Workers Are Using ‘Mouse Movers’ So They Can Use the Bathroom in Peace(vice.com)
vice.com
Workers Are Using ‘Mouse Movers’ So They Can Use the Bathroom in Peace
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gqgp/mouse-mover-jiggler-app-keep-screen-on-active
54 comments
> no decent manager gives a shit about your away time indicator
If they feel your output is weak and you are very often offline or away, it's just another data point they can use against you, however.
If they feel your output is weak and you are very often offline or away, it's just another data point they can use against you, however.
>it's just another data point they can use against you
This. Part of HR's game is gathering stuff and keeping it until it can be weaponized against an employee. Small and futile things that, when added together, can support pretty much any story they make up on their favor. They somehow pride themselves on being "smart" for doing this stuff.
Very few professions require you to be as dishonest and immoral as HR is. I pity the people that have to become this so they can put some bread on their tables.
This. Part of HR's game is gathering stuff and keeping it until it can be weaponized against an employee. Small and futile things that, when added together, can support pretty much any story they make up on their favor. They somehow pride themselves on being "smart" for doing this stuff.
Very few professions require you to be as dishonest and immoral as HR is. I pity the people that have to become this so they can put some bread on their tables.
Why is that immoral?
You leave traces, its normal thing to question retrospectively when you don't deliver and its a rule rather then a fluke. I couldn't care less when or how you work if you close tickets assigned to you, but when you don't for a prolonged time (which is not 7 days, but more like months), I will look into your daily commits, login times, IM activity etc. Its supportive material for decision, not blackmailing. Its wrong to misinterpret those facts, but taking them as a fact is normal.
You leave traces, its normal thing to question retrospectively when you don't deliver and its a rule rather then a fluke. I couldn't care less when or how you work if you close tickets assigned to you, but when you don't for a prolonged time (which is not 7 days, but more like months), I will look into your daily commits, login times, IM activity etc. Its supportive material for decision, not blackmailing. Its wrong to misinterpret those facts, but taking them as a fact is normal.
It could happen that they use said information to create/push a narrative away from the truth, on purpose, for money.
Example, employee A with an average performance starts talking to their peers about unionizing. Board finds out about that and they want the employee out ASAP, so they call one of their HR servants to run the errand.
HR starts compiling trivial stuff about said employee (like "average distance traveled by your mouse pointer during work" /s) and when that's enough they set up a case to let go said employee because of "performance reasons" or whatever.
Example, employee A with an average performance starts talking to their peers about unionizing. Board finds out about that and they want the employee out ASAP, so they call one of their HR servants to run the errand.
HR starts compiling trivial stuff about said employee (like "average distance traveled by your mouse pointer during work" /s) and when that's enough they set up a case to let go said employee because of "performance reasons" or whatever.
When I was in management, our HR did not function like this and was very supportive of the companies interests which happended to be making sure our employees were not wrongfully or spitefully terminated.
I am not saying this is the case everywhere, but my experience with HR was not the way you describe.
We had identified a poorly performing employee and went to HR to talk about progressive discipline. When we mentioned stats, they asked to see the same stats for all other employees on our team as well. This was not to prevent us from firing the employee but to protect the company from accusations of wrongful termination down the road. Even so, we had to enter into a several month progressive discipline process where the employee was aware of what metric was a problem, how to correct it and how we could be supportive. That was the role HR played. They gave us a framework to proceed with a safe and well thought-out termination.
I am not saying this is the case everywhere, but my experience with HR was not the way you describe.
We had identified a poorly performing employee and went to HR to talk about progressive discipline. When we mentioned stats, they asked to see the same stats for all other employees on our team as well. This was not to prevent us from firing the employee but to protect the company from accusations of wrongful termination down the road. Even so, we had to enter into a several month progressive discipline process where the employee was aware of what metric was a problem, how to correct it and how we could be supportive. That was the role HR played. They gave us a framework to proceed with a safe and well thought-out termination.
"Presence vs productivity" is a wonderfully succinct way of describing it.
The problem is that presence is easy to measure and so falls subject to the Streetlight Effect, or the Drunkard's Search Principle [0] — a type of observational bias where you look for the lost key under the streetlight because that is where the light is (so searching seems easy), but has nothing to do with where you actually lost the key.
I remember reading a study long ago in the early Internet days (I wish I could find it now) where the findings were that remote work made good managers better, and bad managers worse, as measured by the performance of their teams.
