Internet effect on business

[cityhunter2501]

Im cherrie :confused: and im doing a research/thesis project on my computer class about how internet affect businesses. Our teacher actually told us to post a thread which is for marks. Heres my thesis ::

"Internet usage in a business environment needs to be restricted in order to reduce potential losses it may cause in office productivity, copyright infringement and security breaches."

can you guys give me ideas.. please and thank you!!

[ercchry]

beyond.ca= no productivity

does that work?

:D

[cityhunter2501]

Originally posted by ercchry
beyond.ca= no productivity

does that work?

:D

ahaha that's what i've been telling her.

I mean look at us..in the office yet instead of working are on beyond instead :rofl:

[Boosted Gtir]

yup im definitely supposed to be working right now ;)

[Grogador]

- we recently had a virus outbreak when some genius executed an SCR from their personal webmail and it spread through our Exchange... IS hadn't bothered to update the server's virus definitions... so now all webmail and MSN is blocked

- certain nameless people waste much time on facebook, youtube, webcomics, online games, slashdot, beyond, etc...

We have Websense which filters sites, and allows you to use a "15 minute quota time" window to access certain others. You get 200mins per day of precious quota time, however your manager gets reports of where you've been and how much you used.

Personally if I had a business, internet would be locked down bigtime, except between say 1130 till 1300, or if necessary for your job function. Unless you're a professional Facebook researcher or something, no reason to leave it open all day... The quota time thing with Websense works pretty good, but it all depends how well admins set up categories/filtering/profiles.

[finboy]

omghi2u :D

[Masked Bandit]

On one hand, I firmly believe that unrestricted access has to affect productivity. However, the lower staff moral of being "watched by the man" all the time has to be considered as well.

[Tik-Tok]

Have to agree with Grogador, i'd have a strict internet useage policy. Probably around 90 minutes a day. That'd be your lunch, and then some.

If you used any more time then that, you'd get it taken off your paycheque, unless you could prove beyond a doubt it was for business purposes.

You want to surf all day, fine, but not on my dollar.

[Toms-SC]

COCK

[thrasher22]

Well of course people waste company time (or beyond would be half the size it is), but how much more productive are we because of the internet and computers in general? I think the positive way outweighs the negatives.

Besides, if you've ever worked in an office where they restrict what you can do online it just feels more demeaning than anything that you're obviously not trusted.

[swak]

i generally dont work at work.
Beyond is blocked too.
But its a rad place still.

So i dont think its a little demeaning...
it does help you to stay a little productive.

If there was no firewall... without question everyone would be on facebook etc... all the time.

If i were the company owner, id like to know im paying my employees to work and not surf beyond etc...

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by thrasher22

Besides, if you've ever worked in an office where they restrict what you can do online it just feels more demeaning than anything that you're obviously not trusted.

Look at your co-workers. Are at least 50% of them trustworthy not to screw around?

The other reason I'd restrict usage, is so if they want to waste time, they can do it around the water cooler IN PERSON. I think society (including myself) as becoming way to impersonal because of the web.

[snoop101]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok


The other reason I'd restrict usage, is so if they want to waste time, they can do it around the water cooler IN PERSON. I think society (including myself) as becoming way to impersonal because of the web.

Hence people getting married and having funerals in MMO's. Way to far.. way to far.

(Edit:lol I guess those two are the same.. aahahahha)

[eblend]

depends on the job function. I work in IT and do a bunch of crap all day long, write code sometimes, do funky lab setups, so i search the net for answers all the time, if it was restricted i definately could not do alot of the stuff effectively.

If you are a normal worker doing other shit, it should be blocked for sure

[Xtrema]

Gambling, games, ads, porn, hate site should be completely blocked.

Everything else should be open but users should be told and sign an agreement that EVERYTHING including all personal info will be recorded and tracked for term of employment.

Balance between productivity and moral must be reached.

And if you facebook all day, a manager should be able to confront you with it with discretion. Where I'm with only use internet record when there's a complain or to fire people. Majority of the people don't even show up on the radar.

