When Ethics and IT Collide

jcatcw writes "IT workers have access to confidential data, and they can see what other employees are doing on their computers or the networks. This can put a good worker in a bad predicament. Bryan, the IT director for the U.S. division of German company, discovered an employee using a company computer to view pornography of Asian women and of children. He reported it but the company ignored it. Subsequently the employee was promoted and moved to China to run a manufacturing plant. That was six years ago but Bryan still regrets not going to the FBI. Other IT workers admit using their admin passwords to snoop through company systems. In a Ponemon Institute poll of more than 16,000 U.S. IT practitioners, 62% said they had accessed another person's computer without permission, 50% read confidential or sensitive information without a legitimate reason, and 42% said they had knowingly violated their company's privacy, security or IT policies. But in the absence of a professional code of ethics, companies struggle to keep corporate policies up to date."

Why bother keeping corporate policies up to date?

[Eric Smith (4379)]

and 42% said they had knowingly violated their company's privacy, security or IT policies. But in the absence of a professional code of ethics, companies struggle to keep corporate policies up to date."

If 42% are willing to violate the existing policies and risk termination or worse, how would adding a professional code of ethics or keeping corporate policies up to date help? Those same 42% would likely ignore the code of ethics and violate newer policies as well.

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[Stormcrow309 (590240)]

If it was like the PMP, CMA, CPA or other professional certifications/licensure that industry requires for certain jobs, then code of ethics violations would mean loss of certifications/licensure. That would weed out all those unethical assholes in IT.

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[Nerdfest (867930)]

That would weed out all those unethical assholes in IT.

... and send them back to management and marketing where they belong!

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[ePhil_One (634771)]

and send them back to management and marketing

Perhaps you know different IT folks than I do. Most of the IT guys I know would do very poorly in both of these roles.

I think the point of a "Professional Association" is that it would raise the risk of unethical behavior. Right now you get caught with your fingers in the cookie jar & lose your job, you'll have a new one in a few months, and the old job will likely only "confirm employment" because of HR policy. If there was a professional society companies could refer to, they might able to inflict a more serious punishment. Of course, given the lack of success with similar professional organizations in Law & Medicine in policing their memberships, my confidence level is low.

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[ucla74 (1093323)]

So this professional association might be "Professional Information Technologists Association"? PITA, right?

Are you willing to pay the increasing salaries?

[Colin Smith (2679)]

Because there are already professional certifications available for IT people. Speaking from personal experience they currently make bugger all difference to fees or salaries. If you were to require such certifications then the reduction in supply of IT personnel would cause the salaries of the certified to rocket... As it has for lawyers, doctors, accountants etc.

No? Not willing to pay up? Oh well then, you can't really complain.
 

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[pegr (46683)]

That would weed out all those unethical assholes in IT.
 
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I can read your email...

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[Original Replica (908688)]

Competition for labor drives down the wages of those paid above what is required to get someone to do it, and pushes up the wages where there are labor shortages.

