Pornographic Spam And The Workplace 58
dolo666 writes "The BBC posted an article about how UK legal experts are warning businesses to take a more active role in the prevention of pornographic spam. If you get an explicit email, how exactly do you show it to your boss, without looking guilty yourself?"
A good first measure... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then, he/she will know it's perfectly normal to get up to 10 penis enlargement spams a day, and it has nothing to do with the way you surf the internet.
It's a joke, laugh.
Re:A good first measure... (Score:2, Funny)
It's quite clever, I would do it to my boss
heh (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone remember farm sluts? [foxsearchlight.com]
Re:heh (Score:1)
This is a good thing (Score:3, Funny)
Sadly enough, I would not be amazed if this underhanded tactic would actually work...
You hire resonable admins (Score:5, Informative)
We don't hassle people about porno spam or the occasional mis-navigation to www..com. It's pretty obvious when someone is really surfing porn or doing anything else inappropriate.
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:2, Interesting)
That should also read:
We very clearly outline net useage and who's responsible for what in our employee handbook.
That way the responsibility goes both ways.
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:2, Insightful)
You obvioulsy didn't read the article... This is about some guy meaning that companies can expect lawsuits from employees because the company doesn't do enough to protect their employees from spam...
I'm not pro spam in any way, but this is crazy!
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:3, Insightful)
Next time, hire responsible employees, and you won't have to waste your time and money monitoring them.
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:1)
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:2)
Except your confusing the type of traffic with the content of traffic. (Web browising vs Porn Browsing)
Paranoia is fine if you have an unlimited budget, and your employees don't merely avoid your expensive monitoring equipment anyways. (Laptops, wireless connections, etc)
You can't point fingers and call names unless you know the situation. If it costs more to monitor employees from steal
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:1)
I monitor traffic as well as payload. The system I use is all open source and cost me nothing.
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:2)
Time is also money. Open Source is great, but doesn't address employee morale. Of course, neither does commercial software.
IMHO, active employee monitoring on-par with allowing drinks at your desk.
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:1)
Kind of like the RIAA suing grandmothers and 13-year-olds in an attempt to get everyone else to realize they might just get sued too. Whether a porn surfer at work, or a
Re:You hire resonable admins (Score:2)
Your job should be to ensure performance and security of the network. Keep a log of URLs for investigation purposes, but don't go snooping "just because" and delete after a week. If anyone is causing technical problems with their use, approach them on these grounds. If there is a complaint about employee X offended because employee Y is browsing porn, tell Y you expect him to be an adult a
Employer's responsibility ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it's clear at all. Should an employer be responsible because someone decides to randomly mail dead-tree copies of porn magazines to their employees ? Or because some individual decides to make a random sexually explicit phone call to one of their phone numberS ?
(IANAL, if in the above situations employers *are* supposed to be responsible, then it's just another good example of the stupidity of the law.)
Re:Employer's responsibility ? (Score:2)
now.. as it seems to be the case that if you have an email account you will get pornographic spam.. and your employer forces(you need it to do your work) you to use email..
of course as things are the employer can never catch(currently) the guys sendi
Re:Employer's responsibility ? (Score:2)
The Water Cooler (Score:5, Funny)
If you get an explicit email, how exactly do you show it to your boss, without looking guilty yourself?
Silly! You don't show this to your boss! If I were you, I'd let the issue "bubble up" to management without putting a bullseye on my shirt. How to do this? Use the time-honored method of watercooler smalltalk.
Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. You met your coworkers there any chat about whatever. Occasionally you use that time to tentatively throw out an issue that bugs you and see if anyone else latches on to it.
Bob: 'Morning Guy. 'Morning Sally.Sally: 'Morning boys!
Guy: Hey everyone. How's things going?
Bob: I just spent an hour cleaning up the code after that asshat Maurice committed a bunch of stuff that caused compiler warnings. Sure, they're not strictly errors but still we should strive to write good code. That really bugs me.
Sally: Yeah? Well I got to work 30 minutes late today because there was an accident. It had been moved well off the road so there wasn't any reason for a slowdown in traffic. Except, of course, the fact that every little shithead had to gawk at other people's misery. *That* is what really bugs me.
Guy: You know what really bugs me? All that goat porn spam that floods my Inbox. I mean, I like to look at naked girls like everyone but that stuff is sick! You know what I'm talking about?
Bob: *cough*
Sally: Um, I've got to go. Just remembered a meeting I'm supposed to be at. See you later, Bob.
Mark my words: a few watercooler conversations like this and sooner or later word of the problem will trickle on up to management.
Hope this helps,
GMD
Re:The Water Cooler (Score:3, Interesting)
I know it's a joke...
But you should tell Sally about Traffic Waves [amasci.com]. It's not about gawking, mostly.
Re:The Water Cooler (Score:2)
Accordign to that radio station, the only accepable instance of a gawker slowdown is a care fire (carbeque). Something about a car engolfed in flames requires a gawk.
What it's really about... (Score:4, Funny)
Read the article...
It seems anti-spam vendors are saying companies could be sued for emotional damage if they don't block spam.
I don't know about the UK courts, but I could just see this one going to court in Canada...
