Paranoia – we all feel it sometimes. Is someone monitoring me? Does the admin and the IT know what I’m doing? The answers to this question have been fuzzy until now – read this exclusive report to discover the scary depths of IT knowledge.
“We have the tools to do it, but we only do it for suspected computers with viruses that will damage the school network,” Mr Alzandy Tan, the lead technician for the Lenovo Help Desk, explains.
While they have the tools to probe all the computers that are connected to the network, they only look for those with very suspicious files, as in files that are likely to infect other machines. This means that the IT will NOT purposely go through your D-drive to find specific files. At IT visits, there are two main things that are checked – whether the student has admin rights, and if there is odd software that is installed the drive.
However, on the flip side, a meeting with Mr Sinclair, our school’s IT director, verified that they know WHEN files are being opened and closed, down to the minute that these programs are opened, and closed. Gamers beware! It’s big brother SEP (Symantec Endpoint Protection) that can record these logs.
Those of you who have canceled its scans – it can record that too. But Mr Sinclair has stated that “[they] will not purposely search through the stuff that has been opened and closed. We don’t have a person who’s in charge of searching for keywords and pornography.”
Another cousin of SEP is the infamous DyKnow. Many have had firsthand experience with this tool. But, good news – only your own teachers will look at your computer – the IT will NOT take the time to open DyKnow, put you in a class and then monitor your activity.
In some very, very, very rare cases, the admin has the right to ask the IT to look at one specific person. The whole computer is searched, including the D-Drive. This information, however, is absolutely not disclosed, in order to protect the student’s privacy. This means colleges will not be able to Google the stuff you’ve done on the TAS wireless network.

At home, the power of the IT is completely nonexistent – Nirvana! The IT understands and acknowledges that the computer, after all, is yours. They only care when you’re connected and using the school’s bandwidth. Otherwise, no. They don’t care. So the moral of this story? Don’t do shady stuff at school.