I agree with you that it is how it should work. I hope you don't think that's how upper management pay scale works in the real world. Given that the people in charge of the large organizations don't play by those rules, it makes little sense for the people that work for the large organizations to play by those rules.
From my own personal experience: I'm a stagehand, I used to work Off-Broadway on for-profit commercial shows (multi-million dollars budgets). Most of the stagehands that work in those venues have college degrees in stagecraft. The pay scale works out to a lower lower middle class lifestyle in NYC. $20 an hour doesn't go far in NYC. Forget raising a family on that here. Forget health insurance. There was a high attrition rate, but there was always a new batch of college grads that would fill the ranks. Then I moved on to Broadway. Broadway stagehands are union. The job is really the same, but we make twice as much money as Off-Broadway. The attrition rate is pretty low. People have insurance and can afford to have kids. The tickets cost twice as much for the consumer. Yet strangely, Broadway is thriving, while the Commercial Off-Broadway scene is slowly vanishing, so your theoretical "blight on consumers" doesn't seem to be happening. Granted there are unions out there who don't honestly factor in profits (or lack there of) when they are making demands in a contract negotiation. Not only do those unions give other unions a bad name, but they destroy their own industry. However, there is plenty of room between "destroying the industry" and "the minimum that someone will accept for the job" It's that difference that keeps the attrition rate low and allows for stagehands with decades of high level experience, those experienced stagehands are well worth the price of two or three fresh from college employees. In the non-union Off-Broadway scene those experienced workers never emerge because of attrition, but there is always someone willing to do the job. Now be it a union or a professional licensing organization, keeping the labor cost/value above the bare minimum, but within what the industry will bear, results a healthier more sustainable work culture. As for end-consumer costs, those are always as high as the market will bear, the only difference is the internal distribution of the cash flow. By doing any job for less than the guy who was doing the job yesterday, are you really going to save the consumer money or are you just increasing the year-end bonus for someone already in the highest tax bracket? You seem to have some sort of pride in your willingness to do-more-for-less, as though that will somehow make life better for the common man or will earn you the love and respect of the company you work for. From my perspective: you are the common man, make life better for yourself by attaching a (carefully considered) high price to your labor. A paycheck that supports a high standard of living is how companies show respect.

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[gillbates (106458)]

Because it:

1. keeps corporate policymakers and HR people employed, and
2. Gives them the ability to fire someone who violates the policy, and
3. Allows them the leeway to fire someone whom they don't like, by so narrowly defining the Acceptable Use Policy to the point where the average employee has violated at least one of its provisions.

That's why. Whenever you don't understand a corporate decision, just ask yourself, "Who benefits from this?", and soon the reason will become obvious. It's not that corporations make non-sensical decisions; rather, that corporate decisions are often motivated more by internal politics and the need to maintain a semblance of professionalism than anything else.

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[trolltalk.com (1108067)]

"Bryan, the IT director for the U.S. division of German company, discovered an employee using a company computer to view pornography of Asian women and of children."

And how did he know this, if he wasn't LOOKING at the damned stuff himself?

1. Someone looking at adult porn is not an "ethical problem", unless you got your ethics from the bible belt.

2. Someone looking at kiddie porn isn't an "ethical problem" either - its a legal problem! Like in "against the law".

3. Not reporting it because you would have to admit you were snooping on other people - priceless AND retarded.

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[Rei (128717)]

Oh, but they were *Asian*. And then he moved to *China*. He might start interacting with Asian women there. The horror! The horror! The horror!

Seriously -- why even bring up the Asian aspect at all, as though that's somehow relevant? I can understand being worried about children, but worried about Asian women? Give me a break.

Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat

[Lord Apathy (584315)]

Well reporting it to upper management is possibly one of the worst things you can do. In the example he said he knew about the kiddy porn and report it to upper managment. Well, that was your first mistake. First thing you did was single yourself out as a trouble maker and a snitch. People don't like snitches, even if it is for a good reason.

Well he reported the shit and nothing happened. Well possibly nobody believed him so he outed himself for no good reason. Then most upper management blokes tend to run in packs. So odds are he outed his mark to a friend of his mark. The person he outed and the person he outed to could have booth been trading kiddy porn or the person he outed just simply said he wasn't to his frined. Who would you believe? So the only thing he did was paint a fat ass target on his ass.

I would have anonymously figure out a way to rig his computer to send all his kiddy porn to a "public" printer. The biggest fucking color printer in the place. Maybe one of those big ass HP with paper rolls on it. For extra kick I would have set it to go off when the office prude or church lady was standing next to it. Then I would fire the bitch off and stand back and watch the fun.

Mr Kiddy porn gets what's coming to him. I'm not on anyone elses shit list and I have a good laugh at someone elses expense. Of course the whole fuckign thing can backfire. I might not be as good as I think I am and the whole barking mess could fall right back in to my lap with a fat ass thund follwed by a clang.

but I'm that good.. so no worries...

