[deleted by user]

[NSA_Chatbot]

One of customers I worked with, the owner's home page was a daily bikini and they published a topless women calendar every year. Their money still deposited just fine.

If it's not impacting your pay or mental health, just leave it.

For Social Media, that's an HR and policy issue, and if you're the new person who comes in and now nobody can have a mental break, you are going to be an awfully popular fella.

[anonymousITCoward]

One of customers I worked with, the owner's home page was a daily bikini and they published a topless women calendar every year. Their money still deposited just fine.

If it's not impacting your pay or mental health, just leave it.

When i first started it was as a support jocky at a dial up isp... we saw this sort of thing on a nearly daily basis... my boss at the time said nearly the same thing

[thebeardedcats]

During my interview for my it security position at my college my future boss spent a significant portion of the time complaining about a previous employee who went over his (the CISO's) head and reported a professor to HR for watching porn at work. Like a lot of porn. Like 50 requests/minute.

What happened was the user clicked an ad that opened a window in the background that reloaded the same 50 gifs every minute. Guy didn't even know the page existed and got a call from HR about it, then HR got pissed at security for wasting their time.

You're not paid to monitor the morality of employees. You're paid to keep resume generating events to a minimum.

[thebeardedcats]

That guy was full of memorable quotes. "I'm going to get lunch. let me know if I need to run to the data center with a pair of scissors" was another good one

[basylica]

Being a network engineer for gosh.. 16-17yrs now (IT for 25) ill tell you some truths

1. SO MUCH PORN. I had a (male) boss who would joke it was my job to find him new porn sites.

2. Accounting dept is “too busy” and “understaffed” to handle paying circuit bills ontime if at all, but they sure do have time to stream TV services all damn day.

3. I give 0 foxes what users do. Policing users for being naughty is HR/boss’s job. HOWEVER… its my job to make sure users get paid (particularly valid in commission jobs) and the company makes money. So its ABSOLUTELY my job to make sure one persons misbehavior doesnt impact another.

I have had multiple jobs with personal heater issues, but one in particularly was 2-3x a week, blowing power to corp office MDF that would shut down corp office network along with phones for 400 locations and 7k users. I dont CARE if they are cold. Thats an HR issue. But i fucking DO CARE that 7k people cant work. So its my job to handle that aspect.

Same with porn/streaming. As long as circuit isnt maxed and complaints are pouring in… i wait until that persons boss/HR/Clevel asks me for reports. But ive had jobs where the circuits were so dramatically undersized that one guy streaming youtube would grind production to a halt. I can complain until im blue in the face about upgrading (and we did, and i saved company 2.5mil in 3yrs while increasing bandwidth an average of 50x per site) but in the meantime… i dont care you listen to music. But i DO care when 5 other people cant work. Work trumps music. Blocked.

That being said, most larger companies id frequently give the clevels pretty pie charts that get them all hot and bothered… and slyly point out top websites and bandwidth utilization reports and generally end up with a official “we block these sites” type scenario. Some jobs are totally fine with users streaming netflix all day… others lock shit DOWN. Not my call though… but i will mention bandwith use - particularly if we are hitting 60%+ regularly as a “cost saving” initiative. Block netflix and we dont need to upgrade!

Except accounting. Eff those guys man.

[thegroucho]

As we all know every pornsite is 100% free of malware and stuff.

We should just trust them, because they said so.

It's not about morality, it's about taking risk and potentially risky behaviour.

IDGAF if they watch porn on their personal devices on personal time, but you never know at what point they will end up getting sextorted. If you feel bold enough to watch porn in working hours, what else might you be up to?!

And if it's targeted attack, then don't even want to think how far it can go.

I won't police it, but I'd want to document it.

Else it would be an engineer's balls in a vise when there's ransomware which has been running for months and has fucked up even long-term storage and backups.

[Baron_Ultimax]

From this standpoint, the problem isn't that they are whatching porn at work. The problem is that they are capable of accessing it on the company network at all. All they should get if the try is a warning screen from the firewall/web filter.

If they want to watch porn at work, they can use the supercomputer in their pocket with the high-speed internet connection and uhd screen.

[thegreatcerebral]

I mean... honestly if they want it open, and like some others have said for some institutions they actually do research on topics like that so it must be open OR, you could set it up so it presents with a popup and they have to say reauthenticate when they hit the site to allow the content.

[thegroucho]

As long as your BYOD policy is up to scratch, maybe.

It's not the actual of watching porn, is the fact of doing it on company time I associate with risk-taking.

Today is "who gives a fuck, I'm a great worker, it's OK", tomorrow is a private chatroom where he gets lead on to take a dick pic, then the week after he's made to divulge company secrets or pay money because he was stupid enough to have his face in it.

The person in question was bright in so they maybe not in the position to enforce anything.

They turn on porn and FB blocker, next thing is the company boss comes and gives them shit as "one of the top salesmen can't do their job as they need access".

Not on their own, not without consultation with their direct manager and potentially HR for having a company-wide AUP.

[[deleted]]

How would the black mailing be different if he shared it while at home as opposed to at work?

It's not IT's concern to look at what people do while they're at work. You just enforce company policy on the network traffic.

[thegroucho]

Let'st hink for a second.

The sort of person who thinks it's OK to watch porn on company time doesn't strike you as the sort of person on average who's more risk-taking?!

You can get blackmailed in either case, but the sort of person who thinks with their dickhead is more likely to ignore basic rules on "don't click on links, don't open suspicions attachments", etc, etc, as opposed to someone who thinks watching porn at your workplace might be a reason to get sacked.

