Re: Out of the Pond

On Sat, 2 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.misc, in article
<KXh8i.21$5n6.16@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, xpyttl wrote:

"Chu Rey" <blablababa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote

I would appreciate feedback on the plausibility of bringing in a line,
independent of the corporate network, so we can fully participate in
the internet retail experience.

You would probably be fired, and rightly so. While IN THEORY it is
separate, it might stay that way for a week. After that, you will need some
data from another system, you will connect a flash drive, that gets clumsy
so one of the boxes gets a second network port to connect to the other
network, and you have comprimised the company's network. The crap shoot is
whether someone is bright enough to fire you before you do real damage.

I tried to stay out of this one, but we do have a number (I can think of
sixteen) independent systems in this facility. They are located in the
employee break areas and cafeteria, and are on their own physical network
with a router doing NAT and connecting to an ISP. These boxes are owned
and the ISP connection paid for, by the employee association. Not only do
they _not_ have a network connection directly or indirectly to any of the
company networks, they also lack removable media. There are no floppies,
CDs, DVDs, or USB ports. The systems in the cafeteria share access to a
single laser printer. The boxes themselves are physically locked, and (as
they run a UNIX variant like all other systems in the facility) the users
have access ONLY via a common, unprivileged ("guest") account. The
employees can check mail, surf to non-job-related sites, use search
engines, etc. to their hearts content, subject to monitoring by other
employees who want to use the systems (are you finished yet"?). When the
user logs out, the user's files (which would include cookies, history,
cache, and anything that might have been downloaded) are wiped. As far
as the rest goes, there are NO privately owned computers (indeed, most
electronic devices INCLUDING cell phones) permitted - none.

All those annoying IT rules are there for a reason. There are almost
certainly ways to do what needs to be done, but I suspect you think they are
too expensive/clumsy because the stupid I/T people insist on doing it
safely. They also make you follow all these stupid rules to keep the company
from getting sued.

I was curious how the O/P's ability to "take online college courses"
somehow relates to being able to do the job.

Make a business case for what you need to do.

The fact that this appears to be ignored, as well as the extremely risky
things the O/P wants to do pretty much indicates that they know that
management won't approve (never mind I/T). "We have all those spare
computers, monitors, hardward, and so forth so the only cost to the
company would be for a Dsl connection." is another indication that they
have no concept of computers or costs. In our case, the company is
supplying electrical power, physical space, and paper for that printer
(isn't really cost effective to have the employee association do so),
and I/T handles the maintenance under a re-bill agreement.

Old guy
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Subscription Anonymity Services
    ... network admins INSANE trying to stop it. ... The boss knows he is making an encrypted streaming connection at ... 400K, to LogMeIn, and to his home computer, but there is no POSSIBLE ... AUP is enough to can an employee. ...
    (comp.security.firewalls)
  • Re: Proof that firewalls can be circumvented
    ... firstly traceroute shows YOUR connection to the internet, ... it from a work computer of course it will show your company network, ... mention it, it isnt slander etc, infact the employee is ment to mention it, ... > just boggled my mind how many people were surfing that chat site ...
    (comp.security.firewalls)
  • Re: Why you need a registry cleaner
    ... However your computer is still on the companies network with a potential of damaging the companies network probably from the inside. ... No malware, at least none that I know, can tell the difference between employee and contractor. ... Many companies will not simply take the word of an employee or contractor the computer is clean, that assumption has brought down many networks when it turned out to be false. ... And they pushed a version of the corporate virus scanner onto my ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
  • Re: PLEASE HELP - USENET/Proxy Security Question
    ... I would consider it a trivial employee perk, ... we found that 3% of the company network users were ... consuming 90% of the capacity of the internet connection (about 40 ... communications and productivity of the "good" workers, ...
    (alt.computer.security)
  • Re: OT: Hows your bandwidth today? You been throttled?
    ... many more routers, ... lose connection 15 min. or more per day at random times. ... a "slower," lower cost to them, nation-wide network. ...
    (alt.lang.asm)