There *is* a code of ethics

[by Anonymous Coward]

The ACM has done at least one thing right:

http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics [acm.org]

Re:There *is* a code of ethics

[BobMcD (601576)]

I'm not a member, and so do not know the code very well, but looking at the lines of text tells me that this DOES NOT HELP with the moral delema.

Choose one of these two, and break the code both ways:

1.3 Be honest and trustworthy.
1.7 Respect the privacy of others.
1.8 Honor confidentiality.
2.6 Honor contracts, agreements, and assigned responsibilities.
2.8 Access computing and communication resources only when authorized to do so.
3.1 Articulate social responsibilities of members of an organizational unit and encourage full acceptance of those responsibilities.
3.5 Articulate and support policies that protect the dignity of users and others affected by a computing system.

OR

1.1 Contribute to society and human well-being.
1.2 Avoid harm to others.
2.1 Strive to achieve the highest quality, effectiveness and dignity in both the process and products of professional work.
2.3 Know and respect existing laws pertaining to professional work.
3.2 Manage personnel and resources to design and build information systems that enhance the quality of working life.
3.3 Acknowledge and support proper and authorized uses of an organization's computing and communication resources.

Even with this code, you now still have a lose/lose situation...

Re:There *is* a code of ethics

[beheaderaswp (549877)]

Nice try.

It has been posited by my legal department that IT workers are "mandatory reporters" in cases of cyber crime, child abuse, and terrorism.

This opinion, which I have not seen tested in court, seems exceptionally relevant considering that like teachers (who are often the first to see child abuse), nurses/doctors (the first to treat physical abuse), and police (the first to intervene in domestic abuse) IT people are a first detector for a myriad of crimes.

Thus, based on legal advice, my employees are instructed to notify law enforcement *before* notifying management. (In some states this may actually be law now)

So yes, this code of ethics, as well as the LOPSA Code I linked below- do apply. Assuming of course the IT director isn't one of those management monkeys who likes to bury things "for the good of the company".

Actually, the most sensible thing is

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Thus, based on legal advice, my employees are instructed to notify law enforcement *before* notifying management"

And who wants to fuss with that. My advice would be to (a) never look at anything that would cause you to be forced to report anything (b) if you do, make sure no one else knows and pretend it never happened (c) if caught in a dilemma, tell your boss anyway and say you weren't sure if this applied and you need his/her guidance.

That's the only sensible thing to do, but I realize you can't give that as official advice.

Summary has 2 different ethical problems

[R2.0 (532027)]

1) Not reporting something illegal when discovered in the normal course of business, i.e. whistleblowing. Fear for job safety or simple moral cowardice?

2) Actively doing things that the employee knows are illegal/immoral/unethical. Come on - does a "profession" really need a code of ethics to tell its members not to seek information to which they are not entitled? Maybe they need to reevaluate calling themselves "professionals".

Re:

[Billosaur (927319)]

Theoretically, ethics start with your parents. You get your original ethics template from them by watching what they do. You can try to overlay a code of ethics over that, and if the individual is flexible enough it might help reinforce the need for security or override a natural tendency to want to violate the rules, but more often than not a code of ethics is just so many words. It's up to the individual to determine right from wrong in their own mind, based on personal and societal cues. If someone is go

Re:Summary has 2 different ethical problems

[NDPTAL85 (260093)]

You think your so much better than a plumber or electrician don't you?

I bet you they have codes of ethics too concerning not stealing things in their clients homes and such.

A jerk is a jerk no matter what industry they're in.

So where is the "ethical dilemma"?

[khasim (1285)]

You see the logs of some guy looking a kiddie porn and you report it to your HR department.

Where's the ethical dilemma?

If HR does nothing about it, you report it to the FBI.

Where's the ethical dilemma?

And ethical dilemma would be where there were two ethically valid choices with different consequences. If you have two kids and they're both drowning, which one do you save first?

Re:

[arivanov (12034)]

The article is missing some bits that are of interest here.

