Help My employer IT grinds my gears

[tluv00]

The Exchange lock is already on the phone and is activated when you activate your exchange account if that security protocol is activated by your company. It's not a big deal you baby. Just make your password 0000 or space space space space so it's easy to login. That or lockpicker and you are done.

If your company is going to give you remote access to your email then they have the right to know it's secure if you lose your phone or something.

I had my DINC connecting to our Exchange but it's not an approved device yet so I got an email to deactivate it until it was approved. It has remote wipe so I hope to be able to use it pretty soon once they do testing but with the information that I can and do get in my emails I doubt it will be this year.

 

[garment69]

Doesn't "much less responsibility and more pay plus I get to work from home and hang out with my giant dog" trump having to type in a password on a phone?

Seriously, if that is your biggest problem consider yourself a lucky SOB.

 

[A.Nonymous]

Life lesson:

Company owned devices are for work information, personal devices are for personal information. If they want you to have access to your company email on the road, they should provide the device.

Never EVER allow your employer to access your personal device.

Ever.

I generally agree with this. At my office I'm given a choice of a company phone or a phone I pick that they then re-imburse me for. I picked the latter. Most of my co-workers pick the former. They see it as they are getting a free phone that they then use for personal use in their off-work time. I see it that my boss could walk up to me right now, fire me for posting on forums when I should be working and demand my phone. He now has access to all my personal contacts, personal e-mail, files I've got there, etc..... No thanks. My employer doesn't give us e-mail on our phones anyway as he feels that a computer tech with e-mail on their phones makes them less effective.

No, they can't, at least not on a non-blackberry phone.

What they can do is require that your device has it's PIN lock feature turned on in order for you to access company mail. They cannot read your phone.

However, they can initiate a remote wipe of your phone if it is tied in to their Exchange server. Since we are talking about Android phones, I'm sure there are apps that can be used to prevent this feature from actually happening on your phone, just like the one that will bypass the PIN requirement. Of course if they ever found out, they'd likely not allow your device to access mail anymore, and may even try to wipe it (or tell you to so you don't get fired).

Incidentally, at my current job I set up the Exchange environment before I moved to a different department, and I made sure that my account was listed as an exception to these security requirements

Everything here is correct. Using Exchange you can remotely wipe a device and you can enforce a PIN. If you bypass these settings they can terminate you.

Making yourself exempt from the security requirements I think is a BS move, but that's just my opinion.

Not doing so gives them lots of leverage and power over you. Don't let them have that power.

I tend to agree with this. I know a guy who hired on here and ported his phone number to the company phone. I've told him before that I think that's just stupid. The company now owns not just his phone, but his number as well. I told him the other day that if he ever leaves the company, he's at the mercy of the company as to whether he gets his phone number back or not. His plan is to just throw a fit if that happens until they give him his phone number back. To me, this is a stupid plan.

 

[Terabethia]

I guess my deal is when im on the road. I havent tried my hands free yet but if i cant dial a client I really dont want to be one of those people typing while driving. Not a huge deal but I guess they just got on my nerves cause it came out of nowhere, no email, no call, no memo. Its their network and their info I guess moving to a much lower position than I was used to I just see what I would do differently.

Bolding is mine...

You shouldn't be texting OR talking while you are driving! Period. End of story. In some states it's even illegal, even with a BT device.

I am amused, and concerned , that you are okay with the distraction of taking a business call while you are trying to pay attention to the road but you are "concerned" by the 2 seconds it will take to enter a passcode.

Oh yea... and I'm that bitch that will call the "how's my driving" number on people's trucks when I see a driver talking on his cell while using a company car. That's how strongly I feel about it.

 

[Deleted User]

With that kind of access to your phone, they could probably look anything you've done on company time and fire you if they want. What if they bricked your phone for false reasons or looked up your call, text history.

Yeah, to clarify what was said above, this is only a security policy. It's not any kind of nefarious snooping or app installed on your phone that gives them control. It's compliance built into the operating system to allow these features, so by the same token, remote snooping is not built into the operating system.

About the only thing that can be used for snooping is if you are forced to be logged into a VPN. In that situation, traffic is traveling over the company's servers so they can snoop your traffic if they want.

I would, however, make sure to keep religious backups of your phone with the capacity for remote (or too many incorrect passwords) wipe installed. Wouldn't it be fun to find out that your phone woke up in your pocket and you managed to dial 5 incorrect passwords with your thigh?

edit: also, don't work around the security restrictions. First off, it's not worth your job if they find out. Second of all, if you lost your phone and someone gleaned company information from it, you may be held liable.

 

[sabrewings]

Bolding is mine...

You shouldn't be texting OR talking while you are driving! Period. End of story. In some states it's even illegal, even with a BT device.

Just my opinion, but that is excessive. What's the difference between talking to someone on a handsfree device and talking to someone in your passenger seat? It's actually safer to use handsfree because people tend to look over at their passenger while talking taking their eyes off the road. Next it'll be mandatory to put up privacy glass and sound deadening between you and everyone else in your car.

 

[NNN]

Next it'll be mandatory to put up privacy glass and sound deadening between you and everyone else in your car.

OMG Sign me up!!

 

[A.Nonymous]

edit: also, don't work around the security restrictions. First off, it's not worth your job if they find out. Second of all, if you lost your phone and someone gleaned company information from it, you may be held liable.

These are very good points. In the second case you'd probably be fired and you'd be held liable for the information lost. You could cost yourself a job and thousands of dollars.

 

[necosino]

OMG Sign me up!!

Farts would be trapped inside as well though

 

[legend700]

Life lesson:

Company owned devices are for work information, personal devices are for personal information. If they want you to have access to your company email on the road, they should provide the device.

