Her company spied on her with RAM-hogging software. Her 'uno reverse' was brilliant.

When an office worker's computer started lagging, she initially suspected a simple technical glitch. But the real cause was far more invasive: her company had installed spyware that was recording her every move and, in the process, devouring her computer’s resources.

In a Reddit post that has since gone viral, user u/Rakhered shared her story of digital rebellion. "I'm not super concerned with being surveilled personally (my job is more project-driven)," she wrote, "but after seeing this damn spy program consistently taking up a third of my RAM, I decided enough was enough."

This kind of monitoring is becoming increasingly common. Research shows that over 86% of companies now use software to track employee activity, and an American Psychological Association report found that such surveillance is linked to higher stress levels and reduced morale.

Stress-out employee takes a break at workCanva

Fed up with the performance issues, u/Rakhered devised a clever workaround. While she didn't have the permissions to disable the program entirely, she found a loophole. "[I] had just enough admin privileges to change the name of the .exe for the program, and copy over another exe with an identical name that doesn’t actually open," she explained.

A woman on a laptop looks at programming codeCanva

The "uno reverse" was a success. By replacing the real spyware with a dud file, she tricked the system into thinking the program was still running. The result was immediate. "My PC is so much faster now that my screen isn’t being recorded 24/7," she celebrated, while also acknowledging the gamble: "Man I hope IT doesn’t come knocking anytime soon lol."

Her post ignited a massive conversation on Reddit, with users chiming in to both praise her ingenuity and offer warnings. "I’m very surprised they don’t have that access blocked with admin privileges," one user quipped. "Kinda shows you how much they actually care."

Others shared their own frustrations with corporate overreach. "Good for you," wrote u/50centourist. "I also never accept a company phone because they put those trackers in them. It's terrible how companies treat workers like that and get away with it."

Stressed-out employee reacts to more workCanva

Many in the IT field cautioned that her fix might eventually be discovered. "I would assume at some point IT is gonna be notified," one user commented, predicting that someone would eventually be asked to "fix" the non-reporting software.

As the warnings about getting fired piled up, u/Rakhered grew frustrated with the repetition, eventually editing her post to add, "Please stop commenting about how I’m going to get fired. It’s quite annoying to see another 'you’re gonna get fired' comment every 3 hours." For her, the risk was clearly worth the reward of a faster computer and a small victory for autonomy.

This article originally appeared earlier this year.