Was the employee German or it was all happening in the USA? If the employee was German, was the policy compliant to German privacy legislation and were the employees correctly informed about it and warned about its enforcement as required by German (and EU) legislation?

Based on personal experience with Americans rolling out nannyware around Y2K I somehow suspect that none of that was done and if the employee was not in the USA and not American the l

What privacy? There is no privacy at work.

[WebHostingGuy (825421)]

That's where you are incorrect. There was never any privacy when someone was using their "work" computer for "personal" use. If you think you have any privacy using a computer provided by your employer, using your employer's resources to access the porn, you are mistaken. Courts have held numerous times employers own the equipment and have the right to view (i.e., spy) on your usage.

There was no privacy here, therefore no ethical issue.

Re:

[cerberusss (660701)]

I don't know where you live, but in my country the employer has to state in advance that usage of PC equipment and internet resources can be spied upon. Otherwise viewing porn at work is not a firing offense.

Re:

[King_TJ (85913)]

I follow your logic, but I still disagree.

Privacy is a rather "slippery" thing. The U.S. Constitution never specifically guarantees anyone a "right" to privacy. Neither to any of the Constitutional amendments. It's more of an "implied" individual right, subject to interpretation. (Just being defined as a "figure in the public eye" can drastically change your ability to sue someone for publishing photos taken of you without your permission, for example.)

Ultimately, I think people only retain the amount o

Re:

[plague3106 (71849)]

Except of course that you're wrong. Courts have upheld the right to use company phones for occasional personal use. Recently, they have ruled simillary for the web or email (I can't remember which). I also don't ever recall a court allowing a company to spy on telephone call, even though they owned the equipment.

You don't lose your rights when you enter a workplace.

Re:

[cellocgw (617879)]

Yes, there is no personal privacy for junk on corporate computers. The more interesting issue is when IT accesses machines that are limited-access. For example, take the Personnel Dept (I refuse to use the insulting term HR) and its database of employees' salaries, home addresses, background checks, etc. That info clearly is not for view by IT members, regardless of their root privs. The difference here is that an employee gives info to Personnel with the understanding that it is not for general dissemin

There is no Absence!

[beheaderaswp (549877)]

There is a professional organization, of which I happen to be a member, Called "LOPSA"- "League of Professional System Administrators".

The code of ethics is found here:

http://lopsa.org/CodeOfEthics [lopsa.org]

While my IT department does not require membership in this organization, these rules of ethics are *posted* and violations of those rules are a fireable offense!

Re:

[eln (21727)]

What kind of soulless bastard needs a written code of ethics to know what's right and wrong? Who really thinks that snooping around other peoples' data is the right thing to do?

Unless you were raised by wolves, you already know the difference between right and wrong. Looking through someone's email is just as wrong as looking through their postal mail or peeping through their windows. You don't need to take any ethics classes to know that it's wrong.

Re:

[beheaderaswp (549877)]

Agreed.

But adopting a code like this as departmental "law" does two important things:

1. It puts employees we serve at ease because they have a measuring stick for our conduct. (A copy of the LOPSA code is included in the new employee materials)

2. It gives the IT director leverage to cleanly and efficiently fire workers when ethical mis-steps occur.

You're right: "I" don't need the "code"- but it has good uses.

Re:There is no Absence!

[archen (447353)]

What kind of soulless bastard needs a written code of ethics to know what's right and wrong? Who really thinks that snooping around other peoples' data is the right thing to do?

Most of us do. But then again a LOT of us have lapses and moments of weakness. I mean if you know there is some really good dirt being shot back and forth via email and you log all email it's really tempting to just snoop through it to kill some boredom. Sometimes just reading a piece of paper on the wall can help you keep your focus.

I'm an I.T. Manager and it's sort of tough sometimes. For me personally I'm having a bad time in my life and I have this vicious streak that emerges many times a day - and that isn't helping. I have the ability to see every website they visit, everything they do on their PC, and can see every email received and sent. I can also access pretty much every file on every machine in the company. That's a LOT of responsibility. And I honestly don't snoop through any of it - it's kept for security/legal reasons. Monthly I wrap it up an 256bit AES encryption on a DVD and that's it. I think most I.T. people are actually pretty honest as well as far as the ones I've met. I mean I'd hate to see what the assholes in sales would do if they had as much power over the company as I had. heh, I actually just cringed.

