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Based on the story from Flash Boys, that Goldman engineer was taking something like a couple of megs worth of his own work that was related to various open sour

Based on the story from Flash Boys, that Goldman engineer was taking something like a couple of megs worth of his own work that was related to various open source projects. But he became the poster boy for stealing trade secrets and an example to be made of. His mistake was that he used the company internet connection to upload said source files to something like his personal github or dropbox of the sort, so there were proxy logs of him stealing corporate secrets. Most people would've gotten their personal-ish data off a corporate laptop with a usb key/harddrive which they probably wouldn't have triggered any alarms.

rayiner 10y ago
The Flash Boys presentation is not accurate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068. (Though I don't think you should be sent to prison for a crime like that.)
isubkhankulov 10y ago
> Most people would've gotten their personal-ish data off a corporate laptop with a usb key/harddrive which they probably wouldn't have triggered any alarms. Most top banks use Citrix technology (or similar virtual desktops) to stream workstations for employees accessing both locally and remotely, so the only way you can get data out is by using your phone to take photos.
nradov 10y ago
Companies that care about data security typically disable write access on USB ports.
rtkwe 10y ago
Banks and similar financial companies are extremely paranoid about data security. Working at one all USB drives were mounter read only unless they were specifically provided by the company and encrypted using provided software. Anywhere you could upload files was blocked as well.
estro 10y ago
What's to stop someone from sending sensitive data as an attachment via email using an encrypted email service? I don't think a proxy can detect much besides data size correct? I suppose a virtual desktop could log which files are uploaded.
- dzhiurgis 10y ago
  Most email servers reject that (I tried to send something to a Deloitte consultant and gave up after password protecting ZIP file). While most of such companies actively MITM their HTTPS connections (I wonder whether Google does that - theoretically they are CA so it would be extra easy for them), you could probably get away to uploading said file to any service that is small enough to be unknown to corporate firewall providers (Symantec, etc).

rayiner 10y ago

The Flash Boys presentation is not accurate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068. (Though I don't think you should be sent to prison for a crime like that.)

isubkhankulov 10y ago

> Most people would've gotten their personal-ish data off a corporate laptop with a usb key/harddrive which they probably wouldn't have triggered any alarms. Most top banks use Citrix technology (or similar virtual desktops) to stream workstations for employees accessing both locally and remotely, so the only way you can get data out is by using your phone to take photos.

nradov 10y ago

Companies that care about data security typically disable write access on USB ports.

rtkwe 10y ago

Banks and similar financial companies are extremely paranoid about data security. Working at one all USB drives were mounter read only unless they were specifically provided by the company and encrypted using provided software. Anywhere you could upload files was blocked as well.

estro 10y ago

What's to stop someone from sending sensitive data as an attachment via email using an encrypted email service? I don't think a proxy can detect much besides data size correct? I suppose a virtual desktop could log which files are uploaded.

dzhiurgis 10y ago
Most email servers reject that (I tried to send something to a Deloitte consultant and gave up after password protecting ZIP file). While most of such companies actively MITM their HTTPS connections (I wonder whether Google does that - theoretically they are CA so it would be extra easy for them), you could probably get away to uploading said file to any service that is small enough to be unknown to corporate firewall providers (Symantec, etc).