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Comment by indrora | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine just recently did a stint with an outside firm that worked with JPMC.

She readily confirmed that her JPMC laptop shipped to her via her company's address, and her outside management had informed her to "be careful with it." Her JPMC management told her that she had to put it on a "normal network" after she got a dedicated LTE network for it that was literally only used by that device alone. She was reprimanded for not turning on her webcam during meetings, and JPMC IT emailed her when she physically disconnected the camera on her (outside) management's advice after being (again) reprimanded for working in the nude at her desk in her own home. She said "Sorry the camera just stopped working" and the next day a new machine arrived at her home, the address of which was not given to JPMC at any time.

This is how they treat outside contractors. This outside firm has decided to never work with JPMC again and cut off the contract early.

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> She readily confirmed that her JPMC laptop shipped to her via her company's address, and her outside management had informed her to "be careful with it."

That’s standard for company laptops. Nobody should be using the company laptop, which contains sensitive company information and access, to play games or whatever. Use it for work, then go use your personal devices for personal activities.

> Her JPMC management told her that she had to put it on a "normal network" after she got a dedicated LTE network for it that was literally only used by that device alone.

Common security requirement. Mobile connections tend to have frequently changing IPs. This creates problems with security software that tries to detect anomalous behavior.

> She was reprimanded for not turning on her webcam during meetings,

Having video on is a meeting requirement at some companies. It’s not unreasonable, even though some people dislike it. Video meetings are supposed to be analogs of meetings, where people talk face to face.

> She said "Sorry the camera just stopped working" and the next day a new machine arrived at her home, the address of which was not given to JPMC at any time.

I think you’re being fed exaggerations, or your friend doesn’t remember giving them her address. There’s no way a company would just guess an employee’s address and ship a $2,000 laptop there, hoping it arrived at the intended recipient.

> Common security requirement. Mobile connections tend to have frequently changing IPs. This creates problems with security software that tries to detect anomalous behavior.

I don't know about your work, but mine actively encourages us to use our laptops from literally whatever network we want. There's some that only ever tether. What set it off was the fact that the device saw no other neighbors -- they stopped complaining as soon as she put a printer on the same network.

> Having video on is a meeting requirement at some companies.

If that was a requirement, it was inconsistently applied. She was singled out.

> doesn’t remember giving them her address

There's no way they could have known the address she was working at since it wasn't listed anywhere; I id bury the lede here a bit: She was on LTE working from a camper in the middle of a forest. None the less, an in-person courier arrived at the *camp site* she was at the next day with a new laptop.

I wish I was being fed exaggerations, because *that would make more sense*. No, the hanlon's razor here is that they ship all their machines with one of the location tracking systems, in this case probably Absolute (the replacement for Computrace).

Even that is not sufficient to ship a 2,000 machine there.

This is fanfiction or she told them her address and consented to receive the shipment. Delivery companies do not simply take location coordinates to deliver a laptop for a multitude of reasons, including insurance liability.

This also may run afoul of privacy regulations etc depending on where she lives.

Is the premise that the LTE was being used to ensure no connectivity happened when she wasn't using the laptop? And they weren't happy with this because they wanted the laptop to regularly phone home when not in use?

> working in the nude at her desk

The fuck? Who does this

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