When my pay is ethical, I'll worry about the rest

[cavehobbit (652751)]

I have an ethics problem every time I get a paycheck for 40 hours of work when I actually worked 60.

Using company systems for your own needs? heck, the company is alreaady getting 40 grand worth of free overtime. Is that ethical?

Never mind legal, is is ETHICAL?

Re:When my pay is ethical, I'll worry about the re

[mark-t (151149)]

If you have an ethics issue with your current job, you should quit, and find a new job. The last thing you should ever want is to be thought of as a person who will compromise his principles for money.

... OR... you really don't have any sort of ethical problem with being exploited at work and you just wanted to whine about something that you figured people might be sympathetic to.

Re:

[Surt (22457)]

It's not uncommon to have a higher ethical obligation to provide food, for, say, a child, which takes precedence over your ethical obligation to quit rather than work unpaid overtime. If the OP is basically incompetent, he may not have any additional job choices which would allow him to fulfill the first obligation in order to satisfy the second.

Re:When my pay is ethical, I'll worry about the re

[Bucc5062 (856482)]

If I had mod points I'd cite this as insightful. You raise a good point. Salaried employees are paid for 40 hour work week, but average much more office time. Do those employees receive a discount (comptime?) at the end of the year? Most likely not so it is an ethical question to post to the employer.

Now, the other side to that discussion is understanding the that typical salaried employee is not *working* eight hours in the day. Even removing 10 minute breaks and lunch the average time spent actually

75% of all stats are made up on the spot...

[HaeMaker (221642)]

I think these numbers are bogus.

I know of people instantly fired for doing such things. There is an unwritten IT code and the vast majority of IT people I have known or ever come in contact with follow it.

Permission?

[peipas (809350)]

Violating company policies and snooping is one thing, but employees do not own their computers and staff administering machines do not need permission to access systems.

Conflation of different areas

[PontifexPrimus (576159)]

That is an example of what I like to call "conflation of evils". An action can be

• morally wrong (going against your own personal conscience)
• legally wrong (going against codified law)or
• sinful (going against your religious beliefs)

Watching child pornography is illegal in all relevant legal systems, and not reporting someone to the authorities could be considered a crime of omission or obstruction of justice. It might be sinful, depending on your religion. It is probably considered morally wrong by the majority of people.
The problem I see with the dilemma posed by the article is that he tries to conflate these areas and to get a mental map that divides things neatly into The Right Thing(TM) and The Wrong Thing(TM). I think this approach vastly over-simplifies things; take file-sharing, for instance: many instances are illegal since they break copyright law. Yet I wouldn't think it is immoral, since the laws appear to be unjustly slanted against consumers. I couldn't say how religions see the issue (the closest I could find was a quote from the Bible: "go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor" which seems to speak out against hoarding property), so I won't make a qualified judgement on that.
But it should be clear that this is a complex issue, and people trying to frame it in terms of "right" and "wrong" without specifying the framework they're using makes a good answer almost impossible.

Re:Conflation of different areas

[Surt (22457)]

There's also:
        * ethically wrong (violating a codified system to which you have agreed, but which is not backed by threat of physical force)

People get that one confused with the other 3 as well.
Ethical can be thought of as polar from legal: You don't agree to abide by the legal system, but you're threatened by physical force if you don't comply.

Not me.

[Zero_DgZ (1047348)]

Sure, I have unmitigated access to everything that comes, goes, or happens in my company. And if I don't have access to some particular facet of the boss's operation it's pretty trivial to give myself access. But do I snoop through other employees' email or documents or browsing records or whatever? No. But, admittedly, not because of any particular integrity or high moral standards on my part.

