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> The company insists on software to scan that my PC is "secure", so I give them a finger with an almost virgin Windows install. Their crap can work only on Win

> The company insists on software to scan that my PC is "secure", so I give them a finger with an almost virgin Windows install. Their crap can work only on Windows, so I don't actually have any choice. Maybe this software actually is crap and you know this for a fact. Maybe whoever is in charge doesn't know what they're doing. If so maybe ignore this comment. With that said though, the principle to only allow "secure" systems for remote access sounds absolutely reasonable. Having been on the other side of this situation, I have to say users like you are a real pain to deal with sometimes. There are always a few who "know their stuff thank-you-very-much", and feel that they need to "give the finger" to whatever measures are taken to secure things. Try to see it from the IT-sec guy's perspective. Maybe some "crap" endpoint security software on the PCs isn't the end of the world if it helps keep things secure?

mr_gibbins 6y ago
I have two laptops, a work laptop and a personal laptop. The work laptop is supplied by my employer and as far as I'm concerned they can install whatever they damn well please on it, because the only thing I use it for, and I mean the only thing, is work - no Internet searches, no random software downloads, not even HN. A patch of tape over the camera and away we go. My personal laptop stays personal. It's mine and doesn't belong to anyone else. I never use it for work, even if alongside me during working hours. Zero crapware, minimal AV. I have the same approach to phones. There's my phone, and my work phone. I was pressured to put Outlook, Teams on my personal phone since my work phone is switched off out of hours - I nearly succumbed, until that Office Portal app wanted to 'manage my device'. Nope. Our primary on-call comms mechanism remains SMS/direct call.
- RamRodification 6y ago
  Sounds like an excellent setup as long as you don't mind the additional hardware.
lmilcin 6y ago
The issue is this practice does not achieve anything and only achieves to annoy me as a person who must navigate unnecessary complexity of trying to do honest work. If employer is really interested in achieving some measure of security, there would have to be separate computer configured and locked to only allow it to be used for work. That would, I think be "reasonable". What I think is not reasonable is meddling in my own machine which I treated as my own until one day my employer said "Sorry, from now your private PC is ours to audit because we are not willing to spend equivalent of two days of your income to provide a machine for you to securely, conveniently and reasonably access our system". Nobody really cared for the fact that my all machines are running Linux, they just have assumed that I must have some kind of PC and that that PC is running either Windows or Linux. And so they configured their system so that before I can use Citrix (which works perfectly fine on Linux) their piece of crap written for Windows or Macos (no Linux version) must run and report what is installed and running on my machine for their own silly needs. No, that is not "reasonable" and for that my honest middle finger.
- RamRodification 6y ago
  Ok so it seems the real problem is that your employer does not provide you with the tool you need to perform your work, i.e. a computer. If they did, they would have the responsibility and ability to secure it. By methods which could include installing some auditing software. It's obviously not really reasonable to expect you to install such things on your private computer. Sounds like there could actually be some legal issues with such practice? If it was your own choice to use your private computer then that's a different story. But it sounds like it is definitely not by choice. > Nobody really cared for the fact that my all machines are running Linux 2021 is the year Linux becomes a mainstream desktop OS right? ;-)
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    > 2021 is the year Linux becomes a mainstream desktop OS right? ;-) Except I have been running Linux on desktops since 1999. I have Debian server that has been regularly updated since 2000 (that includes hardware changes and moving OS image from HDD to HDD and finally to SSD).

mr_gibbins 6y ago

I have two laptops, a work laptop and a personal laptop. The work laptop is supplied by my employer and as far as I'm concerned they can install whatever they damn well please on it, because the only thing I use it for, and I mean the only thing, is work - no Internet searches, no random software downloads, not even HN. A patch of tape over the camera and away we go. My personal laptop stays personal. It's mine and doesn't belong to anyone else. I never use it for work, even if alongside me during working hours. Zero crapware, minimal AV. I have the same approach to phones. There's my phone, and my work phone. I was pressured to put Outlook, Teams on my personal phone since my work phone is switched off out of hours - I nearly succumbed, until that Office Portal app wanted to 'manage my device'. Nope. Our primary on-call comms mechanism remains SMS/direct call.

RamRodification 6y ago
Sounds like an excellent setup as long as you don't mind the additional hardware.

lmilcin 6y ago

The issue is this practice does not achieve anything and only achieves to annoy me as a person who must navigate unnecessary complexity of trying to do honest work. If employer is really interested in achieving some measure of security, there would have to be separate computer configured and locked to only allow it to be used for work. That would, I think be "reasonable". What I think is not reasonable is meddling in my own machine which I treated as my own until one day my employer said "Sorry, from now your private PC is ours to audit because we are not willing to spend equivalent of two days of your income to provide a machine for you to securely, conveniently and reasonably access our system". Nobody really cared for the fact that my all machines are running Linux, they just have assumed that I must have some kind of PC and that that PC is running either Windows or Linux. And so they configured their system so that before I can use Citrix (which works perfectly fine on Linux) their piece of crap written for Windows or Macos (no Linux version) must run and report what is installed and running on my machine for their own silly needs. No, that is not "reasonable" and for that my honest middle finger.

RamRodification 6y ago
Ok so it seems the real problem is that your employer does not provide you with the tool you need to perform your work, i.e. a computer. If they did, they would have the responsibility and ability to secure it. By methods which could include installing some auditing software. It's obviously not really reasonable to expect you to install such things on your private computer. Sounds like there could actually be some legal issues with such practice? If it was your own choice to use your private computer then that's a different story. But it sounds like it is definitely not by choice. > Nobody really cared for the fact that my all machines are running Linux 2021 is the year Linux becomes a mainstream desktop OS right? ;-)
- lmilcin 6y ago
  > 2021 is the year Linux becomes a mainstream desktop OS right? ;-) Except I have been running Linux on desktops since 1999. I have Debian server that has been regularly updated since 2000 (that includes hardware changes and moving OS image from HDD to HDD and finally to SSD).