Privacy in the workplace

[Horace Greeley]

List,

Ron, wrote:

At 12:05 PM 9/16/1998 -0400, you wrote:
>On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Don wrote:
>
>> Hi Ron,
>> 
>> Well the entire public school system here has a puter with internet access
>> in *every* room of every school...and they track it. Every blessed spot!
>
>There *is* software that does this (I'm thinking NetNanny and the like.).
>I just don't see that kind of BigBrother stuff going on in a university
>community where you have thousands -- maybe hundreds of thousands -- of
>computers on the system.  In a public school system, I can see that.  Not
>at a major university, though.
>

Actually, on several of the admin. lists to which I subscribe, this is a
relatively common topic.  What to buy, how to set it up, how closely
to advertised does it work, etc.  The folks exchanging this data are the
folks working for Fortune 50, 100, 500, etc., companies - places with
the thousands of computers of which you speak.  Yes, some places, big
ones, do monitor/record web hits, email, list subscriptions, various
aspects of logon history (time on/off, duration, etc.).  In some places,
this information is even used as a part of personnel performance
appraisal.

At Stanford, the Provost has been actively seeking ways to implement
such a system without causing a civil rights uproar.  The jury is still
out.  

Even if you believe your employer to be basically benign, they probably
have some kind of system of which you have no knowledge.  Our systems
group discovered the "backup" email system completely by accident.
Surprise!  We were not amused, I am the only member who still uses 
University connections for their ISP.

Our Ford is alive and well.

Best.

Horace


Horace Greeley, CNA, MCP, RPT

Systems Analyst/Engineer
Controller's Office
Stanford University

email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu
voice mail: 650.725.9062
fax: 650.725.8014