Viewing porn at work

From the Verge 02/08/12:

It's never really a good idea to watch porn while at the office — especially if your job involves mildly important tasks like defending the US from missile attacks. Yet that's exactly what some employees at the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency have been doing, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Sounds like the staff have been minding some lap rockets of their own during work hours, then.

Last week, MDA Executive Director John James Jr. issued a memo warning employees against using government computers to access pornographic websites, since such behavior could pose potentially serious security risks.

We’ve all surreptitiously checked the internet for something at work which was mildly ‘against the rules’.  But porn? Really? Why would anybody do that while they’re stuck at their desk surrounded by colleagues? Unless their all doing it, you know, like some kind of organised LAN orgy? You never know. Maybe that explains the stain on your colleague’s chair and the reason why they always have screen wipes on their desk? ;-)

(Remember Brandon from the little-known BBC series, Attachments? He used to skateboard naked around the office ((and other things as I remember)) once everyone ((or almost everyone)) had gone home for the day. Dirty boy!)

"Specifically, there have been instances of employees and contractors accessing websites, or transmitting messages, containing pornographic or sexually explicit images," James wrote. "These actions are not only unprofessional, they reflect time taken away from designated duties, are in clear violation of federal and DoD and regulations, consume network resources and can compromise the security of the network though the introduction of malware or malicious code."

Well said that man.

Employment lawyers have long advised that all employers who provide internet access for their staff have an explicit internet usage policy so everyone knows where they stand. Accessing porn at work is an obvious no-no and surely a clear breach of any internet usage policy at work. But beyond that, I’m still more disturbed by the fact that employees think work hours are a ripe opportunity to get down and dirty with their office computers in the first place.