Employers monitoring their workers' computer keystrokes might seem intrusive, but it's just one of the many ways workplace surveillance is being carried out today.
best way to avoid is don’t give employers a reason to need to look in on you. if your consistently missing deadlines, racking up complaints about you, you probably should expect your boss will start to look into what it is your really doing.
if your doing well, producing what you are asked or more and not causing any friction leading to complaints, chances are you’ll be fine, even if you have a few quiet days where keyloggers might be used
The short answer for this is that an employer probably doesn’t give a shit about you watching youtube at work, but what they (by they, their IT/security teams) do care about is your account logging in from a new geolocation, or clicking a risky link in an unusual email. If the employer logs everything that occurs (which is required by a lot of areas such as PCI DSS for electronic payment) they can track who’s account was compromised, how it happened, exactly what was done by the actor, and how far it’s spread across the network - if at all. If no logs are kept, then it may as well have never happened.
ETA: there’s a large difference between mouse tracking mentioned by the article and logging though, the former is rather unethical and I’d hope that it’s never used in the name of security, I sure can’t think of a use.
This is the kind of thing that a person who’s never had your average boss would say.
No. Wrong. Your typical boss has a need to justify their existence and “cut costs” and isn’t particularly good at what they do so they’re also insecure. If you give them a little dashboard that says you’re spending the most time being “idle” (quantified with keystrokes or creepy camera or mic or network monitoring), it won’t matter that you’re meeting your targets because all they’re gonna see is lost potential labor.
Also, management always wants ways to collect evidence that you deserved to be fired in case they ever want an excuse to do so. Maybe they’re really firing you because you got in the way of some nepo promotion. Maybe it’s because they think you might help form a union. Maybe it’s because they think you’re overpaid. Maybe it’s because you’re older or gay or have too much melanin. Little performance metrics like this can always be cherry-picked to give them sufficient legal justification to do (in reality) illegal things.
This is a weapon to be used against you and you should have solidarity with your fellow workers, not bootlick.
It’s the corporate version of governments with laws they don’t consistently enforce. Yes, most people are technically doing things that are illegal pretty regularly. You won’t get arrested or fined as long as you don’t draw attention to yourself. But it gives the government the ability to target people at it’s discretion.
Similarly a company that spies on it’s employees doesn’t care most of the time, but even if an employee is performing and hitting goals, it gives the company leeway to fire them if the employee gets on someone’s bad side.
best way to avoid is don’t give employers a reason to need to look in on you. if your consistently missing deadlines, racking up complaints about you, you probably should expect your boss will start to look into what it is your really doing.
if your doing well, producing what you are asked or more and not causing any friction leading to complaints, chances are you’ll be fine, even if you have a few quiet days where keyloggers might be used
If they suspect you (or not) should they be able to do that? Treating your employees like foreign spies seems a tad unethical to me
“if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” was always BS.
The short answer for this is that an employer probably doesn’t give a shit about you watching youtube at work, but what they (by they, their IT/security teams) do care about is your account logging in from a new geolocation, or clicking a risky link in an unusual email. If the employer logs everything that occurs (which is required by a lot of areas such as PCI DSS for electronic payment) they can track who’s account was compromised, how it happened, exactly what was done by the actor, and how far it’s spread across the network - if at all. If no logs are kept, then it may as well have never happened.
ETA: there’s a large difference between mouse tracking mentioned by the article and logging though, the former is rather unethical and I’d hope that it’s never used in the name of security, I sure can’t think of a use.
never said I agree with it, there are ways to avoid it though
This is the kind of thing that a person who’s never had your average boss would say.
No. Wrong. Your typical boss has a need to justify their existence and “cut costs” and isn’t particularly good at what they do so they’re also insecure. If you give them a little dashboard that says you’re spending the most time being “idle” (quantified with keystrokes or creepy camera or mic or network monitoring), it won’t matter that you’re meeting your targets because all they’re gonna see is lost potential labor.
Also, management always wants ways to collect evidence that you deserved to be fired in case they ever want an excuse to do so. Maybe they’re really firing you because you got in the way of some nepo promotion. Maybe it’s because they think you might help form a union. Maybe it’s because they think you’re overpaid. Maybe it’s because you’re older or gay or have too much melanin. Little performance metrics like this can always be cherry-picked to give them sufficient legal justification to do (in reality) illegal things.
This is a weapon to be used against you and you should have solidarity with your fellow workers, not bootlick.
It’s another form of coercive control.
It’s the corporate version of governments with laws they don’t consistently enforce. Yes, most people are technically doing things that are illegal pretty regularly. You won’t get arrested or fined as long as you don’t draw attention to yourself. But it gives the government the ability to target people at it’s discretion.
Similarly a company that spies on it’s employees doesn’t care most of the time, but even if an employee is performing and hitting goals, it gives the company leeway to fire them if the employee gets on someone’s bad side.