4 ms·
There shouldn't be any expectation of privacy? There absolutely should!
by jaapz 6mo ago
There shouldn't be any expectation of privacy? There absolutely should!
- satvikpendem 6mo agoOn a work computer? No there shouldn't and isn't.
- whateverboat 6mo agoThis is Stockholm syndrome. Sure, you can enforce zero privacy on work computers, it will just lead to shitty work culture and lowered productivity.
- satvikpendem 6mo ago[flagged]
- cyclopeanutopia 6mo ago> employee communications are already monitored everywhere proof? > Turns out people actually don't really care about privacy at work lol, won't ask for proof, because it's trivially falsifiable
- satvikpendem 6mo agoAsk your IT department what they're tracking and they'll tell you. And yet I assume you still continue to go to work or do not actively seek out non-surveiling companies. By "everybody," maybe iI should clarify that it’s "majority" instead.
- Liskni_si 6mo agoWhat if "the IT department" is just this one guy who asks me to Cc him an invoice when I buy a laptop and that's the end of it? (yes that's a real story from my career, and the company was 100+ employees at the time)
- satvikpendem 6mo agoThat's fine but realize you are not representative of the average tech worker or indeed any white collar worker such as those we are talking about in this post.
- francoisdevlin 6mo agoAs an old hand that's managed many people, I can tell you this is true.
- unmole 6mo agoI don't see how people using a work computer exclusively for work would lead to a shitty work culture, let alone lowered productivity.
- cyclopeanutopia 6mo agoWhy not? How about a company-owned toilet? It's their property as well.
- satvikpendem 6mo agoYou're right, maybe they should put cameras in there too. But there's a reason we don't yet every worker still explicitly or implicitly knows not to use their work computer for personal tasks, as people can and do get fired for doing so.
- cyclopeanutopia 6mo agoThis is a ridiculous statement. Everyone I know at my company uses work laptops for personal stuff. It's not in the land of freedom though, so great leaders like yourself can't fire people at will. TBH at this point I don't believe you are a real person.
- satvikpendem 6mo agoConsider, do they ever go on explicit websites on that computer? No? Because they know that's surveiled while a personal computer for the same purpose is not. As I said, people do know the difference and might do light personal things like googling something unrelated to work but wouldn't do e.g. banking on a work computer. If they do, well, it'll be their fault if they ever get fired for doing so. The fact that you don't believe people who don't share your same opinion on mixing work and personal stuff are somehow not "real" is part of the problem.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- seanp2k2 6mo agoMost companies just don't have a reason to look through the computer they're letting you use to do your job. Don't give them a reason. Maximizing shareholder value by observing you doing job in the pursuit of replacing you with a very small shell script is a great reason that they've just discovered. Get your own laptop, pay for your own cellphone, use your own internet service, etc. If you create anything of value on their property or with their property or during times they're paying you in any capacity, expect them to use it for profit.
- AgentOrange1234 6mo agoThat sounds like a truly dystopian take to me, but suppose you're right and nobody should ever use their work computer for anything personal. Per TFA, this thing is literally taking screenshots of what is on the employee's screen. At work my screen sometimes had things such as: performance data on other employees, my own PII from HR systems, PII from customers, password managers, etc. It's also logging keystrokes. How many times do you type passwords a day. Collecting that kind of information on purpose is truly wild. Imagine the security safeguards you would need just to prevent it from leaking. Wait what, they're explicitly collecting it to train LLMs with it? God help us all.
- satvikpendem 6mo agoYour screenshots go to your managers, not just anyone in the company. At Meta there are very strict safeguards for preventing employees e.g. stalking their exes, so I'd assume the same security is used for even PII filled images.
- lazide 6mo agoBwahaha. The same protections the NSA has? The ones on the ‘inside’ are doing to 500% of the time I’m sure
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- rexpop 6mo agoI spend the majority of my adult life working, and you're telling me I should spend it surveilled?
- satvikpendem 6mo ago[flagged]
- ryandrake 6mo agoIm pretty surprised you're getting so much flak for this. This is the least controversial opinion I've seen on HN. I've been working for ~30 years, and every job I've had, if you actually looked at the IT policies, they were all very clear that work devices were for work, personal devices were for personal stuff. It wouldn't even occur to me to cross the streams. Carrying a second phone for personal stuff is a trivial burden.
- satvikpendem 6mo agoI'm also very surprised, so much so that one of my comments got flagged for it. Seems like it's a few dissenters while others have mentioned concurring with this fact as I also have always been under the impression that work hardware is for work only. And then some people are talking about how it's authoritarian or anti human, like, it's not that deep.
- rexpop 6mo ago> it's not that deep. In your view what, if anything, is?
- fc417fc802 6mo ago> every job I've had, if you actually looked at the IT policies, they were all very clear that work devices were for work, personal devices were for personal stuff There's quite a difference between that and zero privacy, and there's also quite a difference between "IT policy says" or "the law permits" and "this is how things ought to be". That said, between necessary endpoint security and the potential to get caught up in corporate legal disputes I feel like maintaining a strict separation is advisable. But that doesn't mean I support unnecessarily invasive surveillance or think it's a good thing.
- xpe 6mo ago/facepalm If we're going to debate norms and ethics, sending one liners into cyberspace won't get far. There are better ways. Invest in your conversational skills and listening skills, please. Otherwise you are a moth and HN is a streetlamp.
- sho_hn 6mo agoIn most civilized countries you absolutely do have significant rights to privacy on a work computer.
- kube-system 6mo agoIt might surprise you, but culturally, not all companies are this way. I know some are, but some are very different. 100% of the people at my company use their computer for personal tasks, and this is permissible under our policies. Our company is fully BYOD and owns zero computers, and zero cell phones.
- ryandrake 6mo agoWhether they should or shouldn't, you have to expect that your company has root on your work device or at least some sort of corporate admin profile that gives them access to everything on the device and all attached peripherals. This has been pretty standard at IT / tech companies for as long as I've been in the workforce. I personally wouldn't do anything personal on a work computer, from sending personal E-mails all the way up to storing nudes on it. Why do that when a separate personal computer is cheap and solves the problem entirely? EDIT: I remember, an example of this actually came up a while ago on HN. An Apple employee had to return a device unwiped, due to legal discovery, but the device had intimate pictures on it[1]. Oops! Don't do that, people. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28241917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28241917