Daytripper
github.com
github.com
I am not judging. I've worked at places where I spent 75% of my day slacking off because the management and bureaucracy was terrible. After months of doing that, I started hating the job. I can only check facebook/reddit/pick your poison, for so long before I want to throw my computer out a window out of boredom.
He got caught because the timing didn’t quite work out and he was always behind in the morning. They checked cameras because of it and he admitted it when confronted.
I remember thinking a simple batch script could have done that job but I was smart enough not to write it. I hadn’t thought of writing it and then just getting a second job...
I remember being so confused by it as a kid when I saw it in games. Like, why do you need a key that displays a fake DOS prompt?
Could be integrated with something like this pretty easily.
an option
The idea was that you can open your usual work editor (word processor, IDE, spreadsheet, ...) and use it as a chat client.
It was more like a proof of concept, it didn't work that great and wasn't really useful. Also such a tool is likely to trigger all kinds of alerts in antivirus software, for good reasons.
In any case, I wonder if detecting vibrations and recognizing the boss via machine learning wouldn't be more elegant.
[1]: https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/shijiapa/documentations/Hotm...
Maybe some kind of proximity sensor that you could stick to a badge or in your wallet? It would need to still allow you to login and perhaps offer a password to disable in case you forgot your sensor, but seems vaguely plausible?
EDIT: Read more of the usage guide, seems even more plausible now, although I guess it all depends on the reliability of the proximity sensor.
But I got a Symbian phone shortly before working at a place where you had to keep your desktop locked at all times. There was an app that would lock your desktop on loss of Bluetooth connection at that time BT range was for all practical purposes less than 30 feet.
Someone broke one of the APIs it depended on as I recall. But I know Apple was talking about providing something similar circa apple watch v2.
I thought I really needed that sort of functionality but I think the fact that I haven't been bothered to try to figure it out says that I don't really need it.
- Set USBKill to watch the status of a particular USB port
- Attach a lanyard to a USB key
- Wear the lanyard on your wrist
- Plug the USB key you're wearing into the port USBKill is watching
Then anytime you step away from the machine, USBKill would notice the removal of the key and shut it down.
Daytripper is level 1. Outsourcing your job to China is level 2.
Something just clicked in my head. Start up idea!
Level 4 = Level 3 + outsource the status reporting to a local, and simply H instead of WFH.
You have now achieved the goal set by Tim F, and you can replace those cat pics with a real physical cat.
Who pays for this? Isn't it terribly inefficient?
I mean, if there's just not a lot of work to do, you could also have shorter work weeks. And you would, if your boss could trust you to not slack off every time they turn their backs?
Wouldn't it be more logical to do your work and then have actual time off, instead of pretending the work takes much longer than it actually does?
Put one of these near an information radiator to kick it out of doze mode.
USB jiggler seems to be for winning an argument with your IT team that they think they've already won.
Re: custom script, can I plug the receiver into, say, a RP0 and fire off an arbitrary webhook?
edit: I'll leave this comment for posterity, but I previously misunderstood the meanings of the Tx and Rx sensors
EDIT: spelling
We need more "plain sight slacking" tips to be on the lookout for, so we can stay vigilant.
If they're meeting the deadlines and the work is good, why bother wasting time being big bro and treating them like a child? Why not just go by results? (you can check commits as well, and CI not going off will at least tell you nothing is broken)
Now I use RDP to do the same with telegram (there is no not-shitty CLI telegram client)
(Sshing got me around the firewall at school.)
People sometimes challenge Google's interviewing process as being unnecessarily stringent. What I can say about it is that you won't find BS like this happening at Google.
A plausible reason why these behaviors are less common at google and Facebook etc is that they are paying much closer to “efficiency wages”.. if you’re working at the typical tech or Corp company you’re probably making shit pay, and why wouldn’t you study to get something better..
Google pays much better than average and is already top resume signaling, there’s just much less incentive to screw around.
Googles process is still not fantastic at filtering for general critical thinking.
Irony: the person referred to in the story may very well ended up at Google.
I know this possibility first hand. I worked for a shit shop nearby a Google office. My own fucking manager did whiteboard practice and ended up at google a few months later.
(context) https://www.businessinsider.com/the-arrest-of-silk-road-mast...
rm -rf /* # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev
For those of us with SSDs that transparently leverage AES encryption, the following generates a new keypair and marks all cells as empty instantly nuking it (and restoring the device's write performance to factory-fresh):
# hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass p /dev/sdX; hdparm --user-master u --security-erase-enhanced p /dev/sdX
On modern operating systems you can generally mount and unmount virtual encrypted volumes that are open (ideally) only when you're actually using them to do work with their contents. There used to be a great macOS tool, called Knox, that did this graphically.
Cryptomator [1], cross-platform as well.
There's a Cure53 "audit" of it, like for everything else, but to give a sense of how reliable it was, they flagged ECB mode... in the project's implementation of SIV mode.
Right now it's just for sensitive documents (i.e., anything that could be used to steal my identity). I used to also store my passwords in an encrypted directory, but now I've migrated to a password manager (which of course has an encrypted database).
If someone steals my computer while it's on and the drive is decrypted, they won't be able to obtain the most sensitive information the vast majority of the time.
EDIT: Yup, looks like a clever person figured this out https://serverfault.com/questions/46852/doing-an-rm-rf-on-a-...
Also for nvme SSDs.
Though if you do that, you'll want to be extremely diligent about minding where you step :-D
If you destroy the keyfile, then even knowledge of the passphrase won't allow you to decrypt the data. This can be used to defeat a rubber-hose attack [0].