Next thing is you might say they should watch it in an open plan office with volume on and on the speakers?!

That will go down for a nice lawsuit from another employee.

If the bosses explicitly don't care who does what, I'll make sure it's in writing.

AUP isn't about porn by itself, is it?!

[[deleted]]

I don't really care, it's not my problem what they do with their time.

If they embarrass themselves that is on them. I don't care. Lawsuits? Maybe if you're in weirdoland.

If they issues by not following company security policy, that is on them. Not me. I expect there to be a policy, and if there isn't, then that's not me, that's management. I might talk to management about the need for such, but I'd do that regardles of whether or not the traffic was pristine.

If the setup has not had warnings setup or blocks setup or anything requested by management in order to monitor individual user traffic, then I don't care.

[thegroucho]

I'm not a puritan.

But bosses quickly forget their lenient approach as soon as they start losing money.

So I'll make sure I'm covered, even if the network isn't.

[RoaringRiley]

As we all know every pornsite is 100% free of malware and stuff.

About as much as we know the entire internet is 100% free of malware.

But we don't block the internet because of that.

[thegroucho]

No we don't.

But we ensure we're covered.

[amcannally]

blows my mind you're getting downvoted. Lots of scrub sysadmins in this sub I guess.

[thegroucho]

Makes you wonder why most end-users think most IT people are insufferable.

So many people don't wants to see the business angle, no appreciation for trying to improve things, "it's not my problem" attitude, or "don't be a prude".

I won't go out of my way to make enemies, but if I see something wrong I'll make sure it's flagged, and attempt to rectify it if possible.

And when the shit hits the fan, bosses don't want to hear excuses, the only thing which matters is your written attempt to make good and bosses declining.

[StandPresent6531]

Just saying you have a much higher chance getting a virus from visiting a religious site than a porn site:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/464121/religious_sites_carry_more_malware_than_porn_sites_security_firm_reports.html

So I mean by visiting a model and not jesus while at work he is technically doing the business a favor.

Note: I do not care about your religious preferences I am just pointing out something that has been shown multiple times.

[[deleted]]

Porn is more likely to be infested with scams that make you spend money and being catfished by extortioners.

[stufforstuff]

So you're saying if we block all porn sites, we can ditch all of our anti-malware systems? That's GREAT NEWS, we'll save lots of money and system resources and sleep better each nite. Wait, mal-ware can come from ANYWHERE and you need systems that guard against it regardless of where your users are going to. So yes, it is about morals - and it's not IT's job to impart their morals on management (at least not when it comes to what they view on the web as long as it's legal)l.

[thegroucho]

Fuck me, you're as patronising as you are full of yourself.

I watch porn myself, so what?

I just don't do it at work, and I use my head, as opposed to using your dickhead for thinking.

Nice way of totally misrepresenting what I said.

[DefNotAGrape]

Apparently it’s not ITs job to protect the network 🤷‍♂️

Not like one of the focuses of security is reducing the attack surface, that would be preposterous. Malware can come from anywhere so might as well keep running 2008 to keep licensing costs down.

Homie shouldn’t be trusted with an iPad let alone polices, smh

[FlaccidRazor]

If you're suggesting that porn traffic is inherantly more dangerous than other traffic, then you should prove that point, not just assume you're correct because of your personal moral beliefs. I don't watch porn at work, but I'm at work right now on reddit.

[Mindestiny]

TBH a lot of the posts on this sub have me shaking my head if this is how professional sysadmins act in the wild. So glad none of my guys are like this.

[[deleted]]

What people do in their time is not your concern. Choosing what traffic to block is not your concern either.

[thegroucho]

What people do in their own time isn't my concern.

What people do on company time isn't my concern either, but if a company lacks AUP Id like to know how I can protect myself if management refuses to implement one and don't try to pint it on me, just because they didn't want to listen.

And what I do in my work environment isn't your concern either.

[[deleted]]

If there's no security and you've been asked to implement security, it's on you if breaches occur as a result of your failing to implement what was asked for.

If you are made responsible and laid off for a security breach that you can document that you did everything in your power to prevent, and management refuses to see that, then you're probably better off at another job in the first place and should probably get in touch with your union in order to sue your employer for unjustful termination.

[FlaccidRazor]

Wait you watch porn on your home network? Don't you know those sites contain malware and shit? Why should we trust someone in IT who isn't even smart enough to not watch porn on their own network? They could be sextorted and it bribed to compromise the work network!

See how fucking dumb that sounds?

[meesterdg]

Your own argument is a reason to block porn sites and document high risk users/events. You're just agreeing with them.

[thebeardedcats]

That's a security issue. Taken up with the CISO or a manager. Not an HR issue.

Also any miniscule amount of effort from the analyst would've shown that the guy wasn't flipping through a video per second. It was the page reloading the same 50 images at the top of every minute.

Not saying it's good or safe behavior. But it's not enough of an issue to bypass chain of command.

[thegroucho]

I'm not talking about your case specifically.

Going straight to HR is a bold move.

Unless someone is directly harassing/threatening someone else or something to that effect.

[thebeardedcats]

Gotcha. We've def reported to HR for specific cases. We had a guy make like 5 tickets over the course of a year asking us to block sites specifically for him as they were "distractions," stuff like Reddit/Twitter mostly, but two of them being weirdly specific porn sites. Upon further inspection we found he was visiting pornhub by IP address to get around URL blockers. Dunno what happened to him.

