[WWLink]

Some employers are just straight up control freaks.

Sometimes it's misguided thoughts about security and third party keyboards from "unapproved vendors" (which is not entirely invalid to be concerned about, but unlikely to be an attack vector)......

But other times, they really do want you to use exactly what they provide you and nothing else. Things like "looking uniform and professional" or not wanting employees bringing their personal belongings to the workplace or whatever nonsense they come up with.

[gumby]

> Some employers are just straight up control freaks.

Sometimes it makes sense, infuriating as it may be. My partner works for a bank and says that daily someone brings up an annoyance due to central IT's restrictions, but nobody wants to be a vector for exfiltration of customer data.

> Things like "looking uniform and professional"

Yeah OK, anybody like that is a control freak!

In extreme freaky control: Tom Siebel was like that at Siebel Systems: you can wear anything you want to work unless customers might see you, in which case you have to wear suit and tie (men) or equivalent. Doesn't sound so bad -- just salespeople, right? -- except that they would tour prospective customers through the development areas so...everybody had to wear suit and a tie.

[Nextgrid]

> nobody wants to be a vector for exfiltration of customer data

I have a hunch that the companies that are most obsessed with this are also those who routinely outsource to third-world boiler rooms and are clients of very competent & secure companies such as Okta.

[gumby]

The banks are under pretty tight regulation in this regard. I have no illusion that bank management cares about the customers’ concerns but they sure do care about the regulators!

My partner has no exposure to live bank data (not even her own — her team all get bank accounts so they can see what it looks like to be a customer) and she has said to me that she and her colleagues are glad they don’t have to worry about accidentally leaking anything. I guess there must be other teams that have to deal with that.

To my surprise nothing she is exposed to is outsourced overseas.