A Boss Reveals Everything Your Company Can Monitor in Microsoft

[@TabletMini]

Never use a company computer for private use!

[@JoeSmith-kn5wo]

As a manager you should definitely not use your work computer for personal things. I would never risk it.

[@aussiegruber86]

Exactly, I actually carry my own second private laptop to work, and I use that for anything personal. After being shafted by a few employers in the past for browsing news articles etc during my lunch break they can all jog on. I also leave my desk and leave my work phone locked in the drawer so ultimately it’s costed them way more in the long run

[@thomascrabtree]

@@aussiegruber86 They can also track everything you do on your own personal laptop if you're using it inside the office.

[@MarcusGarveysGhost]

@@thomascrabtreeon the company’s wifi that is. Tether to your phone. And the number of my colleagues who willingly connect to the company’s wifi on their personal phones instead of just paying a hit more for an unlimited data plan 🤦‍♂️

[@jasonk5979]

I worked for a company in IT. They told people they could use their computers for personal stuff on breaks. All the while using monitoring software that recorded everything. Keylogging and screenshots. Like passwords to everything. Phone calls being recorded. Check. So if you want it private. Use your own phone/laptop.

[@pandemik0]

IT guy here, I have to explain to new people, we can theoretically see eveerrryytthing, but we don't look, but you mess up or get associated with something that goes bad, what you said could get eyeballs on it. Don't use your work anything for personal anything, and vice versa.

[@YS_Production]

IT guy here as well. Any spying is illegal in EU. No one can read your emails even after you've left. Unless there're court orders involved, of course. Yes, the functionality is there in MS365 admin panels even on European tenants, but one mustn't use them. That is what I tell my users.

[@spaycee9082]

@@YS_Productionshoulder surfing is illegal

[@jameskrych7767]

Spot on!

[@cvshav]

Thanks IT guys, I knew people didn't sit around and viewed activities, but always knew it's easy to summarize in a report

[@-Dildo.Baggins.]

what about on incognito?

[@magicfairy7805]

I was told in 1991 "never put an email anything you wouldnt want printed and pinned on the wall" Good advice.

[@haskell42]

I never use company computers. I only use my computer, like a chef bringing his own knifes. What you let companies do to you, it is your problem xD

[@sirtra]

In 1991 only a handful of academics even knew what email was. It wasn't used for business purposes until late 90's / early 00's. You should watch the movie "you've got mail" which was released in 1998 to get a glimpse into my how email was perceived and be more realistic with your lies in future. I bet you don't even know what Trumpet ****** is or what it was used for, prove me wrong.

[@VoteForBukele]

We used email at work in 93-94. I used email in college in 92 - 93. (prodigy/aol). I can’t speak to 91.

[@sirtra]

@@VoteForBukele prior to windows 95 simply connecting to the internet was a challenge in itself, let alone configuring and running one of the very few email clients. Webmail came much later! People have a tendency to think the way things are today are just a faster version of how things were back then, which simply isn't true.. but an even bigger tendency is for ppl to exaggerate when they lie. If they had said 2001 then that's totally plausible and believable, even 94 whilst a bit of a stretch is possible. But being given *advice* about the content you should or shouldn't put in an email in 91, nope, i call BS. No way that happened. For the record it's not that it's bad advice, it's just the obvious and completely unnecessary lie about it being in 91. Why lie about something like that, it's such a weird thing for someone to do and i'm gunna call it out as there are far too many liars these days...

[@VoteForBukele]

@@sirtra oh I’ve been on the internet longer than you, kid. I’m absolutely sure the other kid is lying. I just wanted to add a little context. It’s full of liars and insufferable know it alls 😉

[@sammyfromsydney]

If your employer is gathering statistics and micromanaging you like a toddler who needs his nap time set, getting fired might not be the worst thing that can happen to you. Companies should be tracking your output.

[@jer1776]

Crazy how Office 365 itself is essentially bossware.

[@negativity1564]

Any respectable company will put these features behind legal blocks and approval policies. People dont just have compliance admin access. This is locked down to only being allowed when needed for legal holds, evidence discovery, etc.

[@colinmaharaj]

Never used it, except on the job

[@Bubalupa-g4q]

Your Windows 11 is not yours. Nor your computer you.paid for. And not even what's or when is updated on the BIOS Slowly. but steady. 1990 - My Computer 2011 - This PC 2024 - "All your base are belong to us"

[@TJeffersonForPresident2024]

Makes me glad I'm not too far away from retirement. We're literally going to be factory robots in the near future.

[@Franck_Major_X]

We already are …

[@PhinAI]

... or else ...

