11–20 of 506 posts
Just ask them to send you a company issued computer. Use that one to do the work for that one client.
Soc compliance is not ensured by spying on employees activities. That excuse alone is a complete bullshit. If this were happening to me, I'd tell them exactly that and refuse to work under surveillance. This is completely unacceptable even if it is getting somewhat common.
That part is clearly Security Theater. Having worked with real security for decades (consulting, training, building server monitoring and alerting tools, building commercial firewalls) I get quite provoked by fake security. For example, this "agent" checks for disk encryption. It does not check for password strength, or even if there is a password (you can use full disk encryption under Linux without any password). It also require anti-virus, which under Linux is more likely to do harm than any good.
What I don't understand is why they choose to do this to their engineering team. I don't know much about SOC 2, but from what I have read, the "concern" is mainly production related. Most of the engineers, including most of the really senior ones, never access production systems.
It’s an interesting question, and one that we’ve evaluated with respect to our own customers, who lean on freelancers and other small vendors. Getting back to my original statement about the nature of the business relationship, we’re asking questions about what level of technical sophistication a freelancer has and whether they’ve established enough of their own policies and procedures to meet regulatory requirements independently.
Often times, that’s just not practical. Even then, my preference is for the client to provide a managed device to the freelancer or to offer them self-managed options with documentation requirements to prove compliance. Forcing a contractor to install an agent like you’re describing onto their own device feels like a privacy intrusion, and may also represent a risk to the contractor’s other customers.
You have a third option: Install a VM for working with your client and let their agent run in that.
You have two options: (1) quit or (2) "renegotiate the relationship", as the saying goes. Specifically, it's perfectly reasonable for you to say "OK -- if you're willing to provide me with a dedicated laptop". They can say no of course, but so can you. Or you can request a rate increase (which they would probably say no to, if they won't provide you with a laptop). Either way, those are you choices. Yes it sucks to a…
My client is quite reasonable, and is willing to compensate a new laptop. It took me less then a few minutes after I read the mail to come up with algorithms to implement this thing without compromising my security or privacy. VM. Using an old laptop and remove the wi-fi card. Get a new PC or laptop. Wire whatever I choose on a vlan that goes directly to a VPN server in another country. However, I still don't like th…
They are looking for their interests (minimize security breaches) and that's a perfectly understandable position and solution to the problem. In this day and age the risk from a breach is much larger than in the past.
Since they are willing to provide the necessary equipment for that then there is no issue from your end.
Is it so difficult to define deliverables and pay for completed and tested work? The business value of any given function point is the same whether it took 100 hours to develop or 10 hours. Of course, more productive programmers would benefit under such an arrangement.
Oh wait ... the problem is that requirements specifications are never clear nor complete enough and there aren't any tests to confirm correctness of the implementation.
You have a third option: Install a VM for working with your client and let their agent run in that.