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Admin
Zreo!
Admin
A slightly immature solution to the problem, but that much is understandable with that kind of nepotism getting in the way.
Admin
Hide it from Task Manager? Is that possible?
Admin
"incognito mode"? In the late '90s? Amazing !
Admin
You could kill the iexplorer's process after a session, so it didn't remember the history on the next launch ;)
Admin
Yes, but iirc it wasn't simple or infallible. Then again, someone playing games on company time probably wasn't aware of this.
Admin
Wow, this is another classic article. One of the best of the year!
Admin
Probably something along the lines of making it show up as explorer.exe or svchost.exe...
Admin
I was thinking of "just" blaklisting NSFW domains of the router, but then again we're talking about late '90s so the content was probably from a CD or something, not from a streaming site...
Admin
In the late 90's, Netscape was a thing. As were non-NT desktop Windows versions, even at work.
Admin
Or, you know, open the settings dialog and just clear the history.
Admin
I don't see it as being an immature solution. They forced someone to quit in the only way that didn't involve confrontation which could cause some serious embarrassment for all involved. This would allow them to keep their jobs (embarrass the boss's child and you're out the door).
Admin
The best thing about this article is that he likely thought that he infected the machine with something, due to the "content" he was so often viewing.
This doesn't seem "immature" to me at all. In fact, I would say that they took it really easy on him. Immature would be: Linking the computer screen to a mirrored screen out on the customer floor and activating it just as the boss comes in. Making something that would tie to ridiculously loud speakers stuck at max volume and blare it all over the office (though 90s, so maybe it wasn't video). Instead of a "screen freeze" making it display a fullscreen GIF of his mother wagging her finger at him.
It could have been SOOO much worse. What they did was effectively just revoking his internet privileges. He should thank them. If it had been me knowing that one of my coworkers was doing something like that, constantly, at the expense of my sanity, I'd likely have said goodbye to the job just for the sake of the prank that everyone will remember for the rest of their lives: wait for his mom or dad's computer to come in for fixing, install a screen mirroring system on it that only activates on my command, with a small, hidden webcam pointed at the work computer, and a giant title: THIS IS WHAT YOUR SON IS DOING RIGHT NOW. Title at the top, webcam image on the left, and what is on the screen on the right. Activate the mirroring every time he is doing what he is doing. See if his parents can live with it. Of course, I'm a notorious troll.
Only if I had that job though. My current job is much nicer than a computer repair job, and I'd be more inclined to out the guy in a way that wouldn't get me caught.
Admin
Working as a PC tech for a school district in the late 90's, we always had a couple of senior HS student who worked as interns. One year, we had one who was the epitome of "spoiled rich kid" to the point that he didn't know how to microwave popcorn. Apparently, at the age of 16, he had never had to operate a microwave for himself before. Anyway...
He would frequently goof off on the machines that were set aside for the student techs to use when updating tickets, so a couple of us hatched a plan. We installed NetBus on all 3 of the student tech PC's. When somebody saw him getting into some questionable stuff, we'd make FBI.gov popup on his PC. Sounds lame, but it really seemed to freak him out. Sometimes, we'd just randomly take control of his mouse for a few seconds. At one point, I wrote a little app that would blank out the screen and type out "Knock, Knock Neo..." in green text, plus anything else passed via a command line parameter, then disappear after a few seconds so that it would be gone before he could get anybody to come look at it. Basically, we screwed with him. It was great fun :)
Admin
I once worked in a small company where, every now and then, a senior employee would head off to the server room to do some work. The thing is, we had remote desktop access for when we actually needed to set up a new website or something.
Admin
@Mike Unfried that is awesome!