Comments on: Forensic tool detects pornography in the workplace

Paraben software analyzes images in real time to search for pornographic content on business networks. It should attract the attention of every corporate counsel and HR manager.

[vminvic]

Lets say your workplace is a GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT. One of multitude thousands across the nation. What is one of the worst fears the employer harbours ? Sexual harrassment lawsuit. How does an unsrcupulous employee suddenly get a huge wad of cash for nothing ? The employee claims "my workplace is filled with filthy,degrading porn and the employer hasn' t done anything to stop the practice. I am distraught and can't work in this poisoned environment." Just fighting a long case could cost one office a million dollars, and such cases have already happened. Looks bad around election time when everyone is courting "Morality" voters too. Still think there are no customers willing to spend on this product ?

[myarro2]

Surfrecon, Inc. has a similar product which includes safety features and more for only $499 in the workplace and $39 in the home. You can check it out at www.surfrecon.com

[nklemm]

You can really tell who the perverts are. Why in Gods name would you need to be looking at naked pictures/videos at work? Time and a place. Work isn't it. And if you fired someone for being upset for seeing that in the work place...well Lerianis, you wouldn't have a job for very long. That is why you're not a manager.

[solitare_pax]

Why can't people understand that you go to work to work - a designated task - not to view porn, play WoW, or whatever catches your fancy. If you want to view porn, do it at home or in a motel.

On a side note, I imagine this thing will pick up a lot of false positives from baby pictures - so all those ladies who are storing pictures of their broods of new grandkiddies in their birthday suits on workplace computers had better watch out too...

[GSale51]

The best part about corporate detection of porn is that it appeals to WHAT kind of company? I have been a a number of companies where the CEO, CFO, and board members share pictures of naked women. I suppose it makes sense if you want to find a way to fire someone for looking at images (seems like a corporate legal nightmare). I think this is one of those trigger selling points for a software company, but most innovation is not hiring groups of men that need to be monitored this way. They are simply too busy trying to work. I suppose that there is some terrific government contract at the end of this technology and they would like to get a million orders for this for the 'moral' value of the project, but not to identify anyone in particular.

This climbs into the topic of the government asking for more and more freedom to access our private information. We constantly hear how it is to chase down child molesters and terrorists, but in general, we see NO arrests, but our privacy is being taken away piece by piece for the excuse of 'our own good'.

Maybe we need to hire more people in the workplace that are qualified for their position and not finding time to look at porn?

Who has this free time at the office?

Oh wait, there are always the brokerage houses and the credit lenders :-)

[Vegaman_Dan]

This is really a self correcting situation. Those people that collect porn online at work tend to have a lot of other tipoffs about prodcuctivity and HR senstiive liabilities that this software really is pointless to use.

It's a feel good sort of thing that corporations like to roll out to believe they are doing something proactive about it instead of addressing the problem- the people who download it.

Penguinisto is right here. The money could be better spent on other things. Of course, you could just fire someone very very publically for collecting porn on the company computer and make an example of them. It would be far more effective in my opinion.

[onionson]

While the porn is bad, I'm guessing the non porn type emails and the work time spent reading and forwarding them dwarfs the porn situation. In a single...joke email I'll see hundreds of previous recipients with business or government adresses sent during non lunch working hours. Based on what I get and figuring if just one in ten sent them on, we as a country must be flushing at least a hundred million dollars a day of productivity down the toilet. Get on your hands and knees and thank God I'm not the CEO of a huge corporation. My IT department would not only hunt down the porn peddlers, they would also hunt down anyone that wasted more than 5 minutes of company time on stupid emails so I could fire them too! Productivity is perhaps the #1 cause of good or bad things that affect our economy and all other barometers. I, as one person, will get at least ten emails a day each with hundreds of names in several forwarded sections. It's mind blowing.

[overum]

Funny, you think to prevent porn?
Use a Wifi-Lap top, a linux LiveCD, download porn on a usb-stick and see what happens.. :-)

[strife_caecus]

These "guilty employees" should just go to the restroom, "take care of business," and get back to work. There's just too much politics at work to jeopardize your job over surfing for porn. Do it at home.

Now, if your office job feels like the Ninth Circle of Hell and you think going down in flames would be the most exciting thing you'll ever experience there, then by all means find some Jenna Jameson classics!

[mikeburek]

If you get caught watching a video, just play it backwards and say you were learning how to get dressed.