If you work in investment banking, odds are your employer monitors your Internet usage and probably blocks your access to certain sites (some cretinous firms even block WSO!). This is all just part of the game these days, and it isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, there are those (like myself) who bristle at invasions of privacy, and Internet monitoring certainly qualifies.
What I'm about to link to is not something I'm recommending you do. Circumventing your employer's network monitoring on all but the most occasional basis is certain to throw up a red flag in the IT department and could even get you fired in some cases (depending upon your employment contract). So once again I am not recommending that you circumvent or in any way disable your employer's network monitoring. That said, I think it's good to know how.
This handy post from Lifehacker shows you how to tell if you're being monitored and how to get around it if you are. While I find that kind of monitoring creepy, I don't consider it an invasion of privacy in any legal sense. In fact, your employer has every right to do it if you have stipulated as such in your at-will employment contract. In fact, there's a good reason for it - unrestricted and/or unmonitored Internet access leads to employee man-years in wasted time and productivity.
But I've always believed that forewarned is forearmed. If you ever did need to do something online without your employer's knowledge, at least now you'll know how.
Those of you in back office IT support may now load the monkey shit cannons and fire at will...
How to Avoid company internet monitoring
The easiest way to get around internet monitoring is to just use your cell phone at work. No other way described by our users can universally get around company internet monitoring.
Lean more about how employers monitor you online with the video below.
Read More About Corporate Internet Monitoring on WSO
- How Do You Discreetly Browse The Internet At Work?
- Ever Worry About Corporate Checking Your Internet Activity?
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More than the wasted man hours, look at the SEC for a sense of what employee googling habits (no pun intended) can have on the firm's reputation.
Just use your phone.
Being friends with your IT guy ftw. I used sit there watching Family Guy on Hulu, while other kids couldn't even log in to WSO.
I recommend this on a personal machine when you need to do something..uh..secretly: https://www.torproject.org/
"The core principle behind Tor, "onion routing", was developed in the mid-1990s by U.S. Naval Research Laboratory employees, mathematician Paul Syverson and computer scientists Michael Reed and David Goldschlag, with the purpose of protecting U.S. intelligence communications online. Onion routing was further developed by DARPA in 1997".
Source: Wikepedia.
Not possible to do anything "secretly" on Tor bruh
I use company laptop to watch porn..cuff me dammit
Set up logmein.com on a computer at home. Problem solved.
This won't help you. The SSL chain is usually compromised on work machines so that they can read even your https traffic.
This is the kind of thing that a lot of firms have zero tolerance for. If you fiddle with this kind of thing, you're not long for the world of high finance...
But then the only thing they'd see is the logmein stream which they would have to translate. Could be done I suppose, but that's an awful lot of work. It'd be easier to just screen cap what you're doing.
The middle east is notorious for blocked sites, but nothing can get past this: http://hotspotshield.com/
[quote=Macro Arbitrage]The middle east is notorious for blocked sites, but nothing can get past this: http://hotspotshield.com/[/quote]
I wish that were true. Netflix had hotspotshield figured out after 2 weeks.
Do you mean for their employees?
My place forces internet explorer to go through a company proxy. (setting cannot be changed) In addition, admin rights are not granted and have the anti-virus program instantly delete any files named firefox, opera, etc.
I download and extract portable Maxthon browser from www.portableapps.com and use it, no real install and I can choose to not use the proxy.
I have a similar type system. Internet Explorer 6 is the only supported browser, and it goes through its own proxy. Most sites are blocked. The USB ports are disabled. My "local hard drive" (standard C drive) is actually space on a networked LAN drive - my desk computer is just a shell workstation. I have zero admin privileges and cannot install anything. Emails are monitored / read by actual humans, although I assume they don't read ALL of them. Compliance makes sure to call me about once a month to ask a question about a suspicious looking email. My phone conversations are recorded.
Anyway, its just easier to use a smartphone. This isn't about wasting time at work, this is about compliance with SEC regulations and potential lawsuits. These compliance guys are not joking around.
It's why I use my smartphone. No fuss, no muss. Just pray you don't have AT&T otherwise you won't get any reception at your desk in midtown!!
How long have you worked for Guantanamo Capital?
^ idk, I thought that kind of security is normal. I don't have admin privledges either and assume emails are logged. USB ports are not disabled for me but if I try to copy files to them, it requires the removeable device to be formatted with the company's choice of encryption.
How To: Look for a new job on your current employer's dime
Long time lurker here... first WSO post. Having some level of familiarity with this subject, I can assure you, the life hacker article is way off base. All of those saying use your smart phone are dead on. If you are doing anything with your work computer, it can be tracked - regardless of all those "anonymous" sites (and not just through screen captures as some have mentioned).
Also, if you choose to hit up one of those sites that is supposed to help hide your internet traffic from your work, it will throw up more red flags than if you would have gone straight to Hustler's website - no shit.
Finally, as someone else mentioned, just because it's using HTTPS/SSL, does not mean your employer can't see it. Odds are, they are playing man-in-the-middle and interrupting the SSL stream - still looking at your "encrypted" traffic.
tl;dr: Don't do dumb shit on your work computer; if you must do something that you don't want your employer to see during the day, use your smart phone.
Does the smartphone option work if you are on the companies wifi?
Been reading this thread for about an hour....what do you think dumb ass? If the company pays for your wifi or the computer that accesses is owned by the company do you really think you have the right to privacy regarding anything that was input outside of your job description?
WTF? Company pays for info on wifi so why can't they see the info and make sure it is work related dumbass!
Pretty normal at BBs for all that to be blocked.
And Compliance reads "ALL" the emails.
Have to agree that compliance is reading your emails. They're also checking your bloombergs sent, particularly on investment/trade ideas sent to clients. I've been pulled over a couple of times b/c the wording "was not proper", especially with short sell recommendations. For example, on a target price for an idea, they like to see the words "potential downside" instead of "will go down to"...you get my drift...
It isn't worth it. Work is for work, dick around on your own time.
Downsides of BB PCs: USB ports are disabled (no transferring files), no admin privileges, can't log into WSO with spare username
Upsides: Firefox can be installed with manager approval
About a year ago or so, my employer all of the sudden blocked all of our good sites (Barstool, Sports betting, etc). Morale in my group was so fucking low when that happened I thought someone was going to go upstairs and fight someone in IT. You could tell they were singling out the sites we went to because for example, it would get rid of Barstool but not Deadspin, or Bovada but not SportsBook. It took about a month, but we found a work around and happiness (for banking) was restored.
Also, to the guy who said use your phone, are you for real with that?? Websites are terrible on your phone and take so much longer to quickly peruse. This coming from a guy with a Galaxy Note II.
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