Free Software Security Purge

>work at software development company >sister company gets hacked because some retard opened an email attachment or something >management decides they need to step up security >management decides the best way to do this is to demand that everyone in the company uninstalls all "free software" and replaces it with licensed, paid software, because "free software is insecure" >"free software" not as in GPL >"free software" as in beer >workers are supposed to uninstall anything that doesn't cost money >this includes stuff like 7zip, process explorer/monitor, scp/ssh/ftp clients, web browsers (they made a single exception for Chrome), debug view, vim/emacs and other text editors, mingw/msys, mpc, vlc, image editing programs, perl, python (!), and pretty much any other program you've ever used >everything is supposed to be replaced by janky, no-name paid software nobody has ever even heard of before >this is supposed to be more secure because it costs money

A 4chan-style greentext describes a software development company reacting to a sister company's phishing-related hack by banning all free software. The joke is the absurd confusion between “free software” as in libre/open-source software and “free” as in zero-cost, leading management to replace trusted tools with obscure paid programs while claiming this improves security. It is used as a reaction to incompetent corporate security policies and misguided management decisions.

• @gentoomemes / 13647 2024-09-27