How to tell your boss he can't look at porn! 11

[Stevehewitt]

Hey.

I work in a small business enviroment (under 40 machines) and my boss is the general manager of the company. He only has to report to the head office who are based in Switzerland.

My problem is that even though he has agreed to a Conditions of Usage (AUP), the firewall is showing that he has attempted to look at banned images such as sex.jpg which he has repeately tried to look at.

Other are joke images and pages, or URL's with xxx in. Nobody else in the company has this sort of stuff reported about them, and I can't see how its related to work (we sell bulk timber to merchants.)

Normally I would suspend the account and report the issue to the boss, but as it is my boss, I can hardly send the issue to head office!!!

Any ideas on what to do?

Thanks,


Steve.

 

[sleipnir214]

Are you sure this isn't because of pop-ups, adware, or spyware?

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[chiph]

Have you considered the possibility that his machine has been hijacked? Or maybe being used by one of the other people in the office after he goes home? Or even by someone terminal-servicing into it?

Best to consider all the other possibilities before undertaking a career-limiting move.

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[DrJavaJoe]

Exactly what is your opinion on it. I mean if you are really offended and loosing sleep that's one thing and if you could care less it's totally different. Personnaly I could care less if my boss wanted to look at porn unless he was doing so in such a away that might offnend others in the office, but I'm not you. Now if you could care less you might bring it up to him in a joking like manner but if not tell us what you're thinking a tad more.

 

[edfair]

You might suggest that he check his machine for being hijacked as you've seen a report a couple of times of an attempt at access. And tell him the possible ways he could have attempted the access unknowingly.
You don't tell him how much you know, but just enough that he can save face by telling you that he has or hasn't checked the machine.
Some of it may be click-thrus from email attachments.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[manarth]

Hi Steve,

I would do my utmost to configure the firewall to respond when a PC tries to access a dodgy site - an inline message saying "This site is blocked by the firewall's Acceptable Use policy. If you need access to this site, please contact the system administrator: s.hewitt@example.com."

Does anyone else (head office?) have access to the logs? Would your boss believe you if you told him that they did?!

Confronting your boss may prove embarrassing - to you and to him - but if you let him believe that you think the problem is spyware (or scan his PC and 'find' some spyware) then he knows that the logs record this kind of thing without sparking a confrontation.

Good luck with this - and let us know how you get on!

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please tell us if our suggestion has helped[/li][li]need some help? faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[Dimandja]

You didn't mention whether your boss's alleged surfing habits hindered your work in any way.

If that's so then, what's your problem here? Does your &quot;religion&quot; prohibit pornography, by any chance? Or are you jealous because you can't join in? Hey, absolutely no offense intended here: I'm trying to understand why you are bothered by this.

Ah, the rules. Well, if you are the designated cop, then honestly tell him that your job/title is on the line because he insists on watching the stuff. If that's really your job - and you could lose it, of course.

Job security can be tricky.

Dimandja

 

[SF0751]

I would approach this in a round-about manner - go to your boss and ask if anyone might have access to his machine (after hours, etc., as chiph pointed out. You're asking this because of your concern in seeing the web log showing attempted access to porn sites, etc., which are against company policy, and that you're required to send the information to your home office.

Either he'll take the hint and stop, or perhaps his machine is being compromised and you can work together to catch the real offender. If he were the sole owner of the company, I might be more apt to adopt DrJavaJoe's attitude, but I take it that's not the case. This is an example of mis-use of company property, and I'd feel the same way if (for example) somewas was tying up the copy and fax machines to run their own &quot;get rich quick&quot; business while they were on the company's clock.


Susan
[sub]You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.[/sub]
[sup]Aristophanes, 424 B.C.[/sup]
[sup]Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.

 

[rosieb]

Steve

I would say you have 2 choices:

Do nothing. But are there possible legal or disciplinary ramifications which could affect you, if it is later discovered? If, for example, the company was involved in a harassment case.

React. But don't accuse your boss of anything. You could tell him that banned sites have turned up on the logs and that there are a number of possible reasons for this, suggest a &quot;clean up &quot; of his PC and a change of all passwords etc. That might warn him off if he really is misbehaving, or identify a gap in security if he is innocent.

