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> It's non sense. Their network wasn't at risk - it's impossible to access the internal domain from the guest network. This should have been a discussion. Not a

> It's non sense. Their network wasn't at risk - it's impossible to access the internal domain from the guest network. This should have been a discussion. Not a firing. Unless you were the person in charge of the company's network security, you have no grounds to call their rules nonsense or to judge the risks for them. You can't objectively say their network wasn't at risk, since it wasn't your job to assess how much risk was acceptable. By connecting a USB wireless adapter to your corporate machine (which presumably was also connected to the corporate network), you created the possibility of a bridge between the two networks. It sounds like you were intentionally circumventing their corporate network filters, thus bypassing any protections they had set up against you visiting sites they knew to be honeypots, any phishing protection they may have had, etc. Since you're posting on Hacker News, I think it's fair to assume that you knew exactly what you were doing, and that you knew it wouldn't be okay. It's obvious that if your workstation is on a locked-down network that you can't just willy-nilly connect it to a different network. Now, I personally think it's a poor business decision for them to block Facebook (and whatever else). Thus either I wouldn't work there, or I would work there and follow policy and try hard to change it. Or, if I decided to just say "fuck policy" and do whatever the hell I wanted, I wouldn't whine when I got fired. It'd be one thing if you were clueless and just made a mistake. But you knew you were breaking the rules. Own up to the consequences. Go work somewhere where you can enjoy yourself without breaking the rules.

brianpgordon 13y ago
You don't have to be "in charge of the company's network security" to know enough to be sure that you're not compromising the network... Phishing protection? If you think anyone here has ever been phished I don't know what to say. And don't give so much credit to network admins and corporate policies. Admins often aren't as competent as you'd hope and I've been subject to some pretty senseless corporate network policies in my life. I had an internship where I was told to downgrade from Visual Studio 2012 to Visual Studio 2008 because 2012 wasn't in their security policy's approved software list. Subjecting a competent software developer to such restrictions is insulting.
- GrinningFool 13y ago
  I'm not sure how you can conclude it doesn't place the network at risk. If you have computer on a secure network, then simultaneously attach it to a non-secure network... well, that's pretty much the definition of a compromised node that can't be trusted any more. You have no way of knowing what kinds of data may be getting leaked in or out based on author's assertion of browsing facebook. For that matter, neither you nor the admins have any way of knowing if the USB device itself is infected. We also don't know the author's competence and ability to use sane judgement. And that's really the point of those kinds of policies. The admins don't know the author's ability to use sane judgement. In some environments this ok (my current job places no such restrictions). In other environments it is not - you wouldn't believe how locked down we were when I worked in financial services. So the rules are designed for lowest common denominator. Of course if you ask any individual if he should be exempted from the rules, he will say yes - of course! And will have a perfectly valid reason. In a similar fashion if you ask any person if he is a good driver, he will also say yes, of course!

brianpgordon 13y ago

You don't have to be "in charge of the company's network security" to know enough to be sure that you're not compromising the network... Phishing protection? If you think anyone here has ever been phished I don't know what to say. And don't give so much credit to network admins and corporate policies. Admins often aren't as competent as you'd hope and I've been subject to some pretty senseless corporate network policies in my life. I had an internship where I was told to downgrade from Visual Studio 2012 to Visual Studio 2008 because 2012 wasn't in their security policy's approved software list. Subjecting a competent software developer to such restrictions is insulting.

GrinningFool 13y ago
I'm not sure how you can conclude it doesn't place the network at risk. If you have computer on a secure network, then simultaneously attach it to a non-secure network... well, that's pretty much the definition of a compromised node that can't be trusted any more. You have no way of knowing what kinds of data may be getting leaked in or out based on author's assertion of browsing facebook. For that matter, neither you nor the admins have any way of knowing if the USB device itself is infected. We also don't know the author's competence and ability to use sane judgement. And that's really the point of those kinds of policies. The admins don't know the author's ability to use sane judgement. In some environments this ok (my current job places no such restrictions). In other environments it is not - you wouldn't believe how locked down we were when I worked in financial services. So the rules are designed for lowest common denominator. Of course if you ask any individual if he should be exempted from the rules, he will say yes - of course! And will have a perfectly valid reason. In a similar fashion if you ask any person if he is a good driver, he will also say yes, of course!