[@Kudeghraw]

@@LivvieLynn That is why you want to have the job of programming and maintaining the robots. They will fail at some point and will need upgrades and repairs just like anything else in the world. They can become outdated and hackable. Lots of angles on a bot workforce.

[@nsgdesign]

@@LivvieLynn ...but can (or will) the robots buy their company's product and services? No workers => no paychecks => no consumption. I wonder if they really think that the very few ultra rich will go on a spending-spree to buy everything from every company to keep them all afloat :D

[@deadwingdomain]

​@@Kudeghraw then you be the only people working when the rest of us are liberated. While you get slaved to the machine.

[@itstimmer]

So glad I’m an independent contractor, a 1099 contract employee. I use my own laptop, my own smartphone, and my own private email. I have the option to use a corporate issued email, but I don’t to keep my activity and my records private.

[@GuruChaz]

Micromanagement 101 No wonder some people get miserable at work. If you have to micromanage a team, get a new team…or a robot.

[@PragmaticWorks]

Agreed. We will keep micromanaging until morale improves :).

[@ctCJ]

From a security standpoint it's not micromanaging but if there is a business case where certain information is needed or requested, it can be gathered within the Microsoft suite of tools. Normally a security team is only looking at this information for an investigation, an alert gets triggered, or it shows up in a policy / compliance issue.

[@sabir4094]

Very unlikely is the team that is bad, most likely is the boss who is the micromanager. Also, this is not different than security cameras. Are we using them for security or checking if people are working or not.

[@TheDesertRat31]

If you have to micromanage, you shouldn't be in management in the first place.

[@HectorDiabolucus]

Big brother is always watching. 👀

[@deadwingdomain]

Big business is not the government. Though people seem to let them act like it...

[@Santello22]

If a company is going as far to just check whatever you do and dig into the data. Just flag the company on websites for being complete sociopaths/red flag to work for.....

[@jeffer2350]

Then you might as well red flag almost every large company in business. Thanks to hackers, ransomware, and AI, companies have major risks now. My company doesn't even let us save data files to our local hard drive or use the USB either. We edit on the network only.

[@mikeg2491]

⁠@@jeffer2350meanwhile I worked at a small company and copied my whole work hard drive and took it home lol

[@jonahkolell]

​@jeffer2350 you now need to ask permission to download the internal files that let usb work. So that during startup your computer won't read usb. I was on vacation when the update came out and then when I am doing a start up with a usb that is required by my engineering team to use, I had to call IT to get the files on my computer and permission.

[@deadwingdomain]

​​@@jeffer2350 let's get started Hacking in general is out of control. But hey, we just predicted putting everything online was a bad, an no one listened.

[@OffensivelyPink]

I work remotely. Management is very open about the fact that they record every phone call we make and tap into calls/meetings whenever they feel like it. They also informed us that they routinely check our notes and documentation to see how thorough we are. They've also told us that our direct supervisor monitors each of our computer screens throughout the day to see exactly how all of us are managing our time. I'd image that any remote work team manager who doesn't admit this is only being sneaky. Working from home or even in your private office on location with the door closed gives you only as much privacy as having your company's CEO sit on your lap in front of the computer would give you. I don't care because I don't screw around during work hours. I have a personal computer I use for fun after work. I also have a separate room for my office and keep the work desk inside the closet. But you better believe I shut down that computer, put the headphones in a case inside a drawer, close the closet up, and shut the office door behind me every single evening.

[@rwg1811]

and since you are told this, there is no need to monitor, because you fear being monitored

[@borstenpinsel]

My company "deactivated" that stuff (GDPR/european union privacy act exists, you know). While at the same time installing something that when you google it, tells you outright that it monitors everything you do on a computer. This is hell

[@JohnSmith-op7ls]

Report them

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@JohnSmith-op7ls you can’t.

[@keaien]

Yes, usually on company computers all network traffic is monitored, either though use of certificates etc. This monitoring is mostly automated process, and that message is there mostly to scare you not to visit websites that are not sanctioned or work related. All network activity is logged but only suspicious and flagged activity might get you into some trouble. Single visit on sanctioned website is ok.

[@ShaneConQueso]

I used to work in IT. Yes, we can pretty much see anything, but unless instructed too, we're not typically actively monitoring you. But, yeah... we can.

[@AcuraAddicted]

This is truly a dystopian nightmaire. A paradise for micro managers.

