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Ask the IT department. They should be able to tell you what is going over the company equipment and how to make sure your personal stuff isn't.
Posted by: D S Ulmlan at February 17, 2006 2:27 PM
While on the surface it's hard to disagree with that statement, it makes a couple of assumptions that I don't really like.
1) Your IT department may not know. Or they may get it wrong. Depending on your company there may be several levels of competancy in the department (or incompetancy, if you're cynical), and they might just think they know, guess, or get it wrong. Especially since it's something that's typically configured once by one person and ignored until needed, it's not in front of them each day, so they don't need to remember it every day.
2) They might lie. Unethical and as wrong as it is, there are companies out there who may choose to explicitly hide this information, for fear of not knowing whatever it is you are doing. The thinking might be that if you have to ask, you must have something to hide, so we better watch.
I'm not saying that 99% of all companies aren't going to be honest and accurate - but if you work at that 1% that might not be, asking could be both missleading and problematic.
Posted by: Leo at February 17, 2006 3:52 PM
http://www.aimencrypt.com/ has information on how to encrypt AIM. It is probably possible to encrypt other protocols using similar methods, but I haven't really looked into it. The certificates you can download from aimencrypt can be broken by someone who really knows what they're doing, but should prevent 99% of IT people from seeing what you're saying. If you want to be protected from 100% of the IT people, you need to generate your own certificate, which can be a complicated process. Of course, the encryption only protects against people watching your traffic as it goes over the network. If you're IM-ing from a company-owned computer, you still need to keep your hard drive clean. Leo has several other articles about that.
Posted by: Charles at June 2, 2006 1:41 PM
I have a ? can we instant message not at home but in other placse?
Posted by: nikki at June 12, 2006 2:59 PM
how could i find some of past convos that ive had in the instant messaging?
Posted by: kara at January 31, 2007 4:48 AM
If you encrypt your messages and they are watching you, then they'll probably assume you're up to something you shouldn't be, which could cause problems later on. In any case, all they'd need to do would be to monitor your keystrokes and work and get your password.
Which reminds me- don't ever use a password at work for something you wouldn't want them to see.
Posted by: John at February 11, 2010 8:48 PM
Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
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Comments
Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.
Ask the IT department. They should be able to tell you what is going over the company equipment and how to make sure your personal stuff isn't.
Posted by: D S Ulmlan at February 17, 2006 2:27 PMWhile on the surface it's hard to disagree with that statement, it makes a couple of assumptions that I don't really like.
1) Your IT department may not know. Or they may get it wrong. Depending on your company there may be several levels of competancy in the department (or incompetancy, if you're cynical), and they might just think they know, guess, or get it wrong. Especially since it's something that's typically configured once by one person and ignored until needed, it's not in front of them each day, so they don't need to remember it every day.
2) They might lie. Unethical and as wrong as it is, there are companies out there who may choose to explicitly hide this information, for fear of not knowing whatever it is you are doing. The thinking might be that if you have to ask, you must have something to hide, so we better watch.
I'm not saying that 99% of all companies aren't going to be honest and accurate - but if you work at that 1% that might not be, asking could be both missleading and problematic.
Posted by: Leo at February 17, 2006 3:52 PMhttp://www.aimencrypt.com/ has information on how to encrypt AIM. It is probably possible to encrypt other protocols using similar methods, but I haven't really looked into it. The certificates you can download from aimencrypt can be broken by someone who really knows what they're doing, but should prevent 99% of IT people from seeing what you're saying. If you want to be protected from 100% of the IT people, you need to generate your own certificate, which can be a complicated process. Of course, the encryption only protects against people watching your traffic as it goes over the network. If you're IM-ing from a company-owned computer, you still need to keep your hard drive clean. Leo has several other articles about that.
Posted by: Charles at June 2, 2006 1:41 PMI have a ? can we instant message not at home but in other placse?
Posted by: nikki at June 12, 2006 2:59 PMhow could i find some of past convos that ive had in the instant messaging?
Posted by: kara at January 31, 2007 4:48 AMIf you encrypt your messages and they are watching you, then they'll probably assume you're up to something you shouldn't be, which could cause problems later on. In any case, all they'd need to do would be to monitor your keystrokes and work and get your password.
Which reminds me- don't ever use a password at work for something you wouldn't want them to see.
Posted by: John at February 11, 2010 8:48 PMTo post a comment on "Can my company monitor my IM conversations at home?", please return to that article's main page.