Test Equipment Anonymous

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:00 am

mansaxel wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 5:13 am

Specmaster wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 9:07 pm
I can say with complete sincerity that I never came across other companies who issued iPhones to their staff. Plenty of people elected to have an iPhone for their own personal use, sure.

Android being the security nightmare it is, iPhone is the only phone issued at my present employer. The same goes for our military; they approved Windows Phone and iPhones, and Windows Phone is a dodo now. Was then, honestly. But the point still stands.

The same thing might apply here with our military, I'm not sure but it is most certainly Android it appears to be the phone of choice by companies.

Only retarded companies with no understanding of network security. A 8-year-old can root any Android smartPwn using nothing more than tools found on yoobChoob.

mnem
*plays a dirge on comb-and-waxpaper kazoo for his Nokia 521*



PPS: (yes, I mean that in the literal sense; "an entity considerably less advanced than its peers")

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:00 am

mansaxel wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 5:13 am

Specmaster wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 9:07 pm
I can say with complete sincerity that I never came across other companies who issued iPhones to their staff. Plenty of people elected to have an iPhone for their own personal use, sure.

Android being the security nightmare it is, iPhone is the only phone issued at my present employer. The same goes for our military; they approved Windows Phone and iPhones, and Windows Phone is a dodo now. Was then, honestly. But the point still stands.

The same thing might apply here with our military, I'm not sure but it is most certainly Android appears to be the phone of choice by companies.

I'm not sure where you get your data from. It doesn't factor in on major corps. The security advice for most orgs is to actually just buy Apple. That comes from multiple high profile and high expertise security consultancies. The issue is not just Android, which has some serious security compromises, but the Android device vendors not having control over their full hardware supply chain or embedded software (think bootloaders, controllers, GSM/LTE stack).

mnementh wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:01 am

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:00 am

mansaxel wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 5:13 am

Android being the security nightmare it is, iPhone is the only phone issued at my present employer. The same goes for our military; they approved Windows Phone and iPhones, and Windows Phone is a dodo now. Was then, honestly. But the point still stands.

The same thing might apply here with our military, I'm not sure but it is most certainly Android it appears to be the phone of choice by companies.

Only retarded companies with no understanding of network security. A 8-year-old can root any Android smartPwn using nothing more than tools found on yoobChoob.

mnem
*plays a dirge on comb-and-waxpaper kazoo for his Nokia 521*



PPS: (yes, I mean that in the literal sense; "an entity considerably less advanced than its peers")

In all companies I have worked for there have been areas of the company network that you would need special clearance to gain access to and is multi-layered to keep unauthorised people out. That network is never ever made accessible via mobile phones. The phones are generally only used to enable customers to contact their contact directly, to allow the company to be updated with customer requests etc, nothing anywhere near remotely sensitive, they were introduced because of the increased savings to be had by not having to design and print special forms for sales teams and design engineers to fill in with details of their planned movements etc and the cost of having to employ somebody to collate that information and the time lost trying to find a working phone booth several times a day to call in to the office in case a customer or a family member was trying to make urgent contact with you. Very few company phones need such security, most only care about being able to have customised programs written and installed with remote access to the phones for their IT dept. to be able to carry out tweaks etc to said programs etc. Seriously anyone would think that you were all secret agents or something.

I really doubt that anyone would have the slightest interest in knowing that ABC consultancy wishes to make an appointment with me to discuss a new Hospital that they are working on, geez

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:54 am

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:00 am

mansaxel wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 5:13 am

Android being the security nightmare it is, iPhone is the only phone issued at my present employer. The same goes for our military; they approved Windows Phone and iPhones, and Windows Phone is a dodo now. Was then, honestly. But the point still stands.

The same thing might apply here with our military, I'm not sure but it is most certainly Android appears to be the phone of choice by companies.