[@aussiegruber86]

This is why universities lost the 5tb storage we had for OneDrive all the way down to 100gb. They needed all the spare space for the data logging. Please Google the word satire before commenting below 😂

[@sashkashurik]

No this is because Microsoft has reduced the amount of storage and how it is calculated for education licenses. In the past years two major changes were made: for large orgs, it is at least 100 times smaller now. This information is public: use your favorite search !

[@aussiegruber86]

@@sashkashurik lol never heard of a joke before? You should get out more.

[@phillipsandcastle8387]

​@@aussiegruber86🧢

[@varunagarwal9922]

mine still had 5tb

[@aussiegruber86]

@@varunagarwal9922 it’s actually gone back to 5tb, they had a lot of back lash

[@jonboy2950]

I think its important to trust eachother and if you are a manager you won't have to worry about what your employees get up to if they feel engaged. It's about leading rather than managing.

[@friendlyfirecriticalops3771]

“Naive” is all i can say

[@ShaferHart]

Nah, trust doesn't scale and the stakes are too high for big companies (or even mid sized companies). I hate spying as much as everyone else and there should be laws that limit the scope but as a company who's paying for all these resources you want to have visibility on them. I've always assumed they can read my messages but seems like that's still limited. I didn't see anything particularly controversial here, the visibility admins get into the state of my machine caught me off guard but that's about it. If you have edge security software running on your machine all the things in this list pale in comparison.

[@MelroyvandenBerg]

Thanks for showing. Although I have nothing to hide, this is really going too far and violates my privacy enormously.

[@PragmaticWorks]

I imagine the reason much of this exists is for what @ctCJ is saying in the comments. it's for things like legal discovery if something goes sideways. I'm curious how many employers actually use these reports for things outside of that reason. That said, maybe I'm naive as I don't have time to look at this as a boss. -Brian

[@MelroyvandenBerg]

@@PragmaticWorks I think it is used more often then you think, most likely on a ad-hoc basis, when needed or suspicious or whatever. Or even just in bulk massive surveillance, who knows.?

[@jeffer2350]

If you are using the company equipment for personal use, you are putting all of your coworkers at risk. Hackers and AI are at work to do ransomware and steal the company secrets. Go buy yourself a smartphone or tablet to do your personal stuff on 5G at work instead of putting the company network at risk.

[@UGotTheFunk]

Us admins, have enough crap to do on a daily basis and could care less about some joe schmoe is doing on Wednesday. The only reasons this would ever come up is because the owner of the company is suspect of someones performance, which they have the right to be, or for litigation reasons like FOIA requests, or legal cases (lawyers)

[@MelroyvandenBerg]

@@UGotTheFunk "because the owner of the company is suspect of someones performance, which they have the right to be" Is that a right? What about the right for privacy?

[@xenoranger79]

I always have a separate device for personal use. If I don't want my employer to be privy to it, I use the personal device. Suppose I'm listening to a podcast (like this) while I work. Should my boss know every podcast I listen to? What if I'm communicating with my spouse/partner? If they send me a message that I don't want my boss to see? There are so many reasons to not use a company machine for personal purposes. The problem is when your boss activates the camera on your work device to watch you. This is why I always put something over it and plug in a dead mic. Privacy is important. Just because you're being paid doesn't mean that you should have to fully disclose everything to your employer.

[@GenuineFlolie]

This applies very limited to EU workers as we actually have laws that protect our privacy. Really, the M365 dashboard works differently here. GL there in the USA!

[@tekmanoid]

the land of the free 😅

[@cateclism316]

I worked for an organization that had multiple locations across the USA in the 1990s. We heard about two people who lived in separate locations. They sent each other smutty emails and thought their conversations were private. Instead, they were an example of what NOT to do on a company network!

[@DarkViperus]

I just love how Microsoft spied on the company bosses to see that they were spying too much on their employees so Microsoft restricted spying capabilities to those bosses :D

[@davidlean8674]

Speaking as a senior manager I have no interest in how long my team members spent on a call or what they spoke about. I don't care when they were online. I care WHAT you deliver, not how you did it. (So long as you remain ethical). I care that you worked well as a team member, and were accessible to your colleagues in some predictable manner. I care about our intellectual property, company values, & hackers. Thus I would have security monitor for signs of intrusion, and/or malicious activity. However, I don't want to know about any individual unless it appears their account has been compromised.

[@seaTiger51]

you might as well force the webcam to be turned on during the shift. time to ditch the corporate world and become solo

[@jeffer2350]

In that case you will become the target of hackers and AI just like your employer.

[@playeronthebeat]

This is basically why you'd use USB switches for your hardware that can be monitored: Just kill that device. I have done that, and I am not going back. Camera & Mic are only on when I am in a meeting/call, for example.

