I recently went on a short trip for my wife’s surgery just over the border and did work one day remotely from another country. I used a travel router connected to the hotel WiFi but that router was running a Wireguard tunnel back to my apartment. From there I connected my work laptop to its WiFi so all the traffic out to the Internet appeared to come from home. When I connected to the company VPN on the work laptop it should’ve appeared as though I was connecting from my home country, right?
I’m pretty solid that that’s the case. I confirmed on all my other devices connected to the travel router that there were no DNS/IP leaks.
Probably, but that’s not the issue from a corporate perspective. You still transported a company laptop, presumably containing company IP or other confidential information, across an international border. That’s the big sticking point with most corporations due to the rules about search and seizure of said data when crossing borders. Some companies might insist that only prepared clean (essentially empty, not just encrypted) machines can cross borders and you can download the data you need through a VPN once you reach your destination.
Yeah, we have a country list with different security levels. The company issued laptops are only allowed in some countries, for other countries you get a special travel laptop. Not sure if China is not just entirely black-listed. Certainly just working remotely from China is a no-go. Business trips are probably okay under some conditions.
Yeah, even crossing (or just existing within a couple hundred miles of) a US border, even as a US citizen, you give up almost all privacy and rights against search and seizure including personal “papers” stored on any storage device to border patrol and customs agents. It’s crazy the freedoms and protections people have voted away in the name of security theater and convenience.
In addition there can also be serious legal implications for a company if they have workers working in another country. Is the company now subject to the tax laws of that country because the employee visited? How about labour laws? Do their products now need to be translated into another language because the employee worked while in that jurisdiction? Etc.
I recently went on a short trip for my wife’s surgery just over the border and did work one day remotely from another country. I used a travel router connected to the hotel WiFi but that router was running a Wireguard tunnel back to my apartment. From there I connected my work laptop to its WiFi so all the traffic out to the Internet appeared to come from home. When I connected to the company VPN on the work laptop it should’ve appeared as though I was connecting from my home country, right?
I’m pretty solid that that’s the case. I confirmed on all my other devices connected to the travel router that there were no DNS/IP leaks.
Just curious if you have anything to add.
Probably, but that’s not the issue from a corporate perspective. You still transported a company laptop, presumably containing company IP or other confidential information, across an international border. That’s the big sticking point with most corporations due to the rules about search and seizure of said data when crossing borders. Some companies might insist that only prepared clean (essentially empty, not just encrypted) machines can cross borders and you can download the data you need through a VPN once you reach your destination.
Yeah, we have a country list with different security levels. The company issued laptops are only allowed in some countries, for other countries you get a special travel laptop. Not sure if China is not just entirely black-listed. Certainly just working remotely from China is a no-go. Business trips are probably okay under some conditions.
Yeah, even crossing (or just existing within a couple hundred miles of) a US border, even as a US citizen, you give up almost all privacy and rights against search and seizure including personal “papers” stored on any storage device to border patrol and customs agents. It’s crazy the freedoms and protections people have voted away in the name of security theater and convenience.
In addition there can also be serious legal implications for a company if they have workers working in another country. Is the company now subject to the tax laws of that country because the employee visited? How about labour laws? Do their products now need to be translated into another language because the employee worked while in that jurisdiction? Etc.
Exactly, it’s mostly a legal problem. Most often a single day, weekend or even a few weeks however are rarely a problem.
Interesting point. Yeah, I don’t plan to do that again.