4 ms·

Person who is productive while listening to death metal checking in. I have two jobs currently - one is regular 40h/wk salaried day job, another is part-time,

by pc86 3y ago

Person who is productive while listening to death metal checking in. I have two jobs currently - one is regular 40h/wk salaried day job, another is part-time, nights and weekends, hourly pay. I only need to work 15-18 hours a week at the part-time one to exceed my full-time pay, but the part-time one is: - Windows - internet routed through a hardware appliance that I'm sure logs every bit and packet - forced to run an invasive full-system virus/malware scan on start-up and at 5AM every morning (takes 4-4.5 hours) forcing me to leave the thing runnings for days or weeks at a time and preventing any early morning work - random things that were fine for years suddenly blocked, e.g. spotify/youtube - I will occasionally get emails from IT asking why I have a random application installed, what it does, and why it's "operationally necessary" - Once had trouble working during an active malware scan so did non-sensitive but time critical work on a personal machine and got an email the next day why I was clocked in when the computer was off Compare to my full-time job - Not windows - VPN is off by default and IT makes a conscious effort to move things *off* of VPN instead of the opposite - No tracking of any sort - We literally play Steam games for work events sometimes so it has Steam installed Now clearly there are some big culture differences between the two as well, but needless to say it's rare the side gig beats my full-time paycheck, precisely because it's such a horrible work environment.

vladvasiliu 3y ago
I hate this full-system (anti-)malware crap as much as the next guy. But this: > - I will occasionally get emails from IT asking why I have a random application installed, what it does, and why it's "operationally necessary" The issue is that policies have to be fairly general and can't just count on all employees actually knowing what they're doing. And sometimes people actually do shady things, even if it's not intentional. And if IT is understanding, then I think it's OK. The other day, there was a story on the HN front page [0] about some innocuous looking app that got bought and converted to some kind of shady proxy. If I was responsible for my company's staff machines, I sure as hell wouldn't want that kind of crap running on them. What's to say that your random app won't be siphoning up ~\Documents\top_secret.doc? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37052508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37052508
- pc86 3y ago
  I actually agree with you, I just brought it up as part of the massive cultural differences between "you managed to download this thing on this very locked down system two years ago, fill out this form to tell us what it is" and "go download steam and here's a steam code for a game, we're playing at 3pm if you want to."
- smeagull 3y ago
  > policies have to be fairly general They don't actually. This is why roles exist.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    They won't have a "smeagull" role, and a "john" role, etc. If you're a dev in a dev shop, the "dev role" could cover a sizeable number of people. In my company's case, they do have roles. The "accountant" role has like 60 people. They're all doing mostly the same thing, so it wouldn't make sense to have 60 accountant1..60 roles.
    - smeagull 3y ago
      Roles are cross functional. You can have ApplicationUser, AllowedDebug, Network1User, PythonDeveloper, Database1Developer, etc. etc.
- 1123581321 3y ago
  Yes but couldn’t they research the app? If IT understands software, they can ask less often.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    They're likely understaffed. They're also going to want to know why you're using it. My colleagues have had a case of someone downloading some program which was doing something that was already provided. Turned out "ours" was missing some features, so they've changed that. It can also work as a deterrent. If you know you're going to have to fill out a form, maybe you won't download random stuff unless you actually need it.
kramerger 3y ago
> forced to run an invasive full-system virus/malware scan on start-up and at 5AM every morning (takes 4-4.5 hours) forcing me to leave the thing runnings for days or weeks at a time and preventing any early morning work Maybe its just me, but hasn't Microsoft antrivirus thingy gotten really _really_ heavy recently? Back in the days you would barely notice it, but nowadays it will take over 1-2 cores and make sure the damn fan is always spinning.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  What's not clear to me is why MS implemented the "protected folders" feature so half-assedly as to be useless? To me, the important thing to protect on a computer are the user's files. Instead of regularly scanning everything and comparing to known bad signatures and grinding the machine to a halt, why not limit what the apps can do? If it's hard to prevent users from downloading totally_not_shady_app.exe, just make sure that it can't access anything anyway. That may still allow it to mine bitcoin, but at least it won't leak sensitive data. Or better yet: most users aren't devs. Just don't execute anything from the users' home folder. This probably won't help with all the attacks on Office by macros and whatnot, but it'd be a start.
  - kramerger 3y ago
    This already exists and is called Windows S mode. I wish it was more popular, but as soon as it was announced blogs like verge and Engadget started a crusade against it and more or less killed it off
    - vladvasiliu 3y ago
      Wasn't that much more limited than what I was arguing for? IIRC, it could only run apps from the MS Store, but it could run any app from the store.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  IMO, the combination of anti-virus and updater got really heavy. But when the updater isn't running, I never noticed the anti-virus.
Roark66 3y ago
That's interesting. I know not everyone is in position to pick and choose between jobs, but frequently you can improve your "it situation" a lot if you raise it during recruitment. I recently started working for a (large) company that gave me a Linux laptop(I wfh 100%), 99% of their staff uses windows. It uses cisco vpn and a simple script to block all traffic if the vpn is off (once vpn is on, local traffic is allowed). The machine runs a rhel based distro, all public repos are disabled and "the it" maintains only approved packages. Interestingly, I can use sudo, but I have to write justification for every use. There is full disk encryption, but I'm no aware of any "activity monitoring" other than outgoing internet traffic. Prior to this, the company I worked for gave me a windows laptop. I had Admin rights on it too. During my recent search for new work I spoke with a company that seemed a great fit. Until they told me they log hours worked by tracking keyboard/mouse/recording screen use. "for client accounting reasons". To my objection that if a client agrees certain job is worth 4h to them, who cares if I do it in 1h they said they have to use this model. I declined to work with them and I got a different offer. I'd hate to have a job where I'm incentivised to work slower not faster.

