1. Name: __________________ Date: ____________________
How Workplace Surveillance Works
Obtained on Sept. 13, 2007 from: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/workplace-surveillance.htm
Introduction to How Workplace Surveillance Works
1. What activities are considered as cyberslacking according to the article?
Activities considered as cyber slacking is sending personal e-mails, playing games,
viewing pornography, shopping, checking stock prices and gambling online during
working hours.
2. Do you think it is an ethical practice for an employer to track the websites that
you may be going to at work? Explain why or why not.
I do think that it is an ethical practice for an employer to track the websites
because the employer needs to know which employee is being productive and
using their time wisely. It isn’t fair to the employees that do their work properly and
productively, while others go on sites they aren’t supposed to be on and they
both get the same pay.
A Growing Trend
3. Why do you think that employers are tracking the activities of their
employees?
Employers are also watching their workers to avoid sexual harassment and
discrimination lawsuits that stem from inappropriate and offensive e-mails circulating
within a company.
4. What are the five methods that employers can use to track employee
activities:
• Packet sniffers
• Log files
• Desktop monitoring programs
• Phones
• Closed-circuit cameras
5. What is a packet sniffer?
A packet sniffer is a program that can see all of the information passing over the
network it is connected to. As data streams back and forth on the network, the
program looks at, or "sniffs," each packet.
6. A packet sniffer located at one of the servers of your ISP would potentially be
able to monitor all of your online activities, such as:
• Which Web sites you visit
• What you look at on the site
• Whom you send e-mail to
• What's in the e-mail you send
• What you download from a site

2. Name: __________________ Date: ____________________
• What streaming events you use, such as audio, video and Internet telephony
Desktop Monitoring
7. Describe how a desktop monitoring system would monitor employees.
Desktop monitoring programs have the ability to record every keystroke. When you
are typing, a signal is sent from the keyboard to the application you are working in.
This signal can be intercepted and either streamed back to the person who installed
the monitoring program or recorded and sent back in a text file.
8. Explain how log files work?
A system administrator can determine what Web sites you've accessed, whom you
are sending e-mails to and receiving e-mails from and what applications are being
used.
9. Where can log files be found?
• Operating systems
• Web browsers (in the form of a cache)
• Applications (in the form of backups)
• E-mail
Traditional Eavesdropping
10.Describe how employers eavesdrop on their employees.
Employers eavesdrop on their employees by listening through phone calls or placing
a video camera in the employees work space.
11.Currently, 78 percent of all companies use some type of surveillance system.
Here is a breakdown of the methods they use:
• Storing and reviewing computer files: 36 percent
• Video-recording employees: 15 percent
• Recording and reviewing phone calls: 12 percent
• Storing and reviewing voice mail: 8 percent