If you work at Porsche, you get a sweetheart deal on a 911 or whatever your heart desires. But it comes at a steep price: You will not be able to use Facebook, or any other social networks. Blocked by Porsche’s firewall. About 25 percent of the nearly 13,000 Porsche employees used to use social networks (that sounds like just about everybody at the office) – no more. Aus. Vorbei. HTTP Error 401.
According to German magazine Wirtschaftswoche, Porsche is – supposedly – concerned about espionage. Rainer Benne, head of security at Porsche, is worried that information will seep outside. According to the security experts, foreign intelligence services are mining Facebook systematically, are chatting up insiders and steal secrets via good old social engineering.
Says the magazine: “As the employees can visit Facebook after work, it will hardly avert danger.”
But it will raise productivity.
My Dow 30 company blocks all social networks and web-based email. So I got a 3G netbook.
really, it’s their network, and they’re not paying you to socialize. This is a non-issue.
Yeah, this is not at all uncommon at big companies in the U.S. The Very Large Investment Firm I worked for until a few years ago did/does the same thing. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that Ford and GM do it too, though I’ve never asked. (Maybe TTAC should.)
Paying people to work instead of tweet? Next thing you know we’ll be expecting them to show up at work on time, or at all, for that matter.
For reasons of security and productivity, most companies of any significant size prohibit and/or restrict social networking activities while on the job (with the possible and obvious exception of social networking providers). Search through recent issues of Workforce Management‘s e-zine and you’ll get a taste of how human resource professionals struggle with “Social Networking Policies.”
Paying people to work instead of tweet? Next thing you know we’ll be expecting them to show up at work on time, or at all, for that matter.
This measure is far from draconian, and far from unusual. For reasons of security and productivity, most companies of any significant size prohibit and/or restrict social networking activities while on the job (with the possible and obvious exception of social networking providers). My company restricts the use of camera phones in certain areas where valuable commodities are stored and/or proprietary information is displayed. Search through recent issues of Workforce Management‘s e-zine and you’ll get a taste of how human resource professionals struggle with “Social Networking Policies.”
I recently had the (dis)pleasure of witnessing the dismissal of an employee who was not only trashing their employer on a social networking site; they were also revealing security details in place to protect them and their co-workers from bodily harm (first priority) and property loss (a far second in priority)…think along the lines of a c-store clerk telling how much is in the safe, the safe combination and when the cops aren’t around and you’ll get the idea. Oh, and they expressed their disdain for customers of a certain ethnicity that make up a significant portion of their customer base, and stated the company should forgo the revenue from “those people.”
It’s fun listening to an hour of, “But what I do on my time is my business!” Perhaps, but don’t bite the hand that feeds you. If you don’t like your job, work to improve the situation or find a job that you’re happier with.
In other news, Company X has also prohibiting watching television during work hours or using company resources to feed your day trading habit …..
The amount of time people waste on the job playing around on eBay, Facebook or even TTAC is probably in the millions of hours. I’m not surprised that many companies try to oppose this trend.
Raises hand. "Guilty as charged…"
Likewise.
No Gesichtbuch, eh? Well, at least they can still play multiplayer Halo at work.
Wait, they can’t?
I wish I could find the cartoon. It’s of a women starting a new job as the Director of Social Media Marketing. Her boss says “Oh, and by the way facebook and twitter are blocked.” A thought bubble above her head reads “First day, not going well.”
The Porsche folks aren’t going to use Facebook on the Porsche company network.
They are free to use Facebook (et al) on some other network. Many cellphones will of course let you browse to Facebook or you can use wireless broadband.
My lab staff routinely use their iphones and droids for reading or posting on Facebook. I wish Porsche luck.
Kinda funny really (where funny = ironic) …
All the productivity that was gained in the 80’s due to PC’s, and in the 90’s due to the internet is about to be blown away in the 10’s due to stuff like this…
Nothing like a platform which helps people to both put their private information (i.e. I.D.) and job at risk…
After securing my name on Facebook, I locked-down all the functionality … if people really want to know what I’m up to they can call, skype or send an email (it is much nicer to talk to people anyway…)
I’m glad we’re talking about cars, not “The Truth About Work”! What’s this have to do with the price of eggs?
Personally, I have no use for Porsche or any other supercar or supercar company, except what exotic technology makes the average auto more efficient may be gleaned from these machines, after all, I don’t own that “S” curved road closed-course where they get to drive like they do, or the abandoned factory where the car plays the drums and avoids the support columns.
Wah, Wah, Wah! I just want a well-designed automobile that looks beautiful, is comfortable, uses little fuel and carts my aging carcass back and forth to work in a timely manner.
I guess I’m dreaming, but I digress…back to my “victory gin”, for you 1984 fans!
What corporate secrets are they worried about? Protecting rear engine designs from 1933? How to build crappy RMS/IMS seals? How to package body add-ons for a > $400K price (997 Speedster)? How to get people to buy said vehicles? I guess these are all priceless IP.
I follow news and weather on mainstream sites during the day, but, except for occasional checks of webmail, don’t visit any web site that I post my own information to.
Can’t get to Facebook at work either.
The Jobs, the network and the hardware all belong to Porsche… I’d say they get to make the rules.
VPN for the people. If you want out of your restrictive corporate network just dig a tunnel.
Right, because we totally didn’t think of that, and outbound RDP/SSH doesn’t fire off an alert immediately so that we start screen-scraping your workstation. That’s cute.
Just use a phone with a data plan if you’re that desperate to post about how many brewskies you had last night, creep on your ex, or play FarmVille.
So? It isn’t like information security is a surprising new problem in the car business.
Facebook got locked at job last year, when the last virus attacked. And with it twitter, youtube… Barely news at all, I guessed it was locked, and surprises me that big companies allow that crap in their networks.
Now if they forbid use of that crap in their free time is another matter.