Scanner snares senior servant A Federal public servant in Australia's Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism has learned the hard way that a policy against using departmental computers to access pornography goes home with the laptop. In a ruling handed down on Monday (January 31), the Federal Court of Australia has dismissed the 25-year public servant …
Having grown up in the UK countryside where every house worthy of the name mansion boasted a custom-cast 'knocker' from Gomme's Forge, Loosley Row near Princes Risborough (UK) so I did a Google and surprise, right at the top were pictures of female apertances.
At least my naivete was countered when I found door knockers at positions 4 and 7 (A hinged fixture, such as a metal ring or bar, used for knocking on a door).
What's wrong with the word 'breasts'?
of course it was avoidable, the answer being to use your own computer for looking at porn and your works computer for work.
The software used in this case includes key logging, and also is installed on the laptop so encryption is useless since the software has access to the unencrypted info.
In any case it's trivial for an employer to be a man in the middle as they can very easily set up their own CA which signs certs for websites on the fly. The root cert can be pushed out over AD.
1. Being a work laptop, it's probably using IE
2. HTTPS-Everywhere will encrypt the connections. It won't stop the logging of the addresses or the logging of what content is actually displayed in the browser, and stored in the browsers cache.
Point is - he shouldn't have been using hiw WORK laptop for what he was doing!
I'm a federal public servant in Australia (hence posting anonymously) and I'm very surprised to hear that a 25 year old is in the Senior Executive Service. Almost all people in the SES only received their promotions to that level after the age of 35 at the very least. Is the journalist absolutely sure that he's got the age right?
"The program, which takes a snapshot of a user's desktop every 30 seconds, was then used to unearth the internet history of the man with a 25-year career with the public service. It uncovered his usage even though he had deleted his browser history."
From Sydney Morning Herald (I just googled the department and looked at news)
I must admit I did read the whole article, but did he then go on to click any naughty links? If he simply looked up "knockers" then looked at DIY stores, then he has a case for unfair dismissal I assume.
I would have hoped even in this case the company would have looked at the whole trail, from sending the search term to the number and type of further links clicked.
Work policies are in place for a reason, they are to protect the company or organisation's reputation. Silly example, you work a well known company, surf a little bit of the naughty stuff during your lunch break. The owners of the naughty site then spot the IP, reverse lookup then decide to call up the company HR dept to report that one of their employees is looking up porn on the website and unless the company coughs up some money, they will take it to the papers. Bloody stupid example, but possible I suppose. I have worked in companies where employees have done something stupid, caused others from outside the company to make threats against other employees, Police are called in and the original employees are sacked, to ensure the company protects it's reputation and the safety of its existing employees.
Most companies are OK with a bit of personal surfing to online stores, eBay, even maybe a little Facebook if that's your bag, just to in the name of keeping employees happy and being fair, but looking up porn? If your company is stupid enough to not have a web filter at the gate, like Websense for example, then you need to keep your nose clean and use some common.
Don't use your works computer for viewing anything dodgy. I'm amazed there's even an argument about this. It doesn't matter where you are and it's not about "Big Brother" - it's your employers computer and the use of it comes under their rules.
What next - bank robber unfairly fired for using works van in heist?
"..bank robber unfairly fired for using works van in heist.."
Wouldn't be unfair - heists are inherently illegal.
"Worker unfairly fired for using works van to pop to the newsagents for a lad's mag" would be a closer analogy, and of course the fairness would be questionable - by some, at least.
Surprised no one has suggested it already, but this could have been avoided:
1) buy a USB pendrive, around 4GB would be sufficient (maybe larger if you've planning for a mild to unhealthy internet addition),
2) point your employer's Spyware 360 TM infested browser here: http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download
3) click "download", and while waiting for it to arrive, click the 'USB stick' and 'Windows' options and follow the simple instructions.
5 minutes later and the bosses spyware is safely confined to machine's hard drive which you'll never need to mount outside of the office again. Better still, the pendrive stays with you and will work just as well in the laptop your next employer gives you! Now that's beautiful.
"links to such material."
If downloading a link to "such material" is a sackeble offence, it's just a matter of time before the inevitable happens and some "link to such material" appears during a browsing session.
If they keep tabs of anything done on these entrapment laptops, they can use it as leverage against any employee in the future.
It might be trivial for us enlightened Reg readers to avoid such arsery, but your average office bod wouldn't stand a chance.
Fuck that. Fuck them! Australia: You suck.
The idea that someone could take home a substantial piece of company supplied hardware and get the idea it was his to play with as he liked is pretty stupid when you think about it (unless you're a sales rep with a company car).
No one would think about doing this with a dumb terminal.
I'm quite impressed this department takes its access control so seriously (a lesson the UK civil service could learn from. The House of Commons, MoD and NHS in particular come to mind). Although you have to wonder weather they'd have come down so hard on a more senior staff member.
As for company installed spyware I don't think most people have *ever* felt it's benign. Understandable and sensible perhaps. I'd say it's more about how much staff would trust management with such information.
Fail because given he knew the PC was not his and he knew it had monitoring software on it he still *did* it.
Australia: where the kind of (legal) porn you fancy can get you in trouble.
My image of Australia could hardly be any worse. With a censored Internet, greedy politicians that blacklist far more than just porn, and now this, it reeks of puritanism so much I would think twice before even visiting as a tourist.
There's a subtext to this story.
Even in the world of penpushers, it's surprising that a valuable and long-serving employee would be sacked for browsing "mild pornography". An unofficial warning or an official reprimand would be more proportionate.
It looks as if they were on the lookout for a pretext to get rid of him - either for valid reasons or through vicious office politics. I've worked in an IT department that was occasionally asked to check login and door pass records to help build up a dismissal case against an employee.
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