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Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

Back in 2006 in high school I carried an external hard drive with a clean macOS install on it. I'd boot that and I had a SOCKS proxy setup (before I knew of VPNs or could pay for one). It was a joy to browse unimpeded and without any annoying management software running. I can only imagine what kids are doing nowadays.

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I recently gave my enterprising son a Tails USB after learning about his school’s ridiculous blocking policies. The only condition was that he should sit with me for a few minutes each evening for me to teach him on a conceptual level how things like an OS, BIOS, Tor, etc work.

I would hope most school computers would be set to not allow non IT staff to boot from external devices.

Back in highschool I had an old USB drive with a Linux install, it worked fine. I also had a copy of tor browser, so I could watch YouTube. Good times. I learned quite a bit about networking and windows security.

Seriously. My corporation has made it impossible for us to use USB sticks, external hard drives, etc. on company computers. Well, if you go before a panel and prove why you need one, they will give you a hardened one that you can use. But you really have to have a good excuse.

mine does the same, but boot from USB still works fine. It's security theater for the bosses who don't know the difference. The more annoyed everyone is the more the bosses think we have 'good' security.

Ours is different. If you so much as plug in a USB stick you will be contacted by security with minutes and your boss and their boss will be involved.

lol

I would think most kids today do their circumventing by BYOD? Not that it would be bad for them learn about using VPNs and TOR on their phones...

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