BEWARE SOFTWARE GUYS! THERE IS A SPY IN YOUR COMPUTER WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE!!

They are usually invisible but they exist. They are called by many names in an office, like network administrators, computer guys or security people. They install software, clear massive old files and attend to problems. They are the guardians of office computers and they stand in the gateway between the office and the world wide web. They haunt the virtual spaces of the office and they know what you are typing, what you surf and probably even your passwords. So much personal information is so easily available to them that they are increasingly becoming powerful.

Among the new breed of all-knowing administrators is Iyer (real identity has been protected). “I’m not a stalker," he says, "I’m actually quite a nice person. It’s just that I like to keep up with the people who reside on my network." Many like him are keeping themselves updated on office politics, romance and the sex lives of colleagues. Sometimes, their jobs lead to comical situations.
Namita Chander is a systems administrator with a software services firm in Bangalore. The company policy required her to keep tabs on employee-surfing habits and block pornographic sites. But, as it turned out, one of the directors of the firm was addicted to surfing porn. "It takes a huge amount of self control to keep a straight face every time he comes up and asks me to look out for people surfing porn when I know he spends half his day watching x-rated stuff," she says.

Snooping into the lives of colleagues has become an addictive hobby for some administrators. "In fact it’s no longer just the administrator who has the power. What’s most scary is, be it a multinational or tiny organisation, you see the master password going around like popcorn these days. This means that absolutely anyone in the IT department has the power to snoop on employees," says Altaf Halde, country manager (India), Utimaco Safeware, a German MNC.

Sachin Deshpande, an IT hand with a Mumbai stock broking firm, spends most of his coffee breaks sharing the escapades of the company receptionist who, he knows, is sleeping with the vice-president. "What caught my eye was when he said ‘tonight jaan?’ on a chat. It raised a red flag." That’s when Deshpande and his friends started following the hot love trail. "I know it’s voyeuristic, but they leave it out in the open."

What he means is that when people choose to communicate sensitive matters on their office computers, they are asking for trouble. Almost every organisation snoops for protecting its own security. Needless to say, when Net administrators snoop for the grander cause of company welfare, they also indulge in a bit of personal gratification.

Ritesh Sharma, an IT administrator with a multinational in Mumbai, wooed his current girlfriend using information he scrounged from her emails and chats. "Going by her fan following in the office, I knew until I did something drastic I would always remain Mr Nobody." So in his quest to find love, he carefully gleaned information from her emails about her likes, dislikes, family and friends. And when the girl was going through a heartbreak, he strategically lent a shoulder for her to cry on. They are engaged now but she does not know that he had once shadowed her on the net.

Amit Malhotra, who administers the network of a well-known engineering company, managed to stumble upon the passwords of a number of senior managers. It gave him access to sensitive information. And since the information was there, he thought why not use it. So off went a thumb drive to the competitors with the latest tender figures. That made him a couple of lakhs richer. "I haven’t made it a habit of stealing. In fact, that one incident still haunts me," he says Malhotra. But he admits to a sense of power.

With millions of hackers trying to access all kinds of information and employees sapping up the bandwidth for personal entertainment, the importance of net administrators to an organisation is unambiguous.

So, regular office-goers must understand that in the changed world they cannot escape being constantly monitored. Encrypting information through special software does not really help because, remember, there is decryption software too. The only way to protect your personal information is not to disperse it in the office computer. And to stay paranoid.

(Courtesy: The Times of India)