[@mementomori29231]

Over react much? This video doesn’t show anything surprising.

[@themoneymaker03]

​@@mementomori29231not if you just entered the workforce yesterday. There was a time when every keystroke and mouse click wasn't monitored.

[@kevinfilbin7688]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Or have conversations with your imaginary friend and do psychotic rants and then look at them like they’re the ones that are crazy😂😂😂😂😂

[@MrRmeadows]

This confirms that watching this at work should be done using 2nd computer. On different network. I am setup with KVM and 2 internet connections. Thank fully.

[@glowwurm9365]

Pretty much got a split screen on my monitor and have my personal and work computer putter running side by side…

[@BigHeadClan]

A few things to remember this is company property and software people are working with. As a general rule of thumb it should only have company data on it, us folks in IT don’t want to have to dig up 100GB of family photos or your personal information if you get terminated are leaving the company. IT admins generally have god access and can theoretically see whatever they want on a corporate device so long as it’s online. That said we have neither the time nor care to monitor staff , but if you’re in trouble with your boss they may request access to this information. If it’s something important to track or report on it’s an automated process that spits out an alert or report. Broadly speaking IT is in staffs corner when it comes to privacy and frequently push back when executives try and roll out aggressive monitoring software.

[@bmiller949]

Don't connect to the company wifi system with your personal phone and use a VPN. If you do, consider every, text, tweet, email and search going directly to HR.

[@TheRavenOfLife]

SNS texting is another ball game though. If you are paranoid you should be using end-to-end encrypted messaging like Signal anyway. I guess in theory your office could have a cell extender in it to increase reception in the office that might leak texts.

[@k.chriscaldwell4141]

Yup.

[@ctCJ]

I can confirm this as I'm in eDiscovery, Purview, and Defender XDR daily.

[@magicfairy7805]

I teach it

[@geroffmilan3328]

Yup, and what you can unearth from e.g. Defender Advanced hunting is pretty amazing.

[@TalkinWitJMO]

I wouldn’t want to work for the boss who has that much time on their hands lol

[@VicMansaMusa]

I am in IT, we do not go this deep unless there is a specific reason to do so. By the way, every employer has that much control but no time to check everything every employee is doing

[@TalkinWitJMO]

@@VicMansaMusa makes a lot of sense. I’m one of those people that’s highly productive but don’t micromanage me. I’m probably not where I said I’d be lol

[@bisiilki]

If my manager looked at my computer usage she'd just see that i spent 10h in the same excel spreadsheet and furiously using copilot

[@aussiegruber86]

I brought a 14 inch HP Chromebook that i take along to work so that if i need to do anything personal i use that. Even if its just checking closing time of a business i will still use the Chromebook. It gives them absolutely nothing that they can use against me.

[@cristianstoica4544]

They told us 'bring your own device' is a thing of the past a few weeks ago

[@orangemoonglows2692]

but, you shouldn't use their wifi network for browsing, etc.

[@truthtorpedo99]

​@@orangemoonglows2692yea, I hope gruber86 is using their personal mobile on 4G as a WiFi connection!

[@aussiegruber86]

Yeah I definitely don’t use it for work purposes and I only use internet from my personal phones hotspot. (Yes I even have 2 phones, one for everything work related and my personal number) I personally would not work for a company that made me BYOD, if you need something to achieve your work being completed they can supply it. Can’t trust any business these days, I have been shafted so many times that I am super paranoid about it all. I even have a full work journal that I log most things in just in case.

[@aussiegruber86]

@@orangemoonglows2692 yep I definitely won’t use works wifi for my personal devices

[@luisgentil]

I've always assumed I have zero privacy in my workstation. There's so many safeguards running that I have roughly 50% of my RAM available at any given time. I can see log reports automatically generated from some activities, like PowerShell sessions. Even simple consultations sometimes generate a transaction ID. Software I download sometimes end up in the official company repository a few weeks later, so I assume they've analyzed it for security reasons but ended up liking it. So I'd say, don't do anything you'll have a hard time explaining later. Of course, This isn't the type of data managers/supervisors should have access to. It's for security reasons and to support an investigation in case something weird happens, not for micromanaging.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

My office does it by default. You can’t do anything install anything access anything email anything look anything up without having to first run it by IT because they have everything locked down so incredibly fucking tight. I got tagged to make a photo archive 690 photos of a project we are working on ….. I couldn’t even download them from the camera to the workstation because connecting devices is disabled. They had to be emailed one at a time.

[@mnmlst1]

I think we work for the same company!

[@YeahTheBros]

Is there a way to recall my own M365 activity for a day? There is a good side to this where I want to recall the things I’ve actively worked on.

