Clearing Stuff off my PC

Lothaar

Hi all,
Fairly embarrassing situation here…
I visited some websites I shouldn’t have (nothing illegal, mind) on a PC that I got from work. How would I go about clearing all trace of these visits so that the IT dudes don’t nab me? I mean ALL traces need to be removed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Joeface

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/Disk_Cleaner/diskcleaner.html


install this thingy

should clean everything

aidan_walsh

Clearing your cookies, browser history and cache should be enough, unless you were connected through the company proxy at the time, in which case they likely already have a record of everything somewhere.

IE 7: Tools > Internet Options > General Tab > Browsing History section > Delete.
IE 6: Tools > Internet Options > General Tab > Temporary Internet Files section > Delete Cookies & Delete Files, History section > Clear History

Creamy Goodness

yet if the IT guys are in any way good, no amount of cleaning will stop them finding out what you looked at.

the material you looked at may not be illegal but it could violate the computer usage of the company you work for.

Lothaar

Cremo wrote:

yet if the IT guys are in any way good, no amount of cleaning will stop them finding out what you looked at.

the material you looked at may not be illegal but it could violate the computer usage of the company you work for.

Sh1te. That's what I'm afraid of. They're good, and it does violate the computer usage. What the hell can I do?

mukki

Cremo wrote:

yet if the IT guys are in any way good, no amount of cleaning will stop them finding out what you looked at.

the material you looked at may not be illegal but it could violate the computer usage of the company you work for.

dude stop scaring him

mate, the lads i work with look at scat the whole time, they can't touch you unless your caught looking at it, usages history is no use as evidence, ive worked in a few huge multinationls and never heard of anyone been sacked unless they were caught in the act



why would they be snooping around the pc anyway


just do what aiden recommended

Creamy Goodness

hope they don't spot it or just start looking for a new job.

i know i may sound harsh but it's what lies in store.

Lothaar

I need my antivirus stuff updated, so they'll be going into the PC. They won't DEFINITELY go looking, but I suspect they'll have a little poke around to see what I've been up to. It's my personal machine that I keep at home, so anything they find is definitely mine.

C'man... there must be something I can do to at least significantly reduce the chances that they'll spot it. Clearing the history, caches and cookies is a start but I imagine that any IT guy worth his salt wouldn't count on them anyway.

Ruu_Old

Format your PC daily*

CCleaner will clean up a little for you, pretty much the same as what aidan mentioned but a bit more. Probably should think carefully before visiting such sites in the future.



*do not do this!

Lothaar

aidan_walsh wrote:

Clearing your cookies, browser history and cache should be enough, unless you were connected through the company proxy at the time, in which case they likely already have a record of everything somewhere.

IE 7: Tools > Internet Options > General Tab > Browsing History section > Delete.
IE 6: Tools > Internet Options > General Tab > Temporary Internet Files section > Delete Cookies & Delete Files, History section > Clear History

If somebody decided to have a look at my history, and found it completely empty, wouldn't that be a bit of a giveaway that I recently deleted the whole thing???

Is there any way of just selecting certain things and leaving the normal, safe websites I visited??

Creamy Goodness

mukki wrote:

dude stop scaring him

i'm not scaring him/her, i'm basically gearing him/her up for the worst case sanario. many people don't take computer usage policies serious enough, then wonder why they lose their job.

mukki wrote:

mate, the lads i work with look at scat the whole time, they can't touch you unless your caught looking at it, usages history is no use as evidence, ive worked in a few huge multinationls and never heard of anyone been sacked unless they were caught in the act

just because people can get away with doesn't mean it doesn't put your job at risk.

mukki wrote:

why would they be snooping around the pc anyway

to make sure that the company isn't held liable for actions of their employees?

Lothaar the best way to make it look "normal" again would be to take a list of your safe websites and then just visit the sites clicking links you normally click

challengemaster

just delete it, then go onto a load of 'safe' websites before you bring it in...

Lothaar

Will there be date/time info included with the list of sites visited, be it in History, Cookies or Caches? Cos deleting everything then clicking on loads of safe sites to fill up the history will still look a bit suspect, no?

challengemaster

history looks like this

so.. i suppose you could just delete the nasties outta that if you dont have time.