I just don't care. Yeah, it might be nice to intercept early the memo that says I'm going to get canned tomorrow (or whatever) but I have more than enough things on my plate and no time, motivation, or incentive to play Secret Squirrel with other people's stuff. I have news for you: 99.9999% of what happens on a business network is mind numbingly boring. Memos. Transmittals. Materials lists. Spreadsheets. Schedules. Business correspondence so packed with legalese and ass-kissing and meaningless paradigm shifting buzzword bullshit it makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.

If I want to abuse my authority and misappropriate company time and network access, it's easier and less mind-frazzling to just delegate the job to somebody else and go read Slashdot.

I'm surprised it's that low

[MikeRT (947531)]

IT work outside of the well-paid areas is a breeding ground for discontent. It's thankless, low-paid work where you have to deal with a lot of stupid people. Add on to that that people who go into IT who are ambitious, ethical and hard-working are probably going to be more attracted to the engineering side (software, hardware and network) than the grunt technician work and you have a big problem on your hands.

I have never met a person who works in IT support that I would trust with my personal PC. That's just my experience, but I have known guys who would abuse their access to people's PC to get all sorts of files they shouldn't, which is why I didn't hesitate to believe the Consumerist story about Geek Squad employees abusing their customers in that way.

You know what needs to be done? They ought to be treated like a repairman who is caught going off into a totally unrelated part of the house and rifling through personal belongings. It may not be stealing since they're just copying, but that's the closest thing that we can compare it to.

What's wrong with asian women?

[JustShootMe (122551)]

I can understand the kiddie stuff. But what's wrong with asian women? Last I checked, asian women were beautiful, and there is nothing illegal about viewing them. It may be against company policy, but THAT is not worth calling the FBI over.

I know what the author was trying to get across, and there was plenty of cause to call the FBI, but lumping the asian women with children is just demeaning to the women.

Re:

[Knara (9377)]

In the eyes of the law, women are often equated to be as helpless (and as unable to make reasonable decisions) as children.

Just throwin that out there.

It's not just IT

[Merenth (935752)]

This isn't specific to IT, but it happens a lot.
Most newbie Admins poke around in places they shouldn't soon after getting heightened access to the systems.

Almost anyone, in any career where they have access to sensitive information end up abusing it to some degree.
Doctors, Nurses and medical records people read the files of friends or relatives all the time, and that's certainly illegal.

Also, if you come across that kind of stuff in your routine work, you are actually required by law to report it to the police.

After 15+ years in IT, all data looks the same to me.
I can help someone adjust the font on a document and not even notice what it says.

At the end of the day, it's your reflection.

[UncHellMatt (790153)]

Not too many years ago I worked for a "web startup" (i.e. small company founded by Harvard MBA who smoked lots of weed, drove a VW, and was out to "save the world") as IT manager. As the market tanked, the CEO became more and more concerned for the future of the company and with good reason! We'd gone from regular upper 6 figures per month to less than half that, with three locations whittled down to essentially one and a half. Many employees left for greener pastures. When things REALLY started to go down hill, the CEO asked me to intercept any emails between current and former employees, and then "hinted" that since so many of our clients had their email hosted on our email server, couldn't I do the same with them. I know that, legally, he had the right to get access to current employee email, and any former employee whom he had granted continued use of our email system (not sure on that last bit, IANAL). But asking me to, or suggesting I should allow him to, read client emails was a final straw. While he may have the "legal right" to read employee emails, it left a very bad taste in my mouth. Suggesting I allow him to read client's emails? It was like licking a rat. At the end of the day I had to go home and see myself in the mirror, and I knew that reading other people's personal, private emails was something so abhorrent. (Rimmer: "Lister, that is my private, personal, private diary; full of my personal, private, personal things." Cat: "It's gone public.") Now all that said, at another job, myself and some other IT workers suspected one of the devs of possibly being a pedo. We didn't read his emails, we didn't pour through his computer (which we could easily have done), but we did put google to good use, and at one point we did packet sniff where he was browsing. Was I proud of that? Well, actually yes. If he HAD been looking at kiddie porn, if he HAD been a sexual predator, being a father how could I stand back and not try to do something? It turned out he wasn't a diddler, just... Really really really really creepy. It is a very fine line between "ethical" and "non-ethical", it can be very hard to judge which is which, and everyone will have their own opinions. But in the end you have to live with yourself, and certainly I'm not qualified to decide right and wrong, nor pass judgment. If I had my way, anyone who sold a poorly made curry would be strung up and boiled in oil.

