A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
People have already answered well enough though many of them mention IP addresses and you said you were non techy so wanted to add this
Giving away your IP address is not that big a deal, you do it every time you visit a website without a VPN or connect to pretty much any web service
(You still shouldn't post it publicly of course but it's unlikely your employer is going to dox you, and if they do it's probably illegal)
Their employer don't need their IP address to be able to dox their location. They likely have their physical address already. IP address locations are self-reported, unreliable and usually onyl point to a city or a wider area.
Duo is Cisco's version of authentication. The only permissions it has on my phone is notifications.
In its current form, it doesn't appear to let your company's IT department control your phone.
Do you have any concerns about having it? I mostly don't want my phone activities or location tracked.
If you are accessing your work email through your phone, you're going to be pinging the server with your phone's IP address. Duo isn't adding any tracking beyond that.
How specific? Most companies can tell if you are connecting to the mail server from an IP in a different city without needing any app to do that.
Just within the city, doing paperwork from home instead of at a campus.
your IP will be the easy give away if they care to audit. a possible solution is to VPN to the campus and nat your traffic from a campus IP, but now we are getting into additional questionable action.
If theyβre on their phone they should just make sure they donβt connect to their home WiFi or their campus WiFi on their phone during work hours. All anyone will see them connecting with then is their cell network IP, prolly just an ipv6 address, and there wonβt ever be an obvious tell that they are in a specific location in town.
Iβve got duo; we had to have it at my uni for 2FA for our school emails. As far as I can tell it really isnβt very invasive. That said, I do think it tracks general location but I donβt believe it goes further than that.
Duo tracks your location. Not exact location but IP address and city.
Only IP address. Location days from IP address is a guess at best
Duo is just a widely used third party multifactor authentication app, which is useful for organizational cybersecurity.
I had it on my phone for years working at a hospital and really never had any privacy concerns with it the way I have with other apps. The convenience of being able to respond to work emails on your phone is totally worth it
Too much. If your work needs you to have constant email access they should pay for you to have a second phone.
They didn't say their employer needed them to do it, they said they wanted to
As others have pointed out duo seems to collect pretty minimal data
Main issue is that you have your work e-mail on your pocket, and can see them 24/7
If you have an android phone you can make a work and home profile so the two sessions are totally separate. It does mean swapping back ans forth between profiles.
No more swapping on modern Android. The apps just run side-by-side.
Im still having to swap User in the MultiUser profiles, if I want them sandboxed as separate. Do you have another method?
Don't.
Two reasons:
Many employers require you to install phone-management software as part of the data loss mitigation/data exfiltration requirements - and those requirements might be set by their insurers.
This gives them the ability to remotely lock or wipe your phone at any time - useful to them because they remove company data if you lose your phone, or you leave the company, or are suspended for any reason. Obviously that'll also lose any personal data on the phone, but that's your problem, not theirs. They can also monitor its location and similar things.
That's obviously a reason why you should never, ever, use a work-issued device for personal use - besides it being against their acceptable use policy. If your employer requires you to check email then they are required to issue you the means to do so. They cannot insist that you use any personal devices for that.
It's bad for your mental health.
Keep work to work hours. Keep work devices for work. Keep personal hours and devices for your personal use.
This physical separation requires a little discipline but, having been on all sides of this barrier (employer, employee, suffering with poor mental health, and currently, in good mental health) - I know this to be the only way to achieve a health balance.
I'm forgetting the episode but darknet diaries podcast had one where a guy took revenge against a former employer and wiped out an entire schools email system and wiped all phones that has logged into the school email. This was done from compromising the school's outlook admin account.
That was the first time i learned that logging into the employer email could give them the level of control over your device. Fortunately i never have done that for the #2 reason.
This is great context, thanks.
A followup question, if you don't mind. I am running stock android 14, which offers multiple users. My main user account is my personal (nothing work related), and a second user account is my work profile, complete with phone-management software. The two accounts are based upon different Google accounts.
If my work were to remote wipe, I have assumed that would only affect the (second) user profile which has those apps, and not the main user account.
Do you know if that is correct?
Ask for a physical device like a yubikey instead of the duo app.
Use the web browser to access email.
I have a 6 year old work ipad and we buy our own toner cartridges for our office printer. They're not buying anything. They put millions into door-swiping, staff-tracking security but we have playgrounds that don't have fences. Public education is super fucked up.
I think they cost $20. Either this, nothing, or give in and give them access.
+1 to being out of contact β It can honestly wait until the next time youβre near a work computer. (Iβm hoping a work laptop or something is involved here.)
Please don't be a hero. Work your 40 hours and then stop. You didn't clarify, but I'm slightly worried that you want to be more connected which might lead you to increase your workload or working hours, and that will make your job less sustainable in the long run, and we really want people like you to stick around for many years to come.
Oh no, I'm definitely not looking to put in more than 40 hours. I spend most of my day driving from school to school and i just want my teachers to be able to reach me- without giving my cell to everyone. Also, i share a one-room office with 15 people, so i like to do meetings and paperwork from home even though I'm not supposed to. Thank you for your concern.
I've managed Duo installations. The administrator can see your phone number, your device os and version, history of authentication attempts.
I would never mix private data with work related data. You should get a second phone for work related things. As pointed out by others, it may be technically possible to have both on the phone without interfering with each other (which also would be more convenient), but keeping things separated physically has another advantage: Data you are handling/ generating at work belongs to your employer. This means that he can demand (problbly backed up by law) to search your phone when things should go south in the future. You don't want your employer to have a peek at your personal phone, do you? Also, your employer might want you to install tracking/ logging software to make sure you really do the work. By having a dedicated phone for work related stuff your private stuff is out of focus.
You should get a second phone for work related things
Slight correction: OP's employer should get him a second device if they require him to access work email away from his office during work hours.
You can always get a cheap prepaid burner
It's a slippery slope. They may require your phone to have password or Microsoft intune. Plus, they will know you have it on your phone.
If it's Android, set up a work profile and put the VPN and email on that.