Network Admin people - Am I Invisible?

[KneesUp]

Just a thought - you could configure the USB Linux thing to not automatically network on boot (or just turn off wi-fi if it has a physical switch) then use a fake MAC address https://askubuntu.com/questions/872443/how-do-i-change-mac-address-on-ubuntu-16-10 before you connect.

This would mean that SysAdmin would not know it was one of their machines, I guess. Unless your real MAC address would somehow still be visible?

 

[User33236]

Hello all,

Just to pick the brains of those that know better than I do!

I have installed Xubuntu on a USB drive so that I can boot from that drive instead of the HDD on my PC at work. Also, I have configured things so that I use my paid-for VPN when accessing the internet.

I work in a well known University, if that makes any difference.

So. Am I effectively invisible using this set up, i.e. are my actions and web use now untraceable on this machine? Not that I am going to be doing anything naughty - I just wondered. I've set the thing up so that I can use KODI and other stuff on a Windows Laptop while I'm on holiday.

Thanks!

The data you are transmitting and receiving will, to all intensive purposes be unreadable as it passes through the network however the data packets will be traceable back to your PC by way of the unique MAC address your network card identifies itself to the network with.

Given the activities you have undertaken, opening the case, defeating bios protection, using an unauthorised OS, you would be sacked in most organisations for deliberate breach of IT policies.

 

[Tin Pot]

The data you are transmitting and receiving will, to all intensive purposes be unreadable as it passes through the network however the data packets will be traceable back to your PC by way of the unique MAC address your network card identifies itself to the network with.

Given the activities you have undertaken, opening the case, defeating bios protection, using an unauthorised OS, you would be sacked in most organisations for deliberate breach of IT policies.

I missed that you work there, I thought you were a student.

You should be sacked, but at the very least a written warning.

 

[KneesUp]

I missed that you work there, I thought you were a student.

You should be sacked, but at the very least a written warning.

Students work too

Also, who are you to tell another institution what their HR department should do?

I mean, I don't know what the OP is trying to do that IT won't allow, but it seems to me there are easier ways to do it - just buy a cheap laptop, a 4g hub/dongle thing and surf away. Or even - given it's a university where students can presumably network their machines, just connect to the student wi-fi?

 

[Tin Pot]

Also, who are you to tell another institution what their HR department should do?

I'm someone who gets paid a lot of money to tell institutions what their HR department should do to people who don't comply with IT Policy, that's who.

 

[KneesUp]

I'm someone who gets paid a lot of money to tell institutions what their HR department should do to people who don't comply with IT Policy, that's who.

Presumably you are paid to tell the institutions that ask you what to do what to do though?

You don't want to jeopardise "a lot of money" by doing it for free

 

[LCpl Boiled Egg]

I mean, I don't know what the OP is trying to do that IT won't allow, but...

I'd be surprised if they're happy for him to reset the BIOS and unplug the hard drive...

 

[KneesUp]

I'd be surprised if they're happy for him to reset the BIOS and unplug the hard drive...

I meant what he's trying to do that's led to doing those things

 

[bruce1530]

There will be something in the University’s IT policy which can be paraphrased as “don’t dick around with the network or the IT infrastructure”.
If you then proceed to knowingly contravene that policy, then it’s potentially gross misconduct.

 

[bruce1530]

The University may potentially detect an unexpected traffic flow between the machine in question and the remote VPN server. They may then choose to investigate this. Or they may not.

 

[Tin Pot]

Presumably you are paid to tell the institutions that ask you what to do what to do though?

You don't want to jeopardise "a lot of money" by doing it for free

Free, you mean like my post and the other posts here calling this for what it is?

Or free like the Computer Misuse Act?
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/contents

You see, there are two kinds of people in this world. People who can abide by rules, and people who can't. The latter have all sorts of excuses and self-justifications, and encourage others to break the rules and break the law, but it isn't some high minded ideal, it isn't some righteous rebellion, it isn't even some creative necessity.

 

[Tim Hall]

to all intensive purposes be unreadable

<twitch>
Sorry, nothing constructive to add.

 

[Randomnerd]

Read it all in a moment of absentmindedness, and gratefully understand none of it. As you were. Fargo's on.

 

[Dan B]

So glad I was at university in the 1990s when students had real internet access and you could actually learn stuff, not this modern sanitized firewalled NATted no-user-servicable-parts heavily surveilled toytown internet that seems to be de rigeur nowadays. What happened to fun?

 

[Kajjal]

The data you are transmitting and receiving will, to all intensive purposes be unreadable as it passes through the network however the data packets will be traceable back to your PC by way of the unique MAC address your network card identifies itself to the network with.

Given the activities you have undertaken, opening the case, defeating bios protection, using an unauthorised OS, you would be sacked in most organisations for deliberate breach of IT policies.

Definitely, this is a complete abuse and causes all kinds of potential security issues.

No idea why someone would want to do this in the first place. If you want full internet access use your own device and your own internet. You are effectively exposing the whole universities IT infrastructure to all kinds of risks.