surfing the net at work via laptop?

Question

my company uses a hardline to connect to the internet for the pc's but they also have an unsecured wireless labeled guests. i surf the net via my personal laptop using the guest wireless connection. is the company still able to track what i surf from my laptop?

Answer 1

Most IT groups will have at least one tech monitoring network traffic. I have monitored network traffic and I can see every picture downloaded, website accessed, emails even passwords. If necessary we log all online activity for a specific user, this is only in extreme cases though. For example an employee sending harassing emails. Of course we are also looking for hackers trying to get into the network.

Answer 2

Yes.

And keep a copy of it, if they want.

Afterall, if you're using the company's bandwidth, then whether you use the corporate network or your personal laptop over the Guests WiFi, the company can be held legally liable for anything that you do while using their network.

The most likely scenario is that they provided the Guests WiFi for people who visit for meetings and such. The Guests WiFi probably has limited or no access to the rest of the corporate network.

But, why would you surf the net via your personal laptop at the office anyway? As an employer, I might be tempted to terminate your employment if I found you surfing the net on your personal computer during your work hours.

Answer 3

Hello, This is an increasing common issue due to the sheer number of wireless routers now installed and being used. If your using his router without his knowlegde or permission thats NOT very nice of you. Your using a service someone else is paying for so your stealing his bandwidth in effect. If your neighbours wireless router is wide open and has no security set-up upon it (insecure internet connection) and you can access the internet then no I doubte this person will be aware of what your doing, however routers often do have logs. So the router might (& I do stress might!) well have logged someone's IP address using the router & gaining web access. Obviously the logs wont have your name written in them but probably your machines IP address. **Technically what your doing isnt strickly legal? **I think its unfair of you to take advantage of someone else's lack of awareness about the router. At the very least you should go and ask politely if they wouldnt mind you sharing web access with them. **I'll leave this issue for you to think about from a moral/ethical point of view. Think about how you might feel if someone else did the same thing to you? and you wondered where all that monthly data useage allowence disappeared too. IR

Answer 4

Absolutely

They can track every bit of data that crosses their routers, and there are programs to flag things like porn, etc.
These same programs take screen shots of the sites you visit, so they can actually SEE your email and the pages you visit.
Now, whether they can track it to you, via your machine, is questionable. If your machine name is going to identify you, then yes. If anything you do on that machine can point at you (email, etc.) then yes.

Answer 5

Most probably they can; worse yet you can get caught and have to explain why you are playing on the net while at work and end up with a discipline problem.

Answer 6

It they wanted to Yes