I am becoming increasingly more appreciative of the fact that I have root access to "my" company provided work device.
My boss went so far as to buy Macs because we have "special needs" (we don't) because otherwise we'd be forced to use the corporate locked down crap. I'm not a big fan of macos (prefer Linux), but root access sure is nice.
Wait till they learn about Jamf Pro and Mosyle 😜 (Well… granted they also have to deploy it correctly after..)
They did make us install Crowdstrike after 3-ish years of no spyware. We still have root access, they can just see every time I update my packages.
Vim? Oh wow. I'd be looking into a USB Keyboard that types the entire source code of vim into the machine, assuming there isn't an easier option.
“If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.”
The phrase has its uses, but shit like this is what happens when it's taken to the extreme.
The simple exception is free software (free as in freedom). It's really not that complicated.
Digital security education in schools actually give people brain tumour ffs
My previous employer was bought by a huge company. I liked it in the small company, because I had freedom to do what was needed without much questions, and I was trusted to make the relevant decisions.
When we came under the big corpo, we got an email instructing us to list all the software we used/needed, so that it could be added to the whitelist that big corpo worked with. Anything not in the whitelist simply couldn't run.
I gave them the list, but spoke to my on-shore It guy that out in the field we often needed to install something that we didn't need before on short notice, and waiting for a ticket to be resolved for an administrative matter had the potential to stop production.
They found it easier just to make an exception for my work PC. I just had to promise not to VPN in to the office while running "weird" stuff, otherwise the higher ups would get upset.
That's fine. I had my own VPN for only the stuff I needed anyway. I VPNed into offshore production systems on a daily basis. I needed to VPN I to the office once or twice. Plus in my book, the "main" VPN client is what I consider weird software. My shit was basically a wrapper around openvpn.
EDIT: To be fair, the huge corpo employer wasn't unreasonable. It was just so large with so many employees that strct security implementations were needed for IT to have some sort of control. I was technically also IT, but I only dealt with field equipment, so that IT could focus on "normal" stuff. They trusted me to handle my end, they handled theirs, and we usually cooperated fairly well when our systems "met".
"we need this NOW"
> Package I install is immediately black listed by IT, I submit a high priority ticket and I don't hear from them for days, maybe weeks
Like what the fuck can I do
"Yes, but does one of the existing whitelisted executables fulfill the same function?"
"Have you tried using MS Excel instead?"
*Looks at industrial robotics with a proprietary TPU that needs a firmware update.*
"Yes"
Anon works for my company? Because they did exactly this with the same excuse.
Yeesh. I would find a new job immediately. Absolutely unhinged behavior.
Yup, my boss would get my 2-weeks notice immediately. Like same day. I'm not putting up with that BS.
how thoroughly was it followed through? how was ensured that no free beer software was used?
That's a great question. In my experience (15 years at MSPs and several years as a freelance consultant where I'm mostly in house one place but take side jobs) I've been the one who had to make this change.
Some companies are very serious about it. Laptops end up on some device management solution that can tell every program you've got installed and flag anything not pre-approved. Then take away everyone's ability to install outside of device management.
Some companies want to scare the users into compliance but want IT to be able to do their own thing. So they'll install some easily bypassed thing or enroll everyone but not keep an eye on their network to find rogue devices.
Some companies threaten it, pay money for a consultant to put together a plan, don't like the price, threaten to go elsewhere, and the exec who championed it finds a new job while nothing of note was done, but they're sitting on a handful of licenses for software no one is using.
I used to carry a toolkit of free software in portable format on a thumb drive and another thumb drive with a full Linux environment in case I had to do something at the first kind of company.
Nice. My response is my 2-week's notice.
Oh my god. My colleagues were making fun of postgres users. They didn't bother doing a Google search.
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