The reason this works now seems obvious, as good managers manage for actual productivity, whereas bad managers (or bad management systems) merely measure presence as if it equaled productivity, just as they'd look for their key under the streetlight like the apocryphal drunken dolt.
It is an arm's race now, at least for people under poor management. Next step, already happening, is facial recognition [1]. Good luck!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect [1] https://www.twinfm.com/article/pwcs-facial-recognition-tools...
The problem is that presence is easy to measure and so falls subject to the Streetlight Effect, or the Drunkard's Search Principle [0] — a type of observational bias where you look for the lost key under the streetlight because that is where the light is (so searching seems easy), but has nothing to do with where you actually lost the key.
I remember reading a study long ago in the early Internet days (I wish I could find it now) where the findings were that remote work made good managers better, and bad managers worse, as measured by the performance of their teams.
The reason this works now seems obvious, as good managers manage for actual productivity, whereas bad managers (or bad management systems) merely measure presence as if it equaled productivity, just as they'd look for their key under the streetlight like the apocryphal drunken dolt.
It is an arm's race now, at least for people under poor management. Next step, already happening, is facial recognition [1]. Good luck!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect [1] https://www.twinfm.com/article/pwcs-facial-recognition-tools...
In addition to the uses mentioned in the article, mouse jigglers have been used for years to circumvent software security measures such as forced time-outs.
About seven years ago, the IRS (U.S. tax agency) promoted "security summit" measures developed in cooperation with tax professional software vendors. One of the recommendations was to time out login sessions for tax preparation software after 30 minutes of inactivity on the computer. Some tax professionals, in complete disregard of their professional and ethical obligations to protect confidential taxpayer info, decided that mouse jigglers were the proper response to this.
https://www.taxprotalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=14176
About seven years ago, the IRS (U.S. tax agency) promoted "security summit" measures developed in cooperation with tax professional software vendors. One of the recommendations was to time out login sessions for tax preparation software after 30 minutes of inactivity on the computer. Some tax professionals, in complete disregard of their professional and ethical obligations to protect confidential taxpayer info, decided that mouse jigglers were the proper response to this.
https://www.taxprotalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=14176
Why is that wrong? :)
Was there a rule that mouse jigleres are forbidden ? You change a game, I adapt to game, its normal behavior and its expected. You cant blame people for being creative. Companies do that kind of gray zone stuff all the time to optimize taxes and nobody seem to have a problem with it and consider immoral.
Was there a rule that mouse jigleres are forbidden ? You change a game, I adapt to game, its normal behavior and its expected. You cant blame people for being creative. Companies do that kind of gray zone stuff all the time to optimize taxes and nobody seem to have a problem with it and consider immoral.
>Was there a rule that mouse jigleres are forbidden ?
No, there was a strong suggestion (not a legal requirement) that the login session should time out after 30 minutes of inactivity, to help protect the confidential data from unauthorized access.
No, there was a strong suggestion (not a legal requirement) that the login session should time out after 30 minutes of inactivity, to help protect the confidential data from unauthorized access.
She should have used tool like AutoHotkey. In no more then 5 lines of code you can move mouse if it wasn't moved in last N minutes.
There is no equivalent on nix systems but one can use similar but way more limited tools like xdotool, sikuli etc. for the same effect.
There is no equivalent on nix systems but one can use similar but way more limited tools like xdotool, sikuli etc. for the same effect.
I used this about a decade ago, not sure it's still maintained. Recent commits imply it is, but I don't know how valuable they are
https://github.com/autokey/autokey
https://github.com/autokey/autokey
Not only its still maintained but v2 is incoming after 10 years of active development. AHK is probably stronger then ever and totally beat up all other Windows tools like AutoIt etc.
Ah apologies, didn't mean AHK so much in my reply - but rather, a similarly named imitator for Linux (no 'hot') :D
This is detectable easily in work spyware.
Physical Mouse movers mostly aren’t detected by work spyware. Yet.
Physical Mouse movers mostly aren’t detected by work spyware. Yet.
Its also detectable, don't be naive - I can record your desktop to see that its a bot movement not a human one easily, even more easier then having an obscure tool that I can reimplement within hour for a given job (and hence its just random script, for example in PowerShell which is not something you can't have on Windows). AHK can even simulate human making it almost impossible to detect a bot (switching windows, focusing elements, moving mouse to focus whatever etc.)
If they've control over your setup, then they can prove that you've been faking your activity, meanwhile with hardware it'd be harder cuz they'd have to analyse your mouse (x,y)s
They can't control your setup 100% because its making you 0 effective. Its well known thing that when big company gives you laptop it installs all kind of vpn, encryption, monitor, av, or any other surveillance tools to make it "secure" but what it does really is making you extremely slow and your brand new machine behave like it is 20 years old.
> meanwhile with hardware it'd be harder cuz they'd have to analyse your mouse
U really think that random company has resources to check fakiness of mouse movements ? Besides, you can bring entire thing in the sandbox that leave 0 traces on local machine after it is turned off.
> meanwhile with hardware it'd be harder cuz they'd have to analyse your mouse
U really think that random company has resources to check fakiness of mouse movements ? Besides, you can bring entire thing in the sandbox that leave 0 traces on local machine after it is turned off.
Damn, I hope to avoid the next step for the companies: captcha to understand if your mouse moving is real or fake.
More likely anti-cheat software to see if you have a mouse-mover installed.
…imagine if every X minutes a captcha appears on you Zoom call and asks you to complete it… and people already call it “Zoom fatigue” =]
Next step: RISC-V edge neural jiggler mousepad, runs for up to 3 years on single CR123A
Mechanical mouse mover jigglers are already a thing for companies that do not let you install software.
Its not like game companies are not trying to do stuff like that for decades, with 0 success.
It is successful. It’s just not perfect. With DRM, it’s not about stopping piracy; it’s about preventing it. With Denouvo specifically, it’s about preventing piracy around release time (when investors are looking), not later.
With “anti-cheat” software here, it wouldn’t be about stopping auto-mouse-movers, but about making it hard enough that people reconsider. If I can just download a tool and be done with it, that’s a lot easier than registry hacks and whatnot. It’s an arms race, but it’s not like it’s useless effort.
(Before anyone accuses me of being pro-DRM or anti-auto-mouse-movers, I’m not. I’m just explaining the logic behind why they exist)
With “anti-cheat” software here, it wouldn’t be about stopping auto-mouse-movers, but about making it hard enough that people reconsider. If I can just download a tool and be done with it, that’s a lot easier than registry hacks and whatnot. It’s an arms race, but it’s not like it’s useless effort.
(Before anyone accuses me of being pro-DRM or anti-auto-mouse-movers, I’m not. I’m just explaining the logic behind why they exist)
Its not. Its major disaster.
What else could it be, when you punish regular payers because some of the people use hacked version (and without it, they wouldn't pay it nevertheless, so hack is net positive for the company).
If I pay $60 for the game, I don't expect all kind of semi-malware shit installed on my computer, slowing it down even when I don't play the game, making it buggy and yet still having next to 0 effect on hacking groups. Its just madness.
To prevent theft from "regular people" because its easy, you have different much better and 0 intrusion methods to achieve that.
What else could it be, when you punish regular payers because some of the people use hacked version (and without it, they wouldn't pay it nevertheless, so hack is net positive for the company).
If I pay $60 for the game, I don't expect all kind of semi-malware shit installed on my computer, slowing it down even when I don't play the game, making it buggy and yet still having next to 0 effect on hacking groups. Its just madness.
To prevent theft from "regular people" because its easy, you have different much better and 0 intrusion methods to achieve that.
Its doesn't have to be a software. Mine is a python script that jiggles every N minutes, where N is a command line parameter.
How is a Python script not software?
Right, it is software. I meant software product or software tool.
Anticheat software or similar would still detect whatever sys calls you're making to emulate mouse movement and be able to tell it's not coming directly from the mouse driver.
systemd/udev immediately locks your sessions when a mouse jiggler is plugged in:
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/systemd/systemd/commit/?id=7212...
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/systemd/systemd/commit/?id=7212...
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I stopped caring because the signal is so weak. I bought a whiteboard for my office, I go on walks in my neighborhood to think, I grab coffee and stare out the window. I watch work-related YouTube tutorials on my main TV or scroll work-related email and web content on my phone.
But in all this Microsoft Teams is the authoritative yellow light for my colleagues. Nope. Who cares.
Judge me by my sprint work. I am done, all my stories complete, no rework. Mr. Green Light is rolling the same 13 pointer he has had for 3 sprints and spends most the rest of his time resolving his own hydra-head bugs. But he is green.
Lol, no decent manager gives a shit about your away time indicator.