I'm not sure where you get your data from. It doesn't factor in on major corps. The security advice for most orgs is to actually just buy Apple. That comes from multiple high profile and high expertise security consultancies. The issue is not just Android, which has some serious security compromises, but the Android device vendors not having control over their full hardware supply chain or embedded software (think bootloaders, controllers, GSM/LTE stack).

For the record, most company phones are used to enable customers to make direct contact with their sales person, specifications engineer etc and as such they have zero contact with anything sensitive either commercially or state secrets etc. I willingly accept that there are cases where such security is required and that used to the domain of Blackberry which was supposed to, I'm given to understand, have the best security of any phone. Anybody hacking into my old company phone at the time would have had no use for the kind of information on it. A list of my appointments, my contacts within other companies and details of messages between my colleagues, not rich pickings there.

Edit:

On the other hand I have pulled the trigger on a Pixel 6A, and it should be in my hot sweaty hand sometime tomorrow, I'll let you know my thoughts about it once I've played with it a bit.

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 2:51 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:54 am

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:00 am
The same thing might apply here with our military, I'm not sure but it is most certainly Android appears to be the phone of choice by companies.

I'm not sure where you get your data from. It doesn't factor in on major corps. The security advice for most orgs is to actually just buy Apple. That comes from multiple high profile and high expertise security consultancies. The issue is not just Android, which has some serious security compromises, but the Android device vendors not having control over their full hardware supply chain or embedded software (think bootloaders, controllers, GSM/LTE stack).

For the record, most company phones are used to enable customers to make direct contact with their sales person, specifications engineer etc and as such they have zero contact with anything sensitive either commercially or state secrets etc. I willingly accept that there are cases where such security is required and that used to the domain of Blackberry which was supposed to, I'm given to understand, have the best security of any phone. Anybody hacking into my old company phone at the time would have had no use for the kind of information on it. A list of my appointments, my contacts within other companies and details of messages between my colleagues, not rich pickings there.

Edit:

On the other hand I have pulled the trigger on a Pixel 6A, and it should be in my hot sweaty hand sometime tomorrow, I'll let you know my thoughts about it once I've played with it a bit.

It's not really that which is the issue for most people. The sensitivity is not a problem. What happens is your entire business gets fucked over by malware and you're up shit creek with no access to your banking, payroll or operations.

Enjoy the Pixel. Well worth the extra few quid over a cheaper handset. Mine is in this case: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09S8TJQQL

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 6:31 pm

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 2:51 pm
For the record, most company phones are used to enable customers to make direct contact with their sales person, specifications engineer etc and as such they have zero contact with anything sensitive either commercially or state secrets etc. I willingly accept that there are cases where such security is required and that used to the domain of Blackberry which was supposed to, I'm given to understand, have the best security of any phone. Anybody hacking into my old company phone at the time would have had no use for the kind of information on it. A list of my appointments, my contacts within other companies and details of messages between my colleagues, not rich pickings there.

Edit:

On the other hand I have pulled the trigger on a Pixel 6A, and it should be in my hot sweaty hand sometime tomorrow, I'll let you know my thoughts about it once I've played with it a bit.

It's not really that which is the issue for most people. The sensitivity is not a problem. What happens is your entire business gets fucked over by malware and you're up shit creek with no access to your banking, payroll or operations.

Enjoy the Pixel. Well worth the extra few quid over a cheaper handset. Mine is in this case: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09S8TJQQL

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I'll like it I'm not too sure about that case though, one thing is if your phone in pile with others, you ought to be able to spot yours . The only thing I'm to happy about is the lack of expandability, but having said that, my current one is a 64G model, 3G ram and has a 64G micro SD with almost 90G free space after 4 years so maybe not such an issue after all eh

Well blow me down with a feather, what sort of a business would be silly enough to allow a phone anywhere near that sort of stuff, surely its logical to keep the phone as a communications device only and if you link it to a computer for email purposes, then that computer is on its own network and not on the main network where such stuff is kept mission critical information/software is kept and run from and also any decent operation would be running a backup system in the background just in case of anything happening?