Never EVER allow your employer to access your personal device.

Ever.

being a guy stuck with a Tmob BB from work I'll disagree. I'll gladly take the corporate security on my phone in order to have 1 device as long as they don't make it so you can't add apps etc. PAssword and remote wipes not a big deal.

For the first 8 months I was here I had corp email on my personal BB and it was great, Last summer when they required corp owned devices and Tmob ones at that pissed me off.

 

[URNotEntitled]

Just my opinion, but that is excessive. What's the difference between talking to someone on a handsfree device and talking to someone in your passenger seat? ...

Not much, really. In reality it's distractions that cause accidents, not just phones. I've seen cases where a conversation causes the driver to lose focus on the road just as much as looking down at one's phone would.

That said, many of us have learned to carry on a conversation without looking directly at the person we're talking to. It's hard to say the same thing about dialing a phone or sending a text. And while hands-free devices would seem to be the answer, it will take generations for humans to be as efficient at using those to dial a number without looking as we are with chatting with someone a mere 3' away.

 

[jasoraso]

Before I got an Android phone, I had a windows Mobile phone. The exchange server I used required a medium level of security: remote wipe was enabled, and a PIN was required to access the phone if it was locked. However, the phone/security settings as dictated by the exchange server allowed the USER to dictate how frequently the PIN had to be entered. I was able set a time on my WM phone that said that after 4 hours of non-use, that a PIN would be required, or if I intentionally locked the phone.

When I switched to my dinc, with the same exchange server, I was unable to specify a time to lock the phone. I was very frustrated that every time I wanted to make a call, or check something on the phone, that I had to unlock it. This behavior was beyond the requirements set by the sysadmin of the exchange server. Android's support of exchange server is still being developed, and it doesn't have all of the options available that it could.

If I hadn't found a way around the constant pin requirement (lockpicker) then the phone would have been going back.

 

[Robhimself]

Bolding is mine...

You shouldn't be texting OR talking while you are driving! Period. End of story. In some states it's even illegal, even with a BT device.

I am amused, and concerned , that you are okay with the distraction of taking a business call while you are trying to pay attention to the road but you are "concerned" by the 2 seconds it will take to enter a passcode.

Oh yea... and I'm that bitch that will call the "how's my driving" number on people's trucks when I see a driver talking on his cell while using a company car. That's how strongly I feel about it.

Not illegal in NY to talk on a hands free and I am responsible enough to do that. I think you may be mistaken otherwise ford sync wouldnt exist nor would any similiar in car factory installed hands free system. And while im on the job I will answer client calls when driving, i dont look away from the road ever unless im checking a blind spot or a mirror. Those are completely different leves of distraction... At least they are for a responsible driver which I can't speak for everyone.

 

[A.Nonymous]

Not much, really. In reality it's distractions that cause accidents, not just phones. I've seen cases where a conversation causes the driver to lose focus on the road just as much as looking down at one's phone would.

That said, many of us have learned to carry on a conversation without looking directly at the person we're talking to. It's hard to say the same thing about dialing a phone or sending a text. And while hands-free devices would seem to be the answer, it will take generations for humans to be as efficient at using those to dial a number without looking as we are with chatting with someone a mere 3' away.

You would not want to drive with me then. I spent 6 years as a 911 dispatcher and had to spend 8-12 hours a day talking on the phone, the radio and with another person next to me all the same time. I drive around talking on the phone, fiddling with the radio and shoving crappy fast food in my mouth while planning my next stop of the day all at the same time. I haven't been in an accident that was my fault in more than 10 years.

 

[gts]

I have this same thing on my phone but it has to be an 8 digit code and it has to have letters and numbers. It’s my personal phone, the company does not pay for it in any way and I feel it’s a bit of invasion of my personal belongings that they enforce this.

I think working for a bank as a mortgage LO the biggest thing they don’t want people to get is my contacts. Not that there is any real info for people on it anyway it’s just a name and a phone number in most cases but they are MY clients NOT the banks anyway. So it really pisses me off that they could wipe the phone. I do back up my client list to Excel every now and again (reminds me I need to do that now) so that if they do wipe my phone they don’t take all my personal contacts with it.

When I went from my old company to my new company my old company had this same policy though I only had a 4 digit number I had to enter so it was a little less of a hassle but when I went to link up to my new company my phone wiped, and not just the company info but EVERYTHING on the phone including all my pictures and everything. That I find to be TOTAL BS!!! Luckily I had backed up my contact list just before in the event something like this happened.

I am very intrigued about this Lockpicker app. I’ll be downloading it as soon as I’m done with this thread. Does anyone know if it disables their ability to wipe the phone as well?

Terabethia just because you’re incapable (as many others) of talking and driving doesn’t mean others aren’t. So you’re telling me when you have a passenger you tell them they must be silent while you drive? Well some of us can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. Others…well go join Opra in her idealistic, un-realistic, sheltered world. The part I will agree with is people, like you, who I see talking/texting on the phone, swerving between lanes, not using their turn signals should be pulled over and ticketed or called in. If you are capable of driving properly then it doesn’t bother me.


I just went to look up Lockpicker and it says it doesn't work on 2.2. Does anyone know if this has been updated at all yet? I was all excited there for a minute!

 

[miharuchristy]

You can consider products like Divide by Enterproid which creates a separate, secure work profile on your device which you can use to check work email and perform other business activities. The exchange password policy will be limited to logging into the work profile only rather than the entire phone. Also if your company ever needs to wipe your phone, they can only do so to your work profile and your personal data will be safe.

 

[Afzoomie67]

Yeah. Just set the password however you want it. Like do the drawing one, and draw a house. Something simple.