🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <143411@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>, karyn@cheetah (Karyn Pichnarczyk) writes:
>What about this example:
>
>Joe works for company X.  He is using their computers to calculate
>payroll for a company Y that he owns and is in no way related to
>Company X.  He knows he is "not supposed" to do this because something
>like that is in the policy of the company.  Because of this, he does
>his payroll after normal business hours.
>
>The system admin of company X gets suspicious of some random cracking
>activity on computer systems (unrelated to Joe).  Sysadmin decides
>that since all cracking activity happens after normal business hours,
>and since no users claim to use the computer after hours, keyboard
>monitoring of all after hours users takes place and thus Joe's payroll
>activity is discovered.
>
>Questions for comp.security.misc:
>
>1. Is this invasion of privacy?

If the policy of monitoring is announced, I don't think so.  If it
isn't, it might be - if it's OK to use the computer after hours, it
is, but if it's against company policy to use the computer after hours
then I don't think it's that bad.

>2. What if Joe's business is a random legal business?
>3. What if it's an illegal Drug Ring?

All possessions of companies X, Y and Joe will be instantly forfeited
to the government and all employees will spend life in jail?

Actually, I think 2. is worse since you can easily hire a company to
do payroll for a normal company - with 3. it's understandable that one
wants to hide the business because of the fascist laws.

In both cases, the reasonable thing to do in my opinion would be for
company X to give Joe a severe warning or perhaps sack him for
violating a company policy by using equipment for non-company use.
The fascist laws probably require the company X to report Joe to the
authorities in 3., however, or the company itself will get in trouble.
Or if it's 3. and the profits are good, perhaps ask Joe to buy some
new and better computers for company X and let Joe have the old ones
and say he can keep his job if the use of company resources will end ;-)

>4. Do you think CERT's banner might make a difference in the legal
>hassles?

No idea, but the Justice Dept. seems to think it will, and I guess
they have some expertise/influence on the topic.

//Jyrki