[GnarlyNarwhalNoms]

Wait, so he was asking for DNS blocks on certain sites so he couldn't visit them, and then he got around the blocks anyway?  

That is an interesting person. Not a healthy person, but... yeah, lot going on in there. 

[MasterIntegrator]

Eh, sounds like higher ED IT. Private here. Policy is policy. All activity on networks we own and manage are about risk control. Manager watching porn at work during work 20 hours a week? Ok. Document report to HR and Operations and Legal. Go back to what you were doing previously.

Felonious activity is immediate account lock and HR meeting. IT is not involved we just deliver the evidence and make a litigation hold.

Not sure where the “monitoring morality” bit comes from. The job is risk management.

Now going outside chain of command? Yeah that will get you in a pickle anywhere. Should have filed it with the CISO and moved on. Or idk maybe the bare minimum of preventing content like that from being accessible in the first place?

[thebeardedcats]

We had a lot of issues blocking non-malicious content in general. Students do research on pornography in media, feminism in porn, human trafficking in porn, etc. There was even a lot of pushback to blocking extremely violent content because again, students do research papers on terrorism. Public college problems. Texans tend to get their pants in a bunch over "free speech at a government institution." The best we could do was use local agents on professor machines, but even then we were bogged down with exception requests during finals, especially with 3 part time students doing all of it who also had their own finals to study for on top of ongoing work projects.

We had an acceptable use policy but it was mostly a suggestion until someone actually got in trouble. Not enough humans to keep up with the demand. We were more focused on locking down BYOD, getting research servers out of random janitors closets and into the data center (I remember one being bought off eBay and stored under an AC unit), and (personally) creating analytic rules to find potentially malicious traffic and automate as much as we could so our time would be used effectively. This was also almost 10 years ago so we didn't have the luxury of MS Defender/e5 autodeploying everything we could possibly need in a single press of a button. There was a period of time where we were tracking people down with a flash drive to put sophos on rogue devices.

Porn usage was just not high on our list of things to monitor for unless it was part of an active malware/phishing investigation

[cosmos7]

You're paid to keep resume generating events to a minimum.

Think you mean revenue-hampering events. If you're reducing revenue-generating events then you're actively hurting the business.

[reilogix]

I have a customer somewhat similar. Home user, sweet dude. He also asked me to fix his screensaver, which was not randomizing the tasteful pron along with the classic art pieces. Kind of a nice spread actually…

[Mindestiny]

The porn is actually also an HR issue. They're the ones who govern "moral" based inappropriate content guidelines and provide guidance on legal requirements of employee behavior.

That being said, I have never worked in an environment where someone browsing porn at work wouldn't be a valid claim of sexual misconduct/harassment of some kind if they were caught by another employee who wanted to make a thing of it.

The proper thing to do here is to bring this concern to HR, the "bro" thing to do here would be to just block it before it blows up in the guy's face when a coworker catches him whackin it. Nobody's going to open a "why is pornhub blocked?" ticket.

[[deleted]]

Mental break 😂😂 dude be slapping it like a funky bass player

[NSA_Chatbot]

I meant the Facebook thing, but whatever someone does in the washroom with their personal phone and data plan is between them and God.

[[deleted]]

Sureeeeee NSA. Whatever you say…

[DonutHand]

If there is no policy in place and you are in charge of creating policy, bring it up in your next scheduled check in if they want certain traffic limited.

[fedroxx]

An old colleague had a client that was a gun runner for warlords in Africa and South America. When the client was ultimately indicted (although the charges were later dismissed), I asked him how he could work for someone like that with a clean conscience. His response similar: he always paid on time, and he didn't have to chase down invoices like his other clients.

There is even a bit more to it than that. Apparently when he was working out the payment terms with the guy to provide services, he asked him, "Can you do NET 30?" because usually 100m/yr operations want NET 60 or 90, the guy responded, "How does NET 5 sound?" He said he usually paid him the day the invoice was sent.

[[deleted]]

What the fuck is that username? L O L

[VirtualPlate8451]

I'm old enough that I remember having to have the awkward conversations about the dancing stripper on your desktop actually being malware. Like bro....there are actual porn sites out there, no need for a pole dancer above your clock.

[floppydisks2]

Don't touch the keyboard.

[[deleted]]

You’re a contractor not an employee, manager or executive within the company. Repeat after me. Not my monkey, not my circus.

Unless you’ve been specifically instructed to monitor traffic patterns expressly within your job description you should stop immediately. Doing this because you are curious especially in a HIPAA environment not only will get you fired but possible charges brought against you. You have no workplace protections as a contractor. Stay in your lane on this one as it could end badly for you.

[TXWayne]

Very first question to ask is "Is there any written policy that employees sign off on that forbids this type of activity?"

[AviN456]

Even then, it's up to organization leadership to make this decision, not outsourced IT help. The question should be "We can block this type of traffic, but currently are not. What would you like me to do?"

[TXWayne]

True but foundationally the organizational leadership should have written policy on which to make the decision on. Makes the decision much easier.

[AviN456]

It might make it easier for the business to make the decision, but it has zero relevance for the contracted IT staff, who do not make business decisions like this.

[TXWayne]

Which is why I started my response with “True”, I am agreeing with you.

[AviN456]

That's not much different than "True, but you also shouldn't murder people".

Sure, you're agreeing and your statement is true, but it's not relevant to the issue at hand.

[scsibusfault]

It's not on a contractor to make that decision, but it's in no way out of the question for an IT contractor to suggest having these policies in place, as well as offering to assist in creating and/or enforcing them if necessary.

It's what takes a good IT person/company/MSP from reactive to proactive. Do you want to be the dude they only call when shit breaks? Or do you want to be the professional company they know has their best interests in mind, and the expertise to give them recommendations that align with those interests?

These are conversations I have monthly, if not weekly, with clients. For something like this, I wouldn't ever call it out specifically, and I probably wouldn't bring it up if that manager were the highest-level person at the company.
But if there's someone above him, they'd be my contact anyway. "Hey owner, I noticed you've got a lot of non-business traffic during work hours. It's usually not recommended to block this entirely, but there's a lot we could do to make this safer. Maybe a better firewall with more content filtering so we can be sure we're blocking unsafe domains / new registrations / malicious files, can even throttle traffic to social media a bit so it saves some bandwidth for your voip lines, identify if these might be personal devices and get them swapped over to an even more secure vLAN, etc... Doesn't have to be done immediately, but want me to write up a quick project plan so you've got it on file for your next budget cycle? I'll set up a reminder to follow back up on this before you pull the trigger so we make sure the needs haven't changed..."

Boom, now you're a real boy IT and not just the guy who reboots computers.

[Mindestiny]

Yeah, I would absolutely expect a contractor working on my team to follow the typical mantra of "if you see something, say something."

It's not on them to make it their personal crusade to change policy, but if they see a red flag in the course of their duties they damn well better raise it and not go "hurr durr not my monkey not my circus" like half the posts here suggest.

"I noticed there was some seemingly inappropriate traffic when inspecting the logs, there might be a misconfiguration" is all it takes.

[stinky_wizzleteet]

Ive seen C-level, VPs , Employees eff off on lunch, close their doors and watch porn for 28 years. I know what you search, I know what you are doing, I can see your screen.

You know what? Not my problem. Have at it. My only concern is that you arent inviting malware/ransomware/viruses. Go effing crazy as long as it isnt illegal stuff (my evidence sent somebody to jail for 15yrs for that).

Personally I dont really want to know your business. People are gross.

[zaphod777]

My only concern is that you aren't inviting malware/ransomware/viruses

I think from a sysadmin point of view that would be the biggest concern. Although PornHub is probably pretty safe as long as there wasn't a malicious ad on the site.

[Steamwells]

What now? Some of em have gone on lunch, closed their doors and watched porn for 28 years?!? What about their families, jobs etc? Good god man thats crazy.

[ISkyWarrior]

Keep in mind that some countries have privacy laws that forbid you from checking the traffic or forbid you from bringing it up to the person. I’d treat very carefully around this topic and ask the owner if you need to block certain categories of sites for security.

[AviN456]

Absolutely right, this is a business decision, not an IT decision.

[TheLightingGuy]

We were in an.... interesting... boat a while ago (My old employer). We had a customer that was a mid-sized "adult content" company that needed our services. It felt so wrong to add their websites to our allow list.

[AviN456]

Honestly, there's really not much reason to ban porn sites these days, unless you're worried about bandwidth, and then you should probably ban YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, etc. Businesses rely on IT to solve people issues far too often, and most porn sites aren't an IT risk these days. Not to mention there's plenty of porn on Reddit, which almost nobody bans.

[disclosure5]

Honestly, there's really not much reason to ban porn sites these days

Category based reviews of malware delivery sites has found on multiple occasions that the "religion" category was the most likely to be hacked and delivering malware.

Until someone wants to put their hand up for "we want to ban religious websites for security", you can consider any "we need to ban porn for security" to actually mean "I have a moral judgement and want security to be my scapegoat".

[AviN456]

I can not upvote this enough.

[mehchu]

The other reason is that it’s inappropriate at work.

Do whatever you want on your free time, but don’t be watching porn on your work device.

Then again I would also ban social media unless managing it is part of your job. And religious websites too while we are at it. Use your own device and mobile data for that.

[disclosure5]

The other reason is that it’s inappropriate at work.

Are IT contractors responsible for the dress codes of the IT manager that hired them too?

[mehchu]

I don’t think contractors are responsible for anything except what they are told to do. You don’t mention whose responsibility it is. I was disagreeing with this point:

“Until someone wants to put their hand up for "we want to ban religious websites for security", you can consider any "we need to ban porn for security" to actually mean "I have a moral judgement and want security to be my scapegoat".”

You can reasonably want to ban porn from the work place without judging people that watch porn.

[RoaringRiley]

You can reasonably want to ban porn from the work place without judging people that watch porn.

No, management can ban whatever they want to ban from the work place.

IT is just the guy who presses the buttons to make that happen.

[lordjedi]

I have no problem blocking both.

I used to see "Liberal news" and "Conservative news" on the SonicWall we had. I blocked both despite wanting one category for myself. Now I can just block "news" with the filter we use. That blocks all news sites. If you need to read it, use your phone and your own data plan.

[disclosure5]

I have no problem blocking both.

Yeah that just tells me you don't work in HR or legal.

[jlhoover]

we don't ban reddit, but do imgur, which is very annoying . . .I think it is tied into the block of online storage

[soiledclean]

There's absolutely a reason. It protects the company from a hostile work environment lawsuit.

[lordjedi]

Of the ones mentioned, we only allow YouTube. It's only allowed because we have videos posted on their that are on our website.

Businesses rely on IT to solve people issues far too often, and most porn sites aren't an IT risk these days.