[@jasonshortphd]

I am a manager at a large software company. That admin panel you pulled up is NOT available to your average manager. IT has it for sure, and they could be called if you are doing something really dumb. But as a manager I cannot just randomly go ask for that report. HR would want to know WHY I want to know.

[@cristianstoica4544]

Our company installed mitm certs. They do track Everything!

[@Chris-2-of-3]

When working remotely, I expect there would be some level of tracking / surveillance from the employer - especially websites visited. Major rule is never use the work laptop or device as you would a personal one. I'm sure they can override the microphone deactivation. But I deactivate it anyway, and use that little plastic shield to cover the camera lens.

[@Zucr_]

My opintion is the output is good who gives a flip if they worked for 8 hours that day or someone gigachadded only 8 minutes. If there performance is bad well that is all the info you really need too... I guess in that case you can at least maybe try and "diagnose" the cause for the poor performance but I suspect talking to the person for five minutes about the performance alone is going to yield a better outcome regardless.

[@ImpulseToAdrenaline]

Awesome, my employer will never know I watched this using their computer, on company time.

[@daveys]

Here’s something to consider. Does being in meetings 8hrs a day make you more valuable to an organisation? Does typing 8hrs a day make you more valuable? If you monitor all employees e-mails, are you using that to monitor if people are getting bullied or if they’re talking about last night’s game? If you’re not monitoring bullying, why not? If someone is talking about last night’s game, is that a problem? If so, why?

[@BossFlight]

Most important, what are people monitoring doing instead of actually working ? They need to go after doers as through out the human history, It has always been a scam

[@daveys]

@@BossFlight - My point here is that it is difficult to measure productivity in a system that doesn’t output widgets or words per minute. Not typing something can be because someone is thinking. Not all thinking is done on Teams calls or in meetings. Being in meetings for many hours a day leaves little time to think or actually do stuff.

[@OH2023-cj9if]

Possibly because the people monitoring are doing all the bullying. A lot of Gov Depts don't want people working at home as Managers can't strut about undermining others or trying to assert their unwelcome style on everyone. Deprive them of an Audience and they hate it.

[@daveys]

@@OH2023-cj9if - Yeah, agreed. Those big bosses get lonely when there’s no audience to be in awe of them.

[@daveys]

@@Matt-yg8ub - It wasn’t trolling, it was a rhetorical counterpoise to the corporate “monitor everything” thing. It’s not really possible to assess the effectiveness of an employee by the proportion of time online.

[@keaien]

As a former IT-admin i can tell you looking through a "private" work correspondence of a former worker is highly illegal as per european law. This also includes Teams and other form of communication, our protocol was to always have someone from a corporate legal team as part of procedure and written consent of ex-employee or legal reperesentative, court order etc. so for mail communications, someone requesting access had to specify in much detail what correspondence he was looking and he was allowed to have access only to that correspondence, everything else was off limits. If we would skirt the rules that would be over for us, as Data protection officers inside&outside company take these things very seriously. We had inTune on corporate phones, theoretically allowed tracking, but due to privacy laws we were not allowed to track phones even if they were lost, much to the frustation of the users. Best we could do is play a sound or send a message, but that's it.

[@homesteadingkosher1005]

If only I could say or knew that kind of respect/dignity and lawful adherence was present or accessible in South Africa; many employers, especially tech and mobile network companies just issue you a contract that informs you that as part of your contract you have to agree (sign) and avail yourself to the fact that they’ll track and use any of your email etc communications, data as well as submit you to a compulsory polygraph test. So people, especially those just entering the work force, just sign their lives away or ignore it completely figuring they won’t get caught or that they have no choice; it’s accept it and have a job or don’t and never get one

[@glitchinLife]

Employer employee relationships should be based on mutual trust, if not just start looking for a new job/employees, it never ends well, be it constant surveillance/monitoring, report "sync" meeting, mandatory RTO,... are just trashy behaviors companies uses out of fear to put themselves in a superior position they lost

[@Bubalupa-g4q]

Best advice here. No mutual trust (and respect), fly away. Never get stuck in a "golden cage"

[@krishnamavuru3275]

Thank you for sharing 🙏

[@chiluxr250]

Congress should make a law banning people from accessing private messages even you have signed a contract that contract should be null and void.

[@VanillaWahlberg]

My work computer has a notice that all activity done is monitored. I'm well aware of the dangers.

[@Grigsy]

Most bosses don’t have access to the admin center and compliance. There is a robust process that keeps supervisors out of it. Enterprise email is happened in one department.

