25 ms·

What kind of imbecile does personal stuff in a company device? We are not talking about poor people, we are talking about people who have money enough to have t

What kind of imbecile does personal stuff in a company device? We are not talking about poor people, we are talking about people who have money enough to have their own personal devices.

rpmisms 3y ago
I do personal things on company hardware, just nothing actually personal. No sign-ins, but I'll watch a movie on work laptop happily.
- beebeepka 3y ago
  How do you watch the movie, though. If you do it legally, you need to use an account, that's personal, no? Unless you watch free movies on YT or torrent stuff, of course
  - metaphor 3y ago
    It blows my mind away that this remark is entirely oblivious to the consideration of physical media.
    - VBprogrammer 3y ago
      Physical media is a relic. Most laptops don't come with a drive and most company policies will try to block USB drives of any kind.
      - metaphor 3y ago
        > ...most company policies will try to block USB drives of any kind. Grand assertion. Where's your supporting cite? To be clear before goalposts are moved, the context is external optical media drives---a peripheral commonly issued along side laptops without one---not USB mass storage devices.
        rsynnott 3y ago
        > a peripheral commonly issued along side laptops without one Wait, _is_ it? In this future year of 2023? I haven’t seen this as common practice for at least a decade. (The sort of higher-security-stance companies who disable USB drive support will also generally disable support for external optical drives, because why take the risk?)
SCUSKU 3y ago
My roommate used his work laptop as his personal laptop for 2 years simply because he didn’t wanna shell out for a personal laptop. When I was an intern in college and was much poorer, I also was guilty of the same…
devmor 3y ago
Not exactly the same thing, but the highest paid position I have ever had so far in my career was one that expected me to use my personal device for company work. There are many well known employers that take IT security seriously, and many that don't.
sweetjuly 3y ago
Google, Apple, and Microsoft all presumably encourage their employees actually use their software before it goes out to the public to make sure it actually works. Google doesn't want to find out that some changes to Android cause major apps to crash so they encourage their employees to use work devices as their personal devices in order to get better coverage.
mkl95 3y ago
Someone who needs to. In this case, the victim worked for an aerospace company. I know some people in that industry and all of them work insanely long hours. On top of that, it was a Spanish company, so working for 10+ hours a day would be expected.
- otteromkram 3y ago
  They could cut that time down if they skipped taking a siesta, right?
  - mkl95 3y ago
    If their boss wants to meet with them at 8PM, skipping their siesta won't help. Spanish corporate types hang out at the office until their dinner time, which is also horribly late.
speedgoose 3y ago
I use my company laptop for personal things all the time. My personal computer is some kind of space heater that can also run video games, so I don’t use it by default. I can afford a third device but I have better things to do with the money. Of course I aim to respect the security rules of my company. I trust my company. I wouldn’t enjoy working for a company that I wouldn’t trust with my browser cookies. The laws are also on my side in my jurisdiction. I cannot be fired simply because I did something my company didn’t enjoy on the company laptop. They need a really good reason.
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > I cannot be fired simply because I did something my company didn’t enjoy on the company laptop. They need a really good reason. Getting fired is not the risk you are running, getting all your personal data exposed by any civil suit the company gets hit with is the risk. Exposure is the risk, not firing.
  - speedgoose 3y ago
    I see. It sounds very unlikely and I’m fine with the personal data I have of my company computer being exposed within the context of an investigation and a trial. I guess it may be more scary in some countries.
    - lelanthran 3y ago
      > It sounds very unlikely and I’m fine with the personal data I have of my company computer being exposed within the context of an investigation and a trial. Okay, lets talk about something more likely: your communications are not private - when you connect to an https URL you expect that your password is never in the clear. With most organisations I have worked with/for, they almost always perform MitM on all TLS connections, and it works seamlessly (i.e. without you knowing) because their certificate is on the machine. Only the very small and/or very poorly-run organisations aren't doing this, because unless they do the MitM, the network tools they use to detect malicious activity on their network cannot do Deep Packet Inspection (tools such as Darktrace). It's exceedingly unlikely that the password you used to log into your bank account from your work computer is indecipherable to your network operators. It may as well be in the clear within the network.
huhtenberg 3y ago
The same imbecile that would run Quiz1.exe they received from a random person on the Internet.