Plaintiff: Someone outside the company emailed me an ad for porn and it hurt my feelings so much I suffered a financial loss.Judge: You clearly have psychological issues that are not the fault of your employer. Seek counselling. Case Dismissed.
IANAL
Re:What it's really about... (Score:1)
yeah, i know.
Well "duh" (Score:2)
C'mon, how is this a difficult question?
You simply forward the email headers to your IT department (ok, not all but someone you're confident is capable of handling it) and strip the offending images/text. CC: your boss for good measure and state in the email that you received a bit of junkmail with nudity/etc.
Jeeze.
Re:Well "duh" (Score:4, Insightful)
The part about "looking guilty yourself" refers to the fact that many bosses are going to blame you for being on the spammers email list. As stated in the article, there are plenty of reasons (not necessarily good ones) for assuming that receiving pornographic spam is the end result of visiting porn sites on company time. A lot of bosses aren't even aware of the email harvesting that spam-bots do. If you start telling your boss "I'm receiving a lot of porno spam" and no one else is telling them that, a typical PHB -- consciously or unconscously looking to minimze their work and/or liability -- is going to assume you're the only one receiving this stuff. It has nothing to do with forwarding the actual content to your superior.
GMD
Re:Well "duh" (Score:3, Insightful)
As for "assuming that receiving pornographic spam is the end result of visiting porn sites on company time" - uhm, simply visiting a pr0n site while on the clock isn't going to instantly give someone your email address.
Re:Well "duh" (Score:2)
Re:Well "duh" (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well "duh" (Score:2)
Anyone want to make me an offer?
question (Score:5, Insightful)
why would you be showing your boss your spam?
* delete it upon arrival
* use some spam filtering software of some sort, forward the spam to him/her
* don't let your work email get onto the internet unless you're ready for lots of porn spam
* virtually everyone gets porn spam, don't worry too much.
Re:question (Score:2)
yeah, cause email is just so damned useful without the internet. reading the output of cron all day keeps me so interested.
come on, guys - internet != web. if you mean web, say web.
This may sound like a stupid troll, but how many of your relatives call their computer "hard drive" ?. We can only educate ignorant people if we show them they sound ignorant.
Re:question (Score:2)
Re:question (Score:1)
It seems only fair (Score:2, Insightful)
2) Anyone with a corporate email address that's been around for a while is likely to get 90% spam or more, assuming the company doesn't filter their mail. Especially as these are often unmunged on the web.
3) You have to read your email to do your job.
In other words, employees have no choice but to look at porn in
Re:It seems only fair (Score:1)
Re:It seems only fair (Score:2)
Re:It seems only fair (Score:1)
Why just spam? (Score:2)
Yes, spam happens more frequently than any of those, but this is slashdot. Reductuo ad absurdum, baby.
My question is, how the heck can we expect people feeling mental and emotional distress from things found in e-mail to cope with the other stresses of the modern workplace?!? Are
Re:Why just spam? (Score:1)
If it happens persistantly.
If there's no way of doing your job without avoiding it.
If the company knew about it and could have stopped it.
If they chose not to.
in that case, I think it'd apply too. But that's not the issue anyway; the issue is pornography in inboxen that could be
True Story... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ugh. Yeah you gotta be careful. Even though I doubt I would have lost my job over it (I work with understanding people), the thought of disturbing one of my coworkers really bothers me.
Re:True Story... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:True Story... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:True Story... (Score:2)
Exactly. Do a view source on questionable email before opening it - it's pretty easy to determine if it's junk.
Re:True Story... [OT] (Score:2)
Re:True Story... [OT] (Score:2)
preview panes can be innocuous... if neutered (Score:1)
Actually, Mozilla lets me toggle the preview pane, as does my new client of choice, thunderbird. But even after installing a plugin that's supposed to let me turn it on and off with a click, that seems a no-op, and I have to do it manually. Since I frown on preview for mail but find it very useful for news (only internal
Re:True Story... (Score:1)
I recieve at a minimum of 500 messages a day. Preview panes make working through them very easy. I do how ever have hundreds of mail filter rules that place all of my mail in to proper folders. On folders I know will only have valid mail I use a preview pane and have it on. On anything that could contain junk, I don't.
No reason to nuter e-mail clie
We have the technology to stop it????? (Score:1)
Our mail server can block 100% of spam. (Score:3, Funny)
Grow a skin for God's sake... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry for the rant, but people without the slightest bit of ability to cope with stress piss me off. I have four words for the people involved with this sort of lawsuit, FUCKING DEAL WITH IT!!!
Ah, I feel better. Please forward all complaints to: FuckYou@I.Do.Not.Care.com
Re:Grow a skin for God's sake... (Score:2)
Re:Grow a skin for God's sake... (Score:2)
I think this is just one of those things that bothers me a little bit every time I see it. Its like the old "Chinese water torture", you tie a person down and let water drip on thier forehead slowly. At first its nothing, but after time and repeated drips on the exact same spot it starts to get really damned annoying.
Same thing with me and this subject, I've just finally reached the point where its getting really damned annoying. I have a pretty thick skin for the most part, but everyone has a b