Being monitored at work (bit off topic)

Sorry, I know that this is not really Cisco related per-se but this is where I've posted for help on the CCENT and CCNA.

I work at a call center where they are able to monitor our screens remotely using UDP port 1400. Using "netststat -a 1" I can constantly monitor all open ports on my XP Pro machine. However, because it's UDP it doesn't display when there's an open connection. Is there another way to tell when port 1400 UDP has a connection established?

Thanks!

Fearon CCENT, A+

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Comments

phreak

Is there a reason why you want to know this?

It is the employers right to monitor employees. Users should not be looking to circumvent management.

phantasm

phreak wrote:

Is there a reason why you want to know this?

It is the employers right to monitor employees. Users should not be looking to circumvent management.

Circumventing any security measure at the office is a sure fire way to get shown the door.

EdTheLad

Less of the moral high ground, the guy is asking how is can see when someone is monitoring his pc, fair enough question if you ask me.Nowhere in his question has he mentioned blocking this port or does he complain about management.Anyway i have no idea how to tell if this udp port is active, prob best to ask this question in the xp forum.Are you planning on looking at **** during work?

whats with the xxxxxxx, xxx would have done!

sprkymrk

Have you tried

netstat -anb -p UDP

Then you can tack on a number in seconds for the interval refresh, such as

netstat -anb -p UDP 30

Keep in mind that if they are monitoring your screen, they'll see you trying to see them.

Oh, and you could try the -s for statistics too. It may give you a clue as to how much they are watching you.

thefear78

Thanks for the tips!

BTW I'm not looking for a debate but I don't think anyone has anymore right to monitor me on a computer than to monitor me in my shower stall.

If I'm not violating their corporate policy, installing my own apps and so forth what harm is there?

My boss did ask me what I was doing at the dos box with a puzzled look once and said I could get in trouble. I told him if his supervisors did not understand the command line and wanted point and click employees they probably should not be working in telecommunications.

I think he agreed with me.

KGhaleon

Sounds like your asking to get fired. They don't need a reason to fire you these days. They'll just include you when they need to lay off employees.

Turgon

thefear78 wrote:

Thanks for the tips!

BTW I'm not looking for a debate but I don't think anyone has anymore right to monitor me on a computer than to monitor me in my shower stall.

If I'm not violating their corporate policy, installing my own apps and so forth what harm is there?

My boss did ask me what I was doing at the dos box with a puzzled look once and said I could get in trouble. I told him if his supervisors did not understand the command line and wanted point and click employees they probably should not be working in telecommunications.

I think he agreed with me.

I think you will find in the corporate policy they have every right to monitor use of corporate equipment. You would probably be advised to stop poking around and be sure you have your supervisors permission to do whatever you are doing on the company network on works time.

thefear78

KGhaleon wrote:

Sounds like your asking to get fired. They don't need a reason to fire you these days. They'll just include you when they need to lay off employees.

Yeah, that's cool too. I find jobs easily and alot better paying than this one. They don't even provide you with a reference from this job. Part of selling out and following "corporate policy" to the bitter end. We have to reccomend people use online payment and so forth thus killing our own jobs off anyways. Corporate policies=big joke for dummies.

seuss_ssues

thefear78 wrote:

KGhaleon wrote:

Sounds like your asking to get fired. They don't need a reason to fire you these days. They'll just include you when they need to lay off employees.

Yeah, that's cool too. I find jobs easily and alot better paying than this one. They don't even provide you with a reference from this job. Part of selling out and following "corporate policy" to the bitter end. We have to reccomend people use online payment and so forth thus killing our own jobs off anyways. Corporate policies=big joke for dummies.

If you can get better paying jobs so easily and you feel they are violating your privacy (which they arent) then why dont you leave? Additionally how well do you think your company would operate without its Corporate Policies in place? Sure you may not agree with them all but they do serve an important purpose.

brad-

KGhaleon wrote:

Sounds like your asking to get fired.

Signed.

thefear78

I do get alot of satisfaction at times out of my job. In such cases as helping credit Widows and college students in cases where they are getting f**ked by receiving invoices with hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of GPRS/UMTS charges. Nobody will help them because they are too scared of "corporate policy".

To bad they didn't even know their fone had the internet on it and their thirteen year old thought it must be free hey? Alot of these people are distraught, facing collection agencies and so forth for data charges that wouldn't equal a shitty DOS game or full album. I'm proud to say that I disobeyed "corporate policy" and put my ass on the line for these people.

I believe as networkers we have a responsibility to our own concience and what's right before we even think of "corporate policy". As networkers we can play a pivotal roll against internet censorship and legal bullying. We can raise awarness about the ILLEGAL spying by governments on it's own citizens and their marriage to big telecom. How the people's privacy does not really equal jack sh*t compared to corporate/government patsies.