What kind of imbecile does personal stuff in a company device? We are not talking about poor people, we are talking about people who have money enough to have their own personal devices.

rpmisms 3y ago

I do personal things on company hardware, just nothing actually personal. No sign-ins, but I'll watch a movie on work laptop happily.

beebeepka 3y ago
How do you watch the movie, though. If you do it legally, you need to use an account, that's personal, no? Unless you watch free movies on YT or torrent stuff, of course
- metaphor 3y ago
  It blows my mind away that this remark is entirely oblivious to the consideration of physical media.
  - VBprogrammer 3y ago
    Physical media is a relic. Most laptops don't come with a drive and most company policies will try to block USB drives of any kind.
    - metaphor 3y ago
      > ...most company policies will try to block USB drives of any kind. Grand assertion. Where's your supporting cite? To be clear before goalposts are moved, the context is external optical media drives---a peripheral commonly issued along side laptops without one---not USB mass storage devices.
      - rsynnott 3y ago
        > a peripheral commonly issued along side laptops without one Wait, _is_ it? In this future year of 2023? I haven’t seen this as common practice for at least a decade. (The sort of higher-security-stance companies who disable USB drive support will also generally disable support for external optical drives, because why take the risk?)

SCUSKU 3y ago

My roommate used his work laptop as his personal laptop for 2 years simply because he didn’t wanna shell out for a personal laptop. When I was an intern in college and was much poorer, I also was guilty of the same…

devmor 3y ago

Not exactly the same thing, but the highest paid position I have ever had so far in my career was one that expected me to use my personal device for company work. There are many well known employers that take IT security seriously, and many that don't.

sweetjuly 3y ago

Google, Apple, and Microsoft all presumably encourage their employees actually use their software before it goes out to the public to make sure it actually works. Google doesn't want to find out that some changes to Android cause major apps to crash so they encourage their employees to use work devices as their personal devices in order to get better coverage.

mkl95 3y ago

Someone who needs to. In this case, the victim worked for an aerospace company. I know some people in that industry and all of them work insanely long hours. On top of that, it was a Spanish company, so working for 10+ hours a day would be expected.

otteromkram 3y ago
They could cut that time down if they skipped taking a siesta, right?
- mkl95 3y ago
  If their boss wants to meet with them at 8PM, skipping their siesta won't help. Spanish corporate types hang out at the office until their dinner time, which is also horribly late.

speedgoose 3y ago

I use my company laptop for personal things all the time. My personal computer is some kind of space heater that can also run video games, so I don’t use it by default. I can afford a third device but I have better things to do with the money. Of course I aim to respect the security rules of my company. I trust my company. I wouldn’t enjoy working for a company that I wouldn’t trust with my browser cookies. The laws are also on my side in my jurisdiction. I cannot be fired simply because I did something my company didn’t enjoy on the company laptop. They need a really good reason.

lelanthran 3y ago
> I cannot be fired simply because I did something my company didn’t enjoy on the company laptop. They need a really good reason. Getting fired is not the risk you are running, getting all your personal data exposed by any civil suit the company gets hit with is the risk. Exposure is the risk, not firing.
- speedgoose 3y ago
  I see. It sounds very unlikely and I’m fine with the personal data I have of my company computer being exposed within the context of an investigation and a trial. I guess it may be more scary in some countries.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > It sounds very unlikely and I’m fine with the personal data I have of my company computer being exposed within the context of an investigation and a trial. Okay, lets talk about something more likely: your communications are not private - when you connect to an https URL you expect that your password is never in the clear. With most organisations I have worked with/for, they almost always perform MitM on all TLS connections, and it works seamlessly (i.e. without you knowing) because their certificate is on the machine. Only the very small and/or very poorly-run organisations aren't doing this, because unless they do the MitM, the network tools they use to detect malicious activity on their network cannot do Deep Packet Inspection (tools such as Darktrace). It's exceedingly unlikely that the password you used to log into your bank account from your work computer is indecipherable to your network operators. It may as well be in the clear within the network.

huhtenberg 3y ago

The same imbecile that would run Quiz1.exe they received from a random person on the Internet.