Like many who travel or telecommute with a laptop, I occasionally
visit websites that include pornography and other subjects I would
prefer my corporation not have visibility to. I only surf the net
through my high-speed connection at home (which has no connection to
my corporate VPN) or in hotel rooms through a similar means. I always
disconnect from the company VPN before venturing to thse types of
content sites. Additionally, I keep zero days of history in my cache
and always delete the temporary internet files from my browser. I do
this in case when replicating for Lotus notes through the company VPN
they receive an email of sites I've visited.

My question: when I surf the net through a high speed connection that
has nothing to do with the company (at home or in hotel), can they
still "see" me?  Please keep in mind that I always make sure that I am
disconnected from the company VPN client BEFORE SURFING. When I open
my browser, the company website is the set homepage, if that matters.
I've always assumed that since I was accessing the net via my own
means (in-home high speed) that it was safe. Is there a way that I can
verify whether they are tracking me or not? Please help--I'm scared!!
Thanks in advance...

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Clarification of Question by blueinasuit-ga on 28 Apr 2004 08:30 PDT

Thank you for the comments thus far. Obviously, I need to alter my web
activity. First, can someone help me delete all traces of web surfing
from my harddrive? I understand how to clear history and temp internet
files, but where are cookies on Windows XP? Also, is there any other
areas of content trace that I need to delete? How do I remove Spyware,
for example?

Thanks for your help.

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Clarification of Question by blueinasuit-ga on 14 May 2004 10:49 PDT

The laptop is owned by the company but I work from my house 95% of the
time. I go to the corporate office in NY once a month, and there I
plug into the corporate network to do my email.

Are there any programs worth buying, like Evidence Eliminator that actually work?

Aside from the moral implications on surfing porn websites on company
time/equipment,provided you remove all data (Cache, cookies, history,
temporary files , downloads etc etc)  from your computer and there is
no other software running on your pc that monitors your surfing habits
and you do not go through your companies proxy server there is
virtually no chance of them seeing where you are going

My opinion:  In this digital age, there can be no guarantee that
traces of your activity won't be present on your laptop, should
someone be determined to find them.  You are right to be concerned,
given the content of your web browsing activities.  If you value your
job, I recommend either A) Cease this activity on company equipment;
or B) buying a computer of your own (laptop for travelling) to
guarantee your privacy from corporate.  Use the business computer for
business, and the personal one for personal business (even when
travelling).

http://www.insecure.org/sploits/Internet.explorer.web.usage.logs.html

In short, yes they can, but what do you have to hide????

Hi blueinasuit-ga,

As I'm sure you're aware, you are skating on very thin ice here.

There are two major points I would raise to you, based on many years
of working within the IT departments of various global blue chip
companies.

Firstly, your company is likely to deal with this sort of thing on a
reactive rather than a proactive basis. In other words, if you give
them a reason to suspect that you are misusing company equipment in
this manner then they will investigate and they will find. If you
don't give them a reason, it is unlikely that they would ever even
look.

Secondly, even if they don't look, they might find anyway. Once you're
caught you're in serious trouble and will probably be very quickly out
of a job.

I once worked on a rollout project that involved backing up laptops to
a network server via a batch script before wiping the drives and
putting on a fresh build. Even though this company barred internet
access for laptop users, I noticed that one laptop was copying up a
huge amount of temporary internet files. On looking closer, the
filenames were highly revealing and I immediately took the laptop off
the network and deleted the server backup.

This high up user was not just summarily fired from the company for
blatant abuse of company property but also successfully prosecuted by
the police for possession of illegal pornography.

I am sure that you will have signed various pieces of paper for your
company, such as a Laptop Usage Agreement or an Internet Use Policy. I
would be very surprised if you aren't violating some or all of these
agreements. Be aware that porn is something taken so seriously by
corporate IT departments that I have personally seen people walked off
site without even being able to clear their desk.

Finally, you should realise that merely visiting a porn website that
contains malicious javascript might hijack your laptop with spyware or
a virus and thus flag you up to your IT department in no uncertain
terms.

Just say no, dude.

Hi,

Tell me if the laptop belongs to company? okay if I take it does
belong to company, do you take it to home and company as well then
there are 2 options.
First of all company don't bother what person is doing at home if not
at work place, some do and they can install some spyware software
which keeps all the copy of sites you visited.
Secondly, if company really wish to see what sites you visited all the
material can be plug out from your Temporary cache and even if you
delete that can be recovered by undelete utility.

Sanjay

As was said previously, the company isn't likely to go looking for
this sort of thing. However, keep in mind someday your computer may
crash and require repair prior to you having a chance to delete the
temp files, etc.. In any event, it would be best get a computer for
home use - it's not worth the risk.