As I mentioned earlier, the phones have always been a means of communication only, anything else was always done via either a laptop or a desktop and I had both of those at my disposal and even then, that network was always behind a barrier of some sort from the company critical and sensitive stuff.

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 6:57 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 6:31 pm

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 2:51 pm
For the record, most company phones are used to enable customers to make direct contact with their sales person, specifications engineer etc and as such they have zero contact with anything sensitive either commercially or state secrets etc. I willingly accept that there are cases where such security is required and that used to the domain of Blackberry which was supposed to, I'm given to understand, have the best security of any phone. Anybody hacking into my old company phone at the time would have had no use for the kind of information on it. A list of my appointments, my contacts within other companies and details of messages between my colleagues, not rich pickings there.

Edit:

On the other hand I have pulled the trigger on a Pixel 6A, and it should be in my hot sweaty hand sometime tomorrow, I'll let you know my thoughts about it once I've played with it a bit.

It's not really that which is the issue for most people. The sensitivity is not a problem. What happens is your entire business gets fucked over by malware and you're up shit creek with no access to your banking, payroll or operations.

Enjoy the Pixel. Well worth the extra few quid over a cheaper handset. Mine is in this case: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09S8TJQQL

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I'll like it I'm not too sure about that case though, one thing is if your phone in pile with others, you ought to be able to spot yours . The only thing I'm to happy about is the lack of expandability, but having said that, my current one is a 64G model, 3G ram and has a 64G micro SD with almost 90G free space after 4 years so maybe not such an issue after all eh

They do different colour ones . Yeah mine is stacked up with stuff and it's got 92Gb free

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 6:57 pm Well blow me down with a feather, what sort of a business would be silly enough to allow a phone anywhere near that sort of stuff, surely its logical to keep the phone as a communications device only and if you link it to a computer for email purposes, then that computer is on its own network and not on the main network where such stuff is kept mission critical information/software is kept and run from and also any decent operation would be running a backup system in the background just in case of anything happening?

As I mentioned earlier, the phones have always been a means of communication only, anything else was always done via either a laptop or a desktop and I had both of those at my disposal and even then, that network was always behind a barrier of some sort from the company critical and sensitive stuff.

Well it's not a phone first of all. It's a pocket computer with an Internet connection that has a phone program on it. I barely use the phone on my phone these days. Hell I make most a lot of calls on WhatsApp as well because it skips around the PITA that is international phone billing. Mostly I use a browser, maps, email, banking, todo list, cloud storage, onenote on my phone.

As for backups, yeah right. Big fintechs still mostly don't know if their DR policy works and are sticking their fingers in their ears and going lalalalalalala. Most small businesses either run Office 365 for everything, which is accessible via the web and your phone credentials for your email, or have some shonky ass desktop in a back office which will fuck out at some point randomly in the next 3 months and has no backup other than an unencrypted USB stick that was dropped in a car park in a dogging spot one evening by the director.

Basically, no one gives a shit so it's all in one place with one set of credentials. 95%+ of the world looks like that.

@SpecMaster:

You just don't get it. All it takes is one hacked phone to steal credentials that can get one into a user's company eMail. Depending on that user, this can easily lead to much more dangerous access, or materiel to use in hacking the wetware.

Android as a company phone makes that scenario not just easy, but nigh-inevitable.

mnem
*glad I no longer travel in such circles*

Yeah notably I have ZERO company stuff on my phone. I have my own O365 account on it and some very carefully chosen popular well known apps and nothing else at all. No side loaded crap, no weird apps, no APKs, standard OS build fully patched.

Actually current app list:

- MS Edge (this has adblocker, smartscreen integration, and a cross machine keychain unlike Chrome)
- MS Outlook
- MS OneDrive
- MS OneNote
- MS Todo
- MS Authenticator
- HSBC
- Organic Maps
- TFL Go
- WhatsApp
- Spotify
- Tesco
- Trainline
- Unidays
- eBay
- Paypal
- Uber
- Met office

Most built in apps are disabled. The configuration is carefully hardened so that any convenience or privacy features are set up for me right down to notifications not being displayed on a locked device.

mnementh wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 7:29 pm @SpecMaster:

You just don't get it. All it takes is one hacked phone to steal credentials that can get one into a user's company eMail. Depending on that user, this can easily lead to much more dangerous access, or materiel to use in hacking the wetware.

Android as a company phone makes that scenario not just easy, but nigh-inevitable.

mnem
*glad I no longer travel in such circles*

I do understand exactly what you're saying and for any company that is dealing with important matters of state or other sensitive information or a company dealing with high tech products that a competitor might want to get access to, then I can truly understand the need for such an expensive phone with all the security, but I doubt that they are as secure as you think they are. There are companies set up now to recover data from such phones when things go wrong, even though Apple claim that data cannot under any circumstances be recovered from a phone.

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 8:19 pm

mnementh wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 7:29 pm @SpecMaster:

You just don't get it. All it takes is one hacked phone to steal credentials that can get one into a user's company eMail. Depending on that user, this can easily lead to much more dangerous access, or materiel to use in hacking the wetware.

Android as a company phone makes that scenario not just easy, but nigh-inevitable.

mnem
*glad I no longer travel in such circles*

I do understand exactly what you're saying and for any company that is dealing with important matters of state or other sensitive information or a company dealing with high tech products that a competitor might want to get access to, then I can truly understand the need for such an expensive phone with all the security, but I doubt that they are as secure as you think they are. There are companies set up now to recover data from such phones when things go wrong, even though Apple claim that data cannot under any circumstances be recovered from a phone.

They probably are as secure as we think they are.

Authorities insist any phone data is available to official forensic investigations....even those made by Apple !
Here in NZ all police use iPhones and iPads.

tautech wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 9:30 pm Authorities insist any phone data is available to official forensic investigations....even those made by Apple !
Here in NZ all police use iPhones and iPads.

To be honest, I'm not surprised that police use them, as I mentioned before they are the type of customer who would need to extra level of security they offer. But for some companies the sheer cost of providing such a phone would be astronomical and unwarranted for such a lowly company function as sales etc.

I'm not sure what the UK police use, I've seen them with phones attached to their uniforms, but they are housed in some form of a case, but I've never bothered to see what the phones are.

For any company that has bothered to incorporate, the need is there. Just because they're so stupid they don't know it doesn't make it not so.

The cost of iPhones, particularly on fleet contract, is piddling when you're on a corporate level; you can literally pay as much as I do for my cheap POS by the time you're done amortizing and depreciation on taxes. Even better if you make a fleet contract with a carrier.

Seriously Spec... you're thinking much too small. iPwns are only expensive to us little people.

mnem

mnementh wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 1:55 am For any company that has bothered to incorporate, the need is there. Just because they're so stupid they don't know it doesn't make it not so.

The cost of iPhones, particularly on fleet contract, is piddling when you're on a corporate level; you can literally pay as much as I do for my cheap POS by the time you're done amortizing and depreciation on taxes. Even better if you make a fleet contract with a carrier.

Seriously Spec... you're thinking much too small. iPwns are only expensive to us little people.

mnem

Maybe that is why we are clashing over this piddling iPhone business, I think you are using the case of large corporate companies, which are multi million or billion £/$ companies, maybe the same with bd139, whereas my experience mainly comes from companies that employ less then 150 staff in total. Bigger companies clearly have far greater buying power then small ones and so attract better deals. They also have clearly different business strategies with greater levels of devolvement's. So based on that aspect alone, I would say that we are both correct in our own unique situations, but nobody has previously declared the company structures and size, so we have made assumptions that we are in fact talking of similar things, which we are not.

Nope. As I said pretty clearly; if your company is big enough to need to incorporate, then the need for certain minimal levels of network security is there. And as bd139 explained, for over a decade now, a company smartPwn is a computer on the company network first, and a phone second. It is an essential business expense, not "just a phone".

Which certain "minimal level of security" Android simply cannot provide, as it was created to be given away to the worst pirates on the face of the planet (telecom carriers) specifically so they could spam the fuck out of their customers 24/7, in exchange for built-in datamining connected directly to Gurrgle. There simply is no way to adequately lock that hot mess down.

bd139 is a corporation of one, and he can still see the need. And he has the correct attitude towards these devices: they are a tool, and for one's business to thrive, one needs safe tools. Which Android simply is not. If you try to cheapskate your company on the most fundamental of tools (business communication) you are fucking your business and yourself.

Cheers,

mnem
essential network security 101

Still strikes me as we are therefore all correct in varying degrees, in the roles that have been in and given a company phone, there was nothing to secure, there was no access to company data, that was all on the computers, phone was just a communication tool so Android was a suitable platform for me. In situations as you describe and also for bd139 as a one-man business. That said I still personally would not have all the company info stored on the device, I'd keep that on a PC somewhere, its another preventative measure to try and keep you're critical data safe and secure.

Meanwhile, on my new phone front, I have been informed that it will be with me within the hour now. Checking its movement on the tracking app, it has covered since 4.20pm yesterday a minimum of 300 miles, just to do a journey of 20 miles from the seller and me, that is terrible news for the environment.

Edit:
Just as I pressed sent, the phone has arrived, now to explore it. I was a little worried in case it was a refurb because it was such a good price (my family has not had a good experience with refurbed phones, even with iPhones, so I have always made a point that my phones are new.

Ummmm.... Spec... how long has it been since you had a company phone?

I can tell you from personal experience that one of the primary reasons most companies issue a smartPwn is as a "always-on-the-employee" conduit for company eMails, SMS messaging and even teleconferencing, plus a whole host of "electronic leash" monitoring systems the employee is often completely unaware of.

This has been the case for easily 10-15 years. And while it was "large companies" doing this at first, such use has been "the standard of the industry" (well, all industry, really) for at least a decade.

Unless the company is, as I said, completely retarded as regards essential network security.

mnem
*toddles off to do something productive*

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 11:38 am Still strikes me as we are therefore all correct in varying degrees, in the roles that have been in and given a company phone, there was nothing to secure, there was no access to company data, that was all on the computers, phone was just a communication tool so Android was a suitable platform for me. In situations as you describe and also for bd139 as a one-man business. That said I still personally would not have all the company info stored on the device, I'd keep that on a PC somewhere, its another preventative measure to try and keep you're critical data safe and secure.

I want company data on my phone. Allows me to do shit

Incidentally I'm only using Android because this is now only personal data so my liability stops pretty early on.

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 11:38 am Meanwhile, on my new phone front, I have been informed that it will be with me within the hour now. Checking its movement on the tracking app, it has covered since 4.20pm yesterday a minimum of 300 miles, just to do a journey of 20 miles from the seller and me, that is terrible news for the environment.

Edit:
Just as I pressed sent, the phone has arrived, now to explore it. I was a little worried in case it was a refurb because it was such a good price (my family has not had a good experience with refurbed phones, even with iPhones, so I have always made a point that my phones are new.

If it was £260 or higher it probably wasn't a refurb. The box should be tape sealed.

mnementh wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 12:41 pm Ummmm.... Spec... how long has it been since you had a company phone?

I can tell you from personal experience that one of the primary reasons most companies issue a smartPwn is as a "always-on-the-employee" conduit for company eMails, SMS messaging and even teleconferencing, plus a whole host of "electronic leash" monitoring systems the employee is often completely unaware of.

This has been the case for easily 10-15 years. And while it was "large companies" doing this at first, such use has been "the standard of the industry" (well, all industry, really) for at least a decade.

Unless the company is, as I said, completely retarded as regards essential network security.

mnem
*toddles off to do something productive*

Its been 6 years since I had a company phone and up to the time I retired (6 years ago) I had a company phone for about 25 years. As I said, in the first instance it was a car phone, no emails whatsoever on those things. The precursor to the car phones was a pager and we would have to find a working phone box and ring in to the sales office 2 or 3 times a day, and when the car phones were phased out they were replaced with mobile phones, again no email service or data contracts. The last 15 years before retiring, email was added on but as already stated, there was zero linkage to the companies critical information, i.e, payroll (contracted out) and other info such as bank detail etc etc was all kept on a physically separate computer network that none of the external staff could gain access to. That seemed to be the way of all companies that I've worked for, that surely is one of the best security systems you could have? Now I don't know if senior managers and directors, mobiles could gain access to that private network, but people who operate from their home, which seems to be almost every sales force in the country, never had anything else but basic systems.

bd139 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 4:19 pm

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 11:38 am Edit:
Just as I pressed sent, the phone has arrived, now to explore it. I was a little worried in case it was a refurb because it was such a good price (my family has not had a good experience with refurbed phones, even with iPhones, so I have always made a point that my phones are new.

If it was £260 or higher it probably wasn't a refurb. The box should be tape sealed.

Well, no, it was sub £260 but the phone is 100% new, in original box and was sealed, but there are indeed quite a few sellers, even on Amazon, selling these phones for quite northwards of £260 and they are sold as refurbs and are clearly marked as such. So all in I think I got a pretty good deal.

The phone is a few grams heavier than the old one and I will certainly be getting a case for it as it very slippery. Now begins the long process of installing things and transferring data from old one over. Things like passwords etc just will not transfer over, the apps all did, but they all require setting up and Android 13 is a lot different to that on the old one so need to take it slowly and learn my around the interface.

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 6:19 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 4:19 pm

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 11:38 am Edit:
Just as I pressed sent, the phone has arrived, now to explore it. I was a little worried in case it was a refurb because it was such a good price (my family has not had a good experience with refurbed phones, even with iPhones, so I have always made a point that my phones are new.

If it was £260 or higher it probably wasn't a refurb. The box should be tape sealed.

Well, no, it was sub £260 but the phone is 100% new, in original box and was sealed, but there are indeed quite a few sellers, even on Amazon, selling these phones for quite northwards of £260 and they are sold as refurbs and are clearly marked as such. So all in I think I got a pretty good deal.

The phone is a few grams heavier than the old one and I will certainly be getting a case for it as it very slippery. Now begins the long process of installing things and transferring data from old one over. Things like passwords etc just will not transfer over, the apps all did, but they all require setting up and Android 13 is a lot different to that on the old one so need to take it slowly and learn my around the interface.

I bought mine directly from Amazon rather than other sellers. Warranty is important. I paid £287.43 for mine which is £87.44 more than just the AppleCare for the iPhone 14 Pro

I keep my passwords in KeepassX as it's platform portable. As much as MS are fucking dickwads, as I'm on a windows machine, using Authenticator and Edge actually sync across desktop and android nicely. As good as iOS/macOS.

Just ordered this case in red to keep this phone in mint condition, I like the lockable kickstand as well, very handy. My nephew has one of these, very impressive.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/KOVASIA-Case-G ... 9tdGY&th=1

On the original battery replacement I just took my 20+ year old Breitling Aerospace watch in for battery replacement. It has to go back to Breitling. Got a call Wednesday saying the jewler had been contacted by Breitling saying that the movment was obsolete so they would have to replace it at a cost of over £900 Having established that the watch was not faulty I asked why. The Jewler is in the middle but said Breitling were saying they could not get the parts they needed to do the service. I said (more nicely) Sod that I just want the battery replaced. If thay can't do that send it back and I'll get someone who can do it. Got a call back yesterday saying that as a "special" they would just change the battery (cell actually) and seals but would not give the usual 12 month warranty.
Next time they won't even be asked to do the battery change.

This is why the Casio F91W is the pinnacle of timekeeping technology. In the time you wasted on that you could have just bought another Casio. Or if that strap hasn't fallen apart, replace the battery yourself.