Hacker News Reader

Comment by xendo | Hacker News Reader

For the context, as an Amazon employee I’m not required to access email from my mobile. The only app that I need to have is virtual pager and it doesn’t require allowing Amazon to administer my phone. Physical pagers are also an option.

View on HN

Are they using work profiles on Android phones of employees that need mobile email access? It is a very good solution that lets the employer administer only a separate identity and gives them no access to personal stuff. The only global thing that the employer can do is enforce a certain level of security (for example requiring a PIN on the lock screen and data encryption).

Amazon employee here. They do use work profiles on Android phones.

So in theory they should have no control on the apps you install on the personal side. Is this just moral obligation, or are they requiring full control of the phone even outside the work profile?

I manage phones for a big corp. Just want to clarify what's possible. Google highly limits what you can do in Work Profile mode, you can't control much outside the work profile.

We can't see the app list on the personal side in work profile mode, BUT we can specify some that are a no-go. I'll show up as a compliance violation. But we can't view the list anymore like we could do with the pre-work profile Android Device Admin management (and still can with Apple).

We're not blocking any apps ourselves right now but it is possible. We do grant all BYOD phones access to our network, so for that reason we would want the capability to block any known threats if they are around.

We can also control some minor things on the personal side, like a pincode requirement and forbidding of sideloading and rooting. But in general we have very little visibility and control, which is the way I (as an admin) like it too. I only want to know what I really need to know especially on the personal side. We can (and do) also block copy/paste from work profile to personal, as data loss prevention, but we allow it the other way around.

In general users complain a lot about the work profile being separate, and not being able to integrate their personal and work calendars.. But for personal privacy it's a big win IMO. Apple has something similar since iOS 13 (called User Enrolment) but it's still a bit too limited to be sufficient for us. And it requires Apple federated accounts which have some requirements that are impossible for us to meet :(

> we can specify some that are a no-go.

Oh, that's very interesting! I knew about the PIN requirement as an example of control outside the work profile, but I didn't know this was possible. It makes sense though.

and forbidding of sideloading and rooting.

Good luck with that, if users have root they already have full control (and can thus tell whatever app exactly what it is expecting.)

But roots can be defected and labeled as a compliance violation. They could then revoke your accsess to emails or other network services, or issue you a warning or more

As a developer, I don't see why I need to be constantly alerted to emails. I check about once or twice per day for items that need to put on calendar but every/anything urgent is for the pager.

Preach, brother.

Unfortunately, middle managers gotta middle manage. And they don't get the adrenaline rush of having people under them unless they can tabulate those people.

Which is why a lowly web dev like myself is expected to carry around a company-issued phone even in my off hours. In four years I've never needed it.

TLDR ooh Amazon has pagers, I wonder how?

Are there any pager networks left in the US? I've always been interested in them out of historical curiosity because I was too young to use them when they were actually a thing, but from what I understood, pagers are pretty much not a thing anymore.

I wouldn’t expect a modern pager to operate on the same technology as older pager. Pagers are a thing and they have there uses. I’ve heard of a physical pager being used to symbolize who is “on call”, and a team of engineers will pass the pager between themselves. I’ve seen restaurants pass out pagers to people waiting for tables. I’ve heard talk about some medical/emergency personal still using pagers.

I imagine pagers are probably used in highly secure communications (military, statecraft), because the thing being paged doesn’t have to give away it’s location, or even the fact that it received the message.

Yes, modern pagers do operate on the same tech (pocsag/flex) for the last few decades. And for the most part, are clear text. There are posts on HN about this in the last year.

Hospitals still often use pagers - they're deemed more reliable than cell phone networks. I don't know if that's actually true or not but there you go.

The big advantage is they're one-way, so their range is much further since you don't need the pager to send stuff back to the tower.

Nobody that I know carries a physical pager anymore. You have the option of specifying an arbitrary number of pageable devices that are either

* the paging app * sms-based text * phone call

as well as what order and with what delay you want them to attempt to engage you. iirc you need at least two options such that in the event of an issue with one network/application they have an alternative means of potentially reaching you.

Yes there are totally pager networks alive and kicking.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com