4d ago

Do you browse the fediverse at work?

During downtime I didn't really care about surfing on reddit, but it does feel a bit weirder to surf into some "random" Lemmy instance like lemmy.dbzer0.com on my work computer for some reason. Do you surf the fediverse at work?

41 comments

Yes but not from work devices.
- This is the way, after all, Lemmy has lots of great mobile apps.

Be careful browsing federated social media on work internet. You don't know where requests will be made, I've seen a post of someone getting in trouble because lemmynsfw was pre-loaded by their browser.
Use a VPN
- Ouff great call! Then I'll just keep browsing on my phone.
- Some instances at least will proxy the images requests, naking all traffic appears to be from your home instance but it's not a guarantee. We had to turn it off because of some issues early during the rollout, we'll look into turning it back on soon.
  
  Mine is setup like that as well, but IIRC it's only for thumbnails. When you open an image, it's requested from the original server.
  Browser pre-loading does DNS requests and sometimes even loads the full page in advance without even clicking a link, for faster load times. So it all depends on your app/browser/instance combo.
- why would a VPN help with that
  
  Http: Your employer can see every webpage you visit on the work WiFi. If you visit PornHub, they can see which specific videos you watched. If you were logged into your account, they can (depending on how the site is set up) likely even see account details if you visited your account page.
  Https: Your employer can see the base URLs you visited, but not specific content. They can see you visited PornHub, but can’t see which specific videos.
  VPN: You create an encrypted connection with a VPN server, so all of your traffic passes through that. Now your employer only sees the encrypted traffic to and from the VPN. If you visited PornHub, all the employer would see is the encrypted VPN traffic. The same rules about http and https still apply to the VPN server, (for instance, on https the VPN provider can see you visited PornHub, but can’t see which specific videos,) but your employer basically only sees encrypted white noise.
  Tor: VPN servers connected together in a chain, with an entry node, secondary node, and exit node. Since the VPN server can still follow the same rules about http and https, Tor takes it a step farther by obfuscating which user is connecting to which site. You connect to the entry node and establish an encrypted connection. It sees your traffic to/from an encrypted connection, and passes it to the secondary node. The secondary node only sees the encrypted traffic, which it passes to the exit node. The exit node establishes an encrypted connection with the site, which it uses to pass the site data to/from you. So no single node sees you, the unencrypted traffic, and the site. So (without owning at least the entry and exit nodes and performing a rather technically complicated timing attack) nobody has any way of figuring out which site you’re visiting. If you visited PornHub, the entry node would only see you, the secondary node would only see encrypted traffic, and the exit node would only see PornHub.
  
  If you use a VPN, your employer/supervisor can't see that you are on Pornhub, although, they do know you are browsing... something... that transfers a lot of data, and they know what VPN you are using.
  (assuming you are on your own device, if you use a work computer, they will know regardless)
- lemmynsfw is already blocked by corporate wifi. Nothing to worry about.
  
  Trying to access blocked content is still a major red flag, and there's over 500 instances on lemmy atm. I wouldn't risk it.
  
  Wow its getting popular.

I only use work hardware for work. I only use work networks for work. I have a cell phone off wifi for everything else
- Same, but I do have factorio on my work laptop. For during the train ride.
  
  The IT department knows. They chuckle when the scans come back.

No. I’ve got a cushy job that I enjoy and they treat us well so I just work. Plus there isn’t enough content on here for the whole day.

absolutely, e.g. right now

Im doing that right now :) but I also never do anything personal on my work computer
- I do a lot of personal surfing on my work computer... But in my country the employer isn't allowed to track what I do on the computer as long as I haven't committed a crime 🤷
  
  same here, but I dont trust them, if they can technically and easily track me without me or anyone noticing I dont want to risk that

I don't do any personal browsing on my work computer except checking the weather before driving home. I do check Lemmy on my phone throughout the day, though.

Doin it right now....
From my phone of course. Work gear logs everything, always

The benefit of being IT at work is that I’m also in charge of the filter. I’m even allowed to setup a VPN tunnel to access my home network, but then again, you can do that sort of thing with an 8-employee company.

Just start up your own instance at a suitable domain name. "computerexcellencetrainingcourses.com" or something.

Besides listening to podcasts, browsin Lemmy/Reddit is the only entertainment I ever use my phone for.

Mastodon is my main social-media daily driver, so I do check it out during downtime at work. Lemmy less so, but every now and then.
I'm fortunate to have a decent data plan as well as good mobile signal in my workplace, so I just keep my phone off the company wi-fi to avoid any worry about what I'm loading through my company network.