On Mon, 2002-07-08 at 00:37, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On 7 Jul 2002, at 9:26pm, Kenneth E. Lussier wrote: > > The people saying that they should be able to run whatever they want *ARE* > > the IT department. > > It seemed obvious to me that that is not the case. If they were the IT > department, the IT department would not be telling them to do something they > did not want to do.
I must have misunderstood the begining of this, then. I understood this to be that managers, not IT, was the one saying that they had to use Windows. > > So, it would stand to reason that there are slightly different rules for > > the IT department then there are for ordinary users. > > That statement can be interpreted two different ways. > > On one hand, it could mean that the IT staff of course has all the root > passwords and such, and is entrusted to perform privileged operations, and > thus of course has to have different rules. It also means that since IT is responsible for supporting *NIX, Windows, VMS, whatever, so they need the most effective and efficient system in order to support all of those things. So what they run on their desktop will be different than the "common" user. > But it could also mean that the IT staff has different rules because > "we're IT and we can do what we want to". If you consider that acceptable, > well, that's your right, but you'll never work in a shop I control. Well, you have the right position, but the wrong attitude emphasized. It's not that IT can do whatever they want, but rather, if they are the ones who are responsible for determining standards, etc., then they need to be to be doing these sorts of things first. That way, when a user comes along and wants to do something other than the norm, the IT department can either allow or deny based on fact, reasoning, and knowledge rather than supposition. > > I think that the difference is *who* the user is. If a sales or marketing > > person wants to do their own thing, you know that only bad things will > > happen. > > I realize you're saying that with tongue-in-cheek, but it is none-the-less > an attitude I see quite a bit. Far too often, I encounter IT staffers who > think they are the members of some special elite, and that rules do not > apply to them. I consider that to be the worst kind of corruption -- like a > crooked cop. IT staff, if anything, should live up to a higher standard. IT should be held to the same standards that they set for others in most cases. As I said before, the rules are slightly different because they are the IT department. IT people should have root on the systems that they support. Marketing doesn't need root. Things like that. That doesn't mean that they can abuse their authority. However, since they are the IT department, and they are responsible for the network, and every system on it, then there are a lot of rules that don't apply to them. For example, if one of my users decided to scan my network, I would remove them from the network. I, however, scan my network on a regular basis. It's part of my job. That's what it comes down to. If you do your job, then there really isn't any time left over to do much else. > "Who watches the watchers?" It's a nice saying, but it is quite impossible to always have someone watching the watchers. It comes down to "Do you trust the people that you have hired to do their jobs?" C-Ya, Kenny -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Tact is just *not* saying true stuff" -- Cordelia Chase Kenneth E. Lussier Sr. Systems Administrator Zuken, USA PGP KeyID CB254DD0 http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xCB254DD0 ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
