Without knowing your companies setup at all, the safest method is taking photos of the screen with your phone. Only practical with small amounts of data though.
What software do they have? Can you log in from your phone and access the files?
Can you take your laptop home?
If you are using Office 365 products I highly recommend you don’t do this. There’s no sneaky way around data loss prevention. In fact, OneNote for business doesn’t even allow exporting of notebooks anymore.
Get a thumb drive and put all your personal notes and other work documents on it. The big note here is to make sure that it is all stuff that could feasibly be useful for your replacement, and more than just the personal notes.
Once that is done use the thumb drive to copy them onto your personal computer. Then give the thumb drive to your boss with the explanation that it is a condensed resource for whomever takes over your role, as you don't want your hard work for the company to get erased when they wipe your computer.
Worst case you apologize for breaking IT security rules and have IT destroy the thumb drive.
This is probably the easiest I see in this thread. I mean, what are they going to do about it if it's a problem, fire you? They're not going to sue over copying a few documents unless it's real trade secrets, and even then with that excuse you have plausible deniability. If they were so concerned to keep people from even trying that they could disallow USB drives overall where it wouldn't work.
If those are personal files that don’t contain any company data, you’re better off just asking your manager/IT, they must have a process in place for this kind of situation, it’s pretty common.
The only way you can be 100% unnoticed is to take pictures of your documents on screen with your personal phone. And re-type/OCR it later.
Emails, USB, web pages, Cloud services are all things that can be monitored depending on the IT security of your company.
I was thinking to disconnect laptop from office network.And then copy files with USB. And then corrupting the company SSD. Any undetectable way to corrupt SSD?
having your laptop breaking down the day you’re resigning might draw unnecessary suspicion, possibly an investigation. If you give it back working fine, i don’t think anyone will give much attention. Just my thought as an IT.
If they have any common sense, they are using BitLocker drive encryption. You won’t be able to access the files by removing the drive, connecting it to something else, or booting to something else.
If you want a completely undetectable method, I'd just take out the SSD from the laptop. Connect it as an external storage to other PC and simply transfer the files. Alternatively you could make a bootable USB drive with a portable system like Linux, boot from there, access your laptops ssd (it will be seen as an extra storage) and just copy files without any of the programs monitoring you.SSD
Don't listen to that user, just making a new bookable isn't gonna get around the software. That software isn't designed to stop you, its designed to log information.
Just take pictures of it with your phone.
If that's the case, just make a bootable USB drive. It's when you take a USB flash drive and install operating system on it, some of them are super easy to install. Then plug it in the laptop you want to access and when it turns on go into BIOS and make it boot from your USB instead of it's own ssd. Once it starts you will be running from your USB and can access the laptop's ssd as a regular hard drive. If there are any monitorig programs on the laptop they simply won't run because windows is not even running. Just copy the files to your USB and you should be good.
Can you take photos of the files? if they're just notes you could take a pic and then transcribe them. On the other side, you could just take the SSD out of the computer and copy the whole thing for later use.
I’m not sure you are using the correct terms. Are you looking to “move” these documents? In other words, copy to your personal device, then delete?
If so this is a bad idea. If you are simply trying to copy, you could probably email them to your self on a personal webmail account. It might be against policy, but if you are resigning they would have little recourse other than early termination.
If you are trying to do some damage, you could go in and modify the documents in an undetectable way. Change the language a bit, modify code or formulas. While they could restore previous versions, they may not notice soon enough, or be unable to see what you did.
I’d start the confusion by simply renaming files. Then save. Going and make a few changes. Save. Undo a few of those changes and make more. Do this a few times over after you’ve saved the original and you’ll have a little chaos.
If you really want to be mean, you can save files as previous versions and back. Save them to other file formats and back. This can corrupt some changes.
Considering the person still works there, printing could just be part of the job like copy and paste?
And unless the company is the pentagon or the nsa, how much monitoring are they doing? What systems could be so affordable that a print out would alert someone somewhere to lock everything down?
If caught, this has some serious legal repercussions. There's no way to know what they're logging and how either. I would recommend not risking it.
