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SpikeK6

SpikeK6

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Spike
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Work bought me a laptop as i am now site based for the next year or so. It is not on a linked in system to their server or anything its simply works wireless off the router in the site office.
But yesterday i downloaded solitaire from the app bit on windows 8 and last night i was chatting to a mate on face book on my home pc and one of the bosses wrote a message totally out of the blue and nothing to do with the chat going on about being addicted to solitaire.

Came in this morning switched on lap top and solitaire was open. Now is there anyway the company can read my laptop that works wireless from a router that's not on their system?
 
How can they do that? These must be some sort of program on the laptop?
 
There is probably an activity monitor loaded onto the laptop that reports activity back to a central location. It can do this in the background without you being aware of it. It probably reports on web sites visited, aps running and for how long.

It's possible that you loaded solitaire, played it once or twice, just for the fun of it, but failed to close it down. It was open in the background so was logged as up and running for hours
 
SpikeK6 said:
Now is there anyway the company can read my laptop that works wireless from a router that's not on their system?
Click to expand...

Technically they can, if a piece of monitoring software on the laptop records stuff like what applications are running, and sends it back to a server which analyses it. Nothing difficult about that.

Legally they can't, unless they officially tell you that they are doing so before they do it, e.g. in your contract of employment. At least to my layman's understanding of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, that is. Proper "IT people" (I'm not one) might know the situation more accurately.
 
Thanks for that. I am not bothered by it as i only use the laptop for personal stuff at lunch times and for nothing un toward.
 
So does this monitoring software only work when laptop is on the internet or is it something that works when laptop is connected to wifi. Cut not on a site?
 
So you're saying that you left your laptop at work and on (logged in and/or locked) and you came back in the next day and solitaire was open?

Sure your boss hasn't just guessed/bypassed your login?
 
laptop was not shut down only screen closed so would have been in sleep mode. put in laptop bag and taken home, but the laptop is allowed to use my wifi from my router at home. laptop was not opened again till this morning as I do not need it at home.
solitaire was down loaded yesterday lunch time and used once but I guess I did not shut it down as it said the game had been going on for quite a few hours. then when I was on face book and boss came into a conversation and said "hooked on solitaire" I thought eh what he on about.

Had a quick peek at settings on laptop this morning and "remote assistance was ticked" this is where someone can remotely work on your laptop to help you, could this be the way he knew what was being used etc even though it was shut and I had not done anything to let him in so to speak with it being in the bag?
 
Allow remote assistance you would have to initiate/accept the connection. There is also allow remote connections on the same page but generally the local user has to acknowledge the request.

Personally I wouldn't worry, chances are it was a fluke comment. Very few IT depts would care about what apps you have installed if they haven't blocked the download and install of them... I don't actually know of any that actively snoop, other than checking Internet usage (even then it's just an automated report sent to line managers).

Was it a personal App Store login you used to download? I don't know much about w8 and admin of apps yet but I guess there may be some logging of business App Store accounts?
 
yes it was a personal log in I used for the apps.

Like I said I am not worried as the only sites I look on here is TP facebook and maybe ferry times hotels etc in my lunch breaks.
 
Try Angry Birds this lunchtime, and leave it open, with laptop in suspend just like before.

See if your boss makes another comment. :)
 
If its the Windows 8 version then it will have stayed open all the time. All the "Modern UI" apps will stay open until you fully shut down the PC or force the app to close via the Task Manager.
Closing the lid and putting the laptop in sleep or standby wouldn't have closed down any Windows 8 apps you were running.

But agree that it was likely just an off the cuff joke from your boss after being issued with a laptop.
 
I think it was just an off the cuff remark as I have tried a few things over the last few days, leaving TP open when I am working, starting card games but never actually playing them and nothing more has been said so either they are still loooking and do not care or it was just coincidence
 
I once got pulled by IT at a company i worked for, for 80hrs of internet usage over a month!? After bricking it initially, i remembered i had TMS cricket scorecard running constantly as the Ashes was on.......the Austrians don't get cricket, so after a chat to local IT, i promised not to do it again....
 
neil_g said:
Allow remote assistance you would have to initiate/accept the connection.
Click to expand...

There's actually a silent mode (can be initiated via a group policy)!

neil_g said:
Personally I wouldn't worry, chances are it was a fluke comment. Very few IT depts would care about what apps you have installed if they haven't blocked the download and install of them...
Click to expand...

As Neil says, I wouldn't worry. Just be rest assured that they are keeping an eye :-)
 
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