On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 11:19:06AM +0000, Richard Barrett wrote:
>
> And which particular branch of the secret police are you commissioning this
> system for?
>
Probably the ones that pay for the infrastructure that the people are using - it is called reporting and, it can, save your arse by providing hard facts to your boss that you are NOT surfing the web all day - just that he/she happens by when you are surfing. If you want the feeling of some (transitory) privacy then surf on your own time and infrastructure but don't think for a minute that cannot be tracked either.
-- Brett Lymn
You missed the point entirely.
I have no problem with employers, governments and ISP's publishing rules and policing them.
For instance, I see no problem with an employer publishing a network use policy to its staff, checking that it is adhered to, and taking action if it is not. I have no problem with the use of an overt proxy server's logs to investigate possible abuses of network use policy. By overt, I mean that the user of it is aware of it's existence and its purpose. Hell, you can use the logs to bill your staff for private use of your network if you want to make that a condition of their service.
My objection is to the use of transparent proxying for secretly monitoring user behaviour which is what the original poster was suggesting. I regard this as fundamentally dishonest, underhand and an abuse of civil liberties, which only the supporters of the secret police can see as justifiable. I am not so naive as to think that this sort of abuse does not go on but abuse is still abuse. In my opinion it should be challenged when encountered.