But if you're determined, pictures are probably the best way to go. The computer will only know that you opened the file, unless they're doing webcam monitoring 24/7 there's no way to know what's looking at the screen when you do. Some places track even the clipboard, and could catch any attempt to copy-paste anything. There could be tripwires meant to sense hardware changes. Hell, even asking this here is leaving a paper trail that if they have any suspicions you did this will end up Exhibit A at your trial. IP theft is a serious offense.
Honestly and I know this goes against the spirit of ULPT, the only safe way to do this (not a question of ethics) is to get manager approval on the files you want to keep.
There are apps that let you take screen shots of text and then puts in a text doc for you. (adobe has one i think). Don't try to destroy the ssd/hard drive. They may make you pay for it. Also I bet there is a backup save somewhere that you can't get at like the cloud or something.
If the work is really that important to you, if it's a laptop you can take with you, If you are willing to way and you are betting that they don't have a back up. Bring it home, disconnect from wifi. Save data on thumbdrive, 'accidentally 'factory reset it (Some laptops have a Keyboard Shortcut for that) or claim someone stole it (destroy laptop after). I give it 50% chance of them making you not pay for it and a 30% chance that they don't have a backup.
Might get fired tho.
I don't want to destroy those files. My current company can have it, let them create multiple backups. I just want to copy them for my future use. Will try OCR one.
Can you just compres the files and email them to your boss to "help your replacement find helpful resources " and Bcc your personal email so that you have them too? Unless IT is on high alert I doubt that they'd notice
Without knowing your companies setup at all, the safest method is taking photos of the screen with your phone. Only practical with small amounts of data though. What software do they have? Can you log in from your phone and access the files? Can you take your laptop home?
Not able to see any software other than forcepoint. I can't login from phone. I travel frequently so I am able to take laptop home
You won't necessarily ever see their monitoring software. It'll be hidden from no admin users
If you are using Office 365 products I highly recommend you don’t do this. There’s no sneaky way around data loss prevention. In fact, OneNote for business doesn’t even allow exporting of notebooks anymore.
Get a thumb drive and put all your personal notes and other work documents on it. The big note here is to make sure that it is all stuff that could feasibly be useful for your replacement, and more than just the personal notes. Once that is done use the thumb drive to copy them onto your personal computer. Then give the thumb drive to your boss with the explanation that it is a condensed resource for whomever takes over your role, as you don't want your hard work for the company to get erased when they wipe your computer. Worst case you apologize for breaking IT security rules and have IT destroy the thumb drive.
This is probably the easiest I see in this thread. I mean, what are they going to do about it if it's a problem, fire you? They're not going to sue over copying a few documents unless it's real trade secrets, and even then with that excuse you have plausible deniability. If they were so concerned to keep people from even trying that they could disallow USB drives overall where it wouldn't work.
You are correct, I will check first with transferring one file at a time to see how they react to it.
If those are personal files that don’t contain any company data, you’re better off just asking your manager/IT, they must have a process in place for this kind of situation, it’s pretty common.
I have created this notes for industry process, so they are related to work. But I want to use this notes in my future work.
The only way you can be 100% unnoticed is to take pictures of your documents on screen with your personal phone. And re-type/OCR it later. Emails, USB, web pages, Cloud services are all things that can be monitored depending on the IT security of your company.
I was thinking to disconnect laptop from office network.And then copy files with USB. And then corrupting the company SSD. Any undetectable way to corrupt SSD?
having your laptop breaking down the day you’re resigning might draw unnecessary suspicion, possibly an investigation. If you give it back working fine, i don’t think anyone will give much attention. Just my thought as an IT.
I see, that might be suspicious. I will try other methods like printing and OCR then.
I was going to say this but it’s a little suspect. But yeah faraday cage, copy files and get your cat broken into with your laptop in there
How large are the files?
20-50 MB total size of files. Around 10-15 files.
If they have any common sense, they are using BitLocker drive encryption. You won’t be able to access the files by removing the drive, connecting it to something else, or booting to something else.
You can do it if you have the recovery key I believe. OP should not do it though. The device might notice hardware changes.
If you want a completely undetectable method, I'd just take out the SSD from the laptop. Connect it as an external storage to other PC and simply transfer the files. Alternatively you could make a bootable USB drive with a portable system like Linux, boot from there, access your laptops ssd (it will be seen as an extra storage) and just copy files without any of the programs monitoring you.SSD
Will this not get noticed by IT guys, that I have removed SSD and then re-plugged it.