by pc86 3y ago

vladvasiliu 3y ago

I hate this full-system (anti-)malware crap as much as the next guy. But this: > - I will occasionally get emails from IT asking why I have a random application installed, what it does, and why it's "operationally necessary" The issue is that policies have to be fairly general and can't just count on all employees actually knowing what they're doing. And sometimes people actually do shady things, even if it's not intentional. And if IT is understanding, then I think it's OK. The other day, there was a story on the HN front page [0] about some innocuous looking app that got bought and converted to some kind of shady proxy. If I was responsible for my company's staff machines, I sure as hell wouldn't want that kind of crap running on them. What's to say that your random app won't be siphoning up ~\Documents\top_secret.doc? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37052508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37052508

pc86 3y ago
I actually agree with you, I just brought it up as part of the massive cultural differences between "you managed to download this thing on this very locked down system two years ago, fill out this form to tell us what it is" and "go download steam and here's a steam code for a game, we're playing at 3pm if you want to."
smeagull 3y ago
> policies have to be fairly general They don't actually. This is why roles exist.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  They won't have a "smeagull" role, and a "john" role, etc. If you're a dev in a dev shop, the "dev role" could cover a sizeable number of people. In my company's case, they do have roles. The "accountant" role has like 60 people. They're all doing mostly the same thing, so it wouldn't make sense to have 60 accountant1..60 roles.
  - smeagull 3y ago
    Roles are cross functional. You can have ApplicationUser, AllowedDebug, Network1User, PythonDeveloper, Database1Developer, etc. etc.
1123581321 3y ago
Yes but couldn’t they research the app? If IT understands software, they can ask less often.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  They're likely understaffed. They're also going to want to know why you're using it. My colleagues have had a case of someone downloading some program which was doing something that was already provided. Turned out "ours" was missing some features, so they've changed that. It can also work as a deterrent. If you know you're going to have to fill out a form, maybe you won't download random stuff unless you actually need it.

kramerger 3y ago

> forced to run an invasive full-system virus/malware scan on start-up and at 5AM every morning (takes 4-4.5 hours) forcing me to leave the thing runnings for days or weeks at a time and preventing any early morning work Maybe its just me, but hasn't Microsoft antrivirus thingy gotten really _really_ heavy recently? Back in the days you would barely notice it, but nowadays it will take over 1-2 cores and make sure the damn fan is always spinning.

vladvasiliu 3y ago
What's not clear to me is why MS implemented the "protected folders" feature so half-assedly as to be useless? To me, the important thing to protect on a computer are the user's files. Instead of regularly scanning everything and comparing to known bad signatures and grinding the machine to a halt, why not limit what the apps can do? If it's hard to prevent users from downloading totally_not_shady_app.exe, just make sure that it can't access anything anyway. That may still allow it to mine bitcoin, but at least it won't leak sensitive data. Or better yet: most users aren't devs. Just don't execute anything from the users' home folder. This probably won't help with all the attacks on Office by macros and whatnot, but it'd be a start.
- kramerger 3y ago
  This already exists and is called Windows S mode. I wish it was more popular, but as soon as it was announced blogs like verge and Engadget started a crusade against it and more or less killed it off
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    Wasn't that much more limited than what I was arguing for? IIRC, it could only run apps from the MS Store, but it could run any app from the store.
marcosdumay 3y ago
IMO, the combination of anti-virus and updater got really heavy. But when the updater isn't running, I never noticed the anti-virus.

Roark66 3y ago

That's interesting. I know not everyone is in position to pick and choose between jobs, but frequently you can improve your "it situation" a lot if you raise it during recruitment. I recently started working for a (large) company that gave me a Linux laptop(I wfh 100%), 99% of their staff uses windows. It uses cisco vpn and a simple script to block all traffic if the vpn is off (once vpn is on, local traffic is allowed). The machine runs a rhel based distro, all public repos are disabled and "the it" maintains only approved packages. Interestingly, I can use sudo, but I have to write justification for every use. There is full disk encryption, but I'm no aware of any "activity monitoring" other than outgoing internet traffic. Prior to this, the company I worked for gave me a windows laptop. I had Admin rights on it too. During my recent search for new work I spoke with a company that seemed a great fit. Until they told me they log hours worked by tracking keyboard/mouse/recording screen use. "for client accounting reasons". To my objection that if a client agrees certain job is worth 4h to them, who cares if I do it in 1h they said they have to use this model. I declined to work with them and I got a different offer. I'd hate to have a job where I'm incentivised to work slower not faster.