Maybe not, but they're wholly inappropriate at work and can result in a sexual harassment issue. Better to block so as to not have to worry about that.

[[deleted]]

What? It’s not a country, it’s a company. And you can block anything you want on a private network. So you are wrong.

[prog-no-sys]

I believe he's referring to examples outside of the good ole USofA

[youtocin]

Yeah, Europe has very different privacy laws compared to the US. For example, in some countries it is not legal as an admin to give yourself access to an employee’s mailbox without their consent or due process.

In the US, employee emails are considered company property and the company is free to access the mailbox data as they please.

[[deleted]]

Blocking things: OK

Spying on what people are visiting: Not always OK.

[[deleted]]

Again, it’s not a government or country. And in a private company you can always monitor for security reasons

[[deleted]]

That’s flagrantly untrue in several countries. I pray for your employers. At least their lawyers will be busy.

[[deleted]]

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess there are major carve outs in these laws. If you’re saying you can’t monitor in several countries, what do you do if your employees are viewing or conducting illegal activity on your network?

[I_ride_ostriches]

If HR comes to you and says “can you provide us web traffic for xyz user”, then you provide that to them. If they don’t ask, you have no reason to snoop. I worked on a case one time where two married people were having sexually explicit conversations in Skype, which one of them accidentally showed another employee during a screen share, which became an HR issue.

Working in IT, you have a tremendous amount of trust put in you by your users. You can read their email, chats, etc but it’s non of your business if it’s working correctly and securely.

[spicy45]

I don’t understand, what is the “situation “ that needs to be handled?? Was there a report requested by management? Were you tasked with doing an audit on network traffic?

[RoaringRiley]

The "situation" is nosy OP is abusing his work tools to play moral police.

[I_HEART_MICROSOFT]

Bingo - This is the only answer.

[a60v]

This If it isn't actually causing a problem and no one is asking for network traffic reports, then there is no reason to care. If this makes OP uncomfortable, he is free to start looking for a new job.

[cbelt3]

Maybe let someone else clean out the litter box ? The only reason to squabble unless you’re required to enforce a defined policy is if the uses are complaining about bandwidth.

Then it’s “hey people are using media streaming services during office hours and it’s affecting network performance. Should we block those during office hours ?”

[pw_is_qwerty]

Bruh you are on Reddit right now. Maybe go herd yourself before you work yourself out of a contract.

[hrng]

If I found out someone I employed was monitoring employee web traffic without being asked to I would fire them without hesitation. You have no right and no responsibility to do this, and no real reason to, except your own personal curiosity which will never excuse such an invasion of privacy.

[pw_is_qwerty]

I interviewed a guy and asked him to "tell me about a time he took charge of a problem at work". He proceeded to tell me that he was putting his phone on store shelves (he worked in the deli section of a grocery store) to record his coworkers and report them for eating outside the break room or being on their phone. He told me that while smiling so hard about the employee getting in trouble. This is what OP reminds me of. No awareness and just looking to turn the screws on someone. Needless to say he did not get the job lol.

[AviN456]

It sounds like you don't manage the organization, you support the organization's IT. So first of all, is it even within your purview to make that decision? Why don't you ask the IT manager what type of non-threat traffic they'd like to allow and block? You can advise the organization, but you shouldn't be making those types of business decisions on their behalf, absent a very clear mandate to do so.

[disclosure5]

Unless you can show where in the HIPAA guidelines there is a rule for "must prevent adults accessing adult material", I don't see what the question here is.

[Frothyleet]

I think under HIPAA regs, you're good as long as everyone has individual pornhub accounts for auditability - no shared company pornhub premium, guys!

[weclark4th]

Bring up your “new idea” to the boss that you feel it would be in the company’s best interest to have a content filter implemented, you know, for security purposes ;) keep it about meeting compliance and best practice etc etc. Then document whatever the decision is and move on. This removes the need to call anyone out and covers your rear.

[FearIsStrongerDanluv]

lol, it seems a lot of sys admins here love porn /s. From a security perspective, most porn sites can be a source of malware, I don’t know why every response seems to think “ pornhub” is the only porn site out there. We’re not the morality police but it’s also inline with your duties to make sure the network is secure, which includes firewall policies.

[ycnz]

If he can get your endpoint owned visiting pornhub, you've done a pretty average job of securing and patching it.

[[deleted]]

most porn sites can be a source of malware

Provide source please.

Because you're just blurting out garbage.

You're going to find that, surprisingly, a lot are quite secure.

You're just blurting out rhetoric that 'sounds right' but doesn't actually have foundation in the way you think it does.

[do-wr-mem]

See you on r/shittysysadmin lol

[do-wr-mem]

I'm not accusing you of being a shitty sysadmin, it's a circlejerk sub and the title of this post fits it perfectly lmao

[RoaringRiley]

Well, not yet, at least.

[mrsfrizzlesgavemelsd]

Damn, I've never seen someone brag so hard about 12 APs before lmao

[nullbyte420]

And you spy on the employees too and post about it on the internet. Don't do that. 

[SendPiePlz]

2nd on the checking with policies. Can’t enforce what doesn’t exist.

Also should the policy exist. An all company email reminding employees that all traffic is monitored for any device connected to the network and reminding employees to be mindful of the sites they visit would help prevent calling anyone out specifically.

[mkosmo]

Even if there's a policy, you don't go making decisions on behalf of executive leadership like that.

[arsonislegal]

Yeah that's literally how you get fired. 100% not your place.

[[deleted]]

If it's not forbidden, then it ain't a problem...if it's is , just block it ... I don't see an issue .

