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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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You Should Know
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Don’t use company computers for personal stuff, it all gets logged and can be used against you at the very least as evidence that you weren’t working come performance reviews.
It's fucking insane people don't know this in 2023.
Work computers are for work, and pretty much every employer monitors what you do on it.
I occasionally click on the little wether icon and see what the forecast looks like. Hope I don't get fired!
At my old job we had to research customers which frequently involved looking on Facebook and other sites. I was very intentionally not logged in, which probably wouldn't work now, and kept any and all searches to items that I could prove were related to a work item. It's insane that people don't follow that advice.
Things like weather will be fine unless you have an unreasonable boss/job.
But people should only use work computers the way they would if they knew the entire company was watching a live stream of their desktop.
Even for working from home, I put my work laptop on the isolated guest wifi because I don't trust them the same way they don't trust me.
Depends heavily on where you work. My employer don't track what we use the computers for (of course there's a 'TOS' of sorts which says that it's company property and should only be used for company stuff) but as long as you are at least somewhat reasonable on what you use the system for it's fair play. Things like checking your personal email and occasional visit to lemmy/whatever your social media poison is doesn't raise any flags as long as you get the job done and that's it. Of course you can't install anything on the system but as long as a browser session on incognito mode is enough and it doesn't harm your duties, while technically forbidden, no one really cares.
And yes, I know this for sure, as I'm one of the guys who enforces the policies for our gear. YMMV.
Good advice always has its exceptions. But in general you should never use a work device for personal use because it's very easy for that information to be either compromised and/or used against you.
My personal guidance is "if you don't own the device, pretend the owner is looking over your shoulder" it's incredibly easy for them to install keyloggers and trackers remotely and silently.
And in here that's very much illegal thing to do without prior consent from the employee and even with permission it's requlated on what you can do with the data. Of course companies are permitted to restrict traffic and otherwise limit what users can do on the devices they're given to, but it's still illegal to spy individual users and what they do. Strong(ish) worker rights are a very nice thing to have around.
Then your job probably isn't that serious then like others where they get monitored.
Intelligent reasoning! Remarkable!
Here’s another take: it’s all down to the laws you let your law-makers write. If I quit my my boss is not allowed to read through or keep my account active - in their system.
And the same goes for company wifi if you have to log in with your own username.
Even if you don't, there's plenty of different ways to identify a user on company wifi.
For example, have your cellphone named "Stephano's iPhone"? Narrows it down to the Stephanos working in range of that access point.
Classic Stephano
I usually used a VPN if I was on the WiFi. Made me feel better even if I'm just browsing memes
Connecting to an "unauthorized" VPN is against IT policy for some companies, especially if your job involves handling sensitive data.
Always use a VPN when on a network you can't trust. There are plenty of free and trustworthy ones you can activate with one click, and then all the company sees is noise.
I trust my company's wifi network a lot more than a free VPN app.
I use the free tier of Proton VPN, it's been well audited and proven safe!
Different threat models. There’s the threat of being punished or fired by workplace surveillance;
Separately, there’s also the threat of some unknown third-party snooping on your data for whatever other reason (identify fraud, etc).
The post discusses the first and I’d argue that’s more compelling for most people, but the second is also valid.
RiseupVPN, calynx and protonvpn are pretty great and trustworthy. 2 first ones are non profit based on donations only. And proton VPN is well audited (but require account while the first two doesn't)
Cloudflare’s free VPN is trustworthy and very fast. You don’t get to pick server location though so it is only useful for cases like this.
If the company owns the endpoint there's lots they can do to monitor your traffic even with a VPN. For phones if you sign in to work mail with your phone and allow them to manage your device just assume they have control of it now.
Never putting any of their software on your personal device is a good rule in general
Work computers are by definition not personal devices.
And refusing to install your company's software on your work computer is a good way to get fired for cause.
But some people have the option to access work email, etc on their personal devices, as long as they install their company's monitoring/security software.
Depends on your work. I agree with you, but for example my work is different.
Yes, we have managed devices as well, but my department specifically went for unmanaged devices. Just plain old laptops. Install whatever OS you want, do whatever you want. I only have the base windows install on there for some compatibility reasons, I mostly just use PopOS.
And we're also explicitly allowed to browse private content - as long as the work gets done and we stay in budget, do whatever.
If you are on their network they can see what you are doing. At the end of the day, the business will protect itself.
Do what you want at your own risk. But never assume that any company is on your side.
This is so simple, whatever policy they have if something goes wrong they will try their best to find a scape goat.
Why do you people have phones with gigabytes of daya for?
Additionally, do your best not to be part of the company where you might get into trouble for just using internet.
Of course they can. That's why I usually use my phone as a hot spot when I'm browsing private stuff ;)
Do the other departments use managed devices? IT might get pretty mad if your department went over them and bought computers themselves, lol.
It's not optimal from a security and legal point of view.
IT specifically has an option for unmanaged devices, exactly for developers like me :)
Alright. Seems reasonable as long as the devices are sandboxed from the company network and resources.
They aren't, and our private phones are also connected to the network ;)
But then again, it's a fairly large organization vpn'd up over multiple locations, with server farms in different VLANs and so on, so the network we usually access when working are in a different subnet.
I do know what you mean though - it really depends on what the company does. Prior, I worked at a company that developed and manufactured hardware cryptography devices - I learned proper security procedures there :) our 'actual work computers' weren't even connected to the Internet, and the unmanaged laptops accessed the same WiFi guests would access that, well, only went to the Internet. Just wpa2.
Why though‽ Most consumer routers even have a guest network enabled by default.
That's true, but an attack could probably cause a lot of damage to any company (especially a big one) without proper security. Regardless of what they do.
Well at least you don't have to deal with ITs PC policies, which can get pretty annoying. Allowing any device to join the company network seems incredibly stupid though.
Let's just hope that none of your unmanaged machines get compromised.
At my previous company, only domain work computers could join the PC WiFi (with a certificate, so no passwords) and work smartphones could only join the work WiFi for mobiles.
Private devices and very limited amount of non domain computers were only allowed on the guest network and couldn't connect to any other.
The company didn't do anything special that needed extra security.
agreed with the point. However, lemmy might soon be the new reddit for information, asking questions, troubleshooting.
So I guess a solution for accessing lemmy for such resources on company computer without being flagged would be good, especially this gets a bit more complicated with the decentralized nature of the fediverse (multiple domains of lemmy)