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IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

theregister.co.uk

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Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#151

Post by ClassyJacket »

trumped wrote: post #142
stefan_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since USB is how you debug on Android and even flash the software, that doesn't ring true. If the Uber case is any indication, they instead give you all the freedom but essentially rootkit the system and keep very comprehensive logs and access controls.

you don't need USB, it can be done using WiFi

You do need USB. You still have to plug the Android phone into the PC every time unfortunately - then you can enable wireless debugging and disconnect the cable for that session. When you come back to your PC later, you have to plug in the cable again. I know this because I'm trying to learn Android development and it's infuriating.

Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#152

Post by floatingatoll »

JdeBP wrote: post #134

This is a third-hand story. Most of it is lifted verbatim from the PCMag article ... * https://www.pcmag.com/news/361098/ibm-employees-cant-use-rem... ... which is in turn sourced from an article in The Register . * https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/10/ibm_bans_all_remova...

I emailed hn@ycombinator.com to ask the admins to fix this.

Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#153

Post by floatingatoll »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #82
Lionsion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going through the trouble of epoxying USB ports, you could probably epoxy the mouse to its port as well. Or just monitor connected USB devices and shutdown if something unapproved is installed, a la USBKill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USBKill

If mouse is epoxied - cut the cable, cut and splice in a male->female cable, connect your device.

Doing so would trigger a USB disconnection event, which under a sufficiently paranoid ecosystem would immediately terminate the entire enclosure and lock the door and call security.

Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#154

Post by MrMorden »

jacquesm wrote: post #95
mseebach wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you could bypass this if you had admin rights but it would leave a trail A move I've seen being put in place at several locations, is removing local admin rights from all users. Those with advanced needs, like developers, gets a VM which is limited to a specific VLAN, with no access to the production environments. The principle is sound, implementation is ... difficult, to say the least.

And if you're willing to run a lot of screencaps or re-type the stuff you see on another computer you can still get the data out. Before modems were common in the hands of unwashed masses my friend and I would transfer files on the phone by spelling out blocks in hex. Slow but with a checksum every 16 bytes it was good enough to get some work done. If the data is high value enough it would probably be worth it.

A malicious insider can always memorize the information to be exfiltrated. (See e.g. Ana Montes.)

Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#155

Post by alexanderdmitri »

emilfihlman wrote: post #73

Banning removable media is 100% the right direction (of course there needs to be exceptions for DSLRs and install media and whatnot, duh) The amount of idiocy I've seen with storing sensitive and work intensive documents in USB sticks is horrible.

yeah, except this is why it's happening now: https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-a...:

Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#157

Post by joyeuse6701 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #130
praneshp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given their history of borrowing technology from other countries without attribution, Impressive choice of words!

It's always been an arms race and nations and companies have always strategically opened themselves up to acquire knowledge. When Germany was trying to catch up to the industrialised UK, they send business people to the UK to copy the layout of factory floors to reimplement them at home. For the longest time, Japan only allowed trade under restrictive conditions to maximise exposure to foreign technologies while mini…

If you honestly don't know why I will explain it to you. It is because it is theft. If I were to steal some or all of your possessions and give it to the disadvantaged, then I suppose you shouldn't honestly get all that upset about it, but I doubt that would happen.

Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#158

Post by dang »

JdeBP wrote: post #134

This is a third-hand story. Most of it is lifted verbatim from the PCMag article ... * https://www.pcmag.com/news/361098/ibm-employees-cant-use-rem... ... which is in turn sourced from an article in The Register . * https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/10/ibm_bans_all_remova...

Ok, we've changed to that original URL from https://boingboing.net/2018/05/10/ibm-bans-usb-sd-cards-flas.... Thanks!

Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#159

Post by coupdejarnac »

dgudkov wrote: post #92
praneshp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given their history of borrowing technology from other countries without attribution, Impressive choice of words!

Strictly speaking, borrowing assumes returning at some point.

Strictly speaking, euphemisms substitute a mild, indirect, or vague term for a harsher term.

Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office

#160

Post by ci5er »

genericone wrote: post #149
ci5er wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in semi- in Asia, and it was pretty loose compared to Financial and Pharma. Maybe things have gotten tighter, but...

I think it depends on the tier at which the company does its business in. Is the OEM involved in the latest nodes, or are they working with sizes >100nm? Secrets are kept tight for any company with any tech relating to the latest nodes <10nm. It just so happens that IBM has been working on sub-10nm processes for a long time, so they have a lot of secrets to keep, hence I am not surprised by the article heading.

I get your point, but even when everyone was at a micron, 100nm was the super-secret stuff. This "ratio" has been a constant for ~40 years.
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