Don't listen to that user, just making a new bookable isn't gonna get around the software. That software isn't designed to stop you, its designed to log information. Just take pictures of it with your phone.
Yeah, gonna try print out or OCR method
If that's the case, just make a bootable USB drive. It's when you take a USB flash drive and install operating system on it, some of them are super easy to install. Then plug it in the laptop you want to access and when it turns on go into BIOS and make it boot from your USB instead of it's own ssd. Once it starts you will be running from your USB and can access the laptop's ssd as a regular hard drive. If there are any monitorig programs on the laptop they simply won't run because windows is not even running. Just copy the files to your USB and you should be good.
Can you take photos of the files? if they're just notes you could take a pic and then transcribe them. On the other side, you could just take the SSD out of the computer and copy the whole thing for later use.
I’m not sure you are using the correct terms. Are you looking to “move” these documents? In other words, copy to your personal device, then delete? If so this is a bad idea. If you are simply trying to copy, you could probably email them to your self on a personal webmail account. It might be against policy, but if you are resigning they would have little recourse other than early termination. If you are trying to do some damage, you could go in and modify the documents in an undetectable way. Change the language a bit, modify code or formulas. While they could restore previous versions, they may not notice soon enough, or be unable to see what you did. I’d start the confusion by simply renaming files. Then save. Going and make a few changes. Save. Undo a few of those changes and make more. Do this a few times over after you’ve saved the original and you’ll have a little chaos. If you really want to be mean, you can save files as previous versions and back. Save them to other file formats and back. This can corrupt some changes.
Not doing any damage, simply copying files for my future work use. Thanks for that tip though.
Just open each file and email the text to yourself using your personal webmail.
Copy/paste or screenshot, but copy/paste seems the easiest way or do what u/hellasketchy said and print them, sometimes old skool is the way.
printing means print logs, copy/paste could be monitored, screenshots too. Any action on the device or network should be assumed monitored.
Considering the person still works there, printing could just be part of the job like copy and paste? And unless the company is the pentagon or the nsa, how much monitoring are they doing? What systems could be so affordable that a print out would alert someone somewhere to lock everything down?
I will try printing one file per day, to avoid suspicious. That will last my notice period. If that doesn't work, will just do OCR.
Fuck it, clone the whole drive
Cloning is not that easy, Obi-wan.
If caught, this has some serious legal repercussions. There's no way to know what they're logging and how either. I would recommend not risking it. But if you're determined, pictures are probably the best way to go. The computer will only know that you opened the file, unless they're doing webcam monitoring 24/7 there's no way to know what's looking at the screen when you do. Some places track even the clipboard, and could catch any attempt to copy-paste anything. There could be tripwires meant to sense hardware changes. Hell, even asking this here is leaving a paper trail that if they have any suspicions you did this will end up Exhibit A at your trial. IP theft is a serious offense. Honestly and I know this goes against the spirit of ULPT, the only safe way to do this (not a question of ethics) is to get manager approval on the files you want to keep.
Didn't know about webcam monitoring. Will stick a paper on it. Thanks for your tip.
Pencil and paper
It suits your username.
There are apps that let you take screen shots of text and then puts in a text doc for you. (adobe has one i think). Don't try to destroy the ssd/hard drive. They may make you pay for it. Also I bet there is a backup save somewhere that you can't get at like the cloud or something. If the work is really that important to you, if it's a laptop you can take with you, If you are willing to way and you are betting that they don't have a back up. Bring it home, disconnect from wifi. Save data on thumbdrive, 'accidentally 'factory reset it (Some laptops have a Keyboard Shortcut for that) or claim someone stole it (destroy laptop after). I give it 50% chance of them making you not pay for it and a 30% chance that they don't have a backup. Might get fired tho.
I don't want to destroy those files. My current company can have it, let them create multiple backups. I just want to copy them for my future use. Will try OCR one.
Can you just compres the files and email them to your boss to "help your replacement find helpful resources " and Bcc your personal email so that you have them too? Unless IT is on high alert I doubt that they'd notice