> If you want to ship me a dedicated laptop for your engagement, I would be happy to install whatever you want on it
And they will install a trojan which would eavesdrop your talks, scan your home network and analyze its traffic.
And they will install a trojan which would eavesdrop your talks, scan your home network and analyze its traffic.
Someone has to start stopping this madness and protect less informed people. We are all steering into a dark future. And i lose hope when i see all these smart programmers complaining but not stepping up.
Whatever the app they would ask you to install would do probably is going to be allowed by its EULA (and I bet the EULA is also going to prohibit you from analyzing the app and whatever it does/communicates) and chances are you don't read it. And even if you do you most probably agree because you know all EULAs are brutal and there never is a button to object its specific part and continue.
What we need is legislation to recognize all the data and metadata about your PC, all its software, your home networks&devices and their usage a kind of personal data and apply the same rules GDPR applies to tracking cookies - giving you the right to continue without agreeing to be spied on.
Most companies don't want to spy on their employees' free time. They want to 1- make sure they are compliant with the law and their confidential stuff is secure and 2 - make sure that you are actually working for them when you say you are.
Installing something to listen to non-work related stuff serves neither of these goals, and would open them up to lawsuits and PR nightmares.
(I should say that intentional monitoring of my private comms was never a concern for me when I freelanced, but I was somewhat worried about infections in my clients' devices moving laterally to my home network.)
The type of network segmentation being discussed is not rocket science, but it's not trivial either. VLAN segmentation can have tricky edge cases that cause things to break in a non-obvious way, nothing that can't be worked around but for someone who "isn't well versed in networking" would probably be more than you're up for. Also keep in mind that you can't do this with most consumer networking gear becasue it's too complicated to setup and support without some experience and knowledge.
I'd not recommend VLAN segmentation unless you want to become someone who is more versed, which I don't oppose, but it's not a switch you can flip in 5 seconds and never think about it again.
The more obvious solution would be to get a separate WiFi router and internet connection strictly for work purposes.
At that point you could also consider it a 100% home office expense and it may be tax deductible (talk to your accountant).
I then went back and configured the OpenWRT box to create a WiFi hotspot and serve DHCP on a different subnet to that used by the home network. I configured an OpenVPN client tunnel from the router to pfSense, then set up a NAT ("masquerade") from the segregated network into the tunnel. I think I actually left a couple of ports open on the OpenWRT from the segregated network, but properly I should have firewalled them off so that the router was only accessible from the home network, since I doubt OpenWRT has been seriously pen tested by anyone. I'd probably also use Wireguard if I did it again.
The above config worked, but the CPU on the TP-Link was too underpowered to get more than a few Mbit/sec throughput. Since I didn't particularly care about having a VPN (I was going to throw this traffic on the internet anyway), I messed around and managed to change the tunnel type to L2TP. L2TP pretty much just takes the packet you give it and adds a UDP header for routing, so that approach gave me full bandwidth. I think I had to mess around a bit more getting MTUs set correctly to account for the L2TP header, and maybe had some trouble with auto-restarting the tunnel on failure.
One of the (flagged) responses to my original comment was "Who the fuck has the time to do that?" I actually think that is a fair comment. This all took a day or two to set up and debug, it isn't something that the casual user is going to do and, to be honest, I probably wouldn't have done it either except that I wanted to play with pfSense.
I'd do it again, though -- it was fun.
[2] https://silasthomas.medium.com/how-to-import-a-pfsense-firew...
I do cyber/data stuff, often on the network-y end.
- $CORP devices are on a VLAN + Wifi that has access to the internet, but no other internal networks
- Internal network for file servers/printers and the like
- Personal device network, think laptops/phones/tablets that are mine, can reach internal network
- IoT network - Think sensors/robot vacuums/"smart devices"
- Guest network, for well visitors to my home
- AirPlay network, has all my Apple devices on it to allow for music to be airplay'ed to TV's/HomePods, can be reached from internal/personal/guest network
This is not something the average home user or consultant is going to setup/configure/manage and I don't expect it either.
The worry that the $CORP device will be abused to "validate the security of the network its connected to" is very much a possibility. Most corporations have no desire to do so, and endpoint protection is their primary goal, and they don't need to scan your home network to do so, it is all local to the device. It's about protecting the integrity of the device, not the rest of the network around it.
They WILL
> which would eavesdrop your talks
That absolutely WILL - use the microphone and listen to everything being said (why not the camera too and watch everthing?)
> scan your home network and analyze its traffic.
That absolutely WILL - do all this stuff
I mean if this is definately going to happen, then the company can go ahead and cut an 8 figure cheque straight away. Which company and where do I sign up?
Because who doesn't have a lid/sticker over their webcam yet?
I have also kill-switched the built-in mic in the BIOS set-up but I'm not sure how secure this is. I would prefer there to be no built-in microphones in any hardware (except phones) at all. Sadly every modern laptop is equipped with a mic.
Tugging against this evolutionary pressure is really hard, not only for individuals but also on the society level.
"Just quit LOL!" is a commendable act of grassroots activism, but not everyone is able (or willing) to afford such luxury.
Because, until last week they didn't.
Now I have to figure out if I'm just an unreasonable, stubborn old guy, or if this requirement is out of band.
In my case, I just outright said "hey, you guys I really want you to be my client but I'm gonna need a new laptop". So we bought a new laptop as part of the contract.
If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough of it yet.
You have audio-video input sensors on all sort of programable devices nowadays, even some TVs can be turned into two way communication devices. That's a nice 1984ish vibe to ruin your late night matrimonial TV browsing.
Sure you might get a bad actor voyeur, but as a matter of policy, companies just don't care what you're doing at home as long as their security interests are protected.
I have a separate network for work machines at home, which goes straight to Internet and can't route in or out of my actual home network which is behind its own firewall.
You'd also need a firewall, and to configure it correctly.
Your employer isn't your friend.
It might be an awesome company to work for perhaps, but it's still a company (unless you work for like a 2 person startup). A company subject to audits and regulations and all kinds of other pressures (some of them actually valid, though many are theater) to monitor and control data and flows on their hardware.
You don't want those monitors etc on your personal data and network which has nothing to do with work.
So, keep them separate is the best possible advice.
But they are not allowed to scan my home network and other devices, and they have no reason to break the law. I trust them to not do that more than half of the devices running on my home network.
No reason to trust, better to isolate.