Schooled in security

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Bull**** !

It doesn't work. No firewalls is just STUPID!
We are one of the most wired campuses in this
country, and I and my co-worker learned real
quick that there is no such thing as a centralized ITS security. They can help, but
basically it is up to the two of us out in
the departments. The most INSECURE component
of all is the students themselves .. followed
closely by uncaring professors. I'm not joking
one bit either, and if industry goes to "trust
zones", they are going to be eaten alive.
We have dropped security all the way to the
desktop with very tight policies and AV running
a well structured firewall ( F-secure ). We
use dedicated print server appliances, and other
than that, we refuse to use servers of any kind.
Instead, each computer on this network has
its own resources, and they are locked down
so that the users are highly limited in what
they are allowed to do. In addition, we have
installed a hardware web proxy appliance that
reports browsing, and locks out porn sites,
game sites, and sites proven to push web
servers and spyware. ITS scans constantly for
PCs that do not have uptodate patches and
shuts off their ports .. reporting that to me,
and I physically walk over and check it out ..
confiscating the PC if a student is abusing
it. And I have a very deaf ear to any and all
objections .. and excuses about "academic
freedom". If we did not do this, we would not
run at all. Before we adopted this harse level
of restriction, we could not send a print job
30 feet on our network. The virus traffic was
too high. Young ladies could not use our labs
because all they saw was porn on the desktops.
The big universities back east are all using
commercial browsing filters. That is how much
of their problem is solved. It is costing them
a fortune, and on campus, their networks are
still a joke regards hacking and printing.
Our campus is stable and fairly quiet. We've
held for about 3 years now, and we are not
going to back down one bit.

Posted by: johns_z   Posted on: 08/18/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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