Active Directory has been in place at LSU since at least 1999, when I was a student worker for the Office of Telecommunications. Yes, if a computer is installed into the Active Directory, the administrators of said directory have administration rights over the computers, which technically they do anyway because the computers are property of LSU.
You can still connect arbitrary computers to the network but you are required to agree to LSU's Terms of Service. I can imagine that all of these departments who use other OS's for use in research, including the High Performance Computing group in the same building as OTC would have something to say about no longer being allowed to use their Unix based clusters. Again, we are speaking about computers that are property of LSU. It 's difficult to listen to any complaints about the potential usability of computers that belong to your employer..... On 9/26/07, willhill <williamhill2 at cox.net> wrote: > > How funny that I was willing to say that government employees should be > forced > to use free software before learning of the July 17th memorandum from Sean > O'Keefe, "Leadership, Responsibility and Authority for the Security of > Louisiana State University's Information Technology Infrastructure." My > fear > of such force is that it could be used to strip users of their freedom > and > force use of commercial software. So, the very next day, I seem have my > worst fears confirmed. > > These are some questions I had about the new policy: > > Is it true that that Active Directory gives central IT > complete control over the host computer? Can software can > be installed without user permission and can the user's information be > searched, modified or destroyted without further notice? Is it also true > that this program decides which Microsoft OS may connect to LSU networks? > > Has LSU's Public Safety Office, which includes Police, Parking and other > Offices been given an exemption? If so, why? > > Will other operating systems like GNU/Linux and OSX be allowed to connect > to > LSU networks? Will administrative control of them also be demanded? > > Will students be forced to participate if they want to use LSU networks? > Can > this program make it difficult for free software users to access other > services offered through LSU's network? > > _______________________________________________ > General mailing list > General at brlug.net > http://mail.brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.brlug.net/pipermail/general_brlug.net/attachments/20070926/339480e2/attachment.html
