Wells Fargo fires employees for using "mouse jigglers"

In My Humble Opinion
61

Mouse Jiggling is one of the few things I haven’t been fired for.

62

What have been fired for juggling?

63

Juggling? Owner’s Wife and Daughter.

I didn’t even bother to file for Unemployment.

64

Mouse juggling is cruel. Very entertaining, but cruel.

65

Agreed.

I have a Siamese who finds the cruelty very entertaining though…and impossible to take it away from her until she is darn good and ready. Half the time when it gets so moribund that it is boring she tucks it in a shoe of mine. Bloodthirsty little beast she is, but then I paid her breeder extra for that.

66

Did a little research. Apparently there are at least different types of mouse “jigglers”:

  1. Software-based. Pretty dumb to use, if you ask me, since I would assume it’s easily detectable.

  2. Cheap USB jiggler. No software, but they simply move the pointer back and forth between two points, and not in a random fashion. Plus I would assume it shows up as mystery hardware plugged into the computer. Hence it could be detectable by IT, I suppose.

  3. Mouse mover. It physically moves the surface under the mouse in a random way. Claims to be undetectable.

Regardless, there’s nothing stopping IT from viewing a person’s screen, right? If they notice someone’s pointer moving in an unnatural fashion, and no other activity, it is evidence they’re using a jiggler, and therefore all of the above would be “detectable.”

67

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s detected through corporate spyware that logs keystrokes and mouse position. Simple as that.

When I’m working (actually working) I certainly move my mouse between more than two points, but then I also would hardly call it random. A heat map (or movement map) of my mouse pointer would, for example, show the mouse moving along one particular column (associated with a spreadsheet I enter information into) and one particular row (different tabs in Google chrome) plus a few particular spots (upper right to close a window, for example) way more than others. I would imagine IT could easily automate the process of detecting deviant mouse/keyboard behavior without the need for such a brute force process as individually checking each person’s screen.

This isn’t 1984, after all. It’s much, much worse. No one needs to be actively watching you to detect subversive activity. Haven’t you ever heard? There’s a app for that!

68

Because what you did takes guts and we need more of that around here?