u/iRyan23

My organization has been using FortiClient free version for the past 5-6 years. I have been following the semi-official deprecation of the free version for the past few months. We have been using 7.4.3 now for a few weeks.

Now FortiClient 8 has been released and I see no free version (what I assumed would be the case).

Quantum Cryptography is becoming front and center in planning for our future with Google and Microsoft saying they should be fully or mostly using PQC by end of 2029. Naturally, FC 8 has PQC support.

I wonder what everyone else who is or recently was using the FC free version is planning to do.

I know we could get a license for on-prem EMS (but that would be another server to setup and maintain for our small team and there were just two high profile vulnerabilities in it just a couple months ago), or get Fortinet Hosted EMS (but not sure of the price with that), or drop FC altogether and go with a different VPN solution or SASE option etc.

We have two dialup IPsec tunnels right now, one for employees using organization machines and one for contractors that has a more limited scope of what can be accessed.

Trying to get ideas to present to management with expected costs and pros/cons. What is everyone else planning to do or what did you do at your organization?

I work as a network engineer and moved into this apartment complex about eight months ago. The walls here are paper thin, like you can hear someone dropping a fork next door thin. My neighbor across the hallway is this middle aged guy who seems to think his living room is a stadium. He got this massive smart TV and started blasting some generic sports talk shows and action movies at 2 AM on weekdays. I tried talking to him nicely twice. First time he told me to get lost, second time he just laughed and shut the door in my face. I am not the type to get into physical fights but I am petty enough to use what I know.

His Wi-Fi setup was completely open when I first scanned the area. He did not even bother changing the default admin credentials on his ISP provided router. It took me about two minutes to get into his system. Instead of blocking him completely which would make him call a tech right away, I decided to play the long game. I wrote a small script that drops his WAN interface for exactly three minutes every thirty to forty minutes, but only between 8 PM and 3 AM. It looks like a random signal drop or a DHCP lease issue from the provider side.

This has been going on for a little over a month now. I can hear him through the wall slamming his remote on the coffee table and yelling when his stream cuts out during a live match. The best part is watching him deal with the aftermath. Two weeks ago I saw a technician from his ISP in the hallway. I stood there pretending to check my mail while the tech told him everything looked fine on their end. My neighbor looked completely exhausted, screaming that he is paying for fiber but getting garbage. He literally switched providers last week because he thought the first one was scamming him.

The new ISP came and installed a new router. He actually set a password this time but used his last name and birth year which I found on his mail package sitting by the door. Took me one afternoon to crack it. Now the script is running again on the new hardware. He looks like a ghost when I see him in the elevator. He told the building manager that the apartment is cursed or that someone is jamming his electronics.

I know I should probably just stop because he is genuinely losing his mind and spending money on cancellation fees. But every time I hear that stupid TV starting to shake my bedroom wall at midnight, I just look at my terminal and let the script run. I do not feel any guilt at all.