4 ms·

Some places don't allow you to bring in your own equipment, and there is an approved list of equipment that you can buy from. So unless the item is listed on t

Some places don't allow you to bring in your own equipment, and there is an approved list of equipment that you can buy from. So unless the item is listed on that list, you are SOL.

bradlys 5y ago
I’ve never run into this personally. And I’ve worked in some old ass enterprise type companies. Maybe for high security clearance places this is an issue or something... I wouldn’t focus on niche places that do this though as an arguing point. It may as well be, “but some chipotle’s don’t offer guacamole. So, ya know, can’t rely on it.” Might be true but sounds rare.
- NateEag 5y ago
  I worked for a US health insurance company for a while, and they were almost this strict. People got away with breaking some of the rules, but it was definitely a risk - it was theoretically grounds for dismissal to bring in your own hardware, IIRC, let alone to run unapproved software. The concern in that case was a PHI (personal health information) breach, which could bring the wrath of the US judicial system down on the company. So, not top-secret or anything like that, but still very conservative and with decent reasons to be so.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    Huh - I worked in health with HIPPA data issues as well - never had this hardware specific issue. But, we were a group of software engineers who weren't idiots - so... we understood that bringing our own monitor or keyboard/mouse wasn't likely to do anything and not a real risk.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      I have a keyboard that runs custom, open-source software. It would be easy to figure that out about me, if you cared. Say if you found a list of employees and contractors. A sufficiently-motivated attacker could backdoor my firmware with a timer-based exploit (e.g., start your keystroke payload after ten minutes without input events) and I might well not notice if it was a deft-enough change. It might not be worth the cost, given that I might well notice it and it might not pay off even if I didn't. Still - the point is that keyboards are not innocuous, harmless devices that it's a no-brainer to allow.
- ArchOversight 5y ago
  I've worked at old-school telcos and startups alike. It was acceptable to bring your own keyboard and mouse to two out of the five companies, other than that, no other hardware was allowed to be brought in. So you are stuck with the monitors provided, with the rest of the hardware that was provided, and while you could bring in limited ergonomic stuff, you were also limited to whatever office furniture was available.

Some places don't allow you to bring in your own equipment, and there is an approved list of equipment that you can buy from. So unless the item is listed on that list, you are SOL.

bradlys 5y ago

I’ve never run into this personally. And I’ve worked in some old ass enterprise type companies. Maybe for high security clearance places this is an issue or something... I wouldn’t focus on niche places that do this though as an arguing point. It may as well be, “but some chipotle’s don’t offer guacamole. So, ya know, can’t rely on it.” Might be true but sounds rare.

NateEag 5y ago
I worked for a US health insurance company for a while, and they were almost this strict. People got away with breaking some of the rules, but it was definitely a risk - it was theoretically grounds for dismissal to bring in your own hardware, IIRC, let alone to run unapproved software. The concern in that case was a PHI (personal health information) breach, which could bring the wrath of the US judicial system down on the company. So, not top-secret or anything like that, but still very conservative and with decent reasons to be so.
- bradlys 5y ago
  Huh - I worked in health with HIPPA data issues as well - never had this hardware specific issue. But, we were a group of software engineers who weren't idiots - so... we understood that bringing our own monitor or keyboard/mouse wasn't likely to do anything and not a real risk.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    I have a keyboard that runs custom, open-source software. It would be easy to figure that out about me, if you cared. Say if you found a list of employees and contractors. A sufficiently-motivated attacker could backdoor my firmware with a timer-based exploit (e.g., start your keystroke payload after ten minutes without input events) and I might well not notice if it was a deft-enough change. It might not be worth the cost, given that I might well notice it and it might not pay off even if I didn't. Still - the point is that keyboards are not innocuous, harmless devices that it's a no-brainer to allow.
ArchOversight 5y ago
I've worked at old-school telcos and startups alike. It was acceptable to bring your own keyboard and mouse to two out of the five companies, other than that, no other hardware was allowed to be brought in. So you are stuck with the monitors provided, with the rest of the hardware that was provided, and while you could bring in limited ergonomic stuff, you were also limited to whatever office furniture was available.