[@tratkotratkov126]

Thanks for enlightening the bosses

[@clemdane]

At my first sales job we were expected to make 80 calls per day with 180 minutes of connected phone time. A report on every employee's call numbers and connected time came out twice a day and was sent to the entire company. The owner would then comment on who did well and who needed improvement. It was kind of nerve-wracking.

[@GiggaVega]

Imagine being in a meeting of concern because your mouse was idle for an unacceptable amount of time, 10 seconds, 5 times during a 5 minute call. Also never forget, you are never aware of how long your manager has been building a case file against you. You might be able to defend yourself against a couple of things but they have volumes of stuff against you designed to wear you down to the point you can't justify everything. Your manager is never your friend & your colleagues should be just that, usually.

[@chrisschoenfeld4414]

As a 365 VP AI can tell you that I could not care less about snooping on users. However, once AI is able to monitor content without humans combing through messages, you may find that getting flagged for anti-management discussion, toxic communication styles, or lack of activity may increase.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Now imagine having to discuss a bad employee without being able to use any negative adjectives for fear of ending up in HR.

[@nsgdesign]

It won't take long for people to understand how to adapt their language to avoid flagging, or to have some difficult conversations "in person", maybe just outside the premises, or over their personal phones. Those tools will soon become a hefty monthly liability. AI will ultimately turn into the boon of human relationships, not only because of the risk of surveillance, but also because of the deepfakes.

[@jman1948]

I am a M365 admin. Yes we can see everything. No we dont unless your boss asks us too.

[@augurseer]

As an IT man. Let's make this clear. If it is thier PC. They can see anything and everything done on it. If they put in the effort.

[@MaleRainbowAction]

Never think you have privacy, at home or at work. You can be tracked anywhere, for any reason, and any time.

[@TransCanadaPhil]

After Watching this video I’m so glad I don’t have an office job anymore. What an absolute dystopian nightmare that looks like. If I did have an office job, I’d basically be bringing in my own laptop for ANYTHING beyond just the bare minimum company tasks and software installed on the work computer. Just the few official apps with very terse business related messages on the official computer, and I’d use my own (with encrypted tunnelling) for all web browsing, media playback, and all other messages.

[@jeffer2350]

That is what you should do. I work in an office environment and we have extreme rules on where we keep data and what we are allowed to do. I am okay with it because it isn't the fault of the company. It is hackers and AI that have caused the harm. This has cost companies millions of dollars trying to deal with the security requirements and protect against AI stealing company intellectual data. Company losses mean lower salary and layoff's for us employees.... Lets protect the data.

[@gorak9000]

corporate networks use 802.1x port authentication to verify devices - you cant' just plug in random devices to open ethernet ports and get on the network. Same goes for wifi. Everything is tracked, on ALL connections

[@woodalexander]

What company allows you to use your own laptop at work? Seems more than a little weird.

[@jeffer2350]

@@woodalexander That is my thought too. My employer won't allow a personal laptop to connect to the network by any method. I can email a few web links for business sites from personal email and that is about it. I suppose someone could use personal laptop in lieu of cell phone for personal use, but a laptop with 5G is expensive.

[@woodalexander]

@@jeffer2350 It seems weird to me that you'd even be allowed to have a personal laptop in a lot of companies, although I have seen them in one case (not sure if they are really allowed though).

[@GooogleGoglee]

I think that in general ditching Microsoft is a good idea.

[@PragmaticWorks]

I doubt Google or the other providers aren't any better.

[@MelroyvandenBerg]

@@PragmaticWorks I think Matrix is much better tho. Or other alternative free and open source products.

[@GodFearingPookie]

Your company or boss determines. Your choice doesn't matter

[@jer1776]

I had an O365 license with my school that was active several years after graduating. When it finally got canceled I just downloaded LibreOffice, works great for what I need.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@PragmaticWorks google is no better, they honestly data mine absolutely everything

[@sa3270]

I left the workforce before Teams came along. We were on Skype when I left. I'm pretty sure supervisors have had the ability to rifle through employee emails for decades now, if the company allowed it. My last boss mentioned something once that made me think she looked through my emails. But I didn't use my work email for personal stuff so she wouldn't have found anything too juicy. Why are they using backing up a user's email as a selling point? I'm pretty sure that's always been possible. I wonder how many bosses literally type in "I don't like Zane. Find me some dirt I can use to fire him."

[@jaaguitar]

This monitoring is not legally allowed in the UK/EU.

