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can my employer see what web sites I visit
- Thread starter iphonehead
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No, the responses have been VERY helpful. In multiple ways, you've been told: an employer who owns the device and owns the network you view your inappropriate material on could very well find out, and take action. Some organizations have the right ratio of IT people to other employees that they can doggedly seek out people who do this, very quickly. Others will store the data, and run searches on it later. Still others don't want to know and don't care, but they might be forced to if you bring attention to yourself... and THEN they'll do their investigation. Just because you're not caught right away doesn't mean you won't ever be caught.
It has nothing do with moralizing: if you surf porn at work, even in a "moment of weakness," then there could be consequences and you need to be prepared to face them. It's your boss's morals you need to be worried about, not ours.
Only if you are connected to the work network.
If its a work phone then you may have something deployed on the device which my report back.
I would assume there is no privacy on a work issued device. Whether it is a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or whatever.
Depending on the company you work for, the technology exists to track capture all activity on the device. This means all software and all network activity including location of the device. I would look at any agreements to allow you to have the mobile phone and or company policies for your company. But all of this is standard corporate policy.
I work for a fortune 50 financial company. My work issued iphone will only connect to company WiFi networks.
The phone is encrypted and all activity is tracked and monitored. Including things like texts and pictures, emails, calls. Everything is tracked...there is no privacy on a work related device that they supply. In this world of data breaches and hacks it is the company's best interest to lock and track all activity on company issued devices.
Well thats a start. Just don't connect to the works wifi and send traffic over it and you should be fine.
Exactly. Lots of stuff deployed to prevent data breaches even if its your phone. If you bring it to work and want work email etc going through it expect them to have that locked down.
Yes - and likely even legally! Avoid all that tempting donkey-human interaction media. At least, until you're at home on your own computer with your own interweb connection.
What if it's my personal computer at home, I forget to disconnect from the work vpn and start doing personal things?...
I almost don't want to ask what part of what you replied to came up in your search. However, yes, if you connect to your work vpn, they can track you. Don't do that.
Yes - and likely even legally! Avoid all that tempting donkey-human interaction media. At least, until you're at home on your own computer with your own interweb connection.
My concern is about staying connected to my work vpn while on my home WiFi and downloading a nude my gf sent me. Can they see the image if it was downloaded while I was connected to their vpn? Can they see my browsing history? Can I erase all traces with east tec software?
There are 140 employers in the company but only 20 employees in the offices. We build cabinets.
Don't stay connected to your work Wifi, unless you are doing work tasks on the computer. Do not use a work VPN for any personal use. The company can, if so desired, audit any and all traffic through their VPN service.
Ok and the traffic stays visible forever or it gets deleted after a while? I assume it would take up a lot of space if they kept it forever...
It depends on the company. Do what you are supposed to do, and you won't have to worry. If your girlfriend wants to send you a naked selfie, there are plenty of other ways, besides company equipment. Don't put yourself at risk of getting fired.
The computer belongs to me, I paid for it, it doesn’t belong to the company, I just forgot to disconnect from their vpn and downloaded the pic. I read that they can only monitor my files and web searches if they give me the computer. I really don’t like the fact that they have access to that pic forever (will it be flushed one day...),I’m pretty explosive so it’s eating me up. Thanks in advance.
Likely you will have had sight of your company policy for using their VPN before you first accessed it. What does it say ? Who owns the computer etc is an irrelevance, it’s the policy relating to the use of their resources that matter. As has been said many times if you do private stuff don’t use company resources.
I don't feel that my company needs to know what sites I visit during my breaks, even though they are "clean" sites. Which is a factor in my using ATT vs Verizon (until last week, I sat in a bad Verizon spot in my building, so I'm on ATT Prepaid rather than Verizon Prepaid). Use of the company Wi-Fi would have been a workaround, but the company doesn't need to know I go to sites like macrumors.com
And I vaguely recall, though it might have been my previous company, they didn't allow VPNs to bypass their system. I think even encrypted access to personal email was blocked unless a company certificate was installed.
