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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 w

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).
  - RamRodification 6y ago
    The fact that you are a long-time user doesn't make it mainstream though. Sorry. I'm with you in hoping for that to change!
hazmazlaz 6y ago
I am in charge of IT security for my company and in my experience users like you get put in a tough place. On one hand, you want the freedom to work however you like, but on the other hand the company has real requirements and limitations imposed on them that necessitate dictating how end users compute. I am also guessing that for every user like yourself who would gladly use a company provided device to keep their personal and work computing separate, there is a corresponding user who absolutely will not tolerate being forced to use an additional corporate machine and will complain until blue in the face about it. It's a lose-lose situation for IT. There is also the matter of endpoint protection to consider. If I am allowing a personal device to connect to my environment, how do I know that device is secure? The only way to have any level of assurance to that fact is to install remote monitoring agents, inspect the configuration of the system, and restrict administrative permissions so the end-user (or an attacker who hijacks the end user's access) cannot mess with things in such a way as to compromise the already shaky ground the integrity of that system stands upon. If I worked at your company, I would give two options: either use a corporate machine for work activities, or if using a personal machine for whatever reason then IT gets administrative control of the device. There is no third option. And before IT assumes administrative rights to manage the device, the end user is signing an acceptable use policy that they agree to any and all IT security controls placed upon the device. If that is unacceptable then the alternative is always to use the corporate device. I am not sure if you're an FTE or a contractor or what your locale is, but IMO imposing that kind of control over a privately owned device without an agreement would be at best inappropriate, and potentially illegal. My response would have been "No, thank you." I do however sympathize that it is not always possible to take that stance.

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).
- RamRodification 6y ago
  The fact that you are a long-time user doesn't make it mainstream though. Sorry. I'm with you in hoping for that to change!

hazmazlaz 6y ago

I am in charge of IT security for my company and in my experience users like you get put in a tough place. On one hand, you want the freedom to work however you like, but on the other hand the company has real requirements and limitations imposed on them that necessitate dictating how end users compute. I am also guessing that for every user like yourself who would gladly use a company provided device to keep their personal and work computing separate, there is a corresponding user who absolutely will not tolerate being forced to use an additional corporate machine and will complain until blue in the face about it. It's a lose-lose situation for IT. There is also the matter of endpoint protection to consider. If I am allowing a personal device to connect to my environment, how do I know that device is secure? The only way to have any level of assurance to that fact is to install remote monitoring agents, inspect the configuration of the system, and restrict administrative permissions so the end-user (or an attacker who hijacks the end user's access) cannot mess with things in such a way as to compromise the already shaky ground the integrity of that system stands upon. If I worked at your company, I would give two options: either use a corporate machine for work activities, or if using a personal machine for whatever reason then IT gets administrative control of the device. There is no third option. And before IT assumes administrative rights to manage the device, the end user is signing an acceptable use policy that they agree to any and all IT security controls placed upon the device. If that is unacceptable then the alternative is always to use the corporate device. I am not sure if you're an FTE or a contractor or what your locale is, but IMO imposing that kind of control over a privately owned device without an agreement would be at best inappropriate, and potentially illegal. My response would have been "No, thank you." I do however sympathize that it is not always possible to take that stance.