Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#311

Post by prox » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 10:34 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #284

nepthar wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I've always wondered why there are so many stories about these middle management types who seem to pay so close attention to things that are _not_ employee productivity. I guess on first glance, it may appear that "looking busy" corrates to "getting stuff done", but why not cut out the middle man and pay attention to what the employee actually does?

That requires the middle managers to actually understand the jobs and responsibilities of their staff. For me, this hasn't been the case in over a decade. Since my current boss doesn't really have a technical understanding of what's involved with his teams responsibilities, he instead simply feeds metrics to his boss (also not technical). These metrics range from tickets closed, system uptime, and "automation." I wou…

It’s like I am reading the rough draft script for Office Space 2

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#312

Post by ProZsolt » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #256

prostheticvamp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think less than 5% of comments on open-office design, that I have ever seen, were positive. Who are the people you are describing as being “sold”?

I loved the open office I worked in (as an IC). When I worked at reddit, we all sat in a single conference room in the corner of the Wired office. There were five of us doing engineering. A huge whiteboard on one wall (with a couch underneath for naps), windows on two walls, and the fourth wall was the door. It was great. We all had headphones so we could work when we want. When some people needed to collaborate on t…

That wasn't really an open office. The usual open office is one open space for 50+ and sometimes hundreds of people. It's an awful place to work. There is usually a lot of distracting noise.

What you described is something like I worked in. We had separate rooms for most teams(15 people or less). You could collaborate with fellow team members, which usually relevant for the whole team, but wasn't distracted by other teams. As you said it's the perfect balance of collaboration and privacy.

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#313

Post by agkkeoo » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #245

jlarocco wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. I've been working in software for almost 20 years and have never had spyware like this installed on my PCs. I've worked for companies with over 70k employees, down to start ups with fewer than 100. Both in office and remote. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's definitely not normal, and I would personally never work under those conditions.

It's not normal to do screen capture, but internet logging and email/chat discovery are almost universal in a large company. Most financial companies will have forensic agents and inspect random emails. Also, security tools are getting more sophisticated. As legacy AV gets replaced by next-gen stuff, there will be more creepy shit. If you have a tool like Crowdstrike, most developers will do stuff will get them flagg…

You don't need to go to third parties to obtain such surveillance software, microsoft has several solutions for this as well. Actually many large companies that are running windows are also using windows defender advanced threat protection (atp), not just b/c it's easy to deploy, but also b/c it isn't very noticeable by users.

It's questionable how much such tools actually improves security, most of it appears to be a power grab by someone in charge of security, usually there's no transparency, and even C*Os aren't aware of how much they are snooped on. For example (as atp does), recording of all commands including arguments, stored in a searchable database. Who does this benefit the most?

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#314

Post by Waterluvian » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #11

Two sides of the story. One: people that are doing this are likely to have already been bad bosses. I don't think this changes anything. Two: I work for a large bank. My director, on a town hall, told us they do understand that not everybody will be able to focus on the job as before and that they expect us to spend less time actually working and be unavailable more often. Then he URGED us to actually do so. To take…

Our CEO very much pushed the same: first and foremost look after your family. Don't stress over making paid time off numbers work out properly.

He's possibly the best CEO I've ever seen operate. And even when I'm in the office only once a year, he still knows who I am and wants to get dinner with me and the others.

I consider his existence a significant part of my compensation package when I run the numbers.

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#315

Post by eeZah7Ux » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #51

numlock86 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is illegal pretty much at least everywhere within the EU.

I live in the EU and I cannot think of a single law where the employeer cannot take screenshots of the machines they own. I'll be happily proven wrong though.

You are wrong.

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#316

Post by jakub_g » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #300

nepthar wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I've always wondered why there are so many stories about these middle management types who seem to pay so close attention to things that are _not_ employee productivity. I guess on first glance, it may appear that "looking busy" corrates to "getting stuff done", but why not cut out the middle man and pay attention to what the employee actually does?