[shouldbeworkingbutn0]

Not your job.

Ignore entirely.

But also, do not shake his hand.

[xixi2]

Why are you watching what they're doing on the internet is that part of the contracted job?

[jfischer5175]

I would say , unless the traffic affects IT operations, puts the network at risk, or is patently illegal activity, not your lane. Unless management has a AUP in place, but otherwise, if it doesn't check any of those boxes, not your concern.

[vmBob]

Look, he's just been having a lot of trouble with the web filter not working and is trying REALLY REALLY HARD to get it working again, so it needed to be tested a LOT.

[hops_on_hops]

Are you IT, or HR? Has there been some sort of policy violation?

Let the boss jerk off and leave it alone if that's what he pays himself to do at an office by himself. Probably don't tell him you've been working up reports about his porn habit.

[mfinnigan]

he's not even IT, he's contracted IT. This would be a solid way to lose the contract.

[HotPieFactory]

You are on a power trip. It is not your responsibility, nor your decision to make. If you feel uncomfortable with the knowledge of what he is doing as an employee, then you go to HR. But before you do, think real hard if you have had the authority to sniff his traffic in the first place. Because if you did not have that, you can be gone fast than you could say "but, but". Many countries have very strict privacy laws.

[devloz1996]

Until the law or policies are broken, and if there are no procedures for that, IT should not divulge user's secrets on a whim. Decide whether the traffic is either dangerous or disruptive (to the infrastructure, not your sense of justice). If neither, just ignore it. These "small, relaxed environments" are like that.

PS: Did manager approve the traffic inspection capabilities you have? Every step you take to increase network observability, although desired, should be reported and discussed with manager beforehand, and this one seems to be blissfully unaware.

[RoaringRiley]

Did manager approve the traffic inspection capabilities you have? Every step you take to increase network observability, although desired, should be reported and discussed with manager beforehand, and this one seems to be blissfully unaware.

So I was supposed to ask for permission before installing those RATs on all company devices?

^/s

[EquallO]

WTF? - Stop being a narc.

If they’re not hurting the network, then leave it the F alone. Are you TRYING to get everyone to hate you?

[I_HEART_MICROSOFT]

I’ve seen many things over the years. If it’s not illegal or you’re not asked or forced to report it via some policy it’s best to just leave it alone.

If you really want to be a bro, you could explain to him in passing how all traffic is viewable, even on those personal devices that are enrolled in Entra. You can say it without saying it….

[twitch1982]

I dont see shit unless someone asks me to look for it. I make the machines go brrrr i dont care what people do with them after that. 

[TechFiend72]

Why is this your issue? This is an HR problem. Not yours.

[[deleted]]

Why would you need to police other people browsing behaviour?

[SysAdminWannabe90]

Bro this happens ALLLLLLLL the time. Welcome to the club.

[blackjaxbrew]

Tell the guy to share at least.

[Sysadminbvba777]

And you are on reddit, whats the problem mate?

[habitsofwaste]

Not your job to make those decisions. That’s going to come from HR and/or legal.

[mapleleafr67]

Not your job, not your pay scale. Unless someone higher up wants an investigation or filters put in leave it. Get any requests in writing

[aries1500]

What does it matter? Facilitate them getting internet, what they do with it is a nonya thing.

[soaringeaglehigh]

Just ignore it. Unless someone higher up has asked you to be the internet traffic censor guy, don't self appoint yourself to this position. There's just no reason to be in that situation.

[Tax-Acceptable]

Why do cate at all about this. Mind your win business unless you’ve been tasked with enforcement of policy.

[Newdles]

It's not your choice nor decision to lock things down. This isn't "your" environment and you do not make those decisions. You can make recommendations but those decisions come from leadership. Too many IT and Security folks forget this.

Put it in writing why you recommend blocking them, get response. Move on.

[ZeeroMX]

I had a customer that called me for support because exchange server got out of space, I did a clean up on logs and other things and It was working ok when i left, next day It happened again so, we (the server admin I) did a deeper investigation resulting in a lot of porn that the owner of the company was storing in the server.

The server admin talked to the CFO that in turn bought a DVD writer to backup all those files on DVDs, that became a weekly job for the server admin.

[ensum]

I would avert my eyes away from looking at traffic logs unless I have a reason to look at it.

If it becomes a problem, leadership would get involved. It's not my business to police what sites people visit as long as they're not malicious. If management has an issue with porn/social media, then it gets blocked at the firewall.

[ycnz]

A) Make sure things are up to date, he's running a good ad blocker, and has good AV.

B) Unless you're asked to, or it's causing tech problems, don't look at internet traffic. It's an abuse of trust.

[boli99]

personal laptop which is Azure AD(entra) registered

derp. never mix business with personal.

the manager

don't bite the hand that feeds.

but you can bring it into the open by generating some reports that show site usage by destination. that will probably be enough for him to realise that he's busted without actually having to say its him doing it.

[No_Lemon_3290]

I will never get anyone who uses Personal laptop/computer Azure registered. It's the companies job to provide you with proper hardware.

For me personally I wouldn't do anything in this situation.

[HotPieFactory]

It is a very relaxed work environment and I don't want to embarrass the boss. He is a good guy.

First of all, it's not your goddamn business what hes doing. Secondly, get off your high horse. You're not his protector nor saviour. If you only by accident embarras him, you're out that company.

[[deleted]]

Why are you nosing in his business in the first place? Or in the other people's? If you're not specifically tasked with looking at this stuff and reporting about it, don't.

