School computers are riddled with spyware & proprietary software, the fact that they use windows is bad enough, but then you are forced to use edge or chrome and other proprietary software and often you are blocked from installing open source alternatives like librewolf or duck duck go may be blocked.
What I am asking is, how can we get around this, do i just need to bring my own laptop using FOSS privacy respecting software. or is there another way around this. Thanks for the help.
You don’t.
Seprate your work life and your personal life.
There’s nothing wrong with advocating for FOSS alternatives; but you don’t get to decide what you can or cannot use on work devices, that’s up to your employer. You should not be entering personal info/performing personal tasks on work devices.
If you’re unwilling to perform work with the tools (software) your employer provides/requires, find a new job. Refusing to do the work or tampering with the equipment provided is a great way to get fired.
For school; personal laptop. Or again strictly school tasks on their devices.
you dont. but worry not, having a second “digital identity” for school and work, that has no connection to your private one is actually a pretty solid way to stay anonymous. false data is less identifying than no data at all
Yeah, as tempting as it is to personalize the work / school computer, it’s probably better to not mix the two.
Most likely can’t and shouldn’t bother. Keep your private stuff on your private devices.
But if you really really want to, go to IT well prepared with all the changes you want to make and see if they allow it.
This is the correct answer. It may be worthwhile to advocate for more privacy conscious IT in public institutions but you’ll be up against a huge amount of corporate lobbying.
I’ve heard of parents being successful at it before. But it took a little group of them. They got together and approach their kids school. They used a positive approach. Not confrontational. More like we have these privacy concerns. But we want to work together with the school on them.
I lost the link now, it was years ago. But they were successful in getting alternatives for the worst “ed-tech” spywares.
That’s the point of school and company computers. To keep all the nasty software you need for your work away from your personal laptop, which you’ll want to buy yourself.
No amount of privacy-friendly software you install on top of Windows thoroughly compromised with corporate MDM is going to save you.
If you must use your personal machine during work hours, tether it to your phone’s data connection or use VPN if it is allowed.
A lot of already great advice here, often clarifying that a computer that is not yours… is not yours.
What I would still add though is that you are NOT, and I’m very confident in saying this, the only one there, in your very school, to ask that question. In fact I would argue MOST users have the exact same concerns but they might even be aware that alternatives exist.
So… do not push back, or even just avoid, all this alone. Find others who have similar problems and solve them together.
There might be a Linux User Group already, join them. If there isn’t one, consider making it. It might just be you for few weeks, even month, but at least you will dedicate time and space to improve YOUR situation. Chances are though that others, even if only curious at first, might check what you are up to, if they can replicate that, etc.
Don’t feel isolate, move the needle for yourself first, in your corner, but be welcoming to others who are eager to contribute.
It’s a challenge, but it’s a fun challenge while trying to tackle it with others.
I’m dead scared of even thinking of using my corporate phone or laptop for personal use. I think i’ve never done a personal search or sent a personal email or even made a personal call using company devices. I kown they are logging every single thing i do because they’ve even told us in our annual cybersecurity training. Just run two seperate and parallel lives ;-)
It’s not your computer; it’s their computer. Do not ever forget this.
So if there’s anything personal you want to use a computer for, don’t use their machine for it. Use your own.
I cannot stress enough how bad of an idea it is to try and use a boot or portable apps usb.
Schools and companies are generally very alert about that kind of thing due to many many high profile incidents of malware, ransomware, data exfiltration etc, and also all the movies and tv shows.
Bring your own device is the only way. Bring your own network is often a necessity, so be prepared to tether your phone to your device for internet access.
You also probably want to look normal too. Swallow your pride and use a mac when you do this and no one will bat an eye. Break out the duct taped together thinkpad at your own risk.
You can discuss with your IT department or bring your own, I don’t see many alternatives to those two situations.
If the company or school isn’t more privacy-conscious, it’s their problem, not the employee’s or student’s. Naturally if they don’t use these devices for private matters. You can only warn of these problems and how to alleviate or solve them, if they do not pay attention, you only have to shrug your shoulders.
Can you use your own computer without needing to install spyware?
If using your own computer isn’t an option, best practice is to use a school/work computer for school/work and have a second computer for personal use. Same goes for a work phone, use it for work only.
I have run into this issue of needing Microslop for school. I’m allowed to use my own hardware if I install their spyware. So I have two setups:
Portable: Win10 on an old lenovo laptop that just runs their tracking software. I can access the sharepoint, outlook and teams with LibreWolf on that machine, if I must.
When at home I have a virtual machine that also runs Win10 for their spyware. I use LibreWolf on fedora for the sharepoint, outlook and teams.
Use books instead
Bring a USB with a bootable Linux distro on it.
The university I go to locked down the BIOS on my laptop so you can’t boot any other operating system that isn’t the Windows 10 that it came with. I own the laptop, very annoying.
Yeah it doesn’t sound like you own it anymore.
I’m planning to get rid of the lock as soon as I graduate. The only reason I haven’t done it yet is because I’m worried that doing so would break some of the bizarre black-box proprietary software that we’re required to have.
Did you buy it through them?
I was required to rent a laptop as part of my enrollment there. At the 2-year mark we were given the option to trade in our old laptop and rent a new one or buy it outright, and I chose to buy it because it was working fine.
Only possible way would be booting into a USB drive running Linux or something. But BIOS is almost certainly locked down so I doubt it. It would also run like shit (but so does windows with 7 different scanners running amirite?)