A lot depends on your terms of employment, what are you obliged to do in such a case; your boss's personality, how is he likely to react; and the local legal situation, how could this affect you?

Either way, there's not an easy answer. (And I'd be really interested to hear what you decide and how it goes.)

Best of luck

Rosie

 

[bi]

Dimandja,

It's not just the rules or &quot;religion&quot; -- in many places, it's the law regarding offensive material and common sense and regard for your fellow workers and good business practice regarding porn.

Stevehewitt, chiph and rosieb and manarth have some good suggestions.

Good luck.

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

Rosieb put it best I think.

About the issue of your boss doing stuff that you might deem not appropriate. If your boss is the top of the food chain in the country let alone the office questioning his use of company computers is really rediculious. Most likely he's given authority for expendatures, has an expense account etc. Heck if he wants to pay for porn sites with that he's probably not out of line.

Offensive material is not an issue if it is not exposed to other employees etc in many/most cases barring where porn may for some reason be outright illegal.

Now on the real issue of what to do.
You have to concider that his machine maybe infected with spyware. Most often Virus checkers catch this.
You can easily see when the access attempts are being made by the logs. So no reason to ask if anyone is getting to his machine after work.

If a image and site is being attempted to be accessed over and over then most likely its not him doing it. You can also tell some times by the shear numbers and time between accessing.

Goto him and say something like &quot;Our logs report strange behaivor from your machine. Looks like you have some virus or program on your machine that is repeatedly accessing adult sites. It is probably slowing down your machine. What do you want to do about it?&quot;

You'll probably get an indication of if he's responcible by his body langauge but that is a moote point




Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[ecobb]

I faced this same problem a few months ago, only with about 300 employees. (and several V.P.'s) Here's how I handled it and it seemed to work.

1) Sent out a notice to everyone that we had new filters in place that would stop online shopping, porn, etc..., with the ending phrase &quot;If you are denied access to a legitimate business site, please email me the url and your purpose for needing access to this site.&quot;

2) When someone tried to access a banned web site, they got a white page with a message in big red letters saying &quot;Access Denied! You have attempted to access a forbidden web site. Your actions have been logged and an administrator has been notified.&quot;

3) In a meeting with several senior officials, I brought up what our filter's logs were showing. I didn't call names, I just mentioned that we were seeing a lot of attempts to access these particular sites, and asked what they wanted me to do about it.

Each of these steps worked in it's own way.

With the first step, all of the &quot;honest&quot; employees realized they shouldn't be doing that (mostly shopping) so they quit.

With the second step, the people who thought I was bluffing found out I wasn't and they freaked out when they realized they had been caught, and never tried to access those sites again. (That's a pretty scary error message if you're doing something you know you shouldn't be doing!)

The third step was my favorite. No senior official is going to stand there in front of other senior officials (higher or lower ranked) and tell you that it's ok to let people look at porn. In my case, the ones that were guilty screamed the loudest, demanding that I do whatever was necessary to make it stop.

A previous boss once told me, &quot;People will respect what's inspected.&quot;



Hope This Helps!

Ecobb

&quot;Alright Brain, you don't like me, and I don't like you. But lets just do this, and I can get back to killing you with beer.&quot; - Homer Simpson

 

[Stevehewitt]

The reasons are mainly due to spyware and other crap that I don't want to have to clear up. And the last thing I need is someone else using the machine and getting porno popups!

There have already been dialers detected by my AV product (not a virus but unwanted/joke programs coutesy of NAI)

They mainly seem to be jokey porn stuff that he gets from his Yahoo email account (which he won't let me ban).

The firewall has a standard message saying the site/page is banned and any images/ActiveX controls have a &quot;forbidden&quot; in their place. The messge isn't customisable. (Using a NetGear FVS318 VPN firewall.)

I have sent a circular email to everyone telling them that I can see web traffic and that I receive the logs everyday in my email as a reminder and that any activity will be investigated. This did mention that I am recieveing messages at the moment but it could be innocent/accidental.

