If I Use My Work Laptop At Home Could The School Know What I Access

If I use my work laptop at home, can it spy on what my personal computers are doing at home?

Theoretically possible, but not very likely. A company that spies on its employees home computers would not remain undetected and unpunished for long.If sufficient security is implemented by the company, their laptop establishes a VPN tunnel to their network and cannot communicate with your home computers in any way. In other words, it's a part of the company network that just uses your Internet connection as a conduit. You can neither map network drives nor transfer files between the company laptop and any device connected to your home network.

Can school laptops' offline activities be monitored by the school?

Yes, however it is more difficult to do so.Through online monitoring, you have access to a sweet variety of features: you can see their screens, access everything, whenever you desire.Offline ruins all the fancy networking cookies, instead you are limited to several options, including;Storing some/all of their user activity (browsing history, program history, keypresses), and sending it to the school the next time the laptop is onlineTaking a recording (or periodic screenshots), and sending it to the schoolEither way, that is a huge pain. Tons of information, tons of data storage, and the admins would need to sift through LOTS of screenshots/logs, which I highly doubt they would do. Instead, perhaps certain activities would be flagged and sent to admins when the device is next online.There are several good ways to tell if there are recordings. I write this for Windows, but you can adapt it for any operating system. The overall purpose is, to compare your hard drive disc’s used storage before/after activity.Go offlineCheck your used disc space, write it down (to the byte)Open Notepad, type a ton of random lettersClose Notepad, don’t saveCheck your disc space again, compare the bytes used… if it’s different, then it may mean keypresses are being recorded. Continue:Open notepad again, type a ton of random letters again, except save the document this time. Close it.Right click the document, see how much space it takes up, write this downGo back to see the disc usage, and subtract the file contents size. If the usage increased, it may signify offline recordingNext, open up Firefox (you use Firefox, right?). Go into private browsing mode, to keep the browser from storing information. Chrome + Incognito might work, I am not sure whether Chrome records meta information in incognitoVisit 20 or so websites (google.com, amazon.com, your school website, etc). Ofc, they should result in blank pages, as you aren’t connected to the internetClose the browser, recheck the disc usageTheoretically, if the disc storage used has increased from these activities, it could mean the school is using an offline tracker. Booting into Safe Mode *should* effectively block it.

Can my school monitor everything I do on my laptop?

I work for the IT department of a school district.The simple answer is YES!Everything you do on the laptop is stored. Even if you use incognito.In addition, if you are using the school’s WiFi, everything you do (regardless of whether it is your device or the district’s) could be monitored. You are using the school’s routers, servers, and firewall. Those things have the capability of monitoring the packet traffic of every single attached device.If the laptop was given to you by the district, it will likely also monitor (and filter) what you do on the Internet even when connected to your home WiFi.So the only way you would NOT be monitored would be from your personally owned device connected to your home WiFi. But even then, if your parents take your device and take it to the IT department (and they agree), they can find what you have been doing.Bottom line: You are underage. You do NOT have the right to complete privacy that an adult has. Anything, and everything, you do can be checked, monitored, reviewed… If you are doing something you know you probably shouldn’t be doing, then maybe you should reconsider whether or not you really want to do it, instead of worrying about whether or not you will be caught.And then, even as adults, we are only given a little bit more right to privacy. If I do illegal things on my computer over the Internet, my ISP works with the government to provide data which would help convict me. My emails, phone records, GPS device, they can all be subpoenaed to obtain data that proves I committed a crime. We live in a digital age, and one of the BIGGEST mistakes people make is believing that because they own a device (like a cell phone) they have the right to privacy with everything they do with that device they own. That is NOT the way the law works.So, again. Instead of trying to cover your tracks, try making a better choice.

How badly will it affect me if I use my work laptop for personal coding projects during off-work hours? How uptight are companies about their designated work laptops?

I worked someplace once that fired a person for lack of quality output. Before that he sued the company over a labor dispute. After they fired him he went and founded his own business. A year later the company decided to recycle his old laptop to another developer and discovered the source code and business prospectus on it. The company took it to court and said it was actually their business because it was created on its own equipment and the time stamps confirm during business hours also. Courts agreed and they got possession of his business and then fired him again.I don't agree with that whole ownership thing, personally I like it when my employees moonlight. But there is an important lesson in here: don't provoke it.I've also seen many people run afoul when the current leadership or business owners didn't care, but the business is bought out and the new one gets really hostile over such things.But: it is normal to moon light as a software developer (homework, experimenting, side projects, open source collaborating, etc.). It's how we learn and grow and keep our thinking juices flowing. I don't see any reason at all that you can't use company equipment for that unless the contract explicitly forbids it AND they enforce it.Use discretion.[Edit] I may not have been clear enough. I draw a distinction between side projects that are for learning and growing and those that are revenue generating. If you want to grow the side projects into a business then it is incredibly risky, companies might try to make a claim for it and if there's an agreement in place then it likely already belongs to them if using their equipment and time. Some companies try to claim what you do in your own time and equipment also. It doesn't matter whether anyone agrees or not philosophically, it matters what both the law says and what you agreed to. Most companies won't go after you for non-revenue generating side projects.