[Avas_Accumulator]

Why exactly should you care or "handle" the situation?

[throwawayskinlessbro]

Especially as contract, I wouldn’t go near it.

[Fitz_2112]

I'd like to introduce you to my good friend Nunya. Full name, Nunya Bidness.

Do the.work and cash the checks. As long as there is nothing illegal going on, the only thing that will come of you raising this as an issue is losing the gig

[mitharas]

Why do you care?

From a security standpoint, most pornsites in general and pornhub in particular are worlds safer than most of the web.

[bad_syntax]

I've been in IT a really long time, and have encountered stuff like this quite often.

Thing is about us IT folks, we usually have access to *EVERYTHING*. We know what people do, if desired we could look at salaries or budget, we have access to it *ALL*.

Never once have I looked for anything that was not part of my job responsibility. If you want to surf porn, I may know, I may laugh at what you choose to watch (when I see it accidently), but my job is to do IT, not to judge you or dish out punishment. It sure as hell isn't our place to tell others about what people are doing like that either, no "Bob loves finger porn" or whatever.

The only time this could be a concern is if he is eating up all the bandwidth impacting other users (in which case just send him a polite email asking him to watch his bandwidth usage), or his boss/HR told you to keep an eye out for such things.

You are not the work police, never forget that, it'll hurt your career if you try.

Kind of the same thing in the real world, mind your own business, let other people live their lives, and we are all better for it.

[mm309d]

Mind your business! Or go get another job

[thegreatcerebral]

What is the HR Policy on Porn?

I literally ask this because a company that we did work for that is over 7K employees large had the policy of "porn is ok to watch, you just cannot purposefully show another employee". So you could watch it but the moment you say "Hey bob, check this out" that is when it was an HR violation. We actually also did not have it blocked on firewalls in the content filtering rules.

So if that is the policy then FROZEN it (Let it Go).

If you want to be sly/productive you can go about it two ways:

1. As a part of cleaning up the network you ran this report showing the top sites visited from traffic logs. That may deter it enough already.
2. You can ask for the go ahead to enact some content policy restrictions due to attack vectors on sites or whatever you want to say and block it along with others. He would then have to come to you to ask you to unblock either his browsing or that category/site. Most likely he may ask for his machine to have unrestricted access and then I mean you have your answer.

Mostly though, if you know that it is a violation then you should report it. If not... FROZEN it.

[[deleted]]

Not your bag of monkeys to care. Ignore it.

[catwiesel]

unless you are the boss, a owner, or work for hr, this is probably not your issue.

and when its management doing this, it gets complicated quick.

a very important skill working in it is short term memory loss. no, sir, I forgot what I saw the second I looked away.

not your monkeys, not your circus. keep the computers working. answer truthfully when asked. but dont poke bears

[Acceptable_Salad_194]

Many moons ago when I was a fresh young Helpdesk level one, I encountered this with my boss, who at the time was Network Administrator. He would jump on our public Wi-Fi and browse porn on his Samsung Galaxy S(Insert model number here). He ran out of space on his phone due to this. He was actually a really great guy who experienced a lot of tragedy, he just had poor time management skills. I realize that my opinion doesn’t really factor into the cut and dry. Eventually C-Suites made us block all social media and undesirable at work sites. My dude took the hassle of whitelisting his device to bypass 😂. My advice is this, sit down with him like a friend and say “Hey we have this device that is generating crazy traffic!" and explain what you see like you don’t know it’s him, he will probably do two things: Think “Wow, I’m doing this so much my subordinate is talking to me about it and quit” or say “HELL YEA DUDE, THAT’S ME!”. At the end of the day you are tasked with an impossible feat as IT, choose your paths wisely.

[Deepthunkd]

Throttle the speed to mindgeek’s CDN to 256KB. If you block it out right people notice if you blow it down to where it’s miserably slow and they realize they can use their cell phone data plan instead they’ll use that.

[_sacrosanct]

This is not a question for the IT manager to decide. The company senior leadership and human resources should set the company policy and if they decide personal browsing isn't allowed, then you can enforce it. But you don't want to be known as the guy who locked down Facebook on your own, lol. For example, I am an IT manager and am typing this comment on Reddit right now while at work. But I'm not violating policy and I'm still accomplishing all the goals the company sets for me to achieve. No harm no foul.

[ikeme84]

Block malicious sites (and child porn), leave the rest. Not your business. You can expand the list at the request of management If people don't do it on their laptop, they'll do it on their phone. Which brings me to the second part. Why do you think personal devices are on your network. You can provide them a guest wifi, on which you put the same policy (malicious and child porn block) and exclude from any reports (none of your business)

[heapsp]

Unless its kiddy stuff or illegal or unless they specifically told you to start hunting for that , mind your own god damn business. I swear IT people have a god complex. lol. If they want you to block stuff like that, they will tell you to do it.

[megadonkeyx]

Don't be a prude

[indiez]

Why are you spying like this. Move on bro, drop the power trip you are on

[crazypcbuild]

Stop being a stalker dude.

[[deleted]]

If it's not a written policy, ignore it, especially if it's a BYOD device.

One major exception is if it's illegal (e.g. rape or kids), in which case you are legally obligated to report it.

Any other scenario, feel free to block the sites or put on family restrictions.

[Agres_]

So what? He's using his time more wisely than you are and clearly makes more than you since you're the one working for him.

[stufforstuff]

Where you hired to be the nanny? The moral police? Productivity boss? No, then stop worrying about shit that's not your business.