[@atari7001]

Yeah the government hates the competition

[@dylantech]

⁠@@atari7001Yeah, the whole laissez faire, “It’s A pRiVaTe CoMpAnY, tHeY cAn Do WhAtEvEr ThEy WaNt” attitude has really shown its limits in the post-“Mexican beer,” brave new world we inhabit. However, companies are just following the example of the government here in US. The Patriot Act passed nearly 23 years ago, and since the 4th Amendment is apparently an analog concept, privacy has essentially been made obsolete in our always online, digital world.

[@sashkashurik]

LOL check again... it is not monitoring at all. these tools are available for business continuity purpose and for legal reasons and are definitely there in England. Active monitoring is not allowed in many countries.

[@enginerdy]

@@sashkashurikcopilot reports are absolutely active monitoring.

[@stephen-dev]

I've seen an application that they can use through the network to access your browsing history.

[@DavidAshwell]

GUIDs aren't not a method of weak anonymity, they're just the Microsoft version of a unique identifier for a user account. UUIDs in Linux are similar. It's a unique, queryable value. If user Djones worked for the company 5 years ago, left, and a new Djones gets hired, you could potentially re-use the user account name, but have unique GUIDs

[@idleoutcaster]

Honestly, don’t let this scare you from using your equipment!!! It’s only important if they go looking, but that is rare! I had an it guy do remote observation audits. He would open notepad and saying “Take a break” 😂 never had issues

[@artsXart]

Even in the US, supervisors beware. If you use this as a method of discovery , you may pave the way to lose your own job. Dont be tempted to single out employees to target for your reading leisure, logs tell on that too.

[@spinachtriangle]

That first screenshot about the boss is just very specific about the boss to employee interactions... not everything that employee is doing

[@realmstupid-on8df]

Fyi when they make you do onboarding or try to nicely make it seem like no big deal to just downloaf their app or login to their workday...or visit their websitw fkr something...READ THE FREAKING TERMS YOU AGREE TO.

[@calypso2niner]

Geeze. I don't even have a reason to be paranoid, but now I am more paranoid.

[@Emcfree2084]

Great video, very interesting. What about the details of outlook meetings and calendar entries set to “private”

[@PragmaticWorks]

Technically, an administrator can make themselves a delegate of yours (a person who can act on you behalf). Then they can see all private appointments easily.

[@Emcfree2084]

@@PragmaticWorksthank you

[@SSJ0016]

@@PragmaticWorks That's why you when you schedule a block of time on your calendar for personal reasons, simply name the event "Private", with no other details. Then track whatever you need in your personal life calendar somewhere else. What matters is people know that you're busy.

[@michaeloeser9187]

If I want to know what people are doing I just walk through the office. That's how we did it back in the 20th century.

[@freddyhollingsworth5945]

I work at a VA hospital and the VA Police searched a co-workers car and he got fired. We never found out why? We think he had stolen hospital drugs, so apparently they can search your car.

[@a62dave]

I always put in six point text, white text on white background, in my email signature. Some controversial terms just haphazardly spread around, solely because I knew this type of stuff was going on.

[@georgealex19]

I use a mouse jiggler, but I also set my status to Away. I use it because if my pc locks and the monitors shut down, when it wakes up I have issues with my monitor setup and they flicker constantly 🤦‍♂️

[@tonyleung2442]

I watch KZbin all the time 😂 I told my boss I need some background noise 😂.

[@UmbertoUriel05082002]

That is a great idea!, I will tell the same to my boss hahahah

[@stardrift9465]

to any IT guy here, i once logon to a company website, the website was an IP number( is a website that set up by them, taking leave, and etc salary checking site, using my own PC from my home. Since then, i can hear them talking about things i did on my PC. How do i get rid of it? i did format my pc many times, but seems like that thing is still there, i did not downlaod anything, i just login the website using my home PC

[@chefdeadpool8481]

Go to your browser and clear your cookies

[@jjcoolaus]

Presence is problematic, although it's better now, sometimes you can be online and working and presence doesn't show you as available, especially if you are working from a phone or tablet. You can get a lot done on phones these days

[@nhitc6832]

I use my company computer to look up cats picture. If my boss also like cats, i think it'd be awesome😂

[@eanwarren8196]

Great info!!

[@PragmaticWorks]

Thanks for watching!

[@vincidicaprio298]

Our company keeps installing Snow inventory agent on systems, so I just de install it and always boot with the network deactivated.

[@DeadCat-42]

As a hacker and engineer I have so much fun with companies who do things like this. It's just so easy to cause chaos and get people in hit water fir nothing

[@nizar.mahran]

Question, can the IT team access files from OneDrive that I accidentally delete even from trash bin ? Thanks!

