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Re:Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the... by tptacek on Friday December 17, 2021 @02:19PM (#29597050)
This is just a way of saying that every mid-to-large-sized company in the world is doing malicious things, because all of them depend on closed-source agent software of one kind or another. And you might be right about that! Certainly, the industry has not taken the threat of agent-based management tools seriously enough.

But what the hell is your point? This is about as practical an argument as "the only reasonable software for your company to run is free software". Even if it were true, it's so far outside of industry norms that you might as well be asking them to ship all their products on BeOS.

Re:Ask HN: My client want an agent on my laptop. Is this the... by mindslight on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:39PM (#29598039)
My comment was not about what is reasonable for companies to run. In fact, I implied that it is reasonable for companies to run proprietary agents, because they have contracts and legal remedy through the courts if the products turn out to be malicious spyware.

My judgement is confined to what is reasonable for individuals to be asked to run in their own operating environments. Individuals lack recourse through the courts, barring some watershed law like a US GDPR with a provision for adequate liquidated damages.

I also pointed out a straightforward path if a company still wants their contractors/employees to run unaccountable proprietary crapware on the devices used to do work - purchase dedicated devices for contractors/employees to use for work, rather than expecting to get exclusive software installed on shared equipment. Coupled with an appropriate home network set up, this provides complete compartmentalization, assuming any sensors can be disabled.

(deliberate employee-hostile software, eg employee activity trackers, is out of the scope of this comment)