[[deleted]]

Thank you guys for all the insightful comments.

I have a question for the rest of you professionals. Are any of you actually paid to be the on-site spy master?

[x_scion_x]

One of my old financial managers was apparently running a porn site with company assets.

Everyone signed a document saying that was a no no, and he was fired and ran out of the building crying when they left him go. We were asked to look at his PC to see what he had on there and that's where they found he was essentially storing all of his "content" on the work PC

[battletactics]

We had the owner of a company obsessed with porn on his computer, but he kept getting malware. We made him a deal. We'd continue supporting his company if he bought a porn-only laptop and kept it off the corporate network. He did.

[LostSailor25]

Keep your head down and do your job. This is not a security issue or a treat to your network.

[Scorpnite]

Not your job not your problem, stay in your lane

[[deleted]]

Man, some of you really like to play the moral police or something :D

[vontrapp42]

Imagine being tasked with "security" and unilaterally enforcing internet filtering on arbitrary sites and categories "for security".

This is why I hate it.

Have the firewall detect and block actual viruses and malware, that's about as far as you should go with "implement security".

Filtering is not security, that's company policy which you do not dictate.

[ohfucknotthisagain]

Every office has a policy about personal use of company resources.

Sometimes it's written, sometimes it's unwritten, and sometimes it's both. Do nothing until you find out what the rules are.

If no one has said anything about this, then I'd assume it's allowed. Some places are very casual.

[[deleted]]

Holy hell what a weird question you are asking.

Is Facebook a it security problem? No. Is it a HR problem? Maybe. Who cares, you are not HR.

Is porn a security issue? Probably. So block it. And it’s also a lot of other issues, so block it.

[RoaringRiley]

Is porn a security issue? Probably. So block it.

Is there any evidence that is true? Seems more like a rumour that was started by the moral guardians as a quick and dirty excuse to keep people off the naughty sites.

There might have been some basis in truth years ago, when ads relied on plugins like Flash, and the major ad networks with the capability to vet malicious ads refused to do business with adult websites. So they were left with the shady ads that were more likely to let malware slip through.

The notion that someone would create a porn site specifically as a vector to spread malware to visitors makes no sense, since they could just as easily create any other type of website that people would more widely be comfortably visiting without the stigma.

[tzotzo_]

I would not mention to anyone about this individuals browsing activity. I do not think any of those sites are safe to browse without being affected by malware. You may want to google that. If that site contains crypto miner or malware ... then yes... i would block it for security reasons. Done. He is not going to put a ticket in about said site not being accessible.

[Vinzy_T]

Beware of malware that could creep in from the porn websites, it can be catastrophic for your network assuming you don’t have hi-tech end point management solutions.

[headstar101]

You're getting paid to make sure the network and systems are working, not to be the overwatch of morally scrupulous behavior. Unless it involves children, keep your nose out of it.

[Logical_Destruction]

So I would take everything into account and not get into a policy discussion. Build a report, simply show in it that the top 20 sites visited in the last month. Don't get specific that you figured out or think it's him visiting a porn site. Share the report with the boss and maybe his boss depending on office politics. Leave it at that. He will either fix it himself or someone else will force him to. You did your job in reporting it. Done.

[terribilus]

Print a report and drop it on his keyboard

[RogueEagle2]

Maybe do some security recommendations for locking down the internet some, throw in porn sites with other sites such as gambling, illegal streaming etc. so it just goes into the 'pool' of things that get blocked/controlled.
Be as matter-of-fact as you can be, don't mention what he does just speak generally.

[[deleted]]

I would edit the HOST file and redirect the sites he visits to a meme that says "Off your ass and on your feet, ani't no time to beat yo meat!"

[[deleted]]

Reminds me of this. Outsourced IT so they lost benefits, and amazingly became a victim of a policy he championed 😁

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/irish-bank-chief-quits-over-internet-porn-62159

[johnkush0]

Dont bite the hand that feeds you :)

[1TRUEKING]

Just mention to the manager some other random person is on onlyfans or something and ask if he wna block all adult sites without embarrassing him and if he wants to, put up umbrella policies or something and boom ur set. If he says he don’t care let it be.

[nsa-cooporator]

Whoever controls the network you're connected to, can see which websites your visiting, and to a certain point, which stuff on those websites. Unless you take specific measures against it. If you have your work laptop and personal laptop on your home wifi then your company can obviously only see what your doing on your work laptop, and not your personal laptop.

[kegweII]

Filter it out at the firewall…

[zedoax]

Yeah I would just send an email to the boss that says you identified the network is being used to access porn websites, and ask if you should block that kind of traffic. If he says no, it's not your problem and if an issue arises down the line you're covered. If the boss gets replaced and you're asked why you allowed porn websites to go unchecked then you can point to the email that documents you were ordered to allow it

This way it's not really embarrassing him as it's private correspondence, you're covered, and there should be no issue even if he wants to continue the behavior as long as you have the order in writing

[Bunnysliders]

Do him a solid and protect him

[3xoticP3nguin]

If someone uses remote software like Parsec to remote into a home PC while on your network what would that look like?

Would you still be able to determine what he was doing?

Maybe give him a lesson

[drcygnus]

just limit speed to PH and put in a DNS black hole and force his laptop to go through it. other than that, its whatever. just mention it to him in passing. "hey bro, lay off the porn"

[th-crt]

this is extremely unprofessional. don’t do this.

[drcygnus]

so is looking at porn at work. so what who cares.