It looks like 2010 is going to be a big one for my employer’s information security department, aka fascist big brother bastards.

When I get a minute or two at work, I’ll often try to find out about new bands (or new to me at least). If I find something promising I will send an email to my personal account. Trying to download music at my work is not only strictly forbidden, it is not possible. We have no admin rights on our work PC’s to the point where we are not even allowed to de-frag our PC’s! I know – complete corporate idiocy straight out of Dilbert. Anyway when I get home, then I can buy/download the music I like.

I’ve been listening to a lot of pre-punk garage and garage revival stuff lately. Last week at work I read about a band named Mondo Topless and decided to check them out. I sent myself an email with Mondo Topless as the subject and then put the album names in the email itself. I promptly get an email back from some FBI-wanna be information technology department that said my email would not be sent due to the inappropriate subject line. It went on to say that the word “topless” was in violation, and that “topless” has a “value” of 10 points and there was one violation for a total of 10 points. It was like a receipt. There was no mention in their email of what would happen if I get to a certain total point level, and there was never any advance warning of this new “policy”. I’d like to think if I get to certain point total I can get a free lunch or a free vacation day, but chances are that’s not how it works! And just to add more stupidity where you thought there would be no room for more, it is very evident that the IT guys are not checking any of the content in the email, only the subject line. I’m quite sure of this because one of the Mondo Topless albums I included in the content of the email is called “$50,000 Handjob”. I wonder how many points that would have been worth.

Then yesterday, I receive another email from some other flunky IT department which told me that I had created a security risk by listening to .mp3 files that were on a jump drive I plugged into my work PC, something I have been doing for 5 years! And when I say they sent me this email, I really mean they copied me. They sent it to my boss’s boss, complete with a list of every song title I played for a 3-day period! Fortunately, this batch of songs wasn’t as bad as it could have been in terms of tasteless or offensive song titles. “Cum Stains on Your Pillow” by David Allan Coe was thankfully not among them. I was listening to the Dead Kennedy’s at one point, so “Kill the Poor” and “I Kill Babies” were among the titles. A song called “Panty Sniffer” was probably the worst title, which of course is by Mondo Topless!

Anyway, I’m not in any trouble and everyone is having a good laugh, but holy crap! We can’t even listen to cd’s in our work PC’s anymore. It’s crazy.

If you've got a good Corporate Idiocy story, please share.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

Just a nerd trying to help...


I'm ok with this. It only takes 1 idiot user to ruin a sys-admin's whole week.

You're dealing with a web filtering appliance...not a person.
Learn to avoid obviously non-business related keywords.

plugging an external drive into your corporate machine could actually pose a security risk...I don't think the mp3 itself could be dangerous at all.
Thumb drives and rogue wireless hotspots are probably the #1 and #2 ways a virus can get into a protected corporate network.

Learn to work around their limitations
Find a good anonymous proxy (with SSL) and use web based email.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

You're dealing with a web filtering appliance...not a person.
Learn to avoid obviously non-business related keywords.
[/quote]

I agree with this, I've had websites blocked for the following reasons

Porn - It had the 'f' word in it. Which I don't understand because junkie has never been blocked. Maybe cross can tell me why that is.

Obscene - There was an add for trojan on the page.
Gaming - Guilty, but it was a text based soccer management game and I was setting my lineup for the night.
Social Networking - it was a fucking yellow pages website.
Dangerous site - guessing there was adaware there or something.

No one has ever said a word to me. I know I'm not the only one that uses the internet a lot. We had an e-mail sent about excessive facebook usage (which is now blocked) and I (and another employee) only ever used it to look up people our group was interviewing.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

I totally understand and appreciate the virus threat. I just don't like the way the went about telling me to stop. I feel like I have been tattled on by an 8-year old.

How about proactively notifying everyone exactly what they can and can't do, before of taking faux punitive measures with no warning? And that point system is insane.

I'm not going to try to get around these rules. I'll play by the rules, now that I know at least what some of them are.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

Our IT guys are alright I think. I haven't spent much time with them so I don't really know.

The way I figure it, between network security, answering people's problems, maintaining the various workstations and printers in the office, maintaining and distributing software, ordering and testing new software, ordering and testing new hardware, they don't really give a shit about what one of 200 or so employees is doing on the internet so long as its not illegal or malicious.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

As that 'fascist big brother bastard' in my employment, let me enlighten you on a few things.

You're on company time, using company resources. The computer, the network, the internet, all have costs. The biggest cost? When people break the damn things.

People in IT are generally overworked, underpaid, and tend to be gruff when dealing with people who are constantly creating more work for themselves. It isn't personal, it's just how we roll.