These are just my own feelings. You may not agree with them but I can garuntee you that if it was you or your family in trouble or had been ripped off you would rather be dealing with a human being than a "corporate policy" robot.

EdTheLad

whats a fone?

sprkymrk

thefear78 wrote:

These are just my own feelings. You may not agree with them but I can garuntee you that if it was you or your family in trouble or had been ripped off you would rather be dealing with a human being than a "corporate policy" robot.

Well that's true. But what does that have to do with your company's RIGHT to monitor what you do on THEIR computer equipment while you are supposed to be WORKING because they are PAYING you?

I also dislike intrusive monitoring, but if you worked for me I'd like to at least know you are earning your money and not surfing/emailing all day. If I only had a few employees it would be easy to tell who is working or goofing off, but when you have several dozen/hundred/more that's when the only way to know is to monitor what they do on a random basis.

seuss_ssues

thefear78 wrote:

I believe as networkers we have a responsibility to our own concience and what's right before we even think of "corporate policy". As networkers we can play a pivotal roll against internet censorship and legal bullying. We can raise awarness about the ILLEGAL spying by governments on it's own citizens and their marriage to big telecom. How the people's privacy does not really equal jack sh*t compared to corporate/government patsies.

These are just my own feelings. You may not agree with them but I can garuntee you that if it was you or your family in trouble or had been ripped off you would rather be dealing with a human being than a "corporate policy" robot.

sed s/networkers/politicians

There i think i fixed that.

boyles23

This topic has taken on some life! At our place, I monitor phone usage, there is no internet on the internal LAN (only one pc, which users must have permission to use), no internal email and external drives and ports are disabled. All emails are saved as messages and approved by management, then they are physically carrried to a machine with internet capabilities.

It all has a purpose, you either do what your job asks of you or go do something else.

Sie

I agree sometimes it can feel like an invasion of privacy but then again if your doing nothing wrong then whats the problem?

The company protecting it assets (Employees ,Resources and Data) is not uncommon and is acceptable in my opinion. If you worked in a factory you would have a floor manager who went round and checked you were working etc, but its not that easy to see on a computer so they have to do it the way they do.

If you dont like it get out and find something else, if you like it then stop moaning and keep at it. End of the day they pay your wages and you do what they want for just that reason!

sprkymrk

Sie wrote:

I agree sometimes it can feel like an invasion of privacy but then again if your doing nothing wrong then whats the problem?

Be careful, that's what Uncle Sam wants you to think too.

I just hope "Uncle Sam" doesn't get replaced by "Aunt Hillary"...

Claymoore

I bet your company has a logon banner legal notice that you must accept before you log on to their systems. That, or they have a handbook or form you must sign where you consent to be monitored while you use their systems. If not, then they really should.

United States Law is based on British Common Law, and one of the differences between Common Law and statutory law is that every ruling doesn't have to be bound by a specific law and can rely on precedence created by earlier decisions of other judges. One of those precedences that has existed for centuries oringially came from cattle grazing rights in Great Britain and is that 'if I don't tell you that you can't do something, then you can do it'. This is why property owners have signs saying 'no trespassing' or 'no hunting' - otherwise hunting or tresspassing would be allowed. The same holds true with computer systems so we use logon banners to let people know that the systems are for authorized use only and we will monitor the systems to ensure compliance - otherwise hacking my network could be legal. I say 'could' because the judge could take other rulings into account when he makes his decision.

The legal notices on workstations or motd banners on routers usually state the penalties associated with violating the policy - something along the lines up 'up to and including termination' or 'fullest extent of the law'. Since you must accept the legal notice before you log on, you agree to be monitored and you agree to be fired or charged if you violate their policies. Prior to Service Pack 2 on Windows 2000, you could get around the legal notice by waiting 10 minutes. This was probably done to still allow systems to auto logon, but it created a loophole by not requiring you to explicitly accept the policy by clicking OK. I have a few systems on my network that must auto-logon in order to perform their assigned tasks. These systems lie in a separate OU that does not have a legal notice defined in group policy.

We had three incidents in the past year where our workstaion legal notice was cited when dealing with employees who broke the rules. I can't tell you exactly what happened in each case, but our legal notice held up.

As for privacy, there is no actual 'right to privacy' defined in the constitution, rather it is an interpretation of other amendments. The 4th Amendment covers illegal search and seizure and the Wiki article has a section on workplace privacy at the bottom of the article. The Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment is also used in 'right to privacy' cases like Griswold V Connecticut. However, all privacy cases key on an 'expected right to privacy' idea. If you consent to be monitored by clicking Ok on the legal notice, then you cannot expect privacy.

mgeorge

sprkymrk wrote:

I just hope "Uncle Sam" doesn't get replaced by "Aunt Hillary"...

I concour