Standard security vs. convenience trade-off applies, of course - if you keep the keyfile on a USB key, then if the USB key fails you lose access to your data. If you keep a backup of the keyfile somewhere else, then access to that backup plus a rubber-hose attack to get your passphrase allows an attacker to decrypt your data.
IIRC, they were able to get his information by an elaborate scheme acted out by plainclothes police where they grabbed his PC while his computer was unlocked. Without looking it up, I think someone bumped into him and one officer took his laptop while another one on the other side grabbed his phone.
Put it in a bash script with the above luks commands and profit.
or
mv / /dev/null
Joke aside: I misunderstood what was asked it appears. Re-reading the original post I'm still unsure what is asked.
But to be clear, you shouldn't use these commands if you wish to erase sensitive information, albeit if you use full disk encryption it will not really remove or add any value I suppose.
If you want to be sure you could overwrite the disk with random random bits or use a degausser which is properly the most complete/sure method of erasure.
On reflection they probably would have had no need for a device like this...
Why not Bluetooth?
Are people's managers actually saying to them, "Yes, there is nothing you can do right now, just sit in your seat and do nothing until I come get you"? I've never had that experience, and is why I'm asking about it.
Of course it completely depends on your work situation and the relationship with your manager, as well as how socially acceptable it is in your organization. I think lots of the people doing it had slacked off in high school and college and gotten away with it.
Your relationship with your work and your time is probably much healthier, so I wouldn’t start screwing around during work hours now.
I'm not saying it's always like this, but it happens.
That's why I wonder if maybe I'm missing something about other people's work days. Because, not only is it kind of sad, it also seems like actual criminal fraud to lie to people about what you are doing while they are paying to be doing something.
Personally, I often have what I suppose you could think of as a "priority queue" of things going on in my head. Some of those may not be work related. If I have something "high priority" that I cannot get my mind off of, it is to everyone's benefit that I take care of that item so I can get on to work-related tasks.
I think being distracted at work is not a "stick it to the man" activity for most people. It is just incredibly difficult to be actively providing value for a full work day. Humans need breaks. Same reason why there is the joke about construction crews always just sitting around.
I've heard before as a criticism of Agile that "it's not a sprint, it's a marathon". I would take it even further: Being a professional isn't a marathon. It's a migration. You are going to be at this a very long time, and you need to go at a pace that you can sustain for years on end.
Then go home? Otherwise you are just lying to your employer and perpetuating a false pretense that their employees are being productive for a full day.
If I'm not being productive and I can't finish any more work, I just go home. I don't sit there and lie about what I'm doing and pretend to be doing something I'm not.
I should clarify that my issue is about faking it. Needing a boss button to hide what you were actually doing.
Also, we all know that software developers are not really salaried employees. It was a loophole created after IBM lost a lawsuit. After some lobbying we were made explicitly exempt. So we really are just paid to "run out the clock". We are not managers or administrative people. We just do labor like any other tradesperson.
I am remote half the time. I'm not lying to anyone about anything. The measure of what I accomplish is our ticketing / planning system and the pull requests I put up to complete the various work tickets.
There is no reason to go home when I have a ten minute task I need to take care of. Same as a construction worker doesn't go home just because he needs to sit and rest for five minutes.
An example of when I would close a browser tab or switch away to another screen is when I'm having a personal conversation or looking into something banking related. I would do the same if someone came into the room even in a non-work setting.
> Also, we all know that software developers are not really salaried employees. It was a loophole created after IBM lost a lawsuit. After some lobbying we were made explicitly exempt. So we really are just paid to "run out the clock". We are not managers or administrative people. We just do labor like any other tradesperson.
Maybe there is a fancy technical definition of salaried that I am not grasping, but I get paid $X / year, with a predictable paycheck each week. I am not paid at an hourly rate. To me that is salaried.
> Are you saying that you frequently lie to people you work with and that you feel that is acceptable?
I never said I was lying to anyone. I don't think anyone in this entire thread suggested lying to your employer.
> Or are you talking about having extra free time where you don't actually have any additional work?
There is always more to do. That is the nature of life. But the truth is that we are people and not machines. You can't turn on a person and expect them to keep going at a steady rate day in day out forever. That is an assembly line mentality and I won't work under such conditions, nor do I think any self-respecting software developer should.
Many managers don’t understand creative work because they can do 70 hrs / week answering emails. Some folks don’t have the option of going home early. Some folks are semi-on-call even though their day-to-day is more as a “solve novel problems” kind of gig.
Calling these kinds of activities lies or fraud really pisses me off, actually. You’re being paid to be a technical creative professional. The optimally productive year looks different for different personalities.
Personally, I oscillate. I tend to have an incredibly strong couple of weeks followed by a week of low productivity. Some people thrive on consistency. I do better when I can get my brain into a semi-manic hyperfocus where my task at hand is literally the only thing I’m thinking about 24/7. That also works nicely when we have an upcoming client engagement, because I’ve learned how to trigger that mentality. That’s not sustainable though. So for other weeks I want to be plugged into the workplace but don’t necessarily expect myself to be ON to the same degree. Surfing on HN or whatever gives me creative juice for the next up-week.
I’m lucky enough to have a boss who understands this dynamic. Even folks that understand themselves well enough to be great in their jobs might still have managers who don’t get it, and punish those downcycles. If the job is otherwise great, that would be a reason to tell that “lie” that, like many white lies, is primarily a social lubricant.
Some businesses turn a profit. They don't need to rush to keep changing everything because they're already bringing in more money (from customers, not investors) than they spend.