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How many times have we heard the warning “Be careful what you do on your computer, everything is recorded.” Is it true? Should people be worried about big brother looking over their shoulder? What exactly is a journal and what does it contain?
Whenever you access a cloud-based service, multiple records of your activities are usually made. Simply put, these activities are compiled into files, and these files are what we call logs.
Activities are recorded at several different levels. Security logs detail successful and unsuccessful logins. Application logs record the various functions of the application. Network logs contain information about different data streams.
But of course, the logs that people seem to care about the most are the records of their work activities. The short answer is that all your activities are logged. Where you connected from, maybe not the exact physical address, but close enough. The device you signed in with, the app you used, and of course the time the sign-in (but not always the sign-out) happened.
So, for example, if you’re working remotely, have gone to Las Vegas for the week but pretend to still be in Hawaii, your employer (or at least your employer’s IT staff) can see that you’ve logged in from southern Nevada with your iPhone and used Zoom. With just a little diligence, your route can be discerned, for example, a signature at Honolulu airport, another at McCarran, and the reverse on the way back. They can see if you’ve used your laptop and accessed work files from the cloud.
Not to say that that in itself is bad – after all, isn’t that the appeal of remote work? And don’t we encourage the opposite to increase our own number of tourists? Sure, many employers don’t believe their staff can be as productive working in places like Waikiki or Vegas, but that’s a management issue, not an IT issue.
General Internet activities come second only to professional activities. The short answer here is that your ISP logs everything you do on the Internet: the websites you visit, the files you download – in some cases, on unsecured websites, they can even see the data you transmit.
Don’t pass judgement, but if you’re engaging in anything, even remotely, consider using a VPN, which we’ve already covered here. With a VPN, your ISP only sees encrypted data (gibberish, for all intents and purposes) between you and the VPN provider. And the VPN provider does not keep logs.
Finally, rest assured that most seasoned IT people really don’t care to spend time sifting through logs looking for incriminating activity. Even with advanced logging systems, reading logs is tedious and painful for many at best. Reviewing logs is more reactive than proactive and only done when other activity casts suspicion on you.
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John Agsalud is an IT expert with over 25 years of information technology experience in Hawaii and around the world. He can be contacted at [email protected]
