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

bloomberg.com

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

#351

Post by jlarocco »

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?

To be fair, I don't think the manager in question did it purposely to monitor me, but it made me uncomfortable nonetheless.

TBH, I should have asked him about it, but I couldn't think of a way to bring it up that didn't sound rude or suspicious, and it turned out I left soon anyway.

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

#352

Post by ApolloRising »

duxup wrote: post #350
ApolloRising wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened at the end to team A?

The company was acquired and they managed to convince the powers that be (they always had more traction with them because of history) that they were worth keeping on and they could handle the workload. So team B was laid off after the acquisition. Last I heard team A was scrambling for warm bodies to keep up with the workload and didn't want to be seen as not being able to do the work of A + B so they were pretty muc…

Thank you so much for filling in the ending.

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

#355

Post by koheripbal »

kqr wrote: post #250
koheripbal wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...at the same time - it can be pretty difficult to remain focused at home, especially if you also have kids at home because their schools are closed. I doubt my efficiency is approaching even 50% of what it was a month ago. Everyone is different.

Sure, but is spyware the thing that would change that for you? Or would you still be less productive only now also feel greater fear, further reducing your morale?

If it is a company PC - it is not illegal spyware.

Courts have repeatedly confirmed that employees have zero expectation of privacy on their work devices/sevices.

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

#356

Post by lmilcin »

koheripbal wrote: post #355
kqr wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but is spyware the thing that would change that for you? Or would you still be less productive only now also feel greater fear, further reducing your morale?

If it is a company PC - it is not illegal spyware. Courts have repeatedly confirmed that employees have zero expectation of privacy on their work devices/sevices.

I am of the opinion that company PC is company PC and it has a right to monitor what is going on there.

But I also think employers should be responsible to ensure employees are notified of the scope of possible monitoring. Some people are absolutely clueless.

It is not that difficult, really. My company says whatever I do is subject to monitoring and there is no expectation of privacy. It also says, "Please, don't use it for anything that is not related to work".

We live in times when you can have a PC in your pocket, there is absolutely no need to do private business on company PC.

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

#357

Post by lmilcin »

mcv wrote: post #347
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…

Interestingly, my workplace that has also been very reasonable about this and expects a drop in productivity, is also a bank. Have banks turned into reasonable and humane companies all of a sudden?

Ironically, 2008 caused banks to be very resilient to events like this one. Now banks are not allowed to keep large positions in their own name and should be basically neutral to whatever happens on the market. Banks are supposed to earn their living on services provided.

What this means for banks is they are doing excellent business right now.

The only significant problem is counterparty risk. As banks are basically insurers in case of some contracts they take the risk that the counterparty will default on their obligation. As large number of parties default this creates an amount of loss. But banks have also regulations to control the amount of possible loss so it is not going to be easy for any bank to bankrupt just because large number of companies go out of business.

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

#358

Post by amznthrowaway5 »

asveikau wrote: post #143
readme wrote: post #30

PSA for businesses: how about instead of spying on the deadweight you fire them and reward the productive employees. There are tons of work from home employees (who normally work from home) who are 10x more productive than the in-office ones, because they realize the value of what they have. It's too bad most people will only work when you're looking over their shoulder, but lets not keep that on life-support with sp…

I think deciding which human being to label as "dead weight" and overfocus on that question is on the same path to paranoia as thinking you need to monitor them all closely. How many times have you seen contributing employees who are not understood by their bosses mislabelled as "dead weight"? I think it happens pretty often, especially in performance-review-obsessed cultures.

For all the rage against algorithm programming interviews you see here on HN, at least those interviews are far more objective than perf and promo reviews.

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

#359

Post by Spooky23 »

agkkeoo wrote: post #313
Spooky23 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

I would agree it's often a power play for would be corporate cyber-warriors.

But the tools are very effective for certain threat categories. The downside is that they require skilled operational security people to be used effectively, and may security organizations are mostly compliance focused and don't have the talent or framework to pivot the organization. It's similar to how underperforming IT organizations were/are aligned with the CFO -- many security orgs are aligned with counsel/risk.

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