(Preface: This story is loosely based on real events and situations, and obviously I have elaborated in spots and of course changed all the names and other pieces of information that might give away the actual persons involved. I have taken several liberties to make the story more 'detailed' in places where I was not privy to actual events. Finally, I don't write this to scare or even warn anyone, but it will open some eyes to know what goes on in some businesses and just how non-private things like email, voice mail, and can be. )
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My name is Craig and the company I worked for was just over a decade old, but it had been a decade of incredible growth, explosive product launches, and complete dominance of the niche market in which we competed. I had been hired about 7 years into the company's history, but I came in with a proven track record for network security and had authored several papers on protecting companies from hackers, viruses, and other malicious outsiders. However, it turns out I was being hired not to keep the rest of the world from getting into our systems, but more to keep our secrets and technologies from getting out.
The company had patented well over 15 biomedical breakthroughs in its short existence. It had made progress in several areas of research that had remained stagnant for years, and eventually caught the interest of several pharmaceutical giants, not to mention the US and British governments that sought answers to several military problems they faced when engaging countries with chemical and biological arsenals. The company had more value in its intellectual property and trade secrets than any other physical asset in its control.
The company now employed over 1900 employees in 6 regional offices throughout the US and England. High speed lines connected the offices to each other, and to the internet. Each office had individual networks as well, some of which connected to other local ISPs and telecommunications companies, not to mention wireless and satellite hubs that further 'enhanced' the companies ability to communicate and stay mobile, fast reacting, and on the cutting edge.
For a network manager concerned with fending off viruses and spy ware, or hackers and phreakers or worse, the network was a complicated border to protect. And make no mistake, these were important concerns for my team. However, they were not the top concern. We had information that simply could not be leaked, and the company invested huge amounts of money and time to ensure we had the best protection possible.
At the age of 38, I was relatively young, but I had been raised on the internet since its explosion as a public medium in the late 1980's. My career had begun at a major university in 1989 while I was still in graduate school. I had been recruited by a then large software firm to research the concept of viruses that were just starting to get the attention of average computer users at home when the personal computer was finally taking hold in homes and businesses everywhere. My work in the field of viruses finally turned into an actual career as I helped engineer some of the first embedded firewall firmware for corporate grade protection. This all finally led to my current position as Chief Security Officer at "X" Inc. (I will use "X" to protect the innocent… and the not so innocent.)
When hired at "X", the stakes were already high. The company had just suffered a major loss of intellectual property, as a highly trusted researcher had been caught emailing secrets to a competitor in exchange for a fortune in stock options and cash. Eventually the traitor jumped shipped and went to work for our competitor, but not until several key products in our current line were compromised. By the time the leaks were discovered, the researcher was long gone and the problems of instant communication via email and chat-rooms were of urgent priority for the board and executives. While the company eventually survived this terrible loss, they were determined not to have it happen again, and thus I entered the picture.
Given a hefty six-figure salary and with a budget that could finance a small country, I was asked to put in place whatever it took to protect the company from such damages ever happening again. I took 3 months and surveyed the current network architecture and then spent millions of dollars over the next year to put in place the state of the art corporate network. From firewalls to encryption to deep inspection of every packet traversing our private network, I eventually had visibility and control over every bit of data that left or entered our company domain. This even included voice communications, as all phone communications were carried over our digital circuits via VOIP switches. Million dollar voice recognition systems listened to every phone call and analyzed anything considered sensitive. And beyond my expertise, we hired private investigators to keep tabs on those who were privy to the most sensitive of our corporate secrets.
Within months of its completion, over a dozen potentially damaging incidents had been discovered, verified, and shut-down before any harm was done. This included several firings and a couple departmental reorganizations, and the message to the executive team was clear… the investment was already paying off. My network and my team were praised and given even more money and power to continue our efforts. We expanded our tools and protection schemes with ingenious algorithms written in house and used by no other company in the world, built to sniff out even the most trivial of concerns within the company.
While the result of my teams work was evident to the board and executive team, most of the company didn't even know we existed. To them we were a bunch of geeks locked in a server room with a lack of social existence otherwise. The executive team had intended this, fearing that if anyone found out about our real purpose it would only scare the innocent and send the guilty into hiding… or worse… into even more secretive and innovative ways of profiting from our IP.
