Analysts call for secure Facebook access for workers

Number crunchers at Gartner have decided that businesses should allow their workers to access Facebook and all manner of web guff "securely", via the company network. Distinguished analyst John Pescatore led the call: "Strategies to contain and protect the use of new technologies will always be more effective in the long run …

[Mike Crawshaw]

Do. Not. Want.

I don't use it, I don't want it. Nor do I want to be picking up extra work because everyone else is playing fucking scrabble instead of doing what they should be doing.

This might sound old-fashioned, but here it is. A business pays you to do a job. Not piss about prodding people and playing with friends lists. If your business doesn't REQUIRE you to be using FaceAche, there is no reason to be using it. And if a business did require me to register with / use FaceFart, I wouldn't be working there. It's unnecessary and annoying.

If you want to use it, that's your prerogative, but don't expect me to join in, and don't expect me to pick up your slack because you were too busy sending ninjas after your "friends" when you should have been working. What you do in your spare time on the net is entirely your own business, whether it's on FaceBook or YouPorn, but whilst you're at work, you're supposed to be doing what the company pays you to do.

Like adding unnecessary comments to El Reg.... (hey - I'm waiting on some data to crunch!!)

[Anonymous Coward]

No chance

Not while I've still got a hole in my arse :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Fook em

We have blocked access to FaceSpace and MyBook (amongst others) as well as YouGrot and you would not beleive how much differance it has made to bandwidth and general browsing use. Good job our Head of IT is on board and says they will carry the can of any fallout.

As for those that moan ----- fook em. Get on with some work.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one...

Shall still be blocking it along with the famous tat bazzar..

Paris because i'm sure she's no stranger to being poked.

[Eddie Johnson]

Secure pipe to where?

So I'm supposed to create a secure pipe for them, connect it up to a virus farm, and then allow the employees to fork off all day while they destroy the network from within? Go Gartner! Let me guess, they determined that the deployment of "Inverse Vpn Connections" or IVC's, (TM) will be a $17B market by 2011? This is just how Gartner attempts to prop up all their previous failed predictions about Web 2.0.

Groupthink in worthless, it allows crappy ideas without legs of their own to get support for the idiotic huddled masses.

[Andy G]

Hell no . . .

. .. they can do that sh*te it their own time. Farcebook / social retard sites users need to get out more !

[Joe]

Not on my watch

After noticing a real problem with bandwidth 2 months ago, i embarked on the ''lock them down' bandwaggon, and it has made a huge difference. I put everyone through the proxy then banned pretty much everything apart from the bbc news and weather page, i believe we have gained back about 70% of bandwidth. Just to give you an idea, we have a 10mb up and down stream leased line with 7mb assigned to web, and i was noticing a real slowdown!! Users were not happy, people ignored me for about a week, my answer was 'hey, fuck you guys, STOP STREAMING VIDEO'S'!!!!! Used an open source firefox plugin to stop them changing the proxy settings, and because we are mostly on Mac's i locked down the network pref's in System Preferences.....the hot girl in accounts can sitonmyfacebook anytime!

[James]

Make it a sackable offense...

.. because anyone that is sad enough to want to access Facebook shouldn't be working for your company.

I say it again, anyone that willingly uses Facebook, YouTube etc. really needs to Get a Life

Ok - where'd I leave the coat?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes

indeed great idea - had an instance of a sales person uploading sales database data to facebook and such like the day before he handed in his notice. Users don't need net access beyond what they need to do their jobs. They'll screw you in an instant.

[Anonymous Coward]

gartner = hot air

Another useless output from Gartner...

Its really quite a sad reflection on how business works and how much marekting BS CEOs et all really swallow.

I would expect if gartner weren't paid to blow smoke up the arse of Mr. Gates every now and again with a piece of 'sponsored research' then they would soon be all sitting at home playing with twatbook,

... really what is it that Gartner give to world that we wouldn't be better off without.

[Richard Abbott]

Facebook

It will never happen.

I would like to but I think people can get too addicted to it so therefore productivity would def go down

[StillNoCouch]

Highly Improbable

About the same likelihood as monkies flying out of my A$$.

Just what is the business purpose again ? I must have missed that part. Oh yeah, needless absorbtion of bandwidth.

Hold on, I have to go drop an emoticon on Ashley Alexandra Dupre's MySpace page then get back to my Scrabulous.

[amanfromMars]

The Metamorphosis of Narcissus into Nymphomanic Satyr.

Ashley ...... a Sweet Star Child...... VXXXXen in Ravenous Fields of Indifference and/or Passion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely Not

No way. No access to MyFace, "secure" or otherwise. They are here to work, not enjoy themselves.

Obviously, El Reg is research ....

[PaddyR]

pesky users

Ours are getting round it using internet proxies and it turns out we dont have a policy against either, i must admit to using these aforementioned proxies to see just how stupid new starts are, usually they have profiles on them all.

obviously id give paris a poke

[Peter Kay]

Unlock business value, my arse

It's mostly a pointless waste of time. It has no value other than staying in touch with friends, and certainly no *business* value. The lack of privilege levels makes facebook and many other sites useless for business.

It's not that BOFHs can't stop people from going to certain sites, it's usually that it's too much hassle and we can't be bothered with the fallout.

[Robert Armstrong]

Facebook is sooo 2007

Who wants Web 2.0? What we really need is Web 3.0!