And I vaguely recall, though it might have been my previous company, they didn't allow VPNs to bypass their system. I think even encrypted access to personal email was blocked unless a company certificate was installed.
Simply put, everything that you get when connected to the VPN has gone through their systems first, in simple terms, they are downloading the data on their computers first and then send it back to you.
-_- so the pic is there, can I fish it out and delete it? Can you answer me on how long it will stay there, don’t they flush things out after a while? It can slow down their network if they keep everything forever.
I’m new at the company, what if they’re curious, I just received vpn access, they might want to see what I do. I was given access last week and downloaded the pic Friday, I’m new to this vpn stuff, it’s my first time using it and I forgot to disconnect. I can’t work at a company if I know the bosses and IT department saw my girlfriend naked. That’s just enraging. My stocks are doing fine, fk them anyways, hopefully I can retire young
-_- so the pic is there, can I fish it out and delete it? Can you answer me on how long it will stay there, don’t they flush things out after a while? It can slow down their network if they keep everything forever.
I’m new at the company, what if they’re curious, I just received vpn access, they might want to see what I do. I was given access last week and downloaded the pic Friday, I’m new to this vpn stuff, it’s my first time using it and I forgot to disconnect. I can’t work at a company if I know the bosses and IT department saw my girlfriend naked. That’s just enraging. My stocks are doing fine, fk them anyways, hopefully I can retire young
It’s a little unusual to provide VPN access to computers not owned by the company. Is it Citrix or some other virtual desktop?
It’s very unlikely they’ve bothered to save any actual data unless you’ve given reason to do so. What would be more common is logs showing your VPN sessions and destinations within the network and through proxies.
You probably need to get over this if your girl likes to send nudes but I doubt your employer is part of her audience.
ONE MILLION TIMES this.
Plus, even if his PC were to be the target of an investigation, it is highly unlikely that the targeted searches would find a nude picture. And even if it did come up, it would be the dumbest decision in the history of the world for the company to do anything with it but to discard it immediately.
You should be worried if ANY ONLY IF you're violating company policy or engaging in illegal activity while on their VPN.
As with my equipment at work. If any users is on the physical network or VPN'd in.
It will track absolutely ever single website the user goes to, the computer used, the user logged in, amount of time spent on each webpage visited, IP address, Mac ID, manufacturer, 1st time seen, current time, last time logged in. A nice amount of data collected.
It really doesn't matter if it is your personal device, it is utilizing company resources to do whatever it is.
As long as you specifically don't make a stink of it. I'd say you are fine, if one started a conversation such as "hey I was on the company VPN and I think whatever I do on my own computer is my business" this may lead down a slope you don't particularly want to be on.
Now there are certain messaging systems that can and will archive communication and attachments sent.
We have no way to know what they do with the data. Storage in enterprise environments these days is virtually unlimited, so that's unlikely to be a problem for them.-_- so the pic is there, can I fish it out and delete it? Can you answer me on how long it will stay there, don’t they flush things out after a while? It can slow down their network if they keep everything forever.
I’m new at the company, what if they’re curious, I just received vpn access, they might want to see what I do. I was given access last week and downloaded the pic Friday, I’m new to this vpn stuff, it’s my first time using it and I forgot to disconnect. I can’t work at a company if I know the bosses and IT department saw my girlfriend naked. That’s just enraging. My stocks are doing fine, fk them anyways, hopefully I can retire young
Each organization has its own implementations and policies. We can't tell what they do, what they filter and what they store.
Just forget about it and don't do it again.
But why haven’t you guys answered me on how long it stays stored? I asked many times but never received an answer....
How long does the data stay stored stored? I can live with the fact that it’s there if it’ll be flushed soon. That’s all I need to know now.
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I asked this question and your reply came in moments later. Thanks, I guess :/. They don’t even have legit autocad licenses, they’re programs always crash and everything is slow. I don’t think they have that much storage, they must flush it pretty often.