Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 312 posts

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#101

Post by Kalium »

tjr225 wrote: post #79
Kalium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, I worked for a company in Kansas City where upper management genuinely had trouble with the idea that engineers were humans with lives outside the office. I was walking through their section of the office one day, and overheard the President of the company asking in tones of complete bewilderment why engineers were not voluntarily working twelve-hour days. Suffice to say that his confusion was refle…

Hah- any chance this was at a large EMR vendor? ;)

Nope!

Really, no reason to protect the guilty here. It was AdKnowledge.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#102

Post by brianjlogan »

djhaskin987 wrote: post #71

MS Teams has a "green check" next to your name if you've touched your keyboard or mouse in the last five minutes and automatically sets your status to "away" if you haven't done so. I've had people at work use this to try and figure out if I'm working or not. It is a violating feeling, but also very similar to the "is your butt in the chair" way of management when not working from home, and I can see why managers lik…

I prefer Mouse Move. Windows Store so it seems to get around the corporate blockers. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/move-mouse/9nq4ql59xlbf?ac...

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#103

Post by jedieaston »

crispyambulance wrote: post #90
HumblyTossed wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employees were to install software called Hubstaff immediately on their personal computers so it could track their mouse movements and keyboard strokes, and record the webpages they visited. They were told to put this on their "personal" computers. Not work computers. This is way over the line.

Yes, of course, putting something like that on a personal machine is odious. But how do you tell if that or something like it is on your work machine? Look for "hubstaff.dll"? ... half kidding, but seriously how do you tell if there's corporate fuckery on your work machine (eg screenshotting, logging time on URLs, keylogging, etc etc)?

Easy, just assume that they are doing it. Most probably don't, but you shouldn't do anything on your work machine you don't want them to see. Just keep your personal laptop in your bag (if possible) and use that instead, or do the thing on your phone.

I don't know how much of what these pieces of software are capable of on Mac (because of all the privacy stuff in Catalina that requires the user to agree) and Linux (because I doubt there's a huge market for these tools on Linux), so if you don't have Windows on your machine you are probably even more okay. But in any case, assume they can.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#104

Post by driverdan »

technofiend wrote: post #63

Working for a highly regulated company at least company owned desktop monitoring is BAU. I assume anything I do with company equipment is monitored at all times. And if I forget they remind me every time I log in. When I discovered the company needed to protect their data by pushing on a policy that let them wipe my personal device remotely I respected that and bought a personal device dedicated to the task of readin…

Why would you install anything from an employer on a personal device? If they want you to install their spyware they should buy the hardware.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#105

Post by groby_b »

iask wrote: post #12

It’s old-fashion management. If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Simple as that. I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. This adds more stress imo. An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. Now, you tell me if that works only for you - the management. They’re people just like you. They have a life just like you. They have r…

And yet, it's perfectly possible to give a focused 8 hours. If you can't give focused 8 hours, give a focused 7 and let's talk about that.

But let's stop pretending it's an 8 hour workday then, shall we? The US habit of doing lots of random shit during work is absolutely nuts - because you can't do anything well if you're constantly switching tasks.

Oddly, it's perfectly possible to have an environment where both are true - management trusts you to get work done, and you actually get focused work done. It "just" requires maturity on both sides. A willingness to honor an agreement on both sides, as opposed to constantly looking out for #1 only.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#106

Post by _curious_ »

malux85 wrote: post #38
iask wrote: post #12

It’s old-fashion management. If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Simple as that. I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. This adds more stress imo. An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. Now, you tell me if that works only for you - the management. They’re people just like you. They have a life just like you. They have r…

Couldn't have said it better. One of the reasons I'm a supporter of universal basic income is so that the employees can have a better negotiating position. I suspect many bullshit rules will go out the window when the alternative to employment isn't destitution. For far too long has this negotiation been highly in favour of the employer.

Of all the reasons to be in favor of UBI, this is a first for me to hear...but to the point, the alternative to employment at a company deploying these kinds of tactics is not destitution, it is employment at a company that does not.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#107

Post by HumblyTossed »

crispyambulance wrote: post #90
HumblyTossed wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employees were to install software called Hubstaff immediately on their personal computers so it could track their mouse movements and keyboard strokes, and record the webpages they visited. They were told to put this on their "personal" computers. Not work computers. This is way over the line.

Yes, of course, putting something like that on a personal machine is odious. But how do you tell if that or something like it is on your work machine? Look for "hubstaff.dll"? ... half kidding, but seriously how do you tell if there's corporate fuckery on your work machine (eg screenshotting, logging time on URLs, keylogging, etc etc)?

You can modify the suggest answer here:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3047375/simulating-key-p...

to instead of simulating a single keypress, have it open a text editor and simulate typing in the source code of the app you're working on. That way any keylogger running will pick up a lot of code. If manager is dumb enough to use a keylogger he probably won't recognize that it's the same code each day.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#108

Post by wolco »

tyingq wrote: post #60
Kalium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, I worked for a company in Kansas City where upper management genuinely had trouble with the idea that engineers were humans with lives outside the office. I was walking through their section of the office one day, and overheard the President of the company asking in tones of complete bewilderment why engineers were not voluntarily working twelve-hour days. Suffice to say that his confusion was refle…

There was a time when that sort of made sense. When companies didn't lay people off during hard times, carried pensions that were risky for the company, etc. It seems like some didn't understand that loyalty goes both ways...pull one side and the other goes with it.

That was back in the day you trained and educated employees (to save money and built loyality). Back when they offered a living wage a single person could raise a family with.

What happened? Free trade.

Cheap goods from other countries gutted the local industries. Hard to compete on price when labour costs are so different. The only jobs remaining become min wage or importing.

People not working as hard as a generation ago doesn't factor in.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#109

Post by mlillie »

mikeg8 wrote: post #94
matheusmoreira wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would mandatory malware ever be okay under any circumstance?

Tracking software is not malware. I totally oppose the use of tracking software, but they are not the same.

Isn't spyware just a subset of malware? This is definitely spyware

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#110

Post by jb775 »

Work surveillance leads to employees who feel disrespected. Employees who feel disrespected don't go that extra mile when it really counts.

A better approach would be to trust the employees (hand-picked by the company), and set measurable performance expectations.

Post reply on HN