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Cisco Meraki Network Visibility?

Tags:
  • Networking
  • Cisco
  • Devices
Last response: in Networking
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August 31, 2014 10:51:11 AM

Hi,

Wall of text (sort of). My school uses Cisco Meraki for networking. The speeds are decent, no complaints there, but the network admin can remotely wipe my iPad if they see fit. Now frankly they would have no reason to, but having done massive school projects on the NSA and going to a school that emphasizes social justice and freedom this just seems wrong. I never signed anything that said they had permission to electronically seize control of a device I own, let alone wipe it remotely.

What I am wondering is if they need my device passcode to do this. It seems to me the iPads firewall would stop any attempt to control the device without my password, which I don't plan on telling them. However, everything I am doing is still visible which just seems scary. Would a VPN protect me from some of that?

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August 31, 2014 1:45:30 PM

You likely did sign something you just don't know it. In a student network it gets very iffy how much they can get away with. I guess until someone runs them though the court system we won't know. For business it is a little simpler since if the company own the device they can put what ever limits on it they like. If you bring in a private device that the employer did not require you buy then they can pretty much say follow our rules or don't connect. If they did require you to buy the device it gets messy labor law stuff. A student though is PAYING the school in most cases they are the customer so it is very different.

Meraki is a evil program from the user standpoint. It can not just see what stuff you run it can prevent you from loading certain kinds of apps or even disable things like the camera or gps. Remote wipe is the least of your worries.

Generally they have a "signup" screen that will force a application load if you agree to go past it. If you disable the app or uninstall it you will not be able to get access. There has been some discussion of rooted android devices being able to bypass this but it is unclear what it would serve. You could uninstall the app every time you disconnect and reinstall it every time.
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August 31, 2014 7:02:07 PM

bill001g said:
You likely did sign something you just don't know it. In a student network it gets very iffy how much they can get away with. I guess until someone runs them though the court system we won't know. For business it is a little simpler since if the company own the device they can put what ever limits on it they like. If you bring in a private device that the employer did not require you buy then they can pretty much say follow our rules or don't connect. If they did require you to buy the device it gets messy labor law stuff. A student though is PAYING the school in most cases they are the customer so it is very different.

Meraki is a evil program from the user standpoint. It can not just see what stuff you run it can prevent you from loading certain kinds of apps or even disable things like the camera or gps. Remote wipe is the least of your worries.

Generally they have a "signup" screen that will force a application load if you agree to go past it. If you disable the app or uninstall it you will not be able to get access. There has been some discussion of rooted android devices being able to bypass this but it is unclear what it would serve. You could uninstall the app every time you disconnect and reinstall it every time.


I can see the program is more evil than I thought. I am pretty well versed in the scariness of the internet, I run a VPN using Hamachi from a home server and use Privoxy in conjunction with it.
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