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Comment by layoutIfNeeded | Hacker News Reader

It depends. Can you turn off auto-sleep?

My corp laptop auto-locks the screen (if that's what you mean), but can also be unlocked by biometrics, but only if it's already on. (And only for a limited time; I think after a week, the password is required again.) If the laptop is booting fresh, the password is required.

I wouldn't call it a burden.

> but can also be unlocked by biometrics

I always switch off the biometric access of any machine, so you can save yourself the hassle of cutting off my thumb or trying to unlock a device when I am asleep.

I guess anyone able to do either of these things could just torture you into surrendering your password, though.

I guess you could hope for their decency to cut off bits only after they've killed you. Combine that with their possible (probable?) stupidity to assume you have biometrics enabled, and they might kill you without even asking for any password, so you'd die secure in the knowledge that they'll never crack your data.

Though Idunno how happy that'll make you.

Don't turn it off, get something like the little Caffeine application. It simulates an F15 keypress every 59 seconds to keep it awake.

The idea is that basically very few keyboards have an F15, let alone applications that rely on the F15 key.

Note that if you're caught doing this by IT, you may get fired for willfully breaking policy. It is quite easy to detect.

There is plausible deniability. Just say my touchpad is malfuncioning and sometimes moves the cursor.

In other words, you didn't report a touchpad malfunction that was interfering with obvious and clearly stated security policies, and allowed the malfunction to interfere with your work for days/weeks/months without seeking assistance from IT?

This is not a good look, but if that's how you want to play the game of lying to your employer, fine with me!

No, because the touchpad malfunctioning has no impact on a security policy whatsoever. Not even work possibly.

If you want to lock your PC you need to lock it.

As I mentioned above, the SOC team can detect the exact process ID for these app really easily. No plausible deniability.

What do you mean by process ID? A PID seems like a useless bit of information. Now an app bundle or process executable checksum... Seems more useful. But couldn't you build the app from source and add a but of random data into the executable?

Yes it's better to have a hardware fix, like a USB stick that moves the cursor regularly or sends a key press, or even just put your mouse on top of a watch that has hands.

I mean.. There's also OS APIs to prevent sleep that are probably even better suited.

Oh boy, I see the potential for very weird bug reports that will be fun to debug when you forget that that thing is active (or another user is using the computer).

I just 3D printed a little clip that holds the scroll lock key down. Or, there’s always the mechanical or electronic mouse jigglers you can buy off of Amazon.

Windows Powertoys has an Awake applet that does the same thing nowadays. Same thing as in, has the same effect of keeping the machine awake, that is; dunno how it does it, if it's simulating a keypress or something else.

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