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Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the new normal?

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Re: Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the new normal?

#191

Post by realusername »

ciphol wrote: post #108
hericium wrote: post #31

The concept of "working from home" forced by the pandemic is harming the "remote working" community by extensive invigilation and moving harmful office behaviors to private space. I talked to an Intel HR person (informal chat, I never applied there nor planned to) 2-3 months ago and after I stated that after a decade of remote work, I see pandemic-driven introduction of harmful concepts like spying on previously trus…

This reminds me of how adblocking software worked great when only a handful of nerds used it. Then when adblocking became more mainstream, sites bothered to develop workarounds to make ads show up anyway. Adblockers now try to develop workarounds to the workarounds, but it's a constant battle. Was it great when I was the only one with adblocking software? Yeah, for me. But it was worse for society as a whole, most of…

We just need some proper laws to remove the possibility of interfering with adblocking software

Re: Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the new normal?

#192

Post by illud_tempus »

bell-cot wrote: post #137
illud_tempus wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an exclusive clause, so at the moment I work only for them (and on a few open source projects). Legally I work for a company in the EU which I own. They are willing to pay for a decent laptop. That is not the issue. The issue is that I feel quite upset about this requirement. My motivation to discuss it here is to get an idea if I am out of touch with current reality (like some old guys some times are) - or…

Drat. One of our clients at $Day_Job is a laboratory - subject to arbitrary (from their viewpoint) rules for certifications, etc. If the certifying agency says "round this value to 3 decimal places" - it doesn't much matter if $Client hates that idea, or if it is (science-wise) wrong. One can argue with them...if done wisely, that occasionally works. I'd be tempted to look into the SOC 2 stuff. Especially real-world…

> have someone really familiar with SOC 2 certification working for them?

Not that I'm aware of.

I don't know the details. My interpretation is that some manager hired some company to help them with this certification that the sales people says that they need.

Re: Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the new normal?

#194

Post by nopcode »

I don't know Drata but to me this is very common. And I don't see the problem. I usually carry ~3 laptops provided by my client or use remote citrix machines.

In the rare event I have a customer that let's me work on my own hardware, I use VMs. VMs make it easy to segregate and backup work.

Re: Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the new normal?

#196

Post by stuaxo »

shaicoleman wrote: post #112

A monitoring agent is used on platforms such as UpWork, where you often deal with untrusted contractors for hourly contracts. That is a part of the contract that both sides need to agree on before starting any work. The screenshots can then be as part of the dispute resolution process, and can also protect the contractor in case of disputes from unscrupulous companies. The agent captures screenshots every few minutes…

People that pay the least trust the least - which makes sense, people know they are being screwed and treat things accordingly.

Re: Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the new normal?

#197

Post by luma »

secondcoming wrote: post #162
vegai_ wrote: post #24

Sounds like you'll be purchasing a new laptop for that client and bill them for the price of the laptop, and several additional hours on maintaining said laptop.

OP could just use virtual machines. I use my own equipment for my work and it's all on a VM. Everything work related is done on the VM. If I leave all I have to do is delete the VM.

I'm surprised I had to scroll this far into the comments to find this obvious answer. Each of my customers has a dedicated VM and I compartmentalize all sensitive data into each environment. In this manner, I can run each customer's goofy VPN client, endpoint scanning, device policy compliance etc without any of it touching my primary system. If there is some security exposure in one of the VMs, it won't impact my primary system or adjacent systems (short of a VM escape exploit).

Re: Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the new normal?

#198

Post by illud_tempus »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #70
gnfargbl wrote: post #45

If you are a freelancer then your contract should allow you to do work for others. In which case, your response to this client has to be "Sorry, but my business laptop potentially has data from other clients on it. I can't let you install this monitoring agent without violating my contractual confidentially agreement with those other clients. I always maintain client confidentiality and will do the same for you. If y…

> If you want to ship me a dedicated laptop for your engagement, I would be happy to install whatever you want on it. I wouldn't offer this. You're still going to need to login to Github/email/wherever with your personal password, manage private keys, and stuff like that. Just say no.

I don't use my private accounts for anything related to this client.
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