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Bossware is a big legal risk

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Re: Bossware is a big legal risk

#61

Post by eequah9L »

davely wrote: post #47
kridsdale1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get mechanical mouse mover devices that are not connected to the pc at all. It should be fully undetectable.

Ah, that's a good point. I've thought about this, but I use a trackball due to mild RSI. So, I don't think it can help me there. (This is going to make me embark on a weekend project to use an Arduino, some servos and a 3D printed finger to move my trackball.)

Plug in a second mouse then?

The trick that I heard is to just place the mouse on a clock. The second hand jiggles the mouse every minute. Can be stashed away in a drawer or something. Never tried this though.

Re: Bossware is a big legal risk

#62

Post by Izkata »

davely wrote: post #48
mattmerr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does watching a video pause the timeout? If so, hypothetically one could stream or locally create a video with no contents but long duration.

Ah, that's an interesting point. I haven't tried to correlate that, but it must be true. For example, the screensaver never seems to appear during Zoom calls!

That might also be implemented as "don't start the screensaver if the camera is in use". Easy to detect in either /proc/ or /sys/, I forget which one I was fiddling with.

Re: Bossware is a big legal risk

#63

Post by paxys »

JanisErdmanis wrote: post #60
paxys wrote: post #57

Everyone replying with "what's the big deal?" is showing their tech privilege. You may not have to deal with intrusive monitoring, but warehouse workers are increasingly being made to wear ankle bracelets so every movement of theirs can be monitored and stack ranked. Workers in WFH "gig" jobs are made to install always-on keyloggers and other monitoring software on their personal computers and phones (which are requi…

> Plenty of jobs require you to hand your social media passwords to your employer. Can you elaborate with examples or references?

Why exactly do you think a half dozen states have passed laws specifically banning it? https://www.foley.com/insights/publications/2024/03/ny-socia...

Re: Bossware is a big legal risk

#64

Post by hnthrow289570 »

root_axis wrote: post #34
CoastalCoder wrote: post #7

I was surprised (perhaps I shouldn't have been) to encounter bossware-like surveilance in an interview process . About 6 months ago I was interviewing with InterSystems, a company that does healthcare software. Only when I signed in for the online coding interview did I learn that they required I have a webcam on myself the whole time. I don't like using coarse language. But it was the first time I struggled to not u…

How can you vet a candidate remotely without having them on the cam? Especially today with all the LLMs, it's pretty much a hiring requirement if you can't bring the candidate in for an interview.

We're probably at the point where it's cost effective to pay for traveling-to-interview again, especially for the later-round interviews.

That is, unless companies are lying about how much damage bad hiring does. I don't suspect they are, but they apparently can't also do the math to go back to that option.

Re: Bossware is a big legal risk

#65

Post by neilv »

Terr_ wrote: post #12
CoastalCoder wrote: post #7

I was surprised (perhaps I shouldn't have been) to encounter bossware-like surveilance in an interview process . About 6 months ago I was interviewing with InterSystems, a company that does healthcare software. Only when I signed in for the online coding interview did I learn that they required I have a webcam on myself the whole time. I don't like using coarse language. But it was the first time I struggled to not u…

IMO there's a huge difference between "we do this because we had too many fraudulent applicants and this is a compromise compared to having you interview in-person" versus "this is representative of how the entire employment relationship will go." If the former, their fears are not unfounded: Sometimes the person who impressed you in the interview is not actually the same person who arrives for their first day of wor…

> "this is representative of how the entire employment relationship will go."

Seems like it's great signal of how the company thinks, and will behave.

Not necessarily that they'll put all employees under video surveillance, but if they think that interview thing is a good idea, I'd guess probably they'll do numerous other things along the same line of thinking.

Occam's Razor possibilities:

1. The company is normally very enlightened and thoughtful and fair, and has a very subtle and nuanced rationale for why they're coming across as invasive and overbearing in this one narrow instance, and their reasons in this bad first-impressions instance (when they should be thinking about first impressions) were simply somehow not explained.

2. The company is going to behave like a jerk.

Re: Bossware is a big legal risk

#66

Post by Teever »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #41
paxys wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are okay with giving random companies an hour of footage of your face and part of your house just for the privilege of going through their automated screening round?

Emm, yes? What do you think they are going to do with it. They are also considering giving you access to potentially a vast amount of their IP and maybe even customer data.

Whatever they're legally allowed to and I may never know.

That's the problem.

Re: Bossware is a big legal risk

#67

Post by coldtea »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #41
paxys wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are okay with giving random companies an hour of footage of your face and part of your house just for the privilege of going through their automated screening round?

Emm, yes? What do you think they are going to do with it. They are also considering giving you access to potentially a vast amount of their IP and maybe even customer data.

>Emm, yes? What do you think they are going to do with it

I don't care what they're going to do with it. They aint having it.

Re: Bossware is a big legal risk

#70

Post by vundercind »

paxys wrote: post #57

Everyone replying with "what's the big deal?" is showing their tech privilege. You may not have to deal with intrusive monitoring, but warehouse workers are increasingly being made to wear ankle bracelets so every movement of theirs can be monitored and stack ranked. Workers in WFH "gig" jobs are made to install always-on keyloggers and other monitoring software on their personal computers and phones (which are requi…

> Not everyone is able to say "no" to all this and still make rent next month. I'm happy the government is finally stepping in.

More good news is that since workplace surveillance is already heavily-limited by law in some other highly-productive developed-economy states, this shit’s all probably pointless anyway. Just one of many cases of execs going full “seeing like a state” and wanting everything down to the finest detail to be “legible” and able to sort-by on a spreadsheet, even when it’s actually just noise.

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