When Internet usage gets in the way of work.

I have a user who is ranked 2nd under the email server for bandwidth used. 3rd, 4th, 5th places are all held by servers. I heard some people complaining today about his lack of productivity. His usage came to my attention when I was sniffing the network for issues related to a virus that was sending out spam.

What would you guys do?

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Comments

shodown

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I did not turn him in. I did a little more digging and found out the bandwidth was due to Pandora. The previous admin granted access through the content filter to visitors via their IP address (in the dynamic range) and forgetting to revoke it after they left. Evidently he ended up with one of the open IPs and was listening to music.

Glad it worked out due to your dillegnce. He wasn't really doing anything wrong.

Well I hope you learned a new way to see what people are really up 2. Also in the future I wouldn't turn anyone in without a warning. Doing things to get people fired will make you enemys fast and the last thing you want is people gunning for you.

In the future when people see things like this happening its best to talk to them 1st and if they don't comply, let your manager deal with it. Thats what there jobs is. Stay out of it, this comes from being a worker and being in superviosry positions in the military. There is nothing worse than someone reporting a problem without talking to that person 1st.

networker050184

dave0212 wrote: »

I thought this was standard across all companies as a basic security practice. Every company I have worked for enforces this, they are a little more lenient during lunch hours but no external mail is allowed at any time.

I'd hate to work at any of the companies you have. No sort of trust in employees to do the right thing. That can't breed a good work culture.

Of course when you are on the network staff there are ways to route your traffic around any filtering or monitoring devices

skrpune

networker050184 wrote: »

I'd hate to work at any of the companies you have. No sort of trust in employees to do the right thing. That can't breed a good work culture.

Of course when you are on the network staff there are ways to route your traffic around any filtering or monitoring devices

I don't think it's a lack of trust, but in most cases more a lack of the employees understanding what it really means to have unlimited internet access at work. Most people don't understand that improper usage can open up the network to some major dangers...if everyone was able to use their work network & computers the same way they do their own, then there'd be infections out the wazoo and/or little actual work being done.

wd40

skrpune wrote: »

I don't think it's a lack of trust, but in most cases more a lack of the employees understanding what it really means to have unlimited internet access at work. Most people don't understand that improper usage can open up the network to some major dangers...if everyone was able to use their work network & computers the same way they do their own, then there'd be infections out the wazoo and/or little actual work being done.

+ It can get you in trouble with external auditors.

dynamik

I will definitely write you up for not implementing proper filtering.

stephens316

#1 Security concern for all is not the hacker that may try to get in, but USERS of the network itself