U.S. Government Crippled by Sex, Gaming Sites 283
BobB writes "The U.S. Department of the Interior's inspector general has released a report that says department employees are wasting their taxpayer-funded work time going to prohibited web sites. Some of these sites relate to sex, computer games, gambling and auctions. The study found that almost $2 billion a year in productivity was being lost to these 'excessive indulgences.'" From the article: "Computer-use logs revealed more than 4,732 entries relating to sexually explicit Web sites and gambling sites. Some computers accessed sex sites for 30 to 60 minutes during the test period. More than 1 million log entries were discovered indicating 7,763 Department computer users spent 2,004-plus hours accessing game and auction sites. Extrapolated over the year, that could account for 100,000 lost work hours. Put another way, this would equal 50 full-time employees doing nothing but surfing online game and auction sites."
Re:What do the /. logs says? (Score:1, Informative)
Article Incorrect on Amount (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.doioig.gov/upload/InternetUsage1.txt [doioig.gov]
Re:Those are some high paid 50 people! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A common problem (Score:4, Informative)
As far as spying on users and getting them fired goes, that wasn't my department. I managed the hardware and software on machines, not the company firewalls and proxy and such. I agree with your statement that the admins probably should have just been firewalling off applications like Napster and blocking known inappropriate websites. Nonetheless, the issue remains: These people were doing entirely inappropriate things with government property and then leaving it to me and other people in IT to clean up after them.
I have always taken users' privacy very seriously, because I take *my* privacy very seriously. It doesn't take illegal spying or other illicit activities to notice when a user is doing completely retarded things using company resources. When the office T3 is getting modem-level throughput, it's pretty hard to not notice a bunch of connections open on napster ports from specific users' machines. If you're suggesting that a government employee has a right to do as they please with government computers and internet connections, how do you feel about what Mark Foley did with *his* government resources?
If being offended by highly paid individuals wasting time on the job instead of helping maintain the country's infrastructure makes me self-righteous, then that label is entirely accurate. As it stands, I'm no longer in IT because I hated working for the government and I hated working in IT. I make best-selling video games now.
Re:A common problem (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who's doing it, tho? (Score:1, Informative)
Category: pornography
Umm, I hate to break it to you, but those damn filters aren't all that accurate, either.