What can be more productive than networking with complete strangers who have absolutely nothing to do with the workplace. Brilliant!

Has Ballmer read this yet?

Forget Yahoo, the real value is how many friends I will never meet or know personally while "earning" my weekly pittance doing something resembling work.

And to think, the uptick in gear sales for network routers and capacity, what's with all you naysayers, it's good for the economy and job security!

[Peter Mc Aulay]

What business value is that, Gartner?

Not just no, HELL no. They can fart about with that stuff on their own time, and on their own pipe.

[Ed]

Doubleyou Tee Eff?

Seriously. Business value? Facebook? These are things that don't go together in the same sentence. I think Gartner would be better off writing a paper about the "business value of facebook" before they spout this nonsense.

(restoring a backup!)

[andy]

...and in the lull periods between jobs we should do what??

I can only imagine what these sysadmins are like to live with.

"I have restricted access to the cupboard as of this morning due to one of you kids using up more than their months allowance of cornflakes"....

[Nexox Enigma]

My favorite methods...

I prefer to drop ~30% of the packets to these sites, then throttle proxy protocols to a collective 256kbit symmetric. If anyone actually needs to use a proxy... well thats never come up, but I'm sure that I could make an exception. The packet loss makes browsing so miserable that most people just wait until they get home, and if they use a proxy, then they can't really eat up too much bandwidth.

[Les]

Gartner: says it all...

A long time ago, in a mailing list far away, we developed a theory about Gartner reports - simply put, any Gartner report will fall into one of two categories:

1) A statement of the mind-bogglingly obvious

2) A statement of the mind-bogglingly ludicrous

This would appear to be one of the latter. Some time ago, we (not the same "we" as the mailing list) noticed that web usage had increased during working hours, and that an overwhelming majority of that use was on one site: Facebook.

The management decison was to block access during working hours. Anyone sad enough to be around before 8:30 or after 5:30 is welcome to do whatever people do on Facebook. (Don't ask me, I looked at it for all of five minutes before deciding that it was of no interest to me at all...).

Facebook is just the current trend, which no doubt will go the same way as Fiends Reuntied (or whatever it was) and whatever was popular before that. Suggesting that it's of business value is, well, silly. Pretty much normal for the Gartner Grope, really...

[Snert Lee]

The real problem...

Is not the sites they go to, but the crud they pick up while they're there.

Statistically, 'round here anyways, the group with above average number of malware infections and the group of myspace and facebook fans are one and the same.

[Jamie Hylton]

mobile facebook

Does it really matter anymore when anyone can access Facebook via their mobile phone?

[Opensource_Rules]

A Security Hazard...

On doing some routine security checks a few weeks ago, I noticed that one particular person had some attacks coming to her directly from the Facebook website itself.

Needless to say I blocked out Facebook access immediately!

How on earth Gartner can come up with a statement like that really beats me. They must be getting desperate for income and are now looking to Web 2.0 startups as a source of revenue.

[Steve Ball]

It's funny how ...

People who don't use Facebook always assume that people who do are social rejects incapable of human interaction. Facebook is a website designed around the idea of staying in contact with your friends - just like email and instant messagers. But I suppose you fine gentlemen never use those things! Hell - you probably don't use mobile phones either - preferring to speak face-to-face. Of course! I've realised the error of my ways!

As to the second argument, that it's a time waster that shouldn't be used in work time, that I absolutely agree with. I use it at lunch time and if I'm waiting for a full cruise to finish. If you don't like it, you can complain to my employer who believes in trusting its employees. You carry on enjoying working at your gulag :)

[James]

What about Gmail?

I only started using facebook at work to send messages to my friends because gmail got blocked.

They can't be fussed about bandwidth because youpube, tatbay, & launchcast all work.

[b shubin]

Facebook value

erm, none? if the company needs such a thing for collaboration, etc., i can establish the service inside the firewall, using free OSS on a low-end server (or obsolete PC, for that matter). this guarantees AAA and control, and removes the risk of connecting to an immature virus incubator like Facebook.

if people still need to access Facebook, they can do it on their mobile phones, and if it's not important enough to pay for the required phone and data package, then they do not need it badly enough.

Gartner's solution is currently looking for a problem...

and as for giving people what they want, not likely. the people are here to deliver value to their employer, so in return, they can get...um, what's the word i'm thinking of...oh yeah, PAID. this is a capitalist system, and you're entitled to starve in a ditch, and/or die from disease, but that's about it. my job is to make sure the place keeps running, so you'll ONLY EVER MAYBE get Facebook access (and the security, productivity and accountability headaches that come with it) after i'm gone.

[John]

Block all Websites

Stop all access to all websites because we know what's best for you and you will work all the time you are here and no stopping for anything like food or drink or god forbid " a comfort break". Whip the employee, make sure they have no fun, no friends, no enjoyment in their work. Dear God please forgive these Managers who have never seen the light and do not understand that "to have a bit of fun" makes humans 300% more efficient at their jobs. Hang on a sec.. all managers should be forced to watch Paris Hilton getting in and out of car at least once a day.. to remind them they are human too.. lets facebook it.. you never meet an efficient manager now do you. And we wouldn want to make them look bad now would we.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not?

I actually allowed it, adjusting the proxy rules to permit the access when the content filter was a little out of date.

It's a trust based method, abuse it and don't start wailing when you get the chop

Simple as.