We let employees continue to user their phones, email, and to browse the web as though nothing had changed. In fact, our work had actually sped up our internet connections and our network in general. We added tools such as instant messaging and other tools to promote valid and essential communications internally, but of course monitored everything… no exceptions.
The company had policies that outlawed pornography and other content that might cause us lawsuits or violate sexual harassment statutes, but the enforcement was only in the extreme condition. We made no attempt to block access to those sites or even to moderate content based on rating or keyword. We simply watched that traffic like all other traffic, and noted it in internal files. It was used later as ammunition if corrective actions were needed against employees that were becoming troublesome but had not yet presented other severe incidents that would warrant termination. This digital voyeurism of adult behavior, however, is where my story really begins.
Before I start confessing my addictions and sins, I want to make one thing very clear: I never jeopardized the company and the primary purpose of my existence there. But I do admit that certain distractions eventually 'presented' themselves and I had not the self-mastery to control their effect. In fact, as you will read shortly, I really didn't even have the desire to turn away from the temptations offered as a fringe-benefit of my work.
I was always fascinated by the emails that would end up on our audit reports, such as those that contained details about illicit affairs, strange fetishes, and closeted homosexuals. I am a very open minded and accepting person, but some of things that people found titillating and erotic even caught me off guard. As a network security engineer with a history of researching viruses and the dark underbelly of the internet world, I had seen almost everything and so the topics never offended or even surprised. At least they didn't surprise nearly as much as the astonishment that came when learning which of my coworkers were into certain fetishes and obsessions.
It was in the long hours of work, late nights, and the especially detailed investigations that my network voyeurism became my own personal mania. I started developing my own theories on behavior and sexual habits of my coworkers, and I became rather good at predicting which sexual interests would be exposed by those I worked around. At first my exposure to these details was strictly within the line of work. Our triggers, alarms, firewalls and inspection algorithms would find content or data that needed our attention and it would end up on our reports and statistics, and from there I would dig in deeper. But as time went on my predictions and theories needed more immediate validation, so I began proactively looking for the evidence that would satisfy my forecasts.
It's hard to say what I got, initially, from watching this digital erotica from a distance. It was certainly interesting from an intellectual level, and I admit there was erotic stimulus as well. I had found myself hard on several occasions upon learning that the hot new AP clerk was a lesbian, or when I found out that our very own legal counsel, (we employed over 10 full time lawyers), was involved in a swingers group near Seattle. A story for another day involves a young intern from a local college, working in our marketing group. The money wasn't great, being an intern and all, and thus the escort business offered her moonlighting work to make ends meet… but again, that is for a later chapter.
There was one particular instance where two co-workers were exchanging oral favors during the lunch hour in the private office of their supervisor. This would be the turning point for me, when the job and information I controlled would start to take control over me. I had spied the details for the planned fellatio-fun, including the time and place and was able to 'accidentally' walk in as he blew his wad all over her pretty face. (I just got lucky on the timing…). The shock of my entrance made him limp almost instantly, and she ran past me with cum dripping from her hair. I can only imagine how she explained that to those in the hallway as she sprinted to the ladies restroom. As I turned to watch her run away, only a few souls were actually in her path and thus the exposure to potential embarrassment was limited. Lucky her.
I simply closed the door so her flaccid partner could clean up and zip up, and then immediately walked back to my office. For the first time in my adult life I locked the door and jerked myself off while replaying the scene over and over in my mind.
I had crossed a line, and I immediately knew it. I had used the data I controlled to manipulate others for my own amusement. I had embarrassed two other 'not-so-innocent' co-workers and then eventually found myself so lacking of self-control that I was jerking my own cum into a puddle on the glass that covered my desk. Guilt immediately flooded my conscious and I sat to reflect on what was happening.
I had consciously done everything in a well planned succession of events, so I could not defer any degree of fault, but throughout it all I had not seen the end in my mind ever getting this far. I loved to watch and see how those around me behaved when they thought no one else could be watching, (or in my case watching, listening, analyzing, etc.).
The real excitement and stimulation came from the power of knowing all their secrets. I smiled a knowing smile at almost everyone I met while walking the hallways of our corporate offices. I had learned that even the most conservative and timid had their own buttons that they liked to have pushed. I also learned that the internet and world-wide web gave most users a sense of anonymity that in turn fed a false sense of confidence that they would use to explore their desires online without risk of jeopardizing careers, reputations, marriages… it was all just digital fun with no strings attached, or such was their illusion.
