We’re a big company as I said, the IT team isn’t even local, they’re overseas in places like the US and India. They won’t know who I am specifically out of the tens of thousands of people that work here, so that could work in my favor.
I overall rate this as low risk, but I’m going to be absolutely caught red handed if they did find out. It’s so risky.
I need to ask as I am getting a starlink, will it show up as an overseas IP ?
They probably aren’t watching it. Like I said, people don’t investigate this kind of stuff unless there’s a reason to. Just have an excuse ready in case somebody does find out and ask. My point was you should assume everything on that laptop is monitored, including where it is.
The logs from your system, depending on what your employer uses can tell everything.
IP address. Computer name. OS. Version. Programs installed. Programs used. Browser history. If they want the granularity to know every single thing you do on your computer, there’s a way to provide that.
Oh and your IP address will be Geo-located so even if you’re not on the company VPN, the ip you use will give you away. And when if you go to use a consumer VPN, that will come up as an IP anonymizer which will look shady at best and will be blocked at worst.
They don’t have to try to watch it. It will get flagged.
Buy a USA based vpn service or self host it today. Start logging in via VPN immediately and just keep doing that
They don’t have to watch it. Shit like that is automated anyways.
A company with 80000 engineers?
Why would you think you’re not being tracked? That’s a lot of sensitive info. Not some marketing position.
ups+dual active/passive router setup+2 inbound ip trunks. i also have a backup commercial vpn.
you can ask Qs directly here.
Ok but what’re the consequences? How do you know they care even if they found out?
I haven’t had to use it yet, good question though. I will look that up.
Yes. Will still point to a starlink IP, but IP allocation will show roughly where you are.
no. if you sign up for global roam it will show your home address.
This guy gets it. Listen
I’m doing this for the first time (working remotely outside of the U.S without permission). My last employer knew I lived abroad and didn’t have a problem with it, I worked as a contractor so I worked on my own terms but they went bankrupt 6 months ago, didn’t pay my last 3 months of work with them and I was left unemployed. I found a new remote job a month ago and they told me I had to work from the US and they sent my work computer to an address I gave them in Florida(my parent’s house) and I had to travel back to the US just to get the laptop and set it up there. I’m now back in my country of residency (I live in South America) and I need to figure out what to do before I set off any alarms, the recruiter who hired me said at the end of the fiscal year accounting makes sure no one has been working outside of the country before they start doing taxes (I don’t know how true this is as the company laptop is not from the same staffing company that I got hired from). Long story short, I just want to be pointed in the right direction on what to do so I can continue working and traveling outside of the U.S. while still using the company laptop and making sure I cover my tracks so accounting never finds out.
you need to buy a travel router. then connect your laptop via wifi or cable ONLY to that travel router and no other device. You need to setup your travel router by pointing it to your local wifi network or plug it in to your local internet connection.
Once that is complete the travel router needs a VPN setup. https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt3000/
You can sign up with a commercial VPN - https://protonvpn.com/
Once you signed up and connected select ONLY a USA VPN server. Proton has 5 servers - just pick the one closest to florida. Make sure you keep using only that server.
once your work laptop is connected and your VPN setup and connected check your laptops location using - https://whatismyipaddress.com/
it should show the location of the VPN server in the USA.
I was browsing some options and I saw something about setting up a VPN in my Florida house and connecting always to that VPN so my ip address always shows up as that one in my house. Is this possible or is it unnecessary and too much of a hassle to set up? The travel router and paying for a VPN subscription won’t set off any alarms right? I’m not installing a VPN into my work laptop, but rather connecting to a wifi that’s hosted to a VPN, is that correct?
you can setup a VPN in your house in florida. thats basically what i do.
you would need something like these or equivalent - https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015971688-EdgeRouter-OpenVPN-Server
its more complicated but certainly doable. basically you are setting up the equivalent of a commercial VPN at your house. but certainly not as simple as using a commercial vpn directly.
travel router and commercial vpn wont set off alarms. they dont know where your ip is and tons of vpn providers have tons of ip gateways.
yes youre not installing anything on your work laptop. just connecting to a travel router - you can call the router something like MediaCom-Florida-32007 or something for the Wifi SSID if you want. all the laptop knows is that its connected to a router with a USA ip address.
if you want to know the exact hardware i use - since im gone for months at a time my hardware is professional grade i use 2 of these for my VPN server - https://www.zyxel.com/global/en/products/vpn-firewall/business-firewall-usg2200-vpn connected to 2 separate internet connections - fiber and cable. that way if 1 internet connection fails, one is still active. if 1 router fails, 1 is still active. and i use this - https://www.peplink.com/products/mobile-routers/max-br1-pro-5g/ as my travel router. overall my setup is overkill and very expensive but i dont have anyone living at home to reboot it or fix any problems.
Ok so my follow up question to you would be how much are set up and recurring monthly costs for this option? And between this option and the first one you recommended which will have better Internet Speed? I do Zoom calls and screen shares almost daily…
setup costs for the glinet would be 150 for the router+ 10 bux/month for proton vpn.
setup costs for ubiquiti would be $500 for an er-12, 150 for the glinet and no monthly costs.
the commercial vpn would be faster than home generally.