The list of what you can and can not do? Check the computer usage policy you (hopefully) signed when you were hired.

isn't this cute...the 2 sys / net admins sticking up for an IT department we don't even know

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Hold my beer and watch this...

I'll jump on board, and agree with what xcheck and Squanto said, but I will also say that they should have let you know in advance if any changes to the "acceptable use policy" were made. That being said, you might want to actually *read* the acceptable use policy

Edit: sorry for sounding like a dick- I didn't realize Squanto had already brought that policy up

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I agree 100%
They shouldn't be busting your chops for rules you didn't know existed (if that's the case).

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Aye. I've always tried to stay behind the scenes as much as possible and only "skyline" those blatant violations. I've also tried to be as transparent as possible when policies change that affect end users though.

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Exactly.

Just to revisit that jump drive / mp3 thing a second, so you realize how easy it would be for you get a zero day Windows exploit on that thing from your home machine, bring it to work, and ass rape an entire company?

Pretty damn easy. I was doing consulting work for a credit union that I will leave unnamed that didn't have the USB ports locked down for jump drives. This exact thing happened, and it took 4 guys an entire weekend to clean it up.

Memorial Day Weekend to be exact.

and everyone should be aware...if you're in a large corporation, the admins can see what you're doing...act like it.

<funny anecdote>
Before a meeting one day, my laptop was hooked up to a projector in a conference room. I had a GUI open to (I think it was) a Watchguard VPN/Firewall. It had this cute little feature that showed each device on the network and mapped the external resources it was connecting to.
One of the young ladies in the office had multiple connections open to baby and wedding web sites. No one in the office knew she was pregnant...or getting married....until that moment.
</funny anecdote>

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Hold my beer and watch this...

I'll say one thing about the idiocy of a certain corporation I know very well who have recently implemented a new clause in their policy regarding confidentiality and internet use ...if the human resources department continues to commit egregious acts of grammar retarditude, I'm going to blow a gasket and start freaking out over the PA system.

That includes...
- use of quotations to indicate emphasis instead of the use of italicized or bolded print
- use of the word 'please' during inappropriate or incorrect times during a sentence
- the continued flagrant butchering of Sabres players' names during company events at which team merchandise bearing their autographs are given away to the work force. (Company picnic 2008, a woman destroyed Afinogenov and got booed nearly to tears )

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mechaphil

I'm an "application test engineer" now for the Marine Corps, and the jump drive lockdown even applies to me. We've got two usb hard drives that we use to transfer test data/application footprints from our airgap network to the Marine Corps' side...

I have a group of engineers with 30+ years experience in the area, and we continually fight for the right (to paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarty!) to keep the usb drives as misson critical and acceptable risks. If they're that uptight about guys like us, imagine how they are for "normal" users. Facebook is blocked, myspace is blocked, no downloads, no streaming ANYTHING, no web mail. In my opinion (and this is the prior sysadmin in me talking), they're the ideal model for cutting BS out at work.

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Like I said originally, I have been listening to music from the jump drive for the last 5 years. It was always okay for us to listen to music from jump drives until now. Okay, the rules change. Fine. Except they didn't send a nice note prior to changing the rules. They sent a snotty email after my first "violation".
Squanto, don't take it personally. I didn't bring this up to bash IT people. The examples I used are just the most recent corporate silliness that I've encountered. I work primarily in "operations" (non-tech), and believe me, there are numerous examples of stupidity there, too. A few years ago, our marketing department sent out some mailings just before July 4. They decided it would be really cool to make the mailings look like big firecrackers. Pretty smart, eh? Let's put something that looks like AN OVERSIZED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE in our customers' mailboxes!
I just want to hear about the nonsense going on in other companies to make me feel better about mine! I'm sure you've got some good stories, too.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

We're able to download stuff, which I thought was weird. I always ask our IT guys if I want/need new software. I feel semi retarded doing it for things I know I could probably do myself, but I have no intention of getting in trouble for downloading things when I'm not supposed to.

I generally save the internet for lunchtime or after hours, with small exceptions. I might read one decent length espn article over the length of an entire morning, or post on SJ every now and then. When I first started working I thought I was egregiously wasting company time, then when I started notice what my coworkers were doing when I popped in to ask a question, I became more realistic.

If its a slow work day, I have no problem with browsing the internet for long periods of time. If I'm not given work, I'm not going to pretend I have some.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

I won't lie. SJ stays open the whole time I'm at work, and 75% of the time I'm home :/

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Haha reverse that and you're probably pretty close to what I'm at.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

I have that shirt.

Me too

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