sorry if this is a long post but i have multiple questions stacked up because i’m stressing and i feel like i need a definitive answer.
starting a new job next month and they gave me a work laptop. can my employer see my discord if i use it on the work laptop? what about if i’m just on the work wifi using my personal phone?
my mom keeps asking who im messaging and im getting kinda paranoid. can she actually see anything from her end if she has my apple id or whatever? she’s not the type to install monitoring software but i’m wondering what’s possible
i was on a school computer last week and discord was blocked but my friend got around it somehow with a vpn. if i had used the vpn would the school have seen anything?
i know these are different but they’re all kinda the same anxiety. who can see what. any help appreciated
The work questions first since you have a hard deadline coming.
Work laptop: assume your employer can see everything you do on it at all times! Doesn’t matter if Discord is “encrypted” or not, if there’s monitoring software on the machine (and most company laptops do have it), they can see screenshots, keystrokes, and screen recordings. Don’t use Discord on a work laptop for anything you wouldn’t want HR to read.
Work wifi from your personal phone: they can see you connected to discord.com (DNS logs show that) but they cannot see the actual messages you sent or received. The traffic is encrypted between your phone and Discord’s servers. So they know “phillydoe used Discord for 30 minutes today” but not what you said.
Easy fix on the second one: cellular data instead of work wifi. Network logs go through your carrier instead, and your employer has zero visibility.
Going to add a cautionary tale to scotts good answer. About six years ago I was at a job where I thought I was being real clever. Used my personal phone for personal discord but I was also logged into Discord on my work laptop because it was easier than switching back and forth. Manager noticed Discord notifications popping up on my screen during a meeting. I didn’t get fired but I had a very awkward “we monitor this stuff, please don’t” type conversation with HR a few days later. They didn’t bring up any specific messages, but the implication was clear that they could have if they wanted to.
Lesson learned even if the messages are technically encrypted, the screen they show up on is not. If you can see it, the monitoring software can probably capture it.
The school question is the most technical of the three so let me dig in.
School wifi: they can see DNS lookups, so they know you tried to connect to discord.com. That’s why they were able to block it at the network level in the first place. They cannot see message contents, that traffic is encrypted in transit even on a school network.
VPN: depends on the VPN and depends on the school. Some schools just block discord.com by name and a VPN gets you around it because all the school sees is encrypted traffic to a VPN server. Some schools (especially more locked-down ones) actively block known VPN servers, so you can’t even connect to the VPN in the first place. And some schools install certificates on school-issued laptops that let them inspect HTTPS traffic, which would defeat the privacy benefit of a VPN even if it connects.
If you’re on a personal device using cellular data, the school sees nothing. The instant you connect to school wifi or use a school computer, you’re playing on their field and their rules apply.
Y’all are getting good answers I’ll just add the one rule that ties it all together which is assume the network you’re on is owned by whoever pays for it, and act accordingly. It’s really that simple. WHo’s oaying the internet bill? Is it you? You’re probably OK unless they have some pretty skeezy tracking software installed. Is your employer paying the internet bill? They are likely looking at your butthole pictures.
Treat your private conversations like they’re happening in someone else’s living room. If you wouldn’t say it out loud in their living room, don’t type it on their network. Hell of a lot of headaches go away when you internalize that.
Not gonna lie, I was that kid in college who logged into everything on the school computer because I forgot my laptop too many times. The school probably had access to my Discord, Reddit, and whatever else I used at the time.
They don’t really have to tell you they’re looking. They can just look. So yeah, always assuming the worst is probably pretty solid advice.
