Is my company logging web activity at home?

April 10, 2007 6:18 PM

I use a laptop at work, where all web traffic goes through a proxy server and is logged. I don't have a problem with that. If I don't change my configuration in Firefox when I am back home, and keep the routing through that proxy server, are they still logging my activity even though I am accessing the internet on my home network?
posted by jules1651 to Technology (9 answers total)

If all your traffic is still going through the proxy, it is likely, but this is a question better suited for the administrators of said proxy. It is certainly slowing down your web traffic though (adding unnecessary hops).
posted by bizwank at 6:25 PM on April 10, 2007

As bizwank said, it is possible but only your proxy admins know for sure.

I recommend the FoxyProxy extension which makes it very easy to switch proxy configurations, or even have requests for different pages go to different proxies based on regular expressions.
posted by grouse at 6:28 PM on April 10, 2007

If you're able to access the internet from home on the laptop without changing the proxy, then traffic is successfully routing through it and is being logged. This would seem strange to me because I don't think I've ever seen a company who's web proxy server is accessible from the outside without an established VPN connection.
posted by saraswati at 6:32 PM on April 10, 2007

Yes quite probably.

As saraswati said, an open proxy at your work is an odd setup, but it sounds like that's not your problem.
posted by putril at 6:39 PM on April 10, 2007

It could well become your problem, if you access NSFW content from home using work's proxy; copies of said NSFW content would end up cached on one of work's machines, associated in the proxy logs with your laptop. You're far better off switching work's proxy off when you're at home, using FoxyProxy as mentioned before or perhaps one of the rather simpler SwitchProxy or ProxyButton extensions.

I use SwitchProxy, and turn its toolbar off so that its only UI contribution is a discreet little proxy selection menu in the status bar. Works very well.

Depending how the work proxy is set up, work might actually be using an autoproxy configuration script, and that might in turn be turning the proxy off when you're not on work's network. But you're really far better off seizing control of this yourself.

I am also surprised to hear of a work proxy that actually works when connected to from outside. I can connect to both of mine from outside, but they won't serve me any web content.
posted by flabdablet at 6:58 PM on April 10, 2007

I meant the bogusly-configured open proxy at work isn't OP's problem (to fix). Using it while at home certainly is! It's a terrible idea.
posted by putril at 7:15 PM on April 10, 2007

I would be highly suspect that your office is running an open proxy server that allows you to connect, with no issues, from your home (save something like a VPN, as others have mentioned.)

However, one can never be too sure. I would be more worried about other (good? non-injurious?) spyware that your boss might be putting on there to track what you're doing with the company assets at home. In these days of corporate snooping, I would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on your corporate laptop that you won't want to show your boss, warts and all. This isn't just porn I'm talking about - family email, financial records, eBay searches...the list completely includes totally SFW, yet highly personal stuff that I wouldn't want management seeing.
posted by plaidrabbit at 8:41 PM on April 10, 2007

It's certainly possible that your co's network is set up in such a way so that even when you're off site, your traffic is still going through the proxy. This isn't exactly a common setup because it means the proxy server is exposed to the public Internet and wastes a living ton of bandwidth (it means all your web traffic is going to the company and then back out, for no good reason at all), and to be honest doesn't seem like the brightest way of doing things, but I'm not your IT department so who knows. I've seen weirder. (A more typical setup would be to use a VPN, and only push traffic destined for the company network through the VPN interface.)

It wouldn't be hard to check, though. Just go to any one of the "what is my IP" websites from your work laptop from home, and from another home computer (I'm assuming you have some sort of broadband router). They should show the same IP. If they don't, then your laptop's traffic is being proxied through the work system still.

I second SwitchProxy; just click to change off of your work settings when you're not on the LAN. Check to make sure it's working by repeating the "what is my IP" trick.

The comments regarding thinking hard about what you do on your work computer, just generally, are also not to be brushed off...can't hurt to be too careful.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:00 PM on April 10, 2007

It's possible that your office is using an automatic proxy configuration file served up from a URL that is only accessible from the company intranet. I'm pretty sure that if Firefox can't find the automatic proxy file then it defaults to the 'direct connection to the Internet' settings.

So you might not be using your work proxy from home even without changing any settings. Take a look on the Firefox proxy settings page and see what it says there.
posted by koshmar at 4:09 AM on April 12, 2007