You have a network for employee’s personal phones and devices, correct? That still leads to the Internet, correct?

I mean, the entire point of such a network is to keep outside devices off of internal networks that have sensitive data. And because the insides of large buildings can be absolutely sucky at receiving LTE/5G data connections, employees can and will do anything needed to ensure they still have connectivity on personal devices. So just connect the router/bridge to that network, and Teams will be appropriately sanitized and think you are still at home.

I have seen very tiny router/bridges, clear down to an Ethernet dongle with a +5v USB power feed. Quite unobtrusive.

If possible: grab a router and install OpenWRT onto it, and turn it into a wireless bridge. Use the router to connect to the office WiFi, and have a wired connection to your laptop. Turn off the laptop’s wifi for good measure.

Alternatively, if work provides hard lines, bring your own router and turn off WiFi to provide a protected hardline.

There are many ways to prevent the computer from realizing what network you are on.

Who wants to bet that the county commissioner is raking in massive paycheques from flock?

I’ve been running my own eMail server for almost a quarter century, and I have no clue what all the fuss is about.

Sure, providers are getting very picky about what domains that they will receive eMails from. But that’s why I have gMail, Yahoo, and Microsoft webmail accounts - so I can train their systems by exchanging emails once a quarter.

And yes, you do have to be running whitelists and blacklists and tarpits and have a good Fail2Ban in place. And good geoIP system if you want to cut out regions that you are unlikely to ever have legitimate mail originate from. But that’s just common sense security.

My reaction, exactly.

Would love to be a fly on the boardroom wall of any one of those companies which did massive layoffs “because AI”. Probably lowkey panicking on how to get their devs back.

Would sincerely love to know the name of the company. You know, to avoid them. Yup. I’m sure that’s the reason.

Because capitalists are assholes who steal from both ends of the Working Class: they cram down wages while soaking the consumers for all that they are willing to spend.

And it is this method by which the Parasite Class engineers trickle-up economics to achieve such obscene wealth.

1. Actually text me the one-time passcode, rather than saying you sent it to me while instead texting it to the molten core of the earth.

Uhhh… how about NO??

In fact, as a casual security professional (it’s not a core part of my job, but I know a lot more than most ppl), I openly advocate making SMS and eMail illegal for transmitting one-time passcodes.

Why? Because both are critically insecure, cannot be adequately secured outside of laboratory or highly restrictive environments, and can be trivially hijacked.

The only one-time passcode that should be used are one-time password generators (TOTP) such as Google Authenticator or any other such method.

Yes, this requires a little more effort on the part of the site owner, but it’s worlds better than SMS or eMail, and far more user-friendly than forcing the user to open the company’s app just to receive the code (looking at you, Canadian banks and other businesses like Telus).

I am in IT, and personally speaking, with my own machines, I have never had these power settings not be obeyed.

And the only time when I have seen these settings “not be obeyed” in other systems is because either,

1. Someone or some other non-Microsoft software had dicked with power settings through the registry/GPO, or
2. I’ve been able to trace things down to hardware malfunctions or hardware discrepancies.

I have seen that type. The keyboard is usually inset a mm or three along with that indent extending to the edges, allowing airflow to continue even when the lid is closed.

And why couldn’t they have done that to the student loans system?

Like JFC, they could have instantly made themselves immune from trial-by-jury anywhere in America by doing that one tiny thing.

How do so many tech people not know about the power settings that can let the laptop run 100% even with the lid closed and on battery power?

Like, how stupid are they? Has AI really atrophied their tech skills that much?

Now if only Apple will let Firefox run its own rendering engine instead of Safari’s.

Like, that’s the only thing I don’t get. Other apps which are not web browsers, fine. Use Safari. But an actual web browser? FFS, let them use their own engine.

Or a vertically-sliding blade of some kind. A lot more theatrical, that one.

Thankfully that’s one of the first things I uninstall with every Windows computer I set up.

Downside is that this update might force a reinstall. Shit.

I absolutely approve.

I would do it, too, if I could get over the squick of even dealing with them in the first place.

When young people face a system explicitly designed to extract as much wealth out of them as possible, nerfing their economic potential well into adulthood via crushing debt, is such a response really that unexpected?

Even Wozniak has said that while Jobs wasn’t a good engineer, he did know enough to be strategically savvy.

Edited in hindsight for clarity.

Finally, the bean counter steps down so that an engineer can take the reins again.

I mean, at least he didn’t fuck things up like so many other bean counters have. But he was only ever a bean counter.