Re:At the end of the day, it's your reflection.

[mgblst (80109)]

If he HAD been looking at kiddie porn, if he HAD been a sexual predator, being a father how could I stand back and not try to do something? It turned out he wasn't a diddler, just... Really really really really creepy.

This is why it is so scary to let certain people, delusional paranoids such as yourself, to have this power. It boggles the mind what someone would have done to convince you that they were a kiddy fiddler, wearing black clothes, taling quietly, maybe they just weren't that social - i am pretty sure that they didn't have disturbing pictures around the cubical. I guess he is just glad that you weren't so convinced that you dropped a few extra files onto his machine - all in order to protect your children from the non-existant menace. Congratulations, I am sure your witch hunting will be put to better use next time.

Sort of depends on what this means...

[jafiwam (310805)]

view pornography of Asian women and of children.

Does it mean;

- Asian women, men in porn
- Asian children in porn

Or, does it mean;

- generic Asian porn
- generic pictures of kids in NON porn situations like one might run across if one were looking into culture of the far east.

You can like Asian women and seek out that sort of porn without liking Asian children in porn.

There is a HUGE difference between porn at work (a common thing) and KIDDIE porn at work. One is just something you can get fired for. The other is a felony.

The phrasing in the summary seems to imply the latter is what is going on, in which case you need to check your morals at the door and adopt whatever the company says is OK. (And that seems to be that a bit o-boobies searching is fine since the HR department didn't do anything about it.)

Just because YOU don't like porn of adults, doesn't mean you need to be bugging the FBI about it. If it was real child porn YOU ALREADY COMMITTED A CRIME and acted immorally by not going to the cops with the information.

Re:Why talk about Ethics

[BiloxiGeek (872377)]

A poll [slashdot.org]? What's the point of that???
5% of us would vote randomly
6% will definitely be stuffing the ballot box
7% Might be stuffing the ballot box

Or worse yet:
17% will choose the Cowboy Neal option

Re:

[Soko (17987)]

As a shortcut, ask yourself, what would the BOFH do?

He'd go for extortion?

The phone rings. It'll be him again, I know. That annoys me. I put on a gruff voice

"HELLO, SALARIES!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I've got the wrong number"

"YEAH? Well what's your name buddy? Do you know WASTED phone calls cost money? DO YOU? I've got a good mind to subtract your wasted time, my wasted time, and the cost of this call from your weekly wages! IN FACT I WILL! By the time I've finished with you, YOU'LL OWE US money! WHAT'S YOUR NAME - AND DON'T LIE, WE'VE GOT CALLER ID!!"

I hear the ph

Re:Not entirely ethics

[trolltalk.com (1108067)]

Come off it ... 70% of ALL porn-viewing is during working hours.

Your boss does it. Your coworkers do it. Get over it.

As long as you get your work done, who gives a shit? Better they look at pr0n than some site that advocates that "Jebus is comiong soon" and they start putting bible tracts on your keyboard ... THAT is a real invasion of a person's "space".

Re:

[Maximum Prophet (716608)]

The capitalist economic system, with all its little trappings, is about war. That's why Sun Tzus book is one of the top selling books for executives.

What you are confusing is the Adam Smith style capitalism with the Monopolist practices of modern upper managment.

Capitalism isn't war, it's more like a race. Even though you are trying to win, there must be other competetors for there to be a race. Imagine Lance Armstrong tried to have a bike race where he was the only entrant. What would be the point?