my job has a router (its one that sbc provided. nothing special) that connects to sbc dsl. the router has like 4 plugs for cat 5 cables (i think thats what there called). 2 of thoes plugs are occupied by 2 winterm terminals. they (to my understanding) are connected to corporate through the cat5 cables and the router. corporate at anytime can go into these terminals and see what is going on. ie if there working (or where you are going online). the terminals can be connected through an outside line through a secured website by anyone who has the passwords from anywhere that has an internet connection. now these terminals are connected to corporate and run off servers at corporate.
question is if i use my own laptop with my own cat5 cable and use the router (sbc one) but connect using a.o.l (and use aol servers) to surf online can corporate see where i am going (online). do they have the ability to tract where someone goes online through the router? cause i am using the router at work but i dont think im using there servers, im using aol's server to connect to the internet.
am i making sense?
also i do have a firewall active on my laptop.

To answer your question, I think it is yes they can see what you are doing. You have to go through their server to get out. I did the same thing here on lunch breaks with the telephone line. They couldn't see what I was doing, but they knew I was using something from the phone number. But, my best guess is since you are "plugging in" they know.

It really depends on what they have set up, the routers will track where you are sending requests too but without something inbetween to capture all of the data they may not be seeing much more than a string of IP addresses.

They can but it would take a little effort. I doubt they would bother to trace your outbound activity, that isn't likely to pose any serious security risks, but if you try to access a router from an AOL isp, that could cause some concern & they would likely try to trace it. The thing there is that they would have to see your access attempt while it was in progress for an easy trace. If they saw it after the fact, through a log file, tracing it would require a lot more effort, & unless you were actually doing something malicious or accessing sensitive data, I doubt they would consider it worth the effort. I would almost guarantee, though, that you'd get nailed on a second attempt.

so lets say im going to a site to download games onto my laptop. would they just see the site i was going too or would they be able to see the games i downloaded on my laptop and the searches i did on the site to get the games?

Honestly if you are that worried about getting caught on the web at work, the best advice is not to do it at all if you want to keep your job. More and more this taken extremely serious and is easily grounds for termination at a lot of places. If you are that worried, just don't do it.

Honestly if you are that worried about getting caught on the web at work, the best advice is not to do it at all if you want to keep your job. More and more this taken extremely serious and is easily grounds for termination at a lot of places. If you are that worried, just don't do it.

i already did it. now im wondering if they would be able to see that i did it. if i was just surfing i don thtink they would care but if i was downloading games, music, movies ect. (off limewire) i dont know if they would or not. what i wonder is i got limewire on the laptop. it uses an internet connection to access its servers to get the files but the aol (which is what i connect online through using the router at work) doesnt show any web addresses or anyting. its just connected. to my understanding limewire (its like napster) has this big server and you can download stuff from it. so im just wondering if corporate did a log report from the router (sbc owns the router and is our dsl provider) if they could see what i was downloading from limewire.

Downloading things uses quite a bit of bandwidth, & it's very easy to see which workstation is the culprit. Take DB's advice here & just quit before you get a pink slip. They can track what specific downloads you are doing, but I don't think they would care. You're slowing down their network for your personal use & that will get you into hot water with most companies. If you want to do that, get a faster isp at home & let things run all day while you're at work. I won't advocate anything illegal, but as long as you're doing legal, paid for downloads, they can run all day long without getting you fired.