@allq you dirty little hacker :P Just been reading the backlog...

@MichaelFrank I won the unofficial Hacker Award one time as an intern at a large company (I was under 20 years old). Well, there wasn't an award at all. They gave me a week off as "punishment" for installing WinPcap on my system. They thought I was some kind of intruder in their network.

I was just trying to diagnose my program.

lol

I got a stern talking-to by clueless HR drones who have never done anything with a computer besides fire up MS Word (the Internet wasn't that big back then, so I doubt they had a personal email account, even).

They were "relieved" when I explained how innocent I was and that I was just trying to do my work, so they decided not to fire me (I guess that had been the original plan).

Apparently the big security honcho wasn't happy unless he saw a bodybag, but my manager stuck his neck out for me.

I keep using this word... but that's fascinating

A different time I suppose

While working in retail I had an IT manager try and get me formally warned for following instructions his staff member had given me.

@SpartanDonut There are still clueless people in IT operations who will freak out over an employee installing stuff. The core issue is that people don't trust each other, even within the same company.

And people are needlessly paranoid of malware, even in an environment where you have veteran software engineers who can tell a scam by its scent a continent away.

And the whole network is bogged down by gateways and proxies that do mandatory scanning on all inbound and outbound traffic to begin with, so the stuff can't even get onto your HDD if it's infected.

Almost every professional environment I've ever worked in has been completely allergic to the very concept of introducing foreign software of ANY kind into their environment, without some big-wig meeting where a bunch of 60 year olds who can't type their name on a keyboard nod their heads to a PowerPoint presentation while sipping coffee.

And if the presentation is being given by "a guy they trust", even if the software WERE malware, they'd give it the rubber stamp.

Fuck organizations like that. People who think that way. Seriously. They need to die off like the dinosaurs they are, so people who have a clue can take over.

Rant over.

I mean, what's the point? If you aren't even going to try and disassemble the software (if it's proprietary) or audit the source code in detail (if it's FOSS), why have a meeting to discuss whether you want to bring it into your environment? Either do or don't. And in general, when someone identifies a good use case for a piece of software, you should do rather than don't.

Oh, I'm sorry. I said Rant over two messages ago.

I'm happy at a company where all we have is an internet filter that can be removed with a simple request and full admin access to our PCs. :)

I work at a place where we try to limit our users from being Administrators... But it's a very political place