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WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

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Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#61

Post by hmmSceptical »

wmf wrote: post #48
hmmSceptical wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"output" only matters if your company is paid by "results" and isn't based on billable hours, otherwise ... "output" doesn't matter. Law firms would love every case to be solved in 2 hours if they still got the same $ value from a case that dragged on for 6 months.

Keep moving those goalposts.

> Goalposts

You literally said "output" the most speculative / vague definition of "work" available.

I appreciate programmers / "creatives" "output" is much harder to measure, but there are alot of jobs where "mouse moving", "words per second" is a very reliable indicator of "output".

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#62

Post by LightBug1 »

cma wrote: post #58

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash: > Y.T.'s mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta does her end-of-day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00 P.M., she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of time spent reading this memo... > Y.T.'s mom decides to spend between fourteen and fifteen min…

I remember the stress building up in me as I read that part of the book ...

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#63

Post by mantas »

gchamonlive wrote: post #25
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #20

Nearly 20 years ago we used to install monitoring software to tell if a user's mouse or keyboard hadn't been used in a while. More and more places use traffic inspection "for security". Desks now use sensors to tell when warm bodies are near. Doesn't matter whether you're working from office or in the home, surveillance is here to stay. Good businesses should only care if work is getting accomplished. Bad businesses…

> Quit the bad ones, join the good ones. This is why universal income is extremely important, so that people can pursue better jobs without risking being vulnerable.

Universal income covering the very basic would still keep people making beyond minimum wage vulnerable.

Paying meaningful money would be too expensive at scale. Then few jobs could pay meaningfully more than the universal income. Why work if you get +/- not working?

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#64

Post by leipert »

Tyr42 wrote: post #36
heavyset_go wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run it on a separate VLAN or on separate network hardware, as well.

So like, how does that work. I've got a pair of Asus routers with one acting as an access point (AI mesh). Would I need to buy new routers? Do I daisy chain the routers or can I reuse the wifi ap? Or put Merlin on my existing ones? I'm in tech but these network suggestions are all quite opaque to me.

My solution: Guest WiFi. My router has an isolated guest WiFi mode.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#65

Post by userbinator »

topper-123 wrote: post #57

A red flag for the employer should be that this means that Microsoft can also see what their employees are doing.

Unfortunately, many of them think Microsoft can do no wrong, in the same way they blindly "trust" the rest of Big Tech.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#66

Post by photonbucket »

2devnull wrote: post #47
gchamonlive wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quit the bad ones, join the good ones. This is why universal income is extremely important, so that people can pursue better jobs without risking being vulnerable.

Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so. I think UBI would destroy these people, like easy wealth does to the newly rich. A better solution is to focus on worker’s rights and labor regulations. Of course that opens the internationalism question, but so too would ubi.

Giving people what they desire in terms of like quality is destroying them? Pushing them to keep doing what they don't want to do is helping them?

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#67

Post by mantas »

oneplane wrote: post #56
2devnull wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so. I think UBI would destroy these people, like easy wealth does to the newly rich. A better solution is to focus on worker’s rights and labor regulations. Of course that opens the internationalism question, but so too would ubi.

What leads you to believe that people who do not want to work are desirable to have in the workplace? UBI also doesn't give you wealth, it gives you basics, and overal that's much cheaper than dragging down an entire team or department. At the same time, we currently have plenty of people who do not want to work and do indeed not work, that will not change regardless of what you implement. I also think that happy and…

They ain't desirable. But who wants to pay them do nothing? Many people ain't happy to cover existing welfare. Increase welfare and even more people would feel it's unfair.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#68

Post by 2devnull »

Tyr42 wrote: post #36
heavyset_go wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run it on a separate VLAN or on separate network hardware, as well.

So like, how does that work. I've got a pair of Asus routers with one acting as an access point (AI mesh). Would I need to buy new routers? Do I daisy chain the routers or can I reuse the wifi ap? Or put Merlin on my existing ones? I'm in tech but these network suggestions are all quite opaque to me.

The point is just that you shouldn’t trust work issued devices. They are never going to be as secure as your private network, unless you have a big family or are a high profile target.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#69

Post by midasuni »

hmmSceptical wrote: post #37
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #20

Nearly 20 years ago we used to install monitoring software to tell if a user's mouse or keyboard hadn't been used in a while. More and more places use traffic inspection "for security". Desks now use sensors to tell when warm bodies are near. Doesn't matter whether you're working from office or in the home, surveillance is here to stay. Good businesses should only care if work is getting accomplished. Bad businesses…

> Bad businesses will continue to use draconian methods to try to squeeze productivity rather than foster it What about jobs that aren't creative like coding or graphic design? Some jobs are simply "sit in your chair and do work". The productivity metrics aren't speculative - they are measurable. You may argue "these are jobs for AI" - but realistically alot of jobs are a way off from this. Why shouldn't the "product…

Then measure the number of boxes done.

Of course you have to be very alert for quality of boxes, and for selection of boxes. A savvy employee will only choose the easiest tasks as all are ranked equally.

Exactly the same with ticket based jobs. Any measure you have can and will be gamed.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#70

Post by jupp0r »

geek_at wrote: post #33
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #20

Nearly 20 years ago we used to install monitoring software to tell if a user's mouse or keyboard hadn't been used in a while. More and more places use traffic inspection "for security". Desks now use sensors to tell when warm bodies are near. Doesn't matter whether you're working from office or in the home, surveillance is here to stay. Good businesses should only care if work is getting accomplished. Bad businesses…

> surveillance is here to stay in the United States. Europe has very strict rules about surveiling employees. Example: In Austria we are not allowed to use some of the functions that Azure-AD joined computers would be capable of because employers _might_ push remote control software the user hasn't agreed to

Germany famously just passed legislation that forces employers to record working hours for all employees.
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