can indeed endanger those organizations by accessing objectionable material. For example, librarians at the Minneapolis Public Library complained that their rights were violated when patrons used library computers to view porn. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agreed. Then, after the employees sued in court, the Library settled, reportedly agreeing to pay employees $435,000 and agreeing to take steps, including possibly technical filters, to reduce the potential that librarians would be exposed to porn on account of activities by patrons.
Can’t an organization protect itself Read the rest of this entry »
