Yup, I’m the kind of guy who likes to mix equal parts work, play, browsing, and even gaming. At work. I like the fact that I am getting paid not only to bust my ass for a company, but also to have a good time. It balances things out for me.
Problem is, I just KNOW that a bunch of people are monitoring my activity. This, I understand, can be done on two levels:
computer activity–everything I do on my computer
Internet activity–what online games I play, what porn I surf, and what SD articles I read.
From what I understand, nothing can be done about number two because that uses the company network, but what about number one? Is there any software that can generate “noise” to cover up my activities on the computer? Anything at all I can instal on Windows NT to frustrate those motherless bastards snooping on me right now? has SnoopBlock™ been invented yet? Please let me know and help me to keep my morale out of the toilet by allowing me to practice my daily diversions.
Well, they’re probably using something like SMS, in which case your only option is to remove the monitoring client from your computer and then log in to the local domain rather than the network.
They will, of course, notice this if they specifically go looking for your machine. Are you sure they’re watching you this closely? Maybe you’re just paranoid?
another idea, if you have a analog phone line at your desk you can disconect your computer from the network and use a dialup isp, assuming you have a modem. If this looks like a good route for you I suggest breaking the ‘tab’ off the network cable and routing it near your feet. If you are questioned why you are off the network, just say that *&%@ cable fell out again :). Another option is to use a laptop for these purposes and leave your computer hooked up to the network.
The question of whether or not there is some effective stealth software is moot because you’ll probably need administrator privledges to be able to install it on an NT workstation. Your best bet: make friends with one of the admin guys.
Active monitoring is very time & resource consuming, and I would be willing to wager a large sum of money that they are not actively monitoring anybody unless the metrics are suffering, there have been complaints from coworkers (“Abe’s goofing off again!”) or the admins tell the boss that the LAN and/or web server is seeing excessive traffic. They don’t generally say these things to the boss in order to rat out workers, they say it in the hopes of getting bigger better servers or a larger data pipe from telco or their ISP.
As a simple rule of thumb, anything you do at your desktop can be snooped. If it’s a company computer, it’s entirely possible there’s a keystroke logger. If you’re connected to the company network, expect them to sniff your traffic.
This, of course, is the paranoid they’re-out-to-get-me viewpoint. If you’re in a company with several hundred employees, you can be reasonably sure that you’re not being logged unless you’ve done something to raise suspicion.
On a slight hijack, I’m good friends with the NT and unix admin here at work, and have occasionally gotten into challenges with them of “I’ll send you an email, from my desktop, and you prove it came from me.” I’ve learned quite a bit about spoofers, remailers, anonymizers, etc …
As Attrayant said, make friends with the admins, so a) you’ll have warning if you’re being investigated, and b) the logs of you posting to SDMB can be wiped. But you’ll owe them …
Ask them if they will allow you to repartition your computer?
My bosses approved my installing linux. I don’t go into NT anymore.
With that and an anonymizer, as well as use of sftp and ssh, I don’t really worry about snooping anymore…
Before that, well, fortunately I found that the monitoring software we used crashed and burned when I ran WindowBlinds.
darn.
You have a false sense of security. Even SSH doesn’t hide the IP of the machine you are connecting to.
Even with these extreme crypto measures, there are still ways to snoop on computers. Ever heard of TEMPEST? There is only one way to truly secure a computer, it is a small piece of hardware, called the “off switch.”
Dude, if somebody is using TEMPEST to see if you’re playing Minesweeper or reading the SMDB, I recommend faking your own death and moving to Guatamala.
Heh. If my boss really wanted to check up on me he’d install a video camera, not a device to pick up the monitor or cpu and reconstruct the operations/display.
That, or just pop in the door unexpectedly. Kyber hurridly alt-tabs to another desktop
Thanks for the answers everyone, most enlightening. I presently work for an Internet company, and there are enough people without a shred of life in here to be monitoring me–I wonder what they think of the Stile Project. In fact, the previous company where I used to work (a mail gateway software company) WAS snooping on me, through the use of one of those keyborad stroke recorders that someone mentioned.
I can’t migrate off NT, because I don’t know Linux. I can’t disconnect from the network, because almost all the work I do is online, and a modem would never cut it. I’m online all the time 10 hours a day. I do know that I can instal whatever I like on my machine, so I have freedom there. How would I go about determining whether there is monitoring software on my computer?
Now, it seems to me that if people come up with ways to snoop, then they must also come up with anti-snoopers. Cops have radar guns, but drivers can buy radar detectors. We’ve got silencers for firearms. Spoofing prevents detection and allows fucking degenerate spammers to go unharmed. In the midst of all this inequity, I just want to have a nice little game or browse, so there just has to be a way!! They give all that capture prevention technology to criminals but I can’t get a few moments of privacy a day??? NOOOOOO!!! Please tell me it isn’t so!
