This may not apply in your specific case, but a few studies make the case that lots of people are basically addicted to cyber porn. If you find it difficult not to visit these sites, consider seeing a therapist. Treatment is usually quite effective. (Sometimes, this behavior is symptomatic of an underlying issue–something quite unrelated to the porn itself.)
Nothing is worth sacrificing your job, reputation, and family name. Imagine trying to get a job reference from the employer that fired you for dialing up porn sites.
Where I work, the firewall guys key huge logs, but don’t go fishing for anything. If a complaint made about an employee, or if something turns up by accident, then they go back and look at the logs and see if this is just an isolated incedent, or if there a lot of instances. There are, however, filter set up to catch things like kiddie porn, bomb makeing stuff, hate crime stuff. anything like that sets off an alarm and they investigate it immediately.
Don’t do this. Our company is downsizing and I am the internet admin. I recently had to pull all the files of sites visited, come in and go thru each computer hooked up to the internet on a case by case bases…We had a lot of changes. We lost 3 managers. One hourly employee got fired, and 3 more a level two right up.
WE NEVER did this before. If you work I bet you signed some kind of disclaimer for email or internet. Our says “You must use internet and email ONLY for company business. You have NO expectation of privacy.”
It goes on to say that all internet and email correspondence MUST be done thru company networks. I had to go take off all modems and inform anyone not to send emails thru hotmail or yahoo.
They were looking to cut people and these people gave them more than enuff reason to do, and now they don’t have to pay unemployment.
So see even surfin off of company time can get you canned.
I bet Markxxx’s boss is one of those BOFH that wears that Tshirt that says “I read your email.”
I know some companies (like Sun) that considers attaching a modem to an office PC as grounds for immediate termination. One modem will make a firewall completely useless. And it makes it impossible to track if someone is sending corporate data to a competitor.
Anyway, this reminds me of a battle I had with an old employer. My boss was a real asshole, one day he caught me playing Solitaire on the computer while I was on hold on the phone and bitched me out. I said that waiting on hold was boring, so I had to amuse myself somehow. He said if I could play solitaire while on hold, I could be doing some useful work while I was on hold. So he completely banished solitaire during working hours of 9 to 5. I used to work long after 5PM, but just to make my point, I completely ceased all work at 5:00 precisely and played Solitaire until the boss noticed me. This was usually about 5:05, he’d bitch me out again, and I’d point out it was after 5PM, I was on my own time, then I’d leave the office. Then he banished Solitaire completely. So I just kept leaving at 5PM instead of staying to my usual quitting time of 6:30. So in order to save maybe 5 minutes of semi-wasted time per day, the boss irritated an employee and it cost him an extra 90 minutes a day of free labor (I was on a salary).
Companies have to learn that people are not interchangable parts in some big machine. They have lives, and the need for amusement (ESPECIALLY when you work in an oppressive office with asshole bosses).
True, Chas.E, but web access is a bit different to playing games – it’s easy to get your employer into trouble with the former. There have been cases where companies have been held legally liable for material held on PCs – both in terms of libel (a British insurer paid a hefty fine a while back for some disparaging comments an employee posted about a rival company) and other cases – e.g. archived emails or temporary files being used as evidence in sexual harassment cases.