I do believe its legal (other than the Conditions of Usage he signed), and I'm not losing sleep over it, but it can be distirubing as legally if I know of him doing it I can't clamp down on other people.

Thanks,

Steve.

 

[HalfListener]

Do 'required maintenance' on his hard drive about once a week. Take the unit out of his office and re-format his hard drive. (At least wipe out his favorites and history.)

If it takes 2 weeks of this for him to ask 'why?', I'd be surprised. Tell him that he has a well hidden virus, spyware or Trojan that keeps making his computer show an unauthorized access to porn sites and sites the company has forbidden. Make sure that you mention that you are sure he is not doing anything -- it’s the virus. &quot;I would not be doing my job if my log for the Swiss showed all this mistaken activity.&quot; You are simply trying to eliminate it from his system so that he is not bothered by these reports/pop-ups/viruses.

 

[deecee]

It is my belief that you mess with the top of the food chain and you will get eaten!

Unless this is hindering your job let it go -- unfortunatly todays (as have all times) workplace you need to keep your superiors happy!

No offense but how hard, or should i say easy, would it be to lose/replace you?

Most of the upper echelon in a company have a good relationship and even if they are doing something wrong their bosses will cover for them -- everyone scratches each others back.

Trust me on this one -- only peons get stepped on. A big wig really has to overstep his or hers bounds before they are ostracized.

But i could be wrong and your moral and ethical issue would concern those above you -- but if you do tick him off would he not look for any reason to replace you?

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[SemperFiDownUnda]

legally how can you do anything to another employee knowing the boss is doing it? Easy. Rules don't equally apply. It isn't a law. It is a company policy. Those making a policy don't have to follow it themselves. Lets change this to another situation that in my view is very similiar.

Company Policy. No one will use petty cash to buy friday night drinks and nibbles. Boss comes in and tells the receptionist &quot;Give me $100 from petty cash I'm going out to buy some stuff for drinks and nibbles tonight&quot;

Is this wrong? No. The boss is responsible and accountable for that money. The same rules do not apply. If I was your boss I may have even said. Don't have inbound restrictions on my IP and block yahoo mail for everyone else. That is completely within his rights....he's the boss.

As far as not being right to the higher Swiss office....do they actually write the policies? If so then you might have a leg to stand on but as it is I'd just point out to him what is happening and the risks involved. Do this via email if you are really worried so as to have a record but if he's the top of the food chain and ends up not wanting you there I'd just soak it up and leave. But that seems a bit extreme when you are not telling him what to do but saying what the risks are and allowing him to do his job and make the decision.



Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[DrJavaJoe]

Well stated SemperFiDownUnda. SF0751 stated in an earlier post If he were the sole owner of the company, I might be more apt to adopt DrJavaJoe's attitude, but I take it that's not the case., well in my opinion this guy might not be the owner by he pretty darn close.

Stevehewitt
If you are having problems with spyware I found alot of good advice in forum608 Browser issues for IT professionals. Post your logs and these guys and/or gals can be very helpful.

 

[MasterRacker]

Get your company's lawyer to write a memo to everybody, that way you don't have to single anyone out. I don't know about other countries, but in America, this can be a huge legal issue.

I could be 5 desks away, see something on someone's screen, totally accidentally, not even know the person so be very sure it wasn't meant for me and still sue the company for fostering a harassing environment. If the award is large enough, more than you could lose a job. You're protecting the entire company when you find ways to stop this at work.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[Marcs41]

Steve, what worked a few times already with some people 'in command', is to just simply block them on the Firewall right after they access anything 'bad', then wait until they call.
Then you tell them you will check.
Wait a few minutes and ask if you can see them for a minute.
Bring it gently in the form of &quot;Sorry, but have you been clicking on a banner by acident or received an email with a link you did not know, as the firewall blocked you because of porn access.&quot;

Marc

 

[GwydionM]

On most versions of Microsoft Explorer, 'History' shows exactly where everyone's been, and how often? You could maybe use some indirect method to let your boss know this (and maybe also not advise them that it can be cleared if you know how).

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