In my last job we used Zoom for interviews. The link we sent would work in any web browser, but if the candidate was signed into a Zoom account on their computer we'd be able to see it. I'd say >70% of them were on their company account.

Even worse when you have to do stuff like screenshare or coding. I've had candidates share their screen and have obvious proprietary material in open windows. I've seen countless email inboxes and calendars. I've seen candidates do coding exercises using internal IDEs, dev environments and dev tools. I've had them talk – fully unprompted – about internal tech and unreleased projects. And I'm talking about Google, Meta, Amazon, Coinbase, Uber.

At this point I'm convinced that a large chunk of tech interviews are happening just to extract insider info from employees.

But if he'd done the interview on his personal laptop then he would have had his personal crypto wallet drained instead, seems like he came out ahead this way.

Working in a financial institution, I was surprised they could do all this. Our work laptops are so locked down (sometimes maybe too locked down) that we'd never be able to download a random .exe

I think Binance needs to start having IT Security like a bank as well.

I do know people who no longer have a personal computer, and use exclusively their work-issued computer. I wonder how common that is.

A lot of people just think laptop == laptop.

At several companies I’ve seen folks run torrents to watch movies at work.

Once I was on a Zoom call, and I noticed music production software on my colleagues computer.

When I pointed it out, they responded with something like “ Ohh, my kids make music.”

Neat, I guess.

I do almost everything on my work macbook, including typing this comment, because it is faster than my own and has a nicer screen.

I know people grinding leetcode on work laptops, during working times, at the office, for interviews at other companies.

This is definitely my approach. I won't log into _anything personal_ from my company equipment. Not even stuff like Spotify, anymore.

I also refuse to install Intune or similar on my personal hardware. Keep work and personal like oil and water!

This!

I don't know how people are ok using their personal accounts on work-laptops full of spyware.

Sure, but that's not really going to protect you. Could easily be that you are the interviewer and the interviewee asks you to click on sketchy link, or it could easily just be a call with a fake supplier or sales representative. It maybe makes it a little bit harder, but there's still many ways for social engineering to land something on work computers.

It's convenient. I'm not lugging two laptops around!

It's dumb ideas all the way down, starting with the fact that this work laptop had a direct path to a multi-billion dollar signing environment.

Some workers can't afford personal laptops. There was a layoff announced today where company told workers to keep their company issued computers. Imagine that.

Often this is solely fault of employers not paying their workers enough.

I agree with the principle but I think reading HN is fine...

Yes, but are the companies clear enough and paying enough so that people would never use their work computers for personal matters?

I have a personal desktop because I grew up with video games and a desktop was always a personal investment. I never had a personal laptop, I cannot justify the cost (not a trivial expense, even if my work title is extremely fancy it does not pay on par), so if I would be traveling I would have to take the only laptop I have with me - the work laptop. Well, I managed to never use it, I don't take it with me, but there is a lot of effort in that.

In such a company I would give employees 2 laptops and 2 phones, one set for work only, one set for personal use only, then I would fire on the spot anyone mixing the usage. That would be a start in a longer journey of protecting the company.

Well so-rry but if you give me a macbook powerful enough to play cyberpunk 2077 on it, that's what I'm gonna do.

Interviewing for another company on your work laptop is levels of idgaf I can't achieve

lol maybe the employees wanted the company to see it.