[@pdpc1013]

Copilot saves users' information in one same place in the cloud, not in the devices being used.

[@AllBecomesGood]

Big brother is watching.

[@ckennedy1973]

My company has specific disclosures when signing in that all activities are monitored

[@Joseph-vj2ph]

Can IT see my home computer personal files i log into email and teams on?

[@Sandra-dt4ec]

I took early retirement to live on social security and Medicare, best decision of my life!

[@muletowndumpsters]

The big question for me was whether they could hear or transcribe calls.

[@LOioma]

Or have an ai summary of it right in the report

[@Cobra6Gaming]

Well, good thing that searching email, even employee email, is forbidden over here due to privacy laws :)

[@Strider9655]

As an engineer who spends a lot of time not using MS office, using 3rd party software, and wandering around a manufacturing site resolving issues, MS thinks I do nothing at all, their "Viva insights" thing literally thinks I do nothing.......... I think this stuff is really bad, because it's all subjective, people sitting in an office judging people by what they do themselves. I didn't sit punching numbers into Excel for the 8 hours that they did, but I created a script and parsed data out of 2 million csv files to populate an Excel sheet, in less than 20 minutes and hit Excels limitation on number of cells, I then imported that data into minitab, at which point i'm no longer using an MS app and as such not doing any work. At what point do we stop judging performance based on how much that person suffered and start judging performance based upon outcomes?

[@richg7264]

Insider threat analyst here.. we can see everything, doesn’t mean we are monitoring you. Not all managers have access to those admin consoles.. they can get a report from the admin team, but don’t give them a reason to.

[@Gulpathfinder]

Let's say I work from home using a company laptop. Obviously I only do work on the company laptop. But on my own laptop and phone, I may have music and/or TV shows running in the background. Could my employer use my work laptop to "colonize" my router and/or my other devices so that they can see everything I do even on my own devices?

[@PragmaticWorks]

I don't think that's possible unless they have developed malware to do so, which breaches all sorts of ethics and legality issues.

[@jinto_reedwine]

I think the most they could do is use your company machine to scan your home network. If you put your work computer on the guest WiFi and enable AP Isolation on your guest WiFi this should mitigate that risk without having to spend money on extra networking gear to use something like VLANs 😅.

[@jeffer2350]

I don't think most companies would be interested in doing that. Most companies are trying to protect against hackers and AI stealing their company technical secrets rather than worrying about you listening to music. My employer sends out fake phishing emails to company email addresses. If you click on a link on one of them you failed and get more security training. They don't want you browsing social media and clicking on random links.

[@Pandemonium088]

A lot of people got fired over Slack private messages thinking its pretty hard for the admin to look up conversations.

[@fernandoacorreia]

This shouldn't be news. Absolutely everything you do on a company's computer network can be tracked.

[@GloogleGloigle]

When an employer makes you download Teams and Outlook on your personal phone, can they track your device across apps?

[@sa3270]

I don't know, but watch out because some will make you use an app that gives them control of your phone where they can lock it or wipe it remotely if they want to, if you want to access your company systems on your phone.

[@godfreycarmichael]

Trust me, they can see everything you do on their network. PERIOD. I know from experience.

[@relative_vie]

Anything owned by your company belongs to them. So if you’re using anything provided by the company, be aware that they can track and monitor it. It’s that simple

[@CyberMew]

Can't they get the team chat private messages and also voice calls?

[@davidpodolske8376]

How about reading the emails actually sent to the boss?

[@johnneill9740]

I got a work laptop, it ONLY does work stuff, i have a personal laptop for NON WORK stuff. The two never mix.

[@Pele-speak]

Beautiful

[@mattb383]

If a manager has the time to monitor all their employees, they are babysitter and not a manager. Hire a trusting staff that has clear goals and targets that are measurable and hold them accountable. Measure the output and not the busy work.

[@OneIdeaTooMany]

If you're tracking mouse clicks and keyboard presses, you're tracking effort rather than results. You need better metrics to determine whether an employee is being productive.

[@thecodfater3748]

0:15 this clearly shows a summary of interactions the person who asked the question had with the person who is the subject of the question, NOT what you claim it does (i.e. what they'd been doing today in general). Do you think KZbin audience is stupid and can't read?

[@mrright1068]

Maybe this should be a question to ask an employer before you accept the job. Who wants to be under surveillance all the time? How draconian.

[@Harmonikaklange]

Can IT sees my internet searches while using their wifi in my own personal phone?

[@Bubalupa-g4q]

Lol. Of course. Every single URL.

[@jman1948]

Also we have copilot and all genai tools turned off because security.

[@mv0902]

Wow!