Torrenting at Work

Jock

Jock

Jock

Associate
Joined
27 Mar 2008
Posts
967
Location
Darlington
So the Architectural Practice where i work made me the so called IT Manager basically sue to the fact i know more about them than anyone else. So earlier today the Secretary calls me over to fix something, i tried but couldnt manage it, so i called our IT consultants who took remote access of her computer, but while i was on the phone he asked what was going on and explained there was a file sharing program open, so when i looked, sure enough she was downloading torrents. I asked the guys opinion and all he could really say was its a pretty serious matter but that rightly it was nothing to do with them.

So firstly i wanted to know how serious it is, could it cause serious problems for our server and the likes?

The problem is that the glorified secretary is sort of one of the bosses. Shes an Associate Director, myself being a lowly pleb, so it makes it a bit difficult to approach the subject. But i suppose it depends how serious it is, if it isnt it may be i just forgot i saw it...
 
You wouldnt want favours beleive me, unless it was to wear a bag over her head at work.
 
It's not serious unless she has breached the terms of her employment or the corporate It policy and you as 'IT Manager' should know this. Using Torrents poses no direct threat to any of your IT infrastructure although it could seriously use up your bandwidth.
 
Jock said:
So firstly i wanted to know how serious it is, could it cause serious problems for our server and the likes?
Click to expand...

Well it could potentially hammer the net connection but I doubt it'd do much to the server.

I think the seriousness is more to do with what she was downloading, as it's more than likely that she was downloading copyrighted music or films or something, it's less likely she was the type to be grabbing Linux distros. If she was, it could potentially cause legal issues for the company.
 
Yeah they have a policy but our place is very out of date, i doubt the people who wrote it even know what torrents are. so theres certainly no mention of such things.
 
If you do not want to face it head on, draw up a company IT policy, stating that equipment can only be used for work. Get the directors to authorise and then do company wide update/security check on all pc's. At that point speak to secretary saying you do not think it is appropriate to use torrents at work.

Had to do similar at last job
 
Just speak with her directly and say she should not be doing it? A polite warning and a little detail in what 'damage' it is doing?
 
It was copyrighted music from what i saw.

Main thing is it cant cause any serious harm then, so cheers for the advice guys.

Still may need to bring it up though if its sapping the bandwidth.
 
I had a user that was torrenting sent her a nice email how it can effect the network in terms of bandwidth, etc she denied it all lol but asked if I could remove it for her..

End result: Happiness all round! \:D/
 
Jock said:
Main thing is it cant cause any serious harm then, so cheers for the advice guys.

.
Click to expand...

Only bring the company into disrepute should one of the authorities find out, not a big thing at all ;)

Add a firewall to your network that will block downloads if all your worried about is bandwidth.
 
hood1971 said:
If you do not want to face it head on, draw up a company IT policy, stating that equipment can only be used for work. Get the directors to authorise and then do company wide update/security check on all pc's. At that point speak to secretary saying you do not think it is appropriate to use torrents at work.

Had to do similar at last job
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good idea to me. Give the boss a gentle nudge in the right direction. If there's nothing official in place that explicitly says 'no torrents' then it'd be a good idea to change that to avoid any problems like this in the future.
 
Theres 3 issues here...

If shes very senior she might be in a position to call the shots on it.

If its copyright material it could easily come back on the company.

Torrents often cause problems at your internet gateway as even a lot of industrial grade routing hardware can be overwhelmed by the connection cycling and packet volume even when its not using massive amounts of bandwidth - and obviously if its tying up your internet connection preventing people doing their job properly thats an issue too.

If you don't have someone above you in your dept. then the only thing I can see you can do is to take it to whoever else is senior at the same or higher level than her and have a quiet word.
 
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