Work tracking internet history?

And this is why I'm glad I don't work in an 'IT Dept' in the context that people here are using, no one cares if Johnny in accounts likes to look at Facebook, or tried to look at some boobies. Well apart from jumped up middle managers who like to rule over their staff with internet usage charts.

However having say a set of log files throughout multiple systems where you can verify and be assured of their integrity, enough to conduct a forensic investigation is something that some companies do require.

This is just one example of when all these so called petty little controls and annoyances come into play.

When you have a government agency or regulator breathing down your neck believe me they help ;)

The easy answer to the OPs quandry, use your phone rather than a work pc if it bothers you.
 
estebanrey said:
But a GPO cannot run unless you log into the network. You will have a local admin account (i.e username something like 'admin' and different to your network log in) as Windows requires one.

If you know this account password then you can use that to install programmes on the machine then just log into your 'restricted' network log in to use it.
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I saw you going on about bartpe, but most systems I see have booting from USB disabled. Are you really suggesting to go as far as resetting the bios?(Opening the computer) Removing the password? Booting from BartPE, Blanking a local admin password, Installing software and then logging back into the network??

Happy Job hunting once its discovered.

Personally we have computers setup to revert to a clean setting after each reboot, thats why documents arent stored locally. So your method wouldnt work
 
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estebanrey said:
If a company fired me for that they would be stupid.

Every single time I've had to 'gain' an admin account is is always because the IT department were talking far too long to fix something I could do in a few minutes.

What would rather have? Submit a "support call" which can take days to look at and the finally answer, or a bloke in your office who you can just call over and get it fixed there and then?

I have never gained an admin account for any negative reason against a company.

Call me arrogant but I only see the need to restrict account access because you don't want non-computer literate people pressing the wrong button but that doesn't apply to me.
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Actually, it's more to stop folk like you- someone who thinks he knows about computing, but doesn't have ANY idea about corporate networks.

Far more dangerous than others.
 
wannabedamned said:
I saw you going on about bartpe, but most systems I see have booting from USB disabled. Are you really suggesting to go as far as resetting the bios?(Opening the computer) Removing the password? Booting from BartPE, Blanking a local admin password, Installing software and then logging back into the network??
Click to expand...

I've had to do that once yeah. As I said the company at the time had units that you could open with a simple click, not sealed with screws or anything.

wannabedamned said:
Personally we have computers setup to revert to a clean setting after each reboot, thats why documents arent stored locally. So your method wouldnt work
Click to expand...

Maybe not, but it also sounds like you're making everyone else have to jump through hoops just so you can stop one or two like 'me' (and by stopping me you'd only be increasing your work load as a department as I'd no longer be able to fix minor issues on my PC myself).
 
estebanrey said:
Bottom line is the person who has physical access to the machine will always be in a superior position to someone trying to control it from afar with scripts and enforced network policies.
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Agreed. Maybe I just misread what you said or just misunderstood full stop. A thousand apologies :D

estebanrey said:
But a GPO cannot run unless you log into the network. You will have a local admin account (i.e username something like 'admin' and different to your network log in) as Windows requires one.

If you know this account password then you can use that to install programmes on the machine then just log into your 'restricted' network log in to use it.
Click to expand...

Until I saw this. A GPO will be in effect on a machine on a domain regardless of whether you log in using local credentials (Admin or not).
 
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estebanrey said:
Bottom line is the person who has physical access to the machine will always be in a superior position to someone trying to control it from afar with scripts and enforced network policies.
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Not when they can hand you your P45 - or even get the Police involved for a breach of the Computer Misuse Act.
 
People here do realise that generally the teams/people who use/look after these security controls are not the IT support people who fix printers and answer support calls? :)

A lot of the time the controls are not there to stop wanna be admin people who may mess up a PC. Again generally the company won't give 2 hoots if Mr thinksheknowsitall bricks his pc or stuffs up his office install so he can't work, only the mug who has to fix it will care.

What the business does care about is can he use those rights/credentials to disrupt, defraud etc and cover any tracks after the fact for example.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
Not when they can hand you your P45 - or even get the Police involved for a breach of the Computer Misuse Act.
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The IT department can't hand anyone a P45, only rat you out (although there are some sad jobsworths like that around I'll grant you).

As for reporting someone to the Police, I'd love to hear that 999 call. "Quick someone has granted themselves a higher privileged account on their Windows PC than they should have!". "We'll send a squad car straight away" :D

Man some people take their jobs waaaaaay too seriously.

Ev0 said:
People here do realise that generally the teams/people who use/look after these security controls are not the IT support people who fix printers and answer support calls? :)

A lot of the time the controls are not there to stop wanna be admin people who may mess up a PC. Again generally the company won't give 2 hoots if Mr thinksheknowsitall bricks his pc or stuffs up his office install so he can't work, only the mug who has to fix it will care.

What the business does care about is can he use those rights/credentials to disrupt, defraud etc and cover any tracks after the fact for example.
Click to expand...

Precisely, I would never do the latter I may add.
 
estebanrey said:
Maybe not, but it also sounds like you're making everyone else have to jump through hoops just so you can stop one or two like 'me' (and by stopping me you'd only be increasing your work load as a department as I'd no longer be able to fix minor issues on my PC myself).
Click to expand...

Its not to stop people like you, its due to antivirus software not being infallible. Its just a happy side effect that it stops the likes of you :p

To be honest I believe altering system states is against most contracts with computer use in place, it will most likely be in your initial contract and be considered gross misconduct.

When I used to work at the University we found a guy to be running utorrent and download illegal movies. He was asked to leave his course. More likely due to the movies, rather than the software though to be fair.

But any breach of contract can kick you in the ass
 
estebanrey said:
Precisely, I would never do the latter I may add.
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And sadly until they can create a computer that knows if it's user would or wouldn't do that, knows who to trust, then these 'annoying' controls will be ever present.

It's a technical solution/control for a human problem.
 
Ev0 said:
And sadly until they can create a computer that knows if it's user would or wouldn't do that, knows who to trust, then these 'annoying' controls will be ever present.

It's a technical solution/control for a human problem.
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Well quite, and I'm not bemoaning the use of controls by the way. I write quite a bit of software as part of my job which includes restricting access to certain users or certain users for certain functions (part of why I need an admin account) so I'm fully aware of why restrictions are necessary.
 
estebanrey said:
I've had to do that once yeah. As I said the company at the time had units that you could open with a simple click, not sealed with screws or anything.
Click to expand...

I think since someone stuck an infected usb stick into one of the computers at our place it's now sackable offense to even plug one into the machines on the shop floor, and a right royal blocking if you do it on one of the laptops.
 
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