Video review: Get.net.smart

Information Management Journal, Mar/Apr 2002 by Pemberton, J Michael

TITLE: Get.net.smart: Using the Internet and E-mail at Work

PRODUCER: Commonwealth Films

LENGTH: 22 minutes (utilization guide included)

PRICE: $695 from Commonwealth Films; $637 for ARMA International members buying from ARMA

MEDIA: Available in CD-ROM, VHS, PAL, Secam

SOURCES: Commonwealth Films, Inc. (617-262-5634, www.commonwealthfilms.com)

Pubic and private organizations are taking the offensive against employees' abusing computing infrastructure. For example, a senior administrator at a large public university was forced to resign when a recent audit of computer use revealed recurrent visits to pornographic Web sites. Surveys by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission conclude that personal use of organization-supplied computers has become wide spread. Added to an average of 25 percent unproductive time in the workday - shown in earlier workplace studies - such technodawdling has become a serious productivity issue.

Get.net.smart, a video production from Commonwealth Films, addresses employee abuse of Internet access and e-mail privileges. Two narrators managers from a company's systems security unit - emphasize that the term "personal computer" is an unhappy misnomer in that work-supplied computers are not personal, private, or privileged. Rather they are organizational assets on loan to employees. Diversion of those assets is just as serious as misuse of company money. While a certain amount of personal use can be tolerated, examination of Web logs quickly reveal what to all would be "excessive use."

This 22-minute docudrama, developed from actual situations, shows a variety of staffers engaged in one or more inappropriate uses of organization-supplied systems. Individuals use the Internet for stock trading, computer games, gambling, shopping, and bidding on goods at eBay. Some listen to Web radio, enjoy online jokes, pass along chain letters, and even plan social events. One worker's hope that encryption will keep his activity secret proves false since all of his keystrokes are being captured and examined.

Organizations have every reason to clamp down on technology misuse. Tying up computer resources by downloading non-work-related graphics and content with streaming video and sending non-work e-mail to their entire address book can cause the network to bog down enough to slow legitimate work. Some workers may not understand that downloading graphics and clipart may be a copyright infringement, and it endangers one's company when in-house technology is used. Everyone needs to realize that copyrights are almost always involved in Internet-accessible software, photographs, music, and computer games. It's not public domain just because it is on the Internet. In companies where hourly work for customers is billed, auditable timesheets may reveal hours spent on the Internet and not on the client's projects. This is grounds for accusation of fraud.

Careless e-mail "conversations" can lead to considerable harm.

Get.net.smart shows how flippant remarks about a terminated employee can get out of control and lead to lawsuits based on defamation and invasion of privacy. Subscriptions to list services focusing on pornography, racism, sexism, hate, and some forms of politics can create a poisonous and even a harassing - environment, one in which the company may be jeopardized. Even the innocent will occasionally get "spam" or a message from an inappropriate source. It is hard to resist the instinct to delete such messages. Instead, closing the message and reporting the situation to a supervisor and systems security for possible action is the appropriate step.

Illicit uses of computer resources can include violations of privacy, identify theft, and access to companyconfidential information.* It is easy for others to gain silent access to marketing plans, product development news and timetables, and information about how the organization is run. In an environment in which competitor intelligence is becoming an art form and reporters know all the tricks of backdoor access, careful use of company systems is vital.

Get.net.smart is an effective production for training purposes. It is well paced, uses effective intercutting of narrators and computer abusers, focuses on the most problematic misuse of company computers, and gives viewers a sinking feeling that all these problems could be going on right under their noses.

(*Editor's Note: See the review of Targets of Opportunity in the January/February 2002 issue of The Information Management Journal.)

J. Michael Pemberton, Ph.D., CRM, FAI

J. Michael Pemberton, Ph.D., CRM, FAI, is Executive Editor of The Information Management Journal. He may be reached at imainc@mindspring.com.