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Reminds me of when they do 'firewall updates' at work, and many of the common open-source repositories/hosting etc are blocked.

I understand than some malicious software may use things like curl, but it's also annoying to have to re-create the same ticket and submit to internal IT, and then if someone working on the ticket hasn't done this before, they close it, we have to have a meeting about why we need access to that site...



The inverse isn't tolerated. If you're a software developer, you get tested for IT knowledge with phishing emails. Yet in IT it's perfectly normal to have an ignorance of the core needs of the developers - and computing itself - that results in reduced productivity or shadow IT systems.

It's not an exaggeration to say I've experienced it at every employer I've had.


I was on a penetration testing team at a large corp that doesn't specialize in cybersecurity and I downloaded Metasploit and about 15 minutes later an IT person came up to my desk to talk about the malware I just downloaded. I had to walk him to my manager to get him to understand what it was and why it was okay for me to download it.


Remember the old saying, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission".


Was reading a news article the other day that described wget as a "hacking tool" and about rolled my eyes into the back of my head.




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