I'll give you a potential corollary. Quality control. In a perfect world, quality control twiddles their thumbs all day, does some tests, and collects a paycheck because everything is perfect the first time. In practice, I know engineers who leave in tiny and easy to fix mistakes for QC to catch. They do this because if they turn in something with no errors QC finds something for them to add, frequently requiring lar…

Related: "Just remove the duck"

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/06/05/duck/

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#317

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #106

sbarre wrote: post #6

This happened to me years ago. I was put in an empty office at the opposite end from my boss, and because he couldn't walk up behind me to see me working, he secretly installed a program on my computer that took a screenshot every 30 seconds (or so?). I quickly noticed that my computer was hitching regularly (when the screenshot was taken - this was in the late 90s BTW), and so investigated my computer on a day when…

> because he couldn't walk up behind me to see me working, he secretly installed a program on my computer that took a screenshot every 30 seconds > The irony was that I was probably the most productive person in that office (in my humble opinion). The easiest and the most efficient way to ruin my productivity is to look at my screen. I can't work (nor can I pee - a funny coincidence, that's called "paruresis") when s…

[deleted]

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#318

Post by hackinthebochs » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

Viliam1234 wrote: post #299

RandallBrown wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an anecdote for you. I LOVE open offices. If you need something, you can ask. If you want to pair program with someone, they can just turn around or scoot over. You can tell if the person you need to get help from is busy without leaving your chair. Hell, even the distractions are nice. I've never felt closer to coworkers than when I've worked in an open office. I like the occasional nerf dart whizzing past my…

> If you need something, you can ask. That's almost like having Skype... > You can tell if the person you need to get help from is busy without leaving your chair. ...with a status icon. Well, people are different. I guess we introverts need to find some other job, because we are obviously no longer welcome in IT.

Sadly I feel this is very true. IT was the last refuge of the introverts and social awkwards/outcasts. Now that the extroverts have taken over and tend to be the ones making the rules, IT is becoming more and more unbearable. Couldn't just let us have this one thing?

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#319

Post by novok » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

anthonypasq wrote: post #230

novok wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't disclose what they do, and typically it's a function of company size. Once you get past a certain point and there is budget for an IT department, they start installing things like 'endpoint management' and redirect your DNS to something that logs all DNS records, etc.

that is entirely different from taking screenshots. It seems blatantly obvious for security and audit reasons a company should log internet usage on their secure network

Things like DNS tracing apply outside their network too, like WFH situations with no VPN.

Overall in practice, there is nothing stopping creepy sysadmin, boundary overstepping lawyer or creepy manager from secretly stalking specific employees by pushing IT departments to install extra monitoring software or just plain spying on specific employees.

Re: Bosses panic-buy spy software to keep tabs on remote workers

#320

Post by cryptica » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

nepthar wrote: post #274

jlarocco wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic, but related to this... I had, what I felt, was the best seat in the office at my previous job. We had an open office with short cubicles and standing desks, and the cubicles were arranged so that two people shared a small area with two desks/cabinets/etc. For a while, it was wonderful. My "cube-mate" worked from home 4 days a week and only came in for meetings, and we had a window on one side and an empty…

You know, I've always wondered why there are so many stories about these middle management types who seem to pay so close attention to things that are _not_ employee productivity. I guess on first glance, it may appear that "looking busy" corrates to "getting stuff done", but why not cut out the middle man and pay attention to what the employee actually does?

The problem is that most middle managers don't really care about the product. Their entire job is just message passing between higher level managers and lower level employees. Their real purpose in the organization is to propagate a sense of hierarchy which makes directors feel important and the workers feel unimportant.

Their purpose is to manipulate the self-esteem of the people within the organisation so that workers feel so bad about themselves that they never feel entitled to ask for a raise and directors feel so good about themselves that they feel entitled to keep paying themselves large bonuses. Middle managers don't serve customers, they only exist to serve the emotional needs of their bosses.