I work in IT. Agreed that no one is going to be searching for this sort of thing, so the chances of anyone ever knowing (assuming that you are not connected to your employer's VPN when you do it) are approximately zero. We normally only look at log files and such when trying to debug actual problems. No one spends all day spying on employees for the sake of it--that would be both unethical and incredibly boring.

That said, if there are potential legal problems, a chance for major embarrassment, or if the company is looking to fire you, I wouldn't do it. You have no legal right to privacy on your employer's equipment.

OP again. For the record, though, I NEVER post on DCUM on my work computer, because that would actually be be embarrassing to be found out.

OP here. Thanks, everyone! Especially Tommy poster. I appreciate the effort put into that response. After doing a test run with my kid’s crap Chromebook, I think I’m probably going to use my work laptop. I’m not sure I really care if they do find out, which they won’t. If anyone’s really watching my internet usage that closely, they’re probably well aware I have an interview scheduled and know with whom.

Tommy was almost done with his day. Just one more thing to do before he could go spend time with his family.

Check the logs of his team. It was painful and time consuming but he had to spend a few hours every day checking. Today was especially bad because his whole team had been working. He loaded the log manager and gasped - 4,874 websites today. Sigh.

By now he’d learned that he could ignore anything with .gov, and internal websites. He filtered. 3,650 links to go. Okay, he poured himself another cup of coffee while his kids begged dad to spend time with him. “no!” He quipped, this was far too important. What if an employee had used the laptop to browse Amazon, or worse... what if they’d been on Instagram?!!

He filtered again. 2840 links left. Okay, he knew mindy was in Taiwan so he could ignore those time stamps as she was behind the firewall anyway, down to 1975.

Four hours later he’d found it. A link. It was to a site called Microsoft teams. His company didn’t use teams. What could it have been? He made another pot of coffee, kissed his wife goodnight and kept going. It was a tough daily task, but it had to be done.

By 1am he’d figured out it had originated from another company that made window panes. Tomorrow he resolved to park outside snd see who worked there. Soon, very soon, he’d crack this case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you no one will know? Do you know what if any tracking software your company uses?

+1. Every keystroke is traceable, if your company’s IT department is so inclined.

It’s unethical and yes you’ll be found out. Use your own damn computer.

It’s not unethical. Good lord. When a friend visits the office and you let them use the toilet, is that unethical cause they used some water and electricity?

And of course you won’t be found out.

They’re only going to find out if they’re on a fishing expedition to fire you anyway. That said, what’s the harm in using your own computer?

Anonymous wrote:How do you no one will know? Do you know what if any tracking software your company uses?

+1. Every keystroke is traceable, if your company’s IT department is so inclined.

It’s unethical and yes you’ll be found out. Use your own damn computer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y’all are ridiculously paranoid.

Of course you can use a work laptop. Who cares. The company isn’t recording your zooms secretly. Imagine it’s a zoom with a doctor for your private medical issues. No chance they are secretly tracking this.

The marginal cost of using the laptop is $0. It’s not like you are driving a company car 200,000 miles.

Absolutely false. Many companies have policies that clearly state they have the right to monitor any and all use of company computers. There is no assumption of or right to privacy with company devices.

Sure whatever. And you are off the VPN connecting to a zoom link. You think that laptop is screen and audio recording all day long? Should only take a few hundred gigabytes of data to transmit back to the corporate office every day. For a few thousand laptops. And maybe a couple million dollars having some company weed through the data to find anything of note. And no worries if they inadvertently record your kid walking by naked cause policy says no right to privacy and policy definitely trumps federal law.

So now let’s say they find out you visited a zoom link at 4pm. Along with a hundred other zoom links that week, a few thousand webpages, hundreds of emails, chats, messages, and files. Let’s say they somehow find that needle anyway. Okay so they have a link to a zoom call. A link that no longer works. Now what? They spend a few hours trying to figure out where it came from? Who sent it ? Why it got sent to you? That maybe it was an interview? How incredibly bored do you think the IT staff are?

This person ITs.

Anonymous wrote:Do not do it. Zoom alone records your voice to text and does real-time adware based on it. Do you really want indeed, monster, clearancejobs, etc on the side of your shared screens during a presentation? How about to security when they scrub sites after a virus hits. You don't know whether adware.monster.cookie may be a hit. If however, you don't need a reference, are not going to give two weeks, and are trying to be an @$$hole, this may be part of the d!ck nove package to bequeath to your ex-employer.

This is nonsense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y’all are ridiculously paranoid.

Of course you can use a work laptop. Who cares. The company isn’t recording your zooms secretly. Imagine it’s a zoom with a doctor for your private medical issues. No chance they are secretly tracking this.

The marginal cost of using the laptop is $0. It’s not like you are driving a company car 200,000 miles.

Absolutely false. Many companies have policies that clearly state they have the right to monitor any and all use of company computers. There is no assumption of or right to privacy with company devices.

Sure whatever. And you are off the VPN connecting to a zoom link. You think that laptop is screen and audio recording all day long? Should only take a few hundred gigabytes of data to transmit back to the corporate office every day. For a few thousand laptops. And maybe a couple million dollars having some company weed through the data to find anything of note. And no worries if they inadvertently record your kid walking by naked cause policy says no right to privacy and policy definitely trumps federal law.

So now let’s say they find out you visited a zoom link at 4pm. Along with a hundred other zoom links that week, a few thousand webpages, hundreds of emails, chats, messages, and files. Let’s say they somehow find that needle anyway. Okay so they have a link to a zoom call. A link that no longer works. Now what? They spend a few hours trying to figure out where it came from? Who sent it ? Why it got sent to you? That maybe it was an interview? How incredibly bored do you think the IT staff are?

Yep, this. It’s fine and it’s done literally all the time. Like today there will be thousands of job interviews and the fast majority will be using the candidates current work computer. You’ve never heard of anyone getting in trouble for it because it doesn’t happen

No, it's not okay. Use your personal laptop or a phone.

Anonymous wrote:Do not do it. Zoom alone records your voice to text and does real-time adware based on it. Do you really want indeed, monster, clearancejobs, etc on the side of your shared screens during a presentation? How about to security when they scrub sites after a virus hits. You don't know whether adware.monster.cookie may be a hit. If however, you don't need a reference, are not going to give two weeks, and are trying to be an @$$hole, this may be part of the d!ck nove package to bequeath to your ex-employer.

Oh yes very much so. Big virus on the cookies. China virus too. What if the zoom is in China? And then you pay long distance rates for the zoom and your company see the bill and they backtrace the IP? Consequences will never be the same.

Do not do it. Zoom alone records your voice to text and does real-time adware based on it. Do you really want indeed, monster, clearancejobs, etc on the side of your shared screens during a presentation? How about to security when they scrub sites after a virus hits. You don't know whether adware.monster.cookie may be a hit. If however, you don't need a reference, are not going to give two weeks, and are trying to be an @$$hole, this may be part of the d!ck nove package to bequeath to your ex-employer.

I’m a pp who said I wouldn’t. I’m fully aware of the very slim chance my company would ever know, but still, I would only do it if I had no other option.

Yes it’s absolutely fine. No one is tracking you that carefully unless they already want to fire you.