Beware that most networks you use at work, in public hot spots or Internet cafes will be using some form of security surveillance software to trace, block and retain your information.
Purpose:
Businesses use network surveillance software to discourage users from using their work based systems for personal or non- business related activities. You should be aware that it is a fairly common practice since personal use chews up valuable business resources. It can be part of simple logging of activities to outright banning of certain sites, such as social networks and free email accounts to protect their business property.
Advice:
It is wise to keep personal internet use away from a business environment. Some companies are forth coming by advising you on proper computer use- most are not. Systems change and IT departments are not famous for updating policy and procedures or advising their users. You will not even be aware of the tracking since it is done in the background at the server- level you have no access to. One day may find you are locked out of your primary account which is embarrassing to explain and could have a real impact of your future career opportunities or worse.
Your activities can be monitored by your user id or id's from one location worldwide & from multiple workstations you have permissions to use even where you intended purpose can be misinterpret. ( I was written up for keeping records on the volunteer sports team I was coaching and emailing practice schedules- after a policy change.)
Event timelines, Internet and network sessions & usage are the types of things network surveillance software packages are very good at. Even, basic operating system software will flag increases in use, large file sizes (downloads or uploads pictures & attachments) and heavy volumes of emails that arrive from free subscription services. Something as innocent as subscribing to the a medical journal can result in advertising views and even unsolicited emails from drug companies promoting their last heart medications and more. When the phone calls start- it is because the are no privacy laws pertaining to personal business information including name, place of work, position, etc. Realise that your personal communications devices are not immune, such as PDA's- iPhone- Blackberry or anything else connected to Internet or cell connection connection. For your own sake- keep your personal and business communications separate. Make an agreement with yourself not to send or respond to any communication of any type in anger. If you would not say the same thing to the other party in person after cooling off, do not send it.
Once your business email gets circulated amongst the spammers, volumes of unsolicited emails will arrive at your user account with and without your knowledge. Be very carefully before signing up to subscription accounts or social sites with your business email that promise to send you only updates of their offerings on an ongoing basis. Once your identity is compromised- these lists and profiles are sold over and over again and stolen on a regular basis. When spam organizations are busted- their records contain hundreds of thousands of email addresses bought, sold of traded over the Internet. Should you become inundated with scores of emails, it could be time to request a new email address- even at the expense of a few new business cards.
These logs can contain your keystrokes typed, visits to all web sites- duration and pages viewed, software run, printouts made, downloaded or uploads, all connections including your internal network, wi-fi, the Internet and even dial up & FTP, files and documents viewed, chat conversations. In terms of Email Activity, monitoring can be done on all emails sent and received by you or users of your computer. Messages can be recorded for later viewing. All of these items can be tied to a timeline of when and where they occurred.
Do not think your chat conversations or emails made on AOL, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, GMail, ICQ, etc. Actually they can be retained at both needs and of course in the middle. Yes, this includes all websites visited by your favorite browser: Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, etc. If you download and share a virus or trojan, etc. by having your computer's security turned off or not updated- guess what? It is logged too- including devices or disks you have stuck in those handy slots like USB equipped storage, memory sticks, CD/DVD's and the like. The system knows We suggest if you are doing personal financial transactions at work, at least clear your browser and consider a personal data destruction when handling confidential files, especially when you can remove the system from work (laptop or notebook).
Jun 22, 2010- UK Police investigate Google breach in privacy of Public wi-fi connections
LONDON UK (AP) — Britain has become the latest country to open an investigation into whether Google violated communication and privacy laws by mistakenly gathering data over public wi-fi networks.
London's Metropolitan Police said Tuesday it was looking into complaints that the search engine picked up people's online activities through unprotected home and business networks while photographing neighborhoods for its "Street View" mapping feature. "The matter is now under consideration. It is yet to be determined what, if any, offenses may have allegedly occurred," police said in a statement.
It is the latest in a string of controversies about Google's access to private data including e-mail addresses, passwords, bank account information and web browsing histories. Last month, Google acknowledged it had mistakenly collected data from public wi-fi networks in more than 30 countries.
The company sought to reassure critics that it did not misuse the data, telling the U.S. Congress that any personal information that it collected was "not used to identify any specific individual or household." . What is Google thinking? Get a grip.
