New Office Sensors Know When You Leave Your Desk

[ilconsiglliere]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-14/new-office-sensors-know-when-you-leave-your-desk

I guess its time for a lead shield around your employee badge and maybe turn your cell phone into a mobile jammer.

[Code Refugee]

Well... basically "fuck this shit", and kindly pardon my French dear friends.

Resist.

Now. To the general situation. I have a fantasy that smart intelligent creative cool awesome people like myself are more prone to resist overt tyranny and fascism as the cited article describes. In my fantasy therefore despite these problems there is still hope because in the end - because brilliant competent people are smart and resist - that the companies that do these things will fail, and those that respect civil rights and privacy will succeed. And over time freedom and sanity will increase.

Of course I'm probably wrong, and the people who hate freedom rule the world. After all the Nazis were very smart and stylish guys.

But one can always dream. Especially when the alternative is to give up all hope and sit at home with a glass of whisky and a loaded revolver, wondering if tonight will be the night the pain finally ends. I think hope, even if inane and based on fallacious premises, is a better road.

[The Gorn]

smart intelligent creative cool awesome people like myself are more prone to resist overt tyranny and fascism

You've already been discounted by most HR departments and most managers. They see that, they have a counter-measure, end of story.

Seriously - or less sarcastically - I thought exactly this MUCH earlier in my career and life - like almost 30 years ago.

Every employer figured this out and trolled me until I was fired or had to quit due to harassment.

Every God damned employer. Every single one. Without exception.

The everyday explanation of where you're coming from is "God Damned snowflake wanting to in undermine our authority who needs to be fired."

I don't have any faith in humanity any more. Humans are infinitely malleable. Take important things away, they'll rationalize it and adapt.

[Code Refugee]

I framed this as "in my fantasy", "I'm probably wrong" and "one can always dream" for a reason. It was a diss against others. I don't think I could possibly be more obvious about my real message here.

[The Gorn]

Yes. I understood that. I had to vent too. 

I just meant that - years ago - I was probably too obvious on-the-job that this, too, is where I was coming from. And displaying that self image totally made me a target.

So I'm saying don't even try it unless you have some strategic mojo that I lack, which should be pretty easy for any normal person to achieve. 

[benali72]

Employees need to be monitored at all times!  Everybody should be!!!

[JoFrance]

Your best bet, CR, is to go into management.  No one monitors them like that.  I was part of management at one job and had the unfortunate job of flagging people that overstepped their bounds on the internet.  I had to give reports to my management.  Most people were good, but I caught a pedophile, and an addicted gambler with a prostitute problem using the company network to do their thing.  I also caught some people that did nothing but email and FB every day.

Companies have these things in place because of people like the ones that I caught.  Its also because of bandwidth.  Most people keep themselves in check, but the bad apples ruin it for everyone.

[Code Refugee]

Well the article was about physical tracking of employee movements and also sensors on each employee that record and monitor what they say throughout the day, and metrics tracked such as "latency" which is how long between synergizing, strategizing and sharing with other partners (talking).

Regarding monitoring net usage, yeah, I've been in charge of that too. One thing I had to do was get rid of the massive porn stashes on everybody's computers. The guys that had extraordinary amounts of it or especially freaky stuff I'd often find a way to work into any conversation with them what I do. The premise would be that it was just a random conversation and nothing to do with them. Like if they say "Did you hear about Sue getting fired after she punched Betty in the face? That was some crazy stuff." I'd say "Oh yeah, there's a lot of crazy stuff going on here. Did you know I'm responsible for removing the porn from everybody's computer?" (they'd try not to react at this point) "Yeah, some people are into some pretty freaky stuff. I have to compile a list of what was found for management." (I didn't really do this.) "Can you imagine people using their work computer to store this stuff? Isn't that nuts?" They'd agree that was nuts and they'd be completely pale. And they'd stop downloading porn.

I would never use the work computer for anything non-work-related myself as I assume everything is tracked. Likewise with the phone. I use my own device when posting to places like here, or if I have to use a work computer for some emergency personal use it'll be through an encrypted proxy.

With all this employee physical tracking, if Bob and Sue are staying late on Mondays and spend 30 minutes together in the same bathroom... hm, management knows about that it would appear.

[The Gorn]

One thing I had to do was get rid of the massive porn stashes on everybody's computers. The guys that had extraordinary amounts of it or especially freaky stuff I'd often find a way to work into any conversation with them what I do.

Funny, and very kind of you to give your idiot peers a head's up.

Hard drives are CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. What in the flying fudge is any employee doing with massive porn stashes on his work computer? God bless, people are stupid as a rock.

When I worked at a small shitty defense contractor about 15 years ago there was a guy who was summarily fired from the place. He had a private office because he had some researchy job title. He would sometimes be inaccessible and "busy" for many hours every work day.

Apparently all of the office computers went through a proxy in the office and the management started looking at the logs.

It turned out that the guy was privately "jackin' it" to online content for many hours every week.

[Code Refugee]

This was back when most people had dial-up at home rather than cable internet, so they'd do all their USENET porn downloading at work or school where there was a bigger pipe.

[The Gorn]

^ Huh huh, bigger pipe.