Lothaar

I have a fair bit of time. If I trawl through History, Cookies and Caches, selectively deleting sites... would that be enough? Or is there another secret place where IT dudes keep track of your internet activities?

challengemaster

you can just delete the cache and cookies, afaik they dont have dates.(then again im using firefox, so i dont know about IE)

DeadParrot

CCLeaner is the way to go alright.

Tell them you heard it could clean spyware...they'll roll there eyes and laugh but not figure you for a deviant

Khannie

Cremo wrote:

i'm not scaring him/her, i'm basically gearing him/her up for the worst case sanario. many people don't take computer usage policies serious enough, then wonder why they lose their job.

:rolleyes:

You're scaring him / her. Suggesting that s/he's going to lose his / her job is scaring. The probability is VERY VERY low.

"I'm going to cross that road"
"You're going to die"
"WTF?"
"I'm preparing you for the worst case scenario"

OP: You probably have nothing to worry about. Clear out the history, clear out your cookies, f*ck how it looks, people don't like their browsing history being looked at, then use the cleaning program to clear up the hard drive, then run a defrag and that should be that tbh.

As someone already pointed out, if you connect through a work proxy (don't do this from home tbh) they'll already have a record of what you looked at, but, and I think anyone who actually works in IT will back me up on this: They couldn't give two sh*ts about what you look at. They're too busy doing their job to worry about your surfing for porn or anything else.

aidan_walsh

Khannie wrote:

As someone already pointed out, if you connect through a work proxy (don't do this from home tbh) they'll already have a record of what you looked at, but, and I think anyone who actually works in IT will back me up on this: They couldn't give two sh*ts about what you look at. They're too busy doing their job to worry about your surfing for porn or anything else.

All of this is very much dependant on what company you work for, however. Some require people to log in through VPNs if they want to get online, like one well known international accountants operating in Dublin.

Some companies can be very strict about their usage policies, though that doesn't seem to be much the case in Ireland, if you're with a multinational there could be trouble from powers above your management level. I have heard of some companies who not only have the usual HR IT usage policies, but they write them into the employees contract, and such could very well be used against them harshly.

So yes Cremo could be accused of scaremongering, but all the same its not quite a black and white case with all companies, or all IT teams.

mukki

where are ye going with Him/Her??????????????

porn so its gotta be a him !


i worked in IT for 2 years, in that time i found about 30 pcs full of porn, most of our work was backing up ghosting and restoring files, so it was lost in the rebuild


once, a pc was reported to have porn on it, the security department insisted they took it of me, and that was the last i saw of it, hope ye enjoyed lads!

Lothaar

Thanks Khannie for easing my mind a bit. I don't connect through a work proxy, so I'm clear there.

What exactly is a defrag?

challengemaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Disk_Defragmenter

segasega

If the sites weren't "illegal" then just hope that whatever you looked at dosent matter to the I.T guys. Im sure they come across lots of random "stuff" in peoples history. Companies that take action against you for looking at one or two sites at home are few and far between. As long as what you looked up isnt too bad.

Khannie

Lothaar wrote:

I don't connect through a work proxy, so I'm clear there.

That makes things much easier.

Lothaar wrote:

What exactly is a defrag?

CM gave you a decent link on what it is. What's important is that it shifts files around on your disk. A defrag on a heavily fragmented drive (after deleting any dodgy stuff and running a cleanup) will make retrieval of deleted files much more difficult (i.e. beyond the kind of time scope that an average human has available to them).

Mukki wrote:

hope ye enjoyed lads!

Hahahaha.

Creamy Goodness

mukki wrote:

where are ye going with Him/Her??????????????

porn so its gotta be a him !

i'm going to leave it at this, who said it was porn?

and who says women don't enjoy porn either?

i didn't catch the point that the PC was outside the companies network, and not connecting through a proxy just makes it so much more simpler.

sorry if i scared you orignal poster but it's just i like to keep my jobs when i'm in them so i wouldn't go breaking policies but since you've explained your situation more you'll be grand.

irlrobins

aidan_walsh wrote:

All of this is very much dependant on what company you work for, however. Some require people to log in through VPNs if they want to get online, like one well known international accountants operating in Dublin.

Possibly the same Big 4 company, but I have this installed on my work laptop. Wonder how many people it catches out.... :rolleyes: