That it is, although what they end up doing is making people work on their work machine as well as their cellphone. Source: me, working for a defense contractor with the same insane rules, but no "hand in your phone" rules on entry.

Having worked in defense, I generally had stricter rules around phones than around website access. That is really a bit surprising to me.

I guess contractors are all over the map in how they try to make sure to comply with the "rules", though.

I had the same issue at one company. Thats the company where I first learn about ssh tunneling. All the smart devs did it.