[The Cosworth]

I agree that it can be a little rampant. However if you have an unproductive person here are two thoughts on it:

1.) What are you paying that persons manager for then, shouldnt they be watching them? not some net nanny?

2.) I have a guy at my office who's internet usage is TOO low....... because he is never there. If you relied mainly on net nanny material then you would think he was a GOD! To be unproductive one can find many ways. As I mentioned the guy who works 3 hours a day and wanders downtown for the rest. OR the guy who downloads TV shows and watches them all day long on his iPod video. Everyone has a way to slack off, the internet is just the current medium of choice because of the varied content. Think back to when secretaries used to read or do their nails all day.


Also I agree with the big brother moral comment.

[cityhunter2501]

Originally posted by eblend
depends on the job function. I work in IT and do a bunch of crap all day long, write code sometimes, do funky lab setups, so i search the net for answers all the time, if it was restricted i definately could not do alot of the stuff effectively.

If you are a normal worker doing other shit, it should be blocked for sure
:werd:
For IT definetly internet is required for doing researches.
but for an account or engineer, they don't really need it.

in our office we are pretty slack regarding internet usage, websense is not even running however most of the time i walk around the office, users are working.

[Alterac]

Filter the internet, and allow unrestricted at noon hour.

No Facebook, Webmails, Instant messaging, Bombs/Weapons, etc sites at all.

Then log everything and have it send weekly reports to the manager.

[dr_jared88]

Just be the network guy and you have nothing to worry about blocking you :bigpimp:

[thrasher22]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok


Look at your co-workers. Are at least 50% of them trustworthy not to screw around?

Fair, but then if I was a company owner I wouldn't want to employ someone who wastes time and resources like that. I think we should have the chance to mess up. If someone wants to slack, they'll slack regardless. If they can't do it online they'll chat to coworkers, go for coffee, take a walk or take a nap in the bathroom haha.

[cityhunter2501]

for those guys who replied on this thread.. THANK YOU so much!!:thumbsup: i cited some of your replies on my thesis and that got me my 5 marks.. lols!! thanks again guys!!!

[Anomaly]

Websense, Scansafe, etc are pretty easy to get around...

[chineseguy]

HOW DO YOU GET AROUND WEBSENSE?

[Nitzer5]

Haha I've been browsing beyond at work for the past 2 hours.

[GQBalla]

Originally posted by chineseguy
HOW DO YOU GET AROUND WEBSENSE?


many ways but most ways your work place will have already created the necessary steps to block you from gettin around websense.

soooo in all end to end make friends with the desktop guys ahhaha

[Alterac]

Basically if your network guy is good, you wont be able to "get around" websense or any other filter that is put in place.. (or preferably they will use an inline hardware device)

The most common thing to do is try to SSH Tunnel through the firewall into a box you have, and proxy thru that.

The simple way for IT/IS to block that is disable outgoing ssh port, but if you company is bigger they might have a Layer 7 firewall that blocks all SSH communication regardless of port, and then immediatly sends an email to the managers to educate the employee on wasteing computer resources.

The thing that is worse than wasting company resources, is wasting company time. Which as a manager would be 0 tolerance policy.

but yes, try the ssh proxy, and run your ssh server on port 80, 443, or 53 and see how that goes.

[chineseguy]

Originally posted by Alterac
Basically if your network guy is good, you wont be able to "get around" websense or any other filter that is put in place.. (or preferably they will use an inline hardware device)

The most common thing to do is try to SSH Tunnel through the firewall into a box you have, and proxy thru that.

The simple way for IT/IS to block that is disable outgoing ssh port, but if you company is bigger they might have a Layer 7 firewall that blocks all SSH communication regardless of port, and then immediatly sends an email to the managers to educate the employee on wasteing computer resources.

The thing that is worse than wasting company resources, is wasting company time. Which as a manager would be 0 tolerance policy.

but yes, try the ssh proxy, and run your ssh server on port 80, 443, or 53 and see how that goes.

that sounds confusing i will just continue to stick it out with pictureless internet

[benyl]

Originally posted by Toms-SC
COCK

BALLZ