The Power

Being an IT professional, I'm consistently amazed by the level of power the IT staff has over anybody else in the company. We masquerade as simple support staff, running around being helpful, having to scold users for plugging their printer into their monitor (true story), and generally cleaning up after users. The vast majority of users don't realize how utterly open their computers are to even a lowly desktop support tech using the right tools. At any given time (including 3AM, if I wanted to), I can do the following on anybody's (CEO included) computer from the comfort and anonymity of my desk:

Turn it on or off

Most of our computers have a Wake-on-LAN feature, which means as long as the computer is plugged in to a network port, we can see it. Even if it's off. And we can send a command that will will turn it on. Once it's on, it's even easier to turn it off.

Take Everything

We have this term in IT called "Domain Admin." In layman terms, it's G-d Mode. Having that level of security permissions means a support grunt can go into anyone's folders and take/look/delete anything they want. Now, not everybody is a domain admin. But enough people are to make things scary.

See Everything

Through a slew of different programs, we can see anything on anybody's screen, whenever we want, for however long we want to. And you'll never know we were there.

Take Control

The ability to see everything comes with the ability to control any desktop as well. Microsoft calls it "Remote Assistance." I call it "Remote Superpowers."

The best part about all this is not that we can literally force this company to its knees if we so desired. It's that the entire time we were doing it, you would have no idea.

Be Afraid